The Six Figure Mentors – Is It A Scam Or Genuine Business Opportunity? 100% independent review of the Six Figure Mentors offer by Nicola Cairncross, who is an 5 x Author, Speaker, and 2 x Podcaster with 22+ years experience of making a full time living online.
I was originally approached to become a “Founder Member” of Six Figure Mentors by people I know, like and respect. They were heavily involved with the Six Figure Mentors launch, as was another internet marketer, who I also know, like and respect.
So I got some more info and watched a short video (I’m not going to link to it – you can find it all over YouTube and Facebook). I knew their offer includes hosting and website production tools among lots of other things.
All well and good you may think….except I don’t need hosting and website production tools. I have those already, I use the “best of breed” tools, appropriate for my level of business (see list below).
But If I Want To Get Online, Isn’t It All Useful Stuff?
However many other people do need those kind of tools, and it’s a slick looking operation. From the outside it looks like Kajabi meets affiliate marketing meets coaching meets Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM).
I was still thinking about it….I have a big responsive list and I’ve always wanted to make MLM work for me, as Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki apparently both say that, if they were starting again today, knowing what they know know, they would start an MLM company.
And believe me I’ve tried to make MLM work in the past, everything from water filters to Success University.
And as someone who’s been online 20+ years, who’s bought a half million pound hotel “no money down”, who’s made over £160,000 from an empty room in Mayfair in under 6 months….well, I’m more likely than most to be able to make a success of it, surely?
So if I can’t make MLM work, with my marketing and sales skills, my speaking ability, my mailing list….I don’t know who can!
No seriously, it seems to be the people who are great at networking and face to face sales, that make network marketing work.
So Maybe Six Figure Mentors Will Suit The Introverts?
But I’ve always put that lack of success down to my aversion at the idea of selling to family and friends, hosting meetings in my house, but most of all down to my lack of consistency and my horror of HAVING to do anything on a repetitive basis.
Perhaps Six Figure Mentors would work for someone who is an introvert, who wants to set something up online but who can’t figure out all the moving parts, who has failed at all the other MLM opportunities before?
Because, let’s face it, internet marketing is brilliant for someone who’s not good at doing things on a consistent basis. Generally speaking you do the work once and then it works away in the background and you don’t have to “be there” all the time, after all.
And then I remembered what my ex-business partner in The Money Gym, Judith Morgan says (herself a qualified accountant and genius with figures), about MLM.
It’s an awful lot of work for not very much profit margin. And worse than that, you are building someone else’s business but not your own business.
The rug could be pulled at any time by the owner/founder, by the government, by the tax office….the list goes on.
(The only way to avoid that happening when working MLM is to maintain an independent mailing list on an independent list host for example, squeeze your prospects through your own optin page first, and only then jump them to your MLM optin page).
And then it hit me again!
Robert & Donald said they would START an MLM company, not JOIN one.
Your Income Locked In & Dependent On Someone Else?
Aye, and in the course of the conversation……then came the rub with The Six Figure Mentor deal and, to be fair, with any other MLM type deal!
You can only make money from commissions selling the system to other people, if you first join yourself and pay the recurring fee.
Then keep paying the recurring fee. You stop paying your membership, your commissions stop too.
That’s totally different to affiliate marketing where you can make money from reselling the products without having to use the tools yourself. I would obviously only recommend you sell things you have used yourself, but even if you stop, or move to something better, you can still recommend the products. Here’s an example…
When I started online, I used aWeber, then Infusionsoft, now I use Drip for my email marketing. They all work, but they suit different people. So I recommend them all to different types of people through an affiliate link (so I get commission) but I actually use Drip now as it suits me best.
Actually, I prefer to sell my own courses, products and services (there’s more profit & control that way) and, of course, I’ve got my own online community for aspiring internet entrepreneurs, my Clicks & Leads Academy, which is a mentoring membership site.
As well as the month by month commissions I earn, I have had some pretty major successes with Affiliate Marketing special promotions too, including making over £3300 in one weekend from just one mail out (for Laura Betterley’s excellent Local Social course, as I remember).
So my main problem with Six Figure Mentors is, that you ONLY get paid your ongoing commissions if you STAY joined.
Even if you are no longer using, or getting value from, the product.
So it’s actually MLM dressed up as internet marketing tools and mentoring.
Well, it was only a matter of time.
But is that a bad thing?
Well, if you have tried and failed with internet marketing, perhaps the Six Figure Mentors is for you. If you want to get started online, want a set system to follow, someone to tell you what to do, perhaps it WILL work for you.
But make sure your “introducer” or “mentor” knows how to use the system and they will be sticking around to help you. Or that you can make contact with people further up the line than you, so they can help you if your “mentor” drops out.
What About The Sales Tactics Used By Six Figure Mentors?
I’ve heard a lot about the sales tactics some MLM companies use. Some of the comments I got on this post originally make it sound like selling anything is evil but, if you want to become successful, you have to get over yourself about the horror of selling or being perceived to be someone who markets or sells.
Selling is just providing a solution to a problem.
In lots of ways you could say that Six Figure Mentors are providing a solution to the problem that a lot of people need, which is to make a second income, they want to do that online and they don’t know where to start.
In order to start a business that solves someone’s problem, you have to exchange your solution to that problem, for money. Or you won’t be in business long.
And it’s true that the internet marketing industry is getting more and more popular and more and more hyped, with people on large seminar stages using all the same emotional tricks that the MLM people use too, to motivate and sell – all the NLP, repetition, hand gestures, hypnotic language etc.
And there is a lot of people selling absolute rubbish in the internet marketing space from the stage too, believe me.
But you have to ask yourself, who is actually responsible for you reaching in your wallet, taking out your money and buying?
YOU ARE.
If you are going to an event, just don’t take your credit / debit cards to events if you don’t want to buy.
Don’t be pressured into buying on the spot for fear of missing out. There’s ALWAYS a way to buy later, believe me.
The best offers will stick around, the best mentors will still be there 2, 5, 10 years later.
In Conclusion, Is It Worth Joining Six Figure Mentors?
I’m 100% not saying that The Six Figures Mentors is wrong, or a scam or anyway underhand. In fact, knowing the people who introduced me, I think it will probably deliver enormous value to the RIGHT kind of people.
The right kind of people are those who take action and ask for help repeatedly from their upline (the person who introduced them) and who then don’t rest until they get that help and take the action.
Creating an internet business is all about doing the learning and the work once and then letting your online system do the work over and over again for you. In that way, it really is magic. But you have to do the work once first!
If you really can’t manage to learn the basics of internet marketing (specifically Affiliate Marketing which I highly recommend for starter aspiring online entrepreneurs) then it might be useful for you. That link, by the way, is to watch some free videos made by the only person I recommend to learn affiliate marketing from.
What Do I Recommend Then?
If you don’t have your own product or service, I personally like the Affiliate Marketing method over any others, because I have a real aversion to my future income being dependent on ANYONE except me – that’s why I chose to become an entrepreneur anyway, for freedom and control.
The thing that worries me about any MLM company – not just the 6 Figure Mentors – is that everyone will be locked in, regardless of whether they are still getting value, and having to keep paying, in order to keep making their commissions. But I’m sure the people who have built big downlines don’t mind paying that recurring fee.
I worry about the large numbers of people who are still paying the recurring fee out of hope that either a miracle will happen or that they will, one day, take action and make it big. How can they recommend the very thing that they are not using themselves with any integrity or success?
I would just PERSONALLY prefer to make my money by recommending something that I actually use myself, or have in the past.
You are reading this blog post because my online system works. You found my blog post listing on Google and you came and visited my site. You might sign up for my free book “The Money Gym” or watch one of my free videos while you are here.
You might give Six Figure Mentors a try, then later decide to create your own online business and one day, when you need help with that, come back and ask me to mentor you. You can join my Clicks & Leads Academy which costs less than your investment in a cup of coffee each day.
Getting Started – Online Business Action Checklist
All you need to do to create your own online business is the following Action Steps, in pretty much this order. Full disclosure, some of these links are Affiliate links but you pay no more because of that.
- Download my “How To Market ANY Business Online” book – it’s 100% free. You’ll get a really good overview idea of how it all works online then – how to make money and how to avoid any traps.
- Think about which of the 4-5 main markets you want to get into as an Affiliate. Buy a domain name at Namecheap for example.
- Now you need to decide if you want to use the “best of breed” tool for each part of your online business or if you want to use one of the “all in one” solutions like ClickFunnels (if you click that link you get a Free 14 Day Trial) or ActiveCampaign. Let’s assume you are going for setting up each part separately.
- Buy the best, low cost hosting; you can start with BlueHost (always good to keep your domain & hosting separate) which I used to use, or the ones I now use, which are LiquidWeb (membership site forum hosting) and the “Rolls Royce” of WordPress hosting, WPEngine.
- Install a WordPress blog in one click, from the control panel in your hosting (ask your Support, they’ll help)
- Use one of the default themes installed or buy a nice premium theme from somewhere like StudioPress
- Add valuable content on your chosen topic to your blog regularly – everything from YouTube videos to podcast content (you can share other’s good stuff, not even write your own but it’s best to sprinkle a few personal posts in there too).
- While you’ll attract a small trickle of traffic to your website by adding content and sharing it on social media, you’ll need to do more, much more to make a living online. You will either pay for traffic via Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, YouTube Ads or something similar. Or you’ll have to work for traffic, via an extensive Social Media plan. I have created a free webinar called “How To “Be Everywhere Online” (In 20 Minutes A Week Or Less)“ and you can register for that here.
- Connect up Facebook Page, Twitter & Instagram accounts and share links to your blog content on them (use Buffer)
- Create a Lead Magnet (free gift) or buy a PLR (Private Label Rights) one to use.
- You’ll want to be looking at ClickFunnels or Leadpages now, to create your Optin Pages, Thank You Pages, Sales Pages and Webinar Registration pages – nothing I have ever used converts as well as Leadpages or ClickFunnels do.
- Set up a mailing list using the very sexy list host / automation software GetDrip which at only $1 a month for up to 100 leads (trounces Mailchimp as it has so many more features based on what actions people take). Both integrate with Leadpages.
- Get a pop up lightbox on your site (Leadpages and GetDrip make it easy if you use them!), or you can use the excellent OptInMonster with other mailing list hosts, then build and nurture that mailing list with great follow up emails.
- Create a low cost product of your own ($7 to $27 usually – audio or video content is quick and easy) or recommend other people’s products (this is called Affiliate Marketing). This offer weeds out the people who are willing to buy, from those who are just seeking free stuff all the time.
- You can get a couple of great free videos on how to get started with affiliate marketing by Sarah Staar. I recommend all of her trainings very highly.
- Create a higher ticket item product (or find one to sell as an affiliate) and offer that to the people who buy Product 1.
- Create a series of follow up emails for those who don’t buy, offering them great low cost products from other people. Create a series of follow up emails for those who did buy, offering them your next product.
- Start split testing the headlines and calls to action on your own key optin and sales pages (without having to change your own web pages) using Improvely
- Share your learning, which boosts your own online income from sales – by teaching others to make money online in the way that you have. People want to learn from people they know, like and trust.
Earnings Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links, you’ll pay no more but I might make some commission if you buy. I use all these tools myself so I can recommend them personally.
Whichever path you choose to get started making money online, I wish you every success. It’s well worth it!
Here’s one of my heroes – Gary Vaynerchuk – talking about how to become a success online nowadays, it’s changing all the time. In this video, he’s specifically talking to a large group of MLM practitioners in this video so it’s very relevant.
Gary Vaynerchuk | The Current State Of The Internet
I hope you got value from this independent review of the Six Figure Mentors and are able to make your own mind up whether it’s a scam or a genuine opportunity for you.
good post – exactly the same reason i did not take them up on my invite to be a ‘founding member’ also. As you say, I think it will be informative if you are a newbie – to learn all the stuff – but you can learn it for free on the net without being tied in for the commission and trapped flogging a system where loads of other people are doing the same – saturation breeds indifference. I think to be honest, Stuart Ross took the idea from YourNetBiz – where he had his successful launching platform into the IM world and thought ‘why not – recurring passive income from all this downline’. If he wants to walk that route then success to him – but its not for me.
thoughtful open-minded post, i especially like your “revelation moment” 🙂
tanks for taking time to write this!
Thanks for taking the time to comment TrayT!
That’s right, I signed up and found that they didn’t even want to give me any auto responder messages to put into my own autoreponder trying to force me to use aweber only. They also did not provide anything they promised on the sales pages other then trying to upsell to $2000 courses. I think they take the new guy without any desire to speak up or out to a contact or lead and tell them that they need to do this and that but not do anything on their own unless they get a piece somehow or another. I agree that if you wanted to market their product you should be able to as that’s what they say…they teach marketing..lol only if its on their terms and conditions. I would suggest people stay far away from them as its geared up to take a large amount of money from you a bit at a time…Shame on Jay Kubassek and Stuart Ross. They are very misleading and want everyone at a paid level of $2000 plus before they provide many things such as web site tools and training. I found Daniel Wagner to hate anything to do with a refund question and he said that’s not important..I reminded him if it was not it sure is on a lot of sales pages even Stuarts too…But they all seem to twist a lot.
Quick get in now before the chance is gone. The issue is not how quick it will be gone but how disappointed you will be after another month of that hard slogging work that results in a dreary wage slip with no hope….
That is exactly the kind of spiel that these people put into their “Copy” to get people hooked. Thankfully I studied NLP a few years back (Rarely used) and can spot their tactics a mile off.
Your suggestion to keep on affiliate marketing is a much better honest way to make money online. Thanks for the review…
Thanks for your comment Jason, I totally agree that it’s better to build a business that you have control over rather than one that could be closed down at any minute.
What do you think Anel, after reading my article? MLM or Affiliate Marketing? MLM has it’s drawbacks but IF you sign up under some good active mentors, you have a better chance of making a success of it. Affiliate marketing has less restrictions and you don’t have to keep paying your fees to get paid your commissions but you are on your own, unless you hire a great Affliate marketing mentor like my friend Sarah Staar (aff link – of course!)
Thanks for the honest review. This was much easier to understand as I heard of them the first time rather than going through their glorified website.
Well I signed up and everything went haywire… purely because I did not listen. Yes I have a wide variety of experience in MLM and social media [ I was around before Facebook and Twitter]. So here’s me thinking I must know something right. However I am nearly 5 months in and what have I found… A heck of a lot about myself holding me back in personal and professional life. What have I got so far from SFM and DEA… community support and friendship, inclusion and no hard sell do this or that. If someone was to tell me what I was missing out on I would not believe them. The so called professional before this time do not mind if you are left behind… that is the kind of scary dog eat dog atmosphere out there. SFM and DEA are different. Think collaboration as well as Halocrastic [ flatline management] where everyone pitches in to help and lend a hand to others. Believe me when I tell you you really are missing out on things. Catch up to me if you want an honest review… better yet just catch up. Written by Susan Connor Lewis
Appreciate this review. I have zero experience in all this and so was interested in what SFM folk had to say as it sounds very supportive to the u learned in this helping us avoid all the pitfalls without a huge amount of education in order to just get started. But also don’t want to have huge outgoings before I even earn.
Thanks
Thanks for your comment Darren. I hope you find a way to move forward without investing too much to start with. Most of the tools are low cost or free and you can get help by listening to podcasts and reading blogs. The hardest thing is to decide who is your “hungry crowd” who are you going to serve? If I can help, do come back and ask. Or visit on my Facebook Page at http://facebook.com/nicolacairncrossuk. Warm regards, Nicola
Interesting. I wrote a comment in support of the Six Figure Mentors right here. The description was not in accordance with what you decided to right. Okay. That figures. However Nicola when you take off someones hons=est opinion thus allowing only opinions that suit and support your opinion you are censoring the right of free speech are you not?
I think you’ll find it is showing below. It might have taken a while to clear because the person reviewing it might have struggled to work out if it was a real comment or not because it seemed a bit jumbled, a bit like spam comments come out sometime. But they eventually passed it, but not quick enough for you, it seems. I think you will also find that there is no such thing as “free speech” on someone else’s blog. I wouldn’t expert to come to yours and be able to say whatever I liked, however, I do encourage discussion on mine and would never not publish a comment if it disagreed with my viewpoint, unless it was rude or abusive.
Thank you for your reply.
Yes discussion is good….so to is the ability to scroll down when opinions are placed out of sequence. The opinions are true and still hold as I found out to my cost re time factors… if the instruction are not read well, nor listened to, then things do not happen according to your plan. They tend to go haywire instead.
The self transition’s people find within themselves are also important.
You have fun with your point of view Nicola. Each to their own as we travel within an incredible journey involving our life’s decisions, ethos and outcomes.
I’ve been a member of SFM for 3 months, and I cancelled my membership last month. I was a total noob to internet maketing, and i have to admit the trainings they provide (modules + archived training courses + live webinars) are far from bad. I learnt a lot about all the basics, and a few extra advanced technics, and their Digital Business Lounge (which consists of a hosting service for wordpress websites, premium wordpress themes and a few marketing tools like a tracking software and a lead pages creator) puts it all together in one place and seems brilliant. That is until you really start building your website, and realise their themes are not working as they are outdated, then contact their support “wonderful support team” (as they call it) only to find out they are inexistant (Themes they provide come from Elegantthemes.com, they told me I had to contact them to get a solution to my problem (unbelievable when you pay for support, right) when I came back to tell them the solution was to upgrade the theme to the latest version it took them 4 days to upgrade it when this takes only 5 minutes). While doing your modules, you have a “business consultation” with someone called Mark H. to speak about your business plan and ideas…well in my experience it wasn’t really the case, as all that mark did was trying to make me upgrade to minimum silver level ($2000 per year) and when I told him I didn’t have that much money, and I wasn’t interested in promoting SFM but was really willing to start my own business and promote other products, he told me that was not the way to become successful, that i would fail if I wasn’t willing to invest in my training, etc, etc… Seeing I stood my ground, he simply told me he was late on his schedule and ended the “business consultation” early. After these few experiences with their staff, I really started to look online for other mentors/trainings and discover a lot of more advance thing totally for free on youtube or marketing websites, I also realised that I could have something close to their DBL for not even a quarter of the cost, using different providers and softwares. So, to conclude very honestly, I learnt quite a lot from SFM in the first two month, so I can testify the value of their initial trainings (modules) and they do have some wonderfull coaches (the guys from Satori Prime really know their stuff, and are very accessible) but to my mind, not enough as most webinars are people who know each others (and you don’t) patting themselves in the back and speaking about their Miami retreat, etc… and of course mentioning that success will only come if you upgrade. I would end saying that there is a lot of potential in the SFM, but the lack of technical support and the fact that 2/3 of their staff is simply trying hard to make you upgrade ruins the whole thing completely.
Thanks for such a detailed and honest comment Bart, which can only help other people who are considering MLM as an alternative to affiiate or info marketing. Do you feel able now to move forward yourself, and have you had a look at all my free videos? I have two sets particularly that you can enjoy with no fees, one is called the “Fast Start Masterclass” and you can access it here http://TheBusinessSuccessFactory.com/triple-m/ and the second, you’ll get offered about 3 weeks into my mailing list autoresponders system, called the “3 Secrets Of Business Success” which I really should charge for, it’s so good. Yes, I’ll make you offers to join me in my mentoring BUT you will get a LOT of value from the free stuff too. Good luck and don’t give up!
I know this post is older, but I had to chime in. I’ve been a professional marketer for most of my adult life. I’m still a relative newbie in the online space, but I’ve certainly evaluated my share of home business opportunities over the past 2+ years. I settled on High Ticket Direct Sales as a model that seemed to make the most sense to me and have done extremely well with my business. I stumbled upon SFM/DEA just a few weeks ago, and immediately was attracted to the quality of the marketing message and the sincere approach that both Jay and Stuart have in presenting what’s possible.
Jay & Stuart are both legends in the dot com world. The fact that they have engineered and executed on a HUGE vision has to be commended. For people like me who are smart and LOVE big paydays, their model makes a lot of sense. Why reinvent the wheel when you can plug into their system, leverage their brand equity while you build your own, and build your own list using their funded proposal, upsells, marketing funnels, tools, training, community, coaching, support?
I’ve seen alot of business models, but what they have put together, combined with what they are in the process of rolling out makes for an incredible business opportunity for smart people who get that the money is in the list. The spirit of all their training and education focuses on this one very key point.
I’m done ranting. For anyone that doesn’t see the power and potential of their business model , you’re missing out. So far, I’m having fun and learning alot and loving the community and the people involved with SFM.
It’s called “sharecropping”. You are building your business on someone else’s platform over which you have no control. If that doesn’t worry you, it should.
Thanks for this. I am absolutely not interested in MLM. I have been a top seller before in an MLM and made the first breakthrough level in a matter of hours in oneof the programs I was in so I know it can work. However, it’s a lot of work that doesn’t necessarily pay off for most people. When I entered MLM I wanted of course financial freedom but not at the expense of others.
Anyway, SFM caught my attention as it taught more about advertising and marketing. I am a voice over artist and copywriter and always wanting to learn more so I can give my customers greater value. But if I’m paying $25 a month just to recruit other people, then SFM is not the platform I need. Thanks for your review
THANKS for the honest sharing it answered those little questions that were at the back of my mind when I came across SFM . I am looking for an internet business model and not a MLM commitment. I would pay reasonable access fees for value to run a business.The current SFM does not seems to fit those needs.
I have just heard about The Six Figure Mentors by Facebook yesterday, and decided to sign up, just to know what´s it about. Read it is just about 30€ first and a one-off time 279eur to join them. Is that true? You are talking about paying constantly, which is different..
Hi Chris, have you received the free list building report and seven day videos yet from the SFM.
You have to keep paying monthly fees to get your commissions from folks you introduce. That’s how MLM’s work.
Hi. I am an ex affiliate.
This is how it works. You pay $25 for app fee. I didn’t though.
I paid the $297; and then was billed $97 recurring. In the first 10 days, I was given an exclusive offer to become Elite and make 40% commision. I signed up. After that crickets. They were talking to me everyday, skype calls from this guy, support making sure I was setup. I make the payment. Crickets, no more auto support. The slap in the face, was when I found out, it’s a yearly recurring sub of $2500 to be elite. WELL SHIT FOLKS YOU NEED SOME BETTER LANGUAGE, because no one in their right mind would spend $2500 YEARLY if you told them it was yearly. Stay. Away. Stay far away. They are losing many members, and now taking legal action against old members trying to give their current members products with better value. They know they have a crap product and want to keep as many people blind, and in the dark as possible. I can’t sit idly by and let it happen. I’m sorry.
I’ve been doing critical thinking of how they work.
They appeal heavily to “The Secret” and the Law of Attraction. They make it seem like this offer is the law of attraction and these people attracted such an opportunity into their life. They have numerous NLP masters working for them. (I’ve read a ton on hypnosis, language patterns, NLP, etc). They keep approaching the product and what you’re getting, but always deflect to their success and how much money their students have made (mostly because people are obligated to lock into an overpriced subscription, and many HOPE to make some money on it SOMEDAY). They continue that, by making the Attraction Visualization, where you spend time imagining your perfect life, and what it would feel like. All this emotionally driven imagery gets people fired up,.. into buying and losing. I think the main people they get, are ones unfamiliar with the verbiage and terms they use. Now that I am familiar, I see way better free content than what I paid for with them. Be super wary. The funny thing is, the “mentor” I had, which was my referer (the person who paid for the ad); could never answer me with practical answers. He always gave me vague empowering phrases that every fucking modern guru uses, when I had a legit problem. So, as I’ve read on another site, the issue with the mentors you get, is that they may have no idea what they’re doing themselves regarding marketing etc. Or they could directly copy the CEO and founder, using vague, inspiring language hoping that sates you and you leave them alone.
The CEO has a journal entry, dated 2-29-02 that he uses to appeal to The Secret crowd. On it, he listed all these things he wanted to accomplish in his life. He then shows us how he did achieve all of them. He however, conveniently ignores the fact that 2/29/2002 did not exist. All in all I give 1/10. I can find handfuls of places I would give money to before them.
I had to delete my comments because SFM said they would take legal action against me.
Take that how you will.
Good information. Lucky me I recently found your site by accident (stumbleupon).
I’ve book-marked it for later!
SFM is MLM. I would prefer affiliate marketing. You won’t be tied to just one product to sell.
You can always do MLM alongside Affiliate Marketing. It’s not a black and white decision as I’m sure you know Oyewusi!
This is a very useful blog. I’ve been interested in starting an online business for sometime now and I do feel this is the future for generating substantial income working from home. I’m really drawn to affiliate marketing and I want to learn all about it and how to get started in setting up a business. However, I don’t have a lot of money to invest but I do have the desire and time to learn. I have just learned of sfm and am two days into free videos without it costing me a penny. I was really excited about them and willing to join but I’m so glad I haven’t and so glad I’ve come across this whilst searching inquisitively about them. Thank you.
Hi Dougie, thanks for your kind words. My goal is never to dissuade anyone from joining anything, but merely to give you the information you need to make an informed decision and to realise that a platform like this is something that is not exclusive, but something you can use AS WELL AS other affiliate marketing products. Good luck with your journey and don’t forget to access my free Affiliate guide by clicking any of the links on that page. Cheers, Nicola
I was a member of SFM for 5 months and I left 3 months ago. I wanted to leave it a while before starting to post my experiences online so that the information I share is level headed and not tainted with the emotion that comes with giving recent reviews.
I write this out of a sense of duty and responsibility to others who genuinely want to change their lives for the better and to save them from potentially getting into huge amounts of debt and being sold pipe dreams.
The truth, from my experience is very simple.
If you are serious about learning internet marketing then DO NOT sign up for SFM (Six Figure Mentors) of their partners DEA (Digital Experts Academy).
The reasons for this are as follows:
They will charge you astronomical amounts to get into their most basic programs.
The training is very lacking, they only teach you how to use paid advertising (not organic) which is pretty much a financial death sentence for beginners to this industry.
Even when you buy into the higher levels which cost up to $40,000! (I personally know many at this level who have been there for years without any sales or success) Plus around $3,000 a year ongoing costs, you still won’t really be getting anywhere near the support or training you would receive if you were to invest a fraction of this money say in private coaching or other online platforms such as MLSP or Wealthy Affiliate (neither of which I am affiliated with and both of which charge a FRACTION of SFM/DEA’s costs and offer far superior training and support.)
You will only be taught how to market and sell SFM/DEA’s products – unless you purchase their platinum level for $25,000 which offers personal brand development. Again you can get this kind of coaching for a tenth of this investment with much better support and results.
If you attempt to share any useful information you gathered outside of SFM/DEA with your fellow members you will be banned from their FB groups and accused of cross recruiting as I was. I also received threats of legal action via FB messenger from one of their support staff members
I began reaching out to SFM/DEA members on FB in their ‘Tribe’ and I found that around 50% of them had already left and many more were very unhappy with their experience – they did not feel they got value from their investment or achieve what they set out to achieve.
When people get into SFM/DEA they generally want to learn online marketing so they can leave their job and live the ‘laptop lifestyle’. SFM’s marketing focuses heavily on this front end and really promotes this dream life strongly with their 7 day video series. They essentially play on people’s desire for a better life (simple marketing I know) but do not deliver on the real ‘meat and potatoes’ as it were…
Somewhere along the line the online marketing training gets replaced with a personal development training program and everything becomes all fluffy, the onus gets shifted from them teaching you the actual nuts and bolts of the business, to you having to become ‘personally developed’ enough to become successful.
After 5 months with them and investing thousands of dollars I made zero sales, but when I looked elsewhere I got 6 sales and earned over a $1k in a few weeks.
The bottom line is that becoming successful in online marketing is extremely difficult and requires a great deal of commitment and desire to succeed. The figures are something like 93% failure (don’t quote me). SFM is a reflection of this, as being a closed system (all the money earned within it stays within it) only the top 5% or so actually really make any proper money.
Please think hard before spending anything – there are multiple opportunities out there.
My advice – AVOID any multi level program that has numerous overheads to pay, because you end up paying them. Get yourself a decent online marketing coach, find one simple program that you like, such as Wealthy Affiliate, and STICK WITH IT.
Do not let yourself become a victim of ‘shiny object syndrome’ – for when you get into this business you become fresh prey for all those other, experienced marketers who only want to get you into their sales funnel/
Learn it all yourself, after all its your business you are building – not somebody else’s!
I do believe that you have to go into online business with the mindset that you WILL need to pay something for traffic especially in the early days.
Otherwise, it’s going to take you FOREVER to get going. You would not expect to go into a real world business and not expect to pay for advertising at all would you?
But it can be affordable – my “Be Everywhere Online” system teaches you how to spend £5 a day to get in front of an audience of your ideal customers, and build an engaged audience fast – people who like you and watch / read your content. Then I show you how to spend another £5 a day on making an offer to people who have engaged with your content, you can add 5 new prospects a day like that. This is the equivalent of two decent cappuchinos or beers in London and the South East. One meal out a week? Two takeaways? What are you willing to invest?
One of the hardest things to do when starting out is to find “an offer that converts” to offer your new followers. Affiliate marketing makes this easier for you because you don’t need to create your own products and all the associated marketing, you can go and find a suite of independently sourced great products to offer, things people will need to follow your example and build a business, like GetDrip mailing list host, or Thrive Membership or Leadpages.
And yes, those are all affiliate links and I can recommend those products to you because I use them myself, either for my business or those of my “done for you” clients at ClicksAndLeads.com.
So again, you’ll have to invest a bit in the great tools that are out there to build your business, but you won’t be locked in to using them, if they don’t suit. You can go find better ones without worrying about losing your commission – and this is the main drawback about MLM, that’s what happens if you want to move on.
I hope this helps.
Nicola
Many thanks for the review Nicola. I was about joining SFM and just thought to myself to first check reviews about them. I really don’t have a clue on how to start from scrash, but will very much be forever grateful for your advise and support On how to build my own online business.
Nicola,
Is it true that the “big selling item” nowadays is “Information”
and not tangible products?
Hi David, well humans will always need products and they are usually physical, but yes, you are right, there is a huge demand for information. Not just any old information though, information that helps people save time or money, or create more of either, or how to find love, or lose weight or cure something. People will pay a premium for info that does any of those things. For example, membership of my Clicks & Leads Academy shares my 25 years knowledge of making money online, while avoiding the mistakes I made along the way. I hope this helps, Nicola