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By being a member you can participate in: Discussion topics around business, marketing, and related subjects (and unrelated) Earn 250 points for participating in discussions (each topic or reply) Advertise through email ads using earned points or upgraded account. Earning points by opening email ads

Only one discussion thread (topic) will be allowed for each program. Use the search function in the top right to make sure no discussion has already been started for a program before you start a new topic for that program. New programs must use the following Title Format without your affiliate link: Program Name - URL For example, if I was listing Marketing Checkpoint it would look like this: Marketing Checkpoint - marketingcheckpoint.com Only the first post (topic starter) can include an affiliate link in their first post. Affiliate links in replies are not allowed. If you are posting a new program, make sure to include at least one paragraph explaining the program. To be fair, do NOT post programs that are not open for accepting members yet. The first topic starter after the launch will be accepted. NEW TOPICS in this part of the forum will be moderated and must be approved first. If a topic shows (Archived) in the title then it means the program is closed, you should not attempt to join or make payment to such programs. Thread Bumping is Not Allowed Due to users generally feeling negatively towards "bumping", the act of replying to a thread with no significant news or discussion just to bring the thread to the top of the discussion list, it is no longer allowed. If you are unsure if you are "bumping" a clear indicator is that you are replying to a thread where you are already the last person to reply, creating a chain of replies yourself. This is NOT allowed.

I've now increased the amount of mailing points you earn for each forum post to a massive 250 points! It's the same for all membership levels. Before this, the max you could earn was 30 and that was with double points for posts which we were giving to active posters. I've removed the double points because I feel it is unnecessary, and much easier to say everyone earns 250 points per post! With the 15-30 points per post it would take someone much longer to earn enough points to send a mailing. Now there will be more mailing volume, but it also means you can earn your own sends much easier. Upgraded members still get the benefit of not requiring mailing points to send their mailings. The upgraded level is also changing. I am removing the Gold level until we grow to support a higher volume of free sends for that level. The only upgrade that will be available now is the silver membership, which can send a FREE mailing to 1200 members every 48 hours. Any additional you can reach with points. All members also earn more points for every email ad you read - you will be randomly given between 30 to 60 points per email ad you read. What do you think of this change? Let me know!

Blanket statement: Play nice, play fair, be respectful. As a member of our community you are expected to follow the rules. Most importantly, the use of common sense plays a factor. But, to make sure everyone is on a level playing field, here's how we have structured the community. RESPECT. Whether you're a seasoned professional or a brand new marketer, we treat everyone with the same respect and expectations. You are welcome to bring your opinions, just be respectful. Administrators: These are individuals in the community who oversee all content and decisions, ultimately making sure all is running smooth. Administrators are real people, too. Moderators: Individuals labeled as Moderators help maintain appropriate content. They may move articles, topics, replies, comments, etc. without notice, but they also follow the same guidelines. We rely heavily on our Moderators to help be the first stage when an issue arises. And if you have a question, feel free to ask them. Discussions: This is the heart of the community content sharing where you are free to engage through questions, experiences, and the long list of categories. Do your best to fit your topic and replies in the appropriate categories, and if Admins/Mods think they are better suited elsewhere, we'll make the change. Users who repeatedly make short posts that are meaningless just as a qualification to earn rewards will be banned from posting. Please make sure that you are making posts that contribute to the discussion. Discussion Signatures: Branding is important. We want you to build yourself as the sought-after professional. You may utilize a forum signature to showcase yourself with a short bio or other kind of catchy content. You may use one banner, no taller than 90px, and one affiliate link. Affiliate Links: Generally affiliate links are off-limits unless otherwise specified. However, because of our unique mailing opportunity as well as the ability to advertise banners, you are still able to get in front of people with your advertisements. Adult Content: Sorry, wrong place to share. Simply put, if you're caught sharing content of this kind in any way, consider yourself banned permanently. Private Messaging: Privately contacting members is a valuable capability but is monitored carefully. Spamming your links, mass messaging, and otherwise harassing members will get you blocked from this capability indefinitely. Foul Language: Western culture has decided there is an ever-growing list of insulting, foul, and "bad" words that make people uncomfortable. Intentionally utilizing such language against someone else may result in censorship and/or warnings. Your reputation will take a hit; think before posting. The "Program Threads" forum has it's own rules. Please read them here.

Martin here, Retired after 40 yrs of administering anesthesia. Still like to dabble in hypnosis. Have been on line over 20 years and find marketing fascinating. California is home for me and my wife. I spend 1-2 hours a day testing new sites. I try my best to weed-out the scams. When I find a site that meets my criteria, I test it a few more days to see what kind of response I get and then I recommend it to my private list called, the "Active Players List" My criteria can be seen here: http://sensible-marketing.blogspot.com/ My fav saying: "Emotions are stronger than intellect".

Hi, If you use safelists, I am posting this for you. There is a scam that is online where you (the intended victim) suddenly find yourself looking at an official looking webpage (It could look like it came from Microsoft or your Internet Provider) with a loud and repeating warning that your system has been infected with some sort of virus. Furthermore, it instructs you to call a number to have it removed. DON'T CALL THAT NUMBER AND DON'T PANIC! It's all a scam! To clear the page and the annoying alarm hit the ESC key. To be on the safe side, You can log off and run your virus scanner just to make sure! (I can't emphasize the importance of keeping your virus scanners up to date). It is important to remember that these pages are set up to get you to panic. To the uninformed, they are very effective. The reason I post this is to warn everyone of these pages and what NOT to do. I ran across one a few days ago and then again two days ago when I was working through some ads in one of the safelists I belong to. To Your Success!

Hello Everyone My name is Rick Ouellette It's a pleasure to be here and to meet all you amazing people part of Marketing Check Point. I have been trying to make money online for about a year now and bombed out so far. Tried just about everything so now im trying affiliate marketing. I will see how this work's out. My funds to invest in my self or anything for that matter is 0 to none. Have not worked in almost a year. So trying to get off the ground with all the free resources i can use. I hope to learn a lot from all the experts here. Have a great day To your Success Rick Ouellette Ps I started my first website if anyone would like to check it out and give me some feedback on how i can make it better. Maybe while your there pick a post and leave me a comment i would appreciate any advice i could get.

I can see why you would think that, I often too wonder how they are able to bring advertising results, yet they still do. My business generated $250,000 in sales last year, and other than a few safelists, virtually all of my paid advertising was in Traffic Exchanges.. so although as an advertiser sometimes it does defy logic, and I think know there are some traffic exchanges that will never give me a return, and some ads that I can never get a return on, in general it is still effective. This year my paid advertising has expanded beyond just Traffic Exchanges because I want to reach a larger audience, however I still am unable to beat the ROI I get from Traffic Exchanges, however I do also attribute most of this to the fact that the majority of the advertising I am getting is free from referrals, so my actual advertising cost is much lower than if I had to pay for every visitor outright. To be frank, most traffic exchanges will not provide the value if you spent the money on the credits, a lot of them have adopted a business model of creating a community and connections, using the advertising platform as the vehicle - and have been able to provide a lot more value to the members through this than the advertising itself, and a lot of traffic exchange users are paying for the things that come along with being in that club, rather than buying the advertising itself. As far as everybody promoting the same offers, that's true for everything. 99% of TV Commercials are the exact same thing, 99% of previews for movies are the same format.. most of the criticisms I hear about Traffic Exchanges, while generally valid, really apply to paid advertising as a whole. Regarding people mindlessly clicking and ignoring your message --- good, your message isn't for those people. Let them click mindlessly for years and get nowhere, they aren't there for you, and that's ok. How many bottles of Tide laundry detergent do you think a single Tide commercial sells? Sitting at your home, watching TV.. nowhere near a situation where you are actually looking to purchase Laundry Detergent, and most likely you already have a favorite anyway. MOST people are going to ignore it, and that's ok. You don't need MOST people to react to your advertising.. you really only need a couple people who your product REALLY speaks to get interest, then let the power of your product do the rest. Finding that person who responds to your ad is way better than trying to get everyone to respond - because people who don't need it and respond, don't stay. People who need it and respond, tell their friends. Big Picture : There's really only two ways to market a company that are semi-viable. 1) Content Marketing -- creating content that your customer values, providing value in good faith that the trust relationship being built will lead to sales. Content Marketing is a very long-term play given the nature of the methods it is found - search. 2) Paid Advertising -- Buying up ads to get your message out. The Paid Advertising is a short-term play, you buy an ad and it shows up right now. Both strategies really work hand-in-hand. Content marketing is of course going to be more effective, but it'll take 2-3 years to really scale, to have enough content that enough people are coming to you. The major downfall of Paid Advertising is that it is a business of interrupting people, and people generally don't like to be interrupted. Traffic Exchanges have a distinct advantage in Paid Advertising in that it's not actually interrupting anyone, when a person surfs they know exactly what they are getting themselves in to, they know they are about to look at an ad - and choose to do just that, so the traditional failure of Paid Advertising -- which is interrupting people who don't want to be interrupted -- is why Traffic Exchanges have remained effective. Another reason why they remain successful and popular is simply that you can do it for free or very low cost, a lot of new businesses just don't have the budget to blow $3,000 on facebook ads just during the learning curve of figuring out how to make an ad that works. These two methods can work very much in tandem, and the people who combine them are the one's who dominate in Traffic Exchanges, and it works simply by creating materials you would for Content Marketing, and advertising that content. Knowing that most people who are using them are beginning at business and aren't running on their 4th round of angel investors getting a $8 Million valuation, you can narrowly understand who your audience is. The next step is to create content specifically for them. Think about the problems and solutions that you might have had when you first started your business.. you needed things like hosting, an autoresponder, and to expand your advertising efforts to increase your reach. Now you take the content marketing approach of creating meaningful content regarding those subjects, the most effective I've found is creating a full-fledged membership site built around the topic, and offer training and consulting on how to do it effectively. The trick though is that it really needs to be free, valuable content.. allow the sales to happen on the back end for what you are REALLY trying to advertise.. this website or email series needs to be specifically designed to give information, provide value, and build trust.. so that when you do get that point where you work for a purchase, the barriers will have already been dropped, and they can purchase with confidence. You're at an advantage in Traffic Exchanges in that you already have the viewers permission, people build entire sales funnels around the concept of trying to get someone to tell you it's ok for you to try and sell to them, but with a Traffic Exchange they gave you that permission as soon as they hit the surf button -- they KNOW when they click that button that they are going to be sold to, and they did it anyway, so now that you have your foot in the door, you can really turn up the volume on the value level, and begin building trust... providing free valuable content will build that trust, and using paid advertising ramps up the distribution of that content, and creates sort of a one-two punch. You're right in that Traffic Exchanges won't work for most people... and neither will facebook ads, twitter ads, adsense, or putting a banner on a blog. However when you give that sort of specific, long-tail content that brings direct value to the audience you want - then Traffic Exchanges do work.. and so does facebook ads, twitter ads, adsense, and putting a banner on a blog.

Hi Fellow MCP Members, Tommie Kirkland (Captkirk) here... Don't forget to add your website to your forum profile and Sig File. Why? Because I visit ALL members profile and Sig File to see what they're promoting or offering. Wouldn't you want a Top Marketer like me promoting your site? In the past, I have found new sites that I started promoting and attracted other top promoters... Again, Don't forget to add your website to your forum profile and Sig File.

Hi Darren, Here's one of the ways that I start my morning by listening and watching Motivation videos on youtube: Mindshift - Motivational Video - Viewed 5,614,911 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fviFNrWKzZ8 There's a whole series of them listed on Youtube. I listen to them while I'm posting ads. Frankly, this give me an unfair advantage over most marketers.

Great guidelines. Works for me

Does MATTHEW GRAVES owe you money? If so, you're not alone! Once a respected online marketing "guru", Matthew has turned to the dark side in the last couple of years, and now owes large amounts of money to large numbers of people. His "Site Partners" scheme (or should I say scam?) appears to be a dead duck - I haven't managed to find a single partner who has received their earnings from the sites on which they were supposed to be partners, and the Facebook group for partners has had all members & posts removed - probably because all the posts were from people wondering when (if?) they would receive their earnings. Matthew doesn't have a proper support ticket system - a "red flag" in itself - and doesn't reply to emails from people asking for the money they're owed. Ironically, his mailers are well designed & have a good number of responsive members, so they are still worth joining - just don't bother paying for an upgrade, this man doesn't deserve any more of other people's money.

I saw a poll about this and it didnt look good, not sure where it was. And another post about this in this forum. What is weird is that every list site is the same script on every site it looks like? He should have left his orginial sites alone and not clone each one from 1 thing. The orginial sites was what the internet marketing world used to consist of, well most of it, before cloning became some sort of fad or expectation.

There will now be a weekly newsletter sent to your email address every Monday to highlight the top topics for the previous week. The first one was sent out today. This is an opportunity to get your high quality content broadcasted for all to see

You earn reputation when people press the green upvote icon on the bottom right of your posts, and you lose reputation when they press the red downvote icon.

Hi I'm Paul, I live in Scotland, U.K. and have been dabbling with online home business strategies since around 2003, I got in to the world of Finance in 2007 and experienced the housing market bubble and the stock market crash in 2008 which affected my business and since then I have been trying and testing various different income strategies. I like to learn new things, meet new people and also share ideas. Since I started my online adventure I have made lot's of new friends and business associates, feel free to send me a friend request so that we can share some business ideas. To your Success, Good Health & Financial Prosperity! Paul Nulty Business & Lifestyle Coach P.S. My only regret in the last 10 years of marketing is... I wish I had found this sooner! The Own Your Life Plan

If someone isnt paying commissions for MONTHS but the site is still up then you arent going to get paid. I dont know who he is, but seems like another on the list. I have been hearing about this person, mathew graves and john bell for months to the past couple years - and even longer now. Many, many owners are not paying anymore it seems like. It pisses me off even more today than it did 6 months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago... because me and a load of other owners pay their dues to people, despite paypal and whatever problems. Plus answer support tickets. And I see so many promoting and buying from them still... still. They dont deserve it as they dont do the work to deserve the time & money affiliates put into what they do! (aka members)

I've been seeing, in a certain part of this arena, that they are saying "TE's are Dead" or that they "will be in a year" or "dying". It is propaganda. It's THAT part of the arena that has been squashed. ..."that part" meaning this closed off, cultish, small part of the arena that was separated from the real internet marketing world out there. Their followers follow every word of their teachers, webinars, false knowledge and even false history of how long they have been in business or the false level of success that they had in the online world before 2010-2016. In those years, that part exploded in which alot of people moved from being affiliates of sites and programs... to being sudden site owners and so everyone and their momma had a TE or a mailer. But they werent told that having a carbon copy of a script, or even partially 'custom' modified, and competing with 1000 other sites .. that it would be an eventual problem. Believe me, it is NOT the first time it happened. A script has been sold to death before. On the other end, people were also told to invest into trafficmonsoon, collect badges, collect coins, surf for pennies, and basically whatever made them money, they told their followers to do it - and they did because they had respect for them - based on FALSE history told, and/or schmoozing. Back to the scripts: The same site script being sold over and over again ... just with a different domain name, theme and graphics. Of course it was severely downgraded ALREADY before ppal and monsoon happened, in that part of the arena or "industry" as they call it. It just made the scripts sellers, 'launch manager', badge and coin collecting sites, etc a lot of money.... then they use excuses such as: penny surfers, paypal, trafficmonsoon, to jump ship or blame the collapse on the very people who followed them and bought from them. You know... "they dont embrace change", "they are just penny surfers", "they dont want to invest or learn", "offering money for surfing did it"..... etc...etc... ...while many ended up losing thousands a piece who bought into the propaganda (false info and teachings), mods, launch managers, follow my 'friends' new launch, etc. What gets me is that its not dead in the real internet marketing world and straight up BS if anyone says it. Is easyhits4u dead? Is Trafficadbar dead? Leadsleap? What about the others? Or even my own? No. Still alive and kicking. They ARE traffic exchanges with or without variances. So if someone who used to praise it galore and make tons of money off people teaching about it, suddenly says its dead and want you to go to crypto.... think long and hard about how they have abandoned that very thing they called themselves a teacher on (traffic exchanges) before doing it. So... if someone else says its dead but viral mailers are the next it thing.... think long and hard on why the person who used to teach people and praise TE's... and sell those scripts... now want you to follow them into viral mailers (*cough* safelist in disguise). Think long and hard again because, I'm sorry, that has been around literally 20 years and has been the trend for - 20 years. It is NOT new. Paypal didnt kill them. Trafficmonsoon didnt kill them, in which they actually benefited greatly from trafficmonsoon btw. I saw it myself, I saw the webinar(s) with scoville that they had, and the biggie: Scoville told me himself how much they benefited. Also. There is NO difference of a viral mailer to a safelist or a plain mailer, period. It's a ploy to make it sound special and something different from the usual email advertising safelist. They are not viral and nothing different. Stop spreading false words. So again: TE is not dead. But the inexperienced teaching the inexperienced is. Thanks for letting me scream. -Maryanne Myers

Hi everyone, Iv made a few posts here and forgot to introduce myself. .. My name is Jonny and iv been online marketing for around 4 years now. I have never limited myself to any certain area of internet marketing, and am always open to take on new money-making methods. If you want to connect and/or share some ideas etc, let me know! p.s. This site is pretty awesome. Regards, Jonny

I have now added the following statement to the Rules: Users who repeatedly make short posts that are meaningless just as a qualification to earn rewards will be banned from posting. Please make sure that you are making posts that contribute to the discussion.

Cryptocurrency is bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin, ethereum--to name the ones everyone likes. The actual definition is a decentralized, peer to peer, digital/virtual currency. Decentralized: not controlled by banks or produced by governments. peer to peer: transferred directly from person to person, no banks in between. digital/virtual: exists only as a string of numbers/letters. so not a solid coin or bill. The "crypto" has a double meaning--crypto because it is a specific computer generated algorithm, a "code", and also because it is anonymous and can't be tracked by governments (crypto means "secret", disguised). It can be used just like "real" money at a lot of online businesses and some offline businesses. It has pros and cons, like any fiat currency does. Pros: anonymous, like cash. can't be counterfeited. far more secure than credit cards Cons: some gov'ts are banning and trying to regulate it. not in widespread use offline or online. Hard to convert to conventional currency. Any more questions drop me a private message, or ask here in the forum so everybody can get in on the conversation-- And BTW, not a stupid question at all! A lot of people have heard of "bitcoin", but don't really know what it's about. Ignorance is not knowing something. Stupid is having plenty of time, and ways, to learn something and choosing not to. Anyone who is interested/curious enough to ask a question is not asking a stupid question--quite the opposite. You are not only smart enough to know you are ignorant, you're correcting the ignorance.

Just this week news has been spreading about something called "Safelist Pirate". One might think it's a safelist where you can advertise, but it's nothing of the sort. Taken directly from a website: "Safelist Pirate is the software package automates everything. From reading the e-mail, observation the ad, and filling out the captcha. affirmative that’s right – we tend to got our own captcha technology integrated with this software package. this implies folks don’t have to be compelled to purchase credits with their captcha breaker account. The workers is incredibly responsive, therefore if a secure list web site has modified we tend to update the software package." Now you may be thinking "Sweet, I can automate my advertising and reach thousands without lifting a finger!". Let me explain...if you're advertising to people who are not reading your messages, and instead those people are using automated software to read your ads, what value does it have to you? It means that advertising is worth little to nothing, rendering the entire process as useless. If you're a safelist owner it is recommended to ban safelistpirate.com from your site. Also, don't bother going to the website for the software - there are concerns of malicious scripts encoded on the website, and you're probably opening up more risks downloading the software to your computer.

THE MOMENT YOU'RE READY TO QUIT IS USUALLY THE MOMENT RIGHT BEFORE THE MIRACLE HAPPENS DON'T GIVE UP

MLM is not a numbers game. It is a pattern game. Learn to play the pattern game for permanent success.

This is awesome, Darren. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share and maybe get a few referrals in the process.

Thank you Darren

Hi everyone! I'm from Toronto, Canada and I'm not getting back in IM after a year off. I'm ready to help more and more people to generate great income online and achieving great results. Looking forward to network! Cheers, Billy Inelus

In response to your question on facebook groups: My experience is that just posting ads to groups is not very efficient. The "clicks" you get rarely lead to dedicated team members. That said, actually networking in groups that are designed for connecting rather than posting can be quite successful, so look for the ones that don't allow links. For me, the true value of social media is the ability to specifically target people (using the parameters that work for you) and reaching out to build relationships with your chosen audience. My team has been bringing in 100+ people a week using this strategy. Although the sheer number of people you communicate this way is lower, the quality (and conversion) is much greater. Feel free to find me on facebook (where else?) if you'd like to talk more about this. Kimberly http://facebook.com/kimberly.rutherford.77

I would do a free something to generate opt-ins, but nothing else. Giving away freebies on your site that you want people to get in and ultimately purchase things is not a very good route to go, from my experience.. ..but giving them a free guide on how to do something as the hook for opting in to your email list - then providing value to that list and later advertising that site you want them to get in and ultimately purchase things, can be very effective -- you've used the freebie to get them in (the hook) but then once they were in you've built a trust relationship by providing legitimate, actionable, value; so when they get to the point in the funnel that you want them to begin purchasing, that barrier is much smaller because they already trust you and your judgement.

Because it reaches a point where time invested is of greater value than the cost of the credits. However personally, the best investment is not clicking myself nor buying credits - it's getting referrals to do the clicking and earning credits from their surfing. Free credits without clicking... this is, in my opinion, what makes traffic exchanges such valuable resources over any other advertising medium. A year or two of work building referrals to return several years of free advertising (not only free advertising, but also getting commissions)

Should we get on the topic of timers and no timers again lol always a huge debate there. Honestly Trafficswirl has been pushing out some nice conversions for me over the last 3 months. I would say that's one of the musts to try and keep your ads in rotation on.

Prosperity Marketing System is a funded proposal system for network marketers that I started back in 2009. Since then it has evolved into a very generous 100% commissions payout system that builds your autoresponder list and funnels people into your primary business. It also includes a series of training courses, mainly covering safelists and traffic exchanges. Click here to join

Blog marketing is something that all blog owners do. They market their blog so that they can get readers, and make a profit from their blogs. Marketing their blog means to get it out there so that others that are interested in it can find it and read it. It is also a great way to sell things by using affiliate links and programs. Blog marketing can very well become a home business if that is something that you are interested in. Having a home business by blog marketing would definitely entail that you have more than one blog. If this is something that you are considering, you will want to make a list of markets that your blogs can cover. You will find that your blogs will do best when you only have one market per blog. For example, if you have a blog about cats, you will not want to include anything on the blog about kitchen appliances. This is because the readers that read your blog and visit your blog to learn more about cats and what you have to say about them will not be interested in learning anything about kitchen appliances. Once you have overcome the relevancy issue, you will be ok. You can however, have a blog about pets, and then blog about all of the many pets that you want to include. In order to make a living by blog marketing, you need to know every aspect of it. You need to know what needs to be done to get readers to your blog, how to write about the things that you are promoting and how to get it up in search engine rankings. Doing so will lead to successful blog marketing and making a home business income with it. One big aspect of blog marketing is SEO. SEO is search engine optimization and it consists of optimizing your blog so that the search engines will find it and rank it as high as possible. Which also leads to more traffic and leads from your blog. If you do not have time to learn SEO, and apply it to all of your blogs, hiring someone to do this for you might be something that you want to consider. Especially if time is an issue. Outsourcing much of your work is something that you will need to get used to if you plan on making a substantial amount of money with your blogs. You may want to hire bloggers or writers that can write the content for your blogs, and someone else that can leave comments on other blogs with a link back to yours. Spread out all of the duties on a spread sheet and decide how often each thing needs to be done for each blog. Doing so will help you to be more organized and know what you need to do when, as well as prioritize. Using a spread sheet will also help you to keep track of who is doing what, and keep you from asking more than one person to get one job done. Blog marketing for a home business is not much different from any other home business. You are going to get out of it what you put into it. If you only put in a couple of hours a week into your blogs, you can not expect to make a full time income with them. However, being consistent and working on your blogs every chance that you get will pay off in the long run. You will also discover that there is no better feeling in the world than owning your own home business, and working for yourself. Just remember to start small, and work hard. That is all you need to become successful at blog marketing and make the income that you are dreaming of. All of your hard work will pay off if you are persistent and keep it up.

Narrow down your focus and promote just one business opportunity, otherwise you'll constantly get distracted with new opportunities and spin your wheels, never getting anywhere!

I don't know the "secret" either. Though I do have some experience with what you are asking and talking about. If you ask most people here, you have to keep going and get a LOT of downline built before you start getting upgrades. It isn't something that magically happens overnight. I have found one of the hardest things to do (from an emotional stand-point) is to get someone to upgrade in a "free" program. What I mean is you have to understand it is a game of numbers. You are going to get a LOT more NO than yes, more so in a "free" program. I am probably going to get some flack for this but, you have to understand a lot of people don't "get it". You have to do that dirty thing most people dread above all else in the world - you have to SELL. Building a downline is no different than building a list. the mechanics are the same and the intended outcome is the same - to make some money right? A problem in "free" programs is you will get a lot of "tire kickers". Most people will sign up and do very little or nothing. No matter how great the program and how many people are upgrading for someone else. Just a fact of life. To upgrade is a commitment and people are usually reluctant to make a commitment if they can get something "free". You know the old saying, "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?" This is also compounded by people being a bit timid about selling. Timid salespeople have skinny kids you know. The big question in all of this IS this - DID YOU UPGRADE? If you didn't WHY? If you don't see the value, why should your downline? It is very hard to sell something you don't own. It is harder to convey any benefits to your downline of something all you know about is what the owner put on their sales page. If you didn't upgrade, the fact is you didn't upgrade probably for the same reasons they are not. Lesson to learn??? If you are upgraded - and have a way to contact your downline - (email, through system or whatever) There is the slow, round-a-bout, timid, my kids will be skinny this month way or a more effective way. The timidest way is just to wait, and hope, someone will upgrade. Then there is the "not so forward" way of mailing them every so often but never mentioning directly they should upgrade and, again, hope for an upgrade. Then there is the more professional, and effective, way by "selling" them to upgrade. You can do this by telling stories about what upgrading has done for you, how you are using the upgrade, if the upgrade has made a difference in your marketing, and just sharing WHY it might be a benefit for them to upgrade. Selling is telling and sharing. If you signed up for a list and were never contacted or told about a new widget and a link to buy it - would that marketer make any money? You need to do everything you can do to increase the chance they will upgrade. You also have to consider the program too. Are there things that are complicated and confused you? They probably do other people too. Even program owners may not be the greatest at selling or explaining things well. Share your own "light bulb" moments with your downline. Lastly, if you can't write confidently about what you are telling your downline, they will not respond well. People can tell if you are faking it for the most part. Don't EVER lie to them, it is too easy to get found out. Don't tell them you are burning up the charts when you are not even on them. Also if you don't truly believe it is an advantage to upgrade, it is hard to convince someone else of something you don't personally believe in. Granted there are some people who can seemingly sell anything whether they own, believe, or even use the product. They are the "abnormal" that are pointed to and everyone tries to emulate. There are also programs that just by their nature are going to be hard to sell an upgrade. Simple, easy, point, and click is what people look for. If something is just too complicated and has a lot of moving parts they need to understand to get it to work, it will be much harder to get an upgrade. The whole thing has to do with ease of duplication. Why do you think all the stuff says, "Easy, push button, simple", and all the rest to sell their stuff? So it is not easy and there are no guarantees. All you can do is do your best and learn from your mistakes. It is a process, and does take time, and most people quit before they give it enough time to work. You just have to keep reassessing and figuring out if it is working and why it isn't and go on from there.

Steve Shapiro ...that's nonsense about a safelist being a 'total ripoff', and that's not what I hear from people. And... what in the world? "regard them as spam". So if you put yourself on someone's safelist, waste resources and just regard them as spam? Spam is when someone grabs your email from anywhere on the net and then sends you ads. That is what spam is. The owner of this forum owns safelist(s) also BTW.

I'm happy to announce that Zubee coins have now been added to Marketing Checkpoint. If you are just joining us from Zubee Zone, welcome! Zubee Zone is a reward system where you earn "Zubees" and then can redeem them in the marketplace. Here at Marketing Checkpoint you can earn the Silver coin by logging in, Gold for Sending an Email Ad, and Diamond coin for making a forum post. Once you've done each task go to Zubees from the menu to claim, you can claim each once per day.

I have had enough from spammers. I have made it a habit when checking my Gmail to scan through the spam folder in case Google in all their wisdom has put an email I actually wanted in there. I came across some emails from ME! Yes, the spammers were using my email address to spread their disease. So I have been on the rampage lately with these and drawing no quarter with them. I am cutting them off at the knees by going after, not only the site sending the email itself, but after their MONEY. I am reporting them to not only their hosting and the product they are selling (tried the hosting and product before, but with limited results some products and hosting would rather give you the run around than uphold their own TOS against spam), but their payment processors too. Funny thing is, most of them are using PayPal. My spam folder is getting dusty now from nothing being in it! Spam has been an annoyance, but now it was WAR! Here is what you do: 1. Click the little down arrow in the top right corner and click "Show Original". 2. You look at who actually send the email. It could be just an IP address. So copy that into your browser and see what the name of the site it came from. 3. Go to www.whois.com and look up the site and see if there is an contact email for the domain. If not just use "abuse@ thedomainname.com" 4. See what the product it. Who are they an affiliate for. Find a contact email or a way to report spam (don't hold your breath though most are non-existent) or again use the "abuse@productdomain.com" 5. Finally, see who there payment processor is. This is as easy as clicking the "buy" button and seeing who is processing the payment. If it is PayPal (which is was has been in my case) copy the name of the seller. 6. Take the spam email and click the "forward" and then go to the tab with the original and click "copy to clipboard" and paste it into the forward email above the email. Write something above this like the following (but make it a bit different each time): To whom it may concern: I have been receiving spam emails from this party and they are using your equipment and services in their criminal activities. Please take whatever actions are needed to prevent them from sending me any more spam before I take legal action. The spammer is using PayPal as their money laundering service for their criminal activities and their account is Joe Blow LLC. Thank you, your name Finally, address emails to "abuse@" and all the domains involved. Like abuse@paypal.com, abuse@gmail.com, etc. You need to be creative, but not threatening. If you want to go the whole way, you can add "abuse@ftc.gov", "abuse@sec.gov", and "abuse@fbi.gov". I have had to go this route with a few stubborn ones that I didn't get anything from the hosting, product, or payment processor. Now you may get some replies with, "Oh, but we have no control over what our customers do blah, blah, blah." and most likely will get absolutely no response at all from any of them. You may also get bounced emails that are undeliverable. Though you do this for about a week and you will start to see your spam dwindling little by little. If their is a "spammer blacklist" I am getting on it! If you notice, 'wordology" (maybe not a real term) of the email - I don't think PayPal will appreciate them being associated with a money laundering service and criminal activity do you? The mention of "criminal activity" and "legal action" though completely vague does have good effect. You also notice it is not specific or threatening. Giving the PayPal account will stop any delays of them trying to look it up themselves and since it is sent to others too, puts the name of the spammer out there too. If they lose their product and payment processor, the rest falls like dominoes. It seems that after sending out a few of these, they drop off like flies. You will find most come from the same domains with different names and email showing in the email. So sending a single email like the one above will get rid of a few in one email. I am taking back my email inbox and you can too!

Great forum guidelines. I like: Blanket statement: Play nice, play fair, be respectful.

Seem like some pretty simple guidelines to follow. Thanks, Phillip Dawkins

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hil

Great Concept! I have never seen a Forum combined with a Mailer!

People get put off on "opportunities" or the like. The best way to get your offer in front of them is to never lead with your MLM, network marketing company, or any offer that directs them to "opt in to an offer". Lead with YOU. As you are the distributor of multiple products, services and resources, why lead with what you want to sell them? Find out what they want first, then give them what they want... Later Robert Dorsey

Glad you registered, welcome!

Hi everyone! just finished creating my account 2 minutes ago lol I have been lurking around here for a few weeks and thought I might as well just join. Rosie

Hi Roy here

That's the safest to get opinions whidch are best for the community.

I use TEs as one way to get referrals and build downlines. It's slow but it works. TEs are also a good way to see what's new and drawing interest.

This seems to be the right place for helping one another. After-all the way things work everything is cyclical, or repeats. So, if one chooses not to be giving a hand to another who needs it, how then can it turn back? I know this one from first hand experience. Thanks for the honesty

Paula, if you like to surf one at a time, try Jeff Parker's Fugitive. It's got no timer at all!