What I'm Doing, (Maybe Where 🙂 ) & Why
Hi everyone,
Continuing from this thread, I decided to take a look at Ramit Sethi's Endless Audience program to get an idea of whether or not I should give it a taste. Maybe, if it provides as much actionable value as Earnable, I could build a traffic engine for my new Earnable business for this test.
Unluckily, the reviews for this course that I've seen haven't been too positive.
This was the top one I found:
Ljay Jones: So I just brought Ramit's newest course Endless Audience. Now I believe Ramit is an honest guy and wants to help people but...this info is not worth a $100 or $200 a pop subscription for a year (which makes it about a 2–3K course.)...
...I can honestly say that it was a huge mistake and I regret it deeply. I paid $3,588 for information that can be found easily and is to an extent common knowledge:
- research your topic
- find out what your audience wants
- start a mailing list
- get published on well known sites
- create a course made up of 4 videos on wistia and sell this course for $47 a month
- write a sales page
With the exception of research your topic its the EXACT same course. Now I haven't seen Zero to Launch but the users on this course have and they are saying its nuffin new in this course. My biggest gripe is that Ramit constantly says things like get from 10K to 50K subs as quick as you can but NEVER once tell me how. There is an entire section about getting mainstream media and he says if you site isn't big enough then this part isn't for you. My question is WHAT part was for me. I brought this course because I thought to would HELP me grow. I didn't buy it because I was already established.
Wasn't happy to read this and started to get on guard about Endless Audience myself. So, I did a little more digging and found out why this reviewer wasn't satisfied with this program.
This is what's on the top of Ramit's sales page:
When I took a closer look at this chart, I saw the issue.
The vast majority of his traffic is from inbound sources such as his blog and YouTube channel. These are things that take time to build. (After all, if it were a quick process to build an inbound traffic generating machine that brings in roughly 10,000 subscribers per month, I think it's safe to say most everyone would make one.)
If your business is brand new (as in, you just came from the Earnable course), then your business doesn't make enough revenue yet to pay for traffic, so that's out of the question. And, "affiliates" and "social" make up for hardly even 15% of the pie (traffic) on their own.
If you're going through this program and this is the traffic engine they're teaching you to replicate, you might not see steady results for another year of hard, consistent effort building a steady inbound traffic generating machine.
So, I decided I would start working with the same partner from this thread. And, she requested that I take a personality test before we meet via Zoom.
I took the test and I was absolutely blown away by the accuracy.
I wasn't expecting much due to the lighthearted, somewhat overly welcoming feel of the website. But, the data and information there are so solid it felt like they were reading my mind when I got the results back. I was actually glad I gave them my real email to send the results to.
It's completely free and I recommend it. I'm likely going to be paying for their premium handbook that dives deep into teaching how to achieve mastery of your personality for the most success in terms of leadership, friendships, romantic life, career, and so on. The testimonials for it are great and it doesn't cost too much, so I'm excited to see how the feedback in that handbook connects to the feedback I got from my coaching call with Simon Sinek's team during my WHY discovery.
Here is where you can take the test that I took:
Free personality test, type descriptions, relationship and career advice | 16Personalities
P.S. If you're curious, I got the Protagonist personality type. I'm considering retaking it to see if I get a different one my second time around.
I'm not surprised by that review.
Most of the courses online are more about gathering and presenting information, rather than breaking new ground.
That doesn't mean they can't be useful, of course, and different types of "gatherer" are more or less effective in gathering, organizing, and presenting that information -plus some can add some of their own sauce for spicing-.
But if a guy has been around a topic for a while, chances are that the courses that are going to be "mind-blowns" are a tiny minority.
Lucio, I completely agree with you.
It seems like this reviewer didn't care too much about the novelty of the course's content, but the utility. Unluckily, a lot of the action steps are hard to take if you're not already somewhat established.
But, thinking about your point, I've spent thousands of dollars on courses and my own self-development. And, I hadn't come across anything truly groundbreaking for me until The Power Moves.
I think that's due in part to the fact that The Power Moves explores and picks apart a realm of our world that is still relatively novel in itself: power dynamics.
Had The Power Moves only been some kind of PUA dating site called "Break Her Back In the Bedroom with Buffalmano" when I first found it, I don't think I would have gotten as much value :).
Quote from Ali Scarlett on March 2, 2021, 12:22 amLucio, I completely agree with you.
But, thinking about your point, I've spent thousands of dollars on courses and my own self-development. And, I hadn't come across anything truly groundbreaking for me until The Power Moves.
I think that's due in part to the fact that The Power Moves explores and picks apart a realm of our world that is still relatively novel in itself: power dynamics.
Had The Power Moves only been some kind of PUA dating site called "Break Her Back In the Bedroom with Buffalmano" when I first found it, I don't think I would have gotten as much value :).
Made me think:
Maybe a thread on groundbreaking courses / books / resources that people encountered?
Might be a good idea. At the same time, it might also be more work for you, Lucio.
Whether or not something is "groundbreaking" for someone depends on their prior knowledge going into a program/new piece of material.
For someone like you who's done an extensive amount of personal development, you'd be able to tell the difference between groundbreaking material and common or average knowledge. Yet, in most cases, what's groundbreaking to one might not be so groundbreaking for another.
So, if you did open that thread as a way of inviting more knowledge on groundbreaking information, you might have to spend more time moving posts around to their "proper" location in order to keep the thread valuable.
This may also be a good time to point out another one of TPM's strengths: the reviews and summaries section.
Most people who come to TPM may be looking for the TPM team to weed out the non-groundbreaking material for them so they can come here, get groundbreaking value, and apply it. You could start the thread, but it might not get too much engagement since not too many people actively seek out specifically groundbreaking information to discover.
That said, I think it's worth testing out. Nothing beats real data from real trial and error.
What do you think, Lucio?
I'm in a bit of a rut. I invested $997 in a program called the Advanced Connector's Package. And, so far, I'm very disappointed.
I wanted to use the course material to find some new knowledge on networking and connecting with others to further refine my skills. But, once again, Power University takes the cake on being the best course to teach how to connect with others.
If you ask me, it's a good problem to have that one of your first investments paid off so well that the others are less valuable in comparison. But, that doesn't mean I'm happy about losing three dollars short of a grand.
That said, the entire course doesn't open up right away. So, the course creator (Ramit Sethi) could be anchoring my emotions and expectations low with basic material now in order to make me feel like I got a lot more value by the time we get closer to the end. And, hopefully, the course opens up with material that's far more advanced when the end comes.
I usually feel better when I'm in a rut if I can help others by adding value which is why I've been a little more active in the forum recently. And, why I'm going to share most of what I learn in the program as I do with my Masterclass reviews.
I'm wondering whether I should drop nuggets of knowledge as the course opens up or wait until everything is open (about a month from now) and do a full review like I usually do.
Any thoughts are always welcome 🙂
Ali, have you thought about asking for a refund?
Many people feel bad about asking for a refund.
The way I see it, it's the opposite: it's a moral obligation to ask for a refund when something didn't meet your expectations.
If everyone asked for refunds on overpriced products, the market would be better able to adjust, bring down the prices to a fairer price, and make the world generally more efficient.
Yea, thanks to you, Lucio :).
All of your posts on the silver medal technique and the "on your honor" gambit help me feel confident enough to negotiate for refunds all the time whenever I'm unsatisfied with a product or service. (You might already know that though from the honey deal trap and HomeAdvisor negotiations.)
I got back the full $1,997 from Earnable in only two days when I asked for that refund.
For context, in that case, there wasn't much negotiating. I built up a rapport with one of the representatives who work with Ramit. So, when I said I wanted a refund, instead of "why" she only asked me to provide proof that I had actually done the work for her records so she can process the refund. And, I think if I were to ask for a refund on this program too, it would be the same case. Otherwise, I can always use what you've taught me.
Thanks for the suggestion. I want to wait until the full program opens up before making my decision so that I'm not jumping to conclusions here. And, if I'm unsatisfied, I will be asking for a refund.
How to build powerful connections with VIPs so you never have to network again
If you only learn networking from Google, you might find some pretty standard advice. Aside from the tips such as "leverage social media", the overarching strategy they recommend is almost always more or less the same.
One by one, you make one new connection at a time. And, you get that new connection to introduce you to people in their network until you have a pretty well-developed Rolodex of connections.
The free advice seems to follow this general trail of quantity over quality for one main reason: not many seem to know an approach that leverages quality first. I mean, if you did want to connect with a billionaire or a celebrity that could actually change your life, how would you even do that?
Enter, Ramit's course.
His landing page Instant Network markets it as a trailblazer. A program that flips the entire narrative on its head and throws away the general script.
He says, screw quantity. What you need to do is find 10 high-quality VIPS (these are the experts, authorities, and high-value people of the world) and connect with them. Then, ethically persuade each of them to introduce you to their other high-quality contacts so you can skip the line of people who can't add nearly as much value.
I'm reading Ramit's landing page thinking, "I spent thousands of dollars learning this. There was no product on the market that teaches this, so I had to formulate my own strategy to pull this off and I sucked when I got started. I have a stacked Evernote notebook labeled "Networking" filled with notes that make me look like a mad scientist from all of my tests. And, you're telling me that this entire time I could have just bought this for 700 bucks and gotten the whole blueprint?"
I was skeptical, but I was also upset because the testimonials looked so damn good. This course was actually working for people.
So, I said to myself, "If this is the real deal, I'll do you one better, Ramit. I'll get more than Instant Network, but the two complementary courses that come with it just to make sure I don't miss a single detail you have to teach."
And, with that decision, $997 switches hands as I make my way into the Advanced Connector's Package.
Of course, the first thing I want to do is get into Instant Network. So, I select a lesson called "Natural Networking".
With the click of a "play" button, Ramit gets right into teaching saying, "Do NOT listen to everybody because that will wear on you. Instead, the first thing you want to do is find experts."
I'm getting excited now. I'm thinking, this is it. This is what I've been waiting for. This is what I paid a grand for. This is what it took me years to learn in the mud and trenches of thousands of my own email tests.
Ramit pulls LinkedIn onto the screen and immediately I stop.
What the fuck is this.
This can't be right, I think to myself. Nah, might be him explaining that LinkedIn has evolved or something.
He then advises me to go to the search bar at the top right and use the search function:
WHAT?!?!
This course is almost a decade old!
I might tell the rest of this story, but right now I'm drained and disappointed.
There should have been a disclaimer on his sales page if he was going to choose not to update the course's content.
I want to write a review in order to prevent people from making the mistake I did, but I also feel too angry to do that just yet. I want my review to be fair, I want to wait.
Besides, Earnable set my expectations too high for his other courses. That's my fault. And, I was gullible. That's also my fault.
I get the feeling, Ali.
If it can help, I also get equally angry when I see a big packaging with a poor product.
Much of this website's reviews section was first developed for that exact reason, with the idea of helping people to avoid wasting time (and money) on average, but well-marketed products, and go straight for the most value-adding ones.
If you want to write a review on that (/those) course(s), let me know and we can publish it.