Sign up for any type of information freebie, online membership, or make a purchase from nearly any Internet Marketer and chances are you will be presented with a one time offer (OTO).

The problem with these OTO’s is if it is for a product that I am interested in, I am forced to decide to purchase it before I have been given the time to evaluate my initial purchase, membership, freebie, etc.

If the item I originally signed up for is great, then that OTO should be equally great or better. However if it’s a piss poor product, then I would most likely pass on the item.

Unfortunately as a consumer you are not given the luxury of evaluating your initial product before deciding on the item in question. As it stands I rarely buy any OTO for that very reason.

Of course it’s obvious why Internet Marketers use OTO’s – they work, just not on me. As you create your next product keep this in mind. I am sure if I feel that way many others do too.

As I create my next product I need to decide whether or not I will be using a one time offer – something I have never done in the past. Perhaps I can come up with a new twist on the OTO such as a 24 hour evaluation deadline.

Wishing you the best of successes,
Rupps

I would like to wish all our visitors a Very Merry Christmas.

Love, Peace and Joy came down on earth on Christmas day to make you happy and cheerful. May Christmas spread cheer in your lives!

I just found this story on Carl Galettis website that I want to share.  Please take the time to read it. It really puts things into perspective:

The Christmas Story of 1881

Time for me to go on another rant.

I’ve been busy enough these days so when I take the time to check out an offer, I don’t like being mislead.

Twice this week I spent some time checking out free offers. The first was from a not-so-well known marketer. Let’s call him an up-coming marketing guru. Well luckily for me since I am on his email list and it is Chrismas after all I get this free gift report. He is going to reveal to me how he makes his butt load of money. Ok, I can certainly understand hyping everything – all the top marketers do it. Unfortunately he blew it big time. This over-loaded free gift report is nothing but a big sales letter.

What a waste of my time. 2 points taken away from Griffendor for that one.

People if you are going to give away a free gift make sure it’s a useful gift. I have better things to do than read 38 pages of why I should buy your product.

The other supposed freebie was buy one of the current top gurus. Should I mention his name? Hmm …. thinking… thinking.. I hesitate because his stuff is really good. Ok, I’ll spill the beans. It’s Mike Filsaime.

Mike has a new product out called “Instant Affiliate Website”. And you know what? It looks like a really, really good product. So what’s my gripe? It’s supposed to be free. That’s how it was being represented. First I signed up to be notified when it was going to be available. Yesterday I ghot the email that said I was going to get Instant Affiliate Website free.

I already know how good his stuff is so I took the time to check it out, watch the ever-too-long video and then proceed to get me free website. Guess what? It’s not bleeping free at all. Technically it’s free when you subscribe to his paid newsletter at $39.95 per month.

Now to be fair, you can test drive the newsletter for only $4 shipping in order to get your gift. YOu’ll have to cancel or you will keep getting billed every month.

Bottom line is that this product does look like it is worth it, I just felt a little mislead. Also I did get another email after the first that said:
“You get ALL THIS as a free trial to my print monthly newsletter that I will send to you for free too. Just tell me where to ship it and pay the small s&h charge.” But the first email (the one I responded to) said nothing of the sort. Perhaps he noticed this and sent the second to fix that.

Hey, it looks like something to try. So I am giving it my thumbs-up to try, but I am not giving an affiliate link to the product – I am sure you ahev enough of them anyways.

Have a Merry Christmas folks! Jesus Rocks!

Even after all the hype, all my mentors, all the gurus – they all extoll the virtues of Twitter I just could get it, but I am coming around. You see, it is a distraction. It takes me away from getting things done – why would I want that distraction. I am finding out that it is a great way to share information – way better than a blog for immediately sharing information. The problem is you share information and then it’s gone. It’s an immediate results thing. Another thing that is happening is my followers list is growing faster than my posts alone would indicate, because I do not post much. But the more people who follow you, the more access to other people you get. People like to follow people that other people are following and on and on. So my list at this point is growing by only a few people a day where a couple of weeks ago it was only a few a week. We will see where it goes from here. If you would like to follow me, my twitter name is Rupps http://twitter.com/Rupps

Technorati Tags: Marketing on Twitter, Twitter

Howdy Folks,

I can’t believe Christmas is almost here. I did already start my Christmas shopping which I normally delay until a couple of days before Christmas, so at least I am ahead of schedule on something.

I’ve been busy, busy, busy putzing around on some different projects. I never did complete Ed Dales 30 day challenge, however just by getting to day 10 or so, I got an awesome website started that made the number one spot on Yahoo and the #4 on Google for my main keywords! Simply Incredible.

And to be honest I think I got to those top spots by the information given for only day 6 or 7. It’s a great course, but the type of site I chose to build is really beyond what the course is designed for. I should have chosen a different topic. So I will most likely start another website and go through the course sometime hopefully in the near future.

So what’s with the site I created? Well I won’t go into specifics, but it’s selling hard goods which is and always has been my meal ticket. As great as selling info products is, for me selling hard items on websites and ebay has simply been working tremendously. The site needs a lot of work and I had to take a break as my other sites keep me really busy before Christmas. Orders keep pouring in and I am too stubborn to outsource product fulfillment as I am extremely particular about how things get sent out. Everything from how the items are packaged to getting them out the door ASAP I need to get done unless I am using drop-shippers which frankly drives me nuts.

As convenient as using drop shippers is (no inventory, initial lay-out of cash, etc), there is a huge drawback when it comes to reliability. Stuff I inventory gets sent out right away. Drop shippers seem to take all the time they want. This can be up to a week to get a package sent out. And if they are out of stock on an item and I don’t get notified for a few days that does not sit well with a customer who needs an item and finds out days later that I can’t get it to them. Then of course I need to credit their charge cards .. grrrr
/end rant

But business has been good. With the economy in a recession I am not sure if sales are down over previous years or not. It probably is down a little, but not significantly. I should know by the end of the month in either case.

A new thing I have been working on is another 30 day project. This one is a product creation course. Everyday you get to watch some videos and get a homework assignment which leads you step-by-step to creating your very own info product. So far it’s been simply awesome. Most things I have been doing through the years, however the instructor Kevin Riley puts some unique twists and insights in things which not only teaches you how to do everything, but it also keeps you on track and focused.

Unfortunately, I am way behind on that as well with my time being devoted to fulfilling product sales. Also the topic I chose for this product creation course is also something that is maybe a little too much. I’ll let you in on this one. Hopefully by letting the cat out of the bag, that will encourage me to finish.

It’s a guitar learning info product which will be video based. I think it’s going to take me longer to do this than writing an ebook. I still need to write nearly everything out I am going to say on video, although it does not have to be polished writing. There will also be a book that the customer will get in addition to the videos. But the slow part is I really need to brush up on my guitar playing. I need to get in better form before I can start shooting video.

Once I finish the course, I will make it available to others as well. So take this as advance knowledge that an awesome product creation course will be available by me soon.

January will be another busy month as I try to catch-up on all these delayed projects. Hopefully I have more to share with you then.

Until then take care! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

- Rupps