Here’s an interesting offer I got from Streetwise the other day (well, it was actually the second mailing - they must be testing as it was a different sales pack to the first).

It’s called the Information Entrepreneurs Circle and is offered by somebody calling himself “Michael Milligan” although I am pretty sure I known who is really behind it - a very big info publisher who “retired” a few years ago.

This opportunity is one which the market has been calling out for for a long time.

Once a month you get resale rights to a complete course that you can sell as you wish. The rights are quoted as having a value of at least “£1,000 to £20,000 PER LICENCE” so £197 per month seems like a great deal.

Oh, and you also have to give Streetwise 10% of everything you sell (not profits, 10% of your actual sales amount).

However, if the sales letter is to be believed, this is an excellent bargain and you should grab it immediately.

My doubts would be the usual - how on earth do you sell this stuff?

Each month you could get the rights to a great course including CDs, DVDs, manuals etc but if you don’t have a tip-top sales letter and good advertising then you’re not going to get anywhere.

Also, you’ve got to worry about the idiots who put each package up on eBay for pennies.

Example: I got the rights to a great home study course recently which had a suggested minimum price of $97. Two days after I took delivery, somebody has it on eBay for just $4.97 - you can’t predict how the lazy morons will use their licences…

But don’t let that put you off if you are serious about giving this a good go. There are lots of info publishers in the UK who have made a fortune from licencing so it can be done.

For the right person, and providing these products are good, this could be a real goldmine of an opportunity.

Unfortunately, Streetwise do not give you any details about the type of course you will get which is disappointing.

All they say is that each month you will get “‘How To’ products, usually with a money-making spin”

It’s a mystery package that you get every month and could be anything (including stuff that didn’t sell well).

Why do I say that?

Well, I recognised the product licence offered as an example (even though they have tried to obscure the title of it) and it was one which I received a sales letter for just once. If they only mailed once, is that because it bombed?

In conclusion, I think this could be a great offer but that depends on how good the products are.

There’s no guarantee with this opportunity so you will have to pay for at least the first month but Streetwise are reputable and if you cancel, that will be it, you won’t get charged again.

Be aware though that “Michael Milligan” is probably a pen name and you may well need to sort out sales letters etc yourself.

If you do go for it, please do let me know how you get on.

For more information about business opportunities like the Information Entrepreneurs Circle, check out the free biz opps email newsletter today.

Got home today to find a mound of mail in the front porch. As per usual there were several biz opps sales letters in there.

The one that stuck out though was an offer I haven’t seen before from Streetwise which they have called “The Profit Portal”.

At £497 + VAT it isn’t cheap but these courses always seem to sell well and Streetwise are known for offering a robust guarantee…

I was reading through the sales letter and trying to work out what exactly it is all about.

For a change there isn’t a lift letter from John Harrison - just a “Reservation Certificate” (order form), the letter itself and an envelope (not pre-paid).

Seeing that there isn’t an introduction letter with this sales pack I am assuming that this is probably one of the first mailings that they have done for this one.

I have been monitoring Streetwise’s mailings and they do seem to test different aspects of the sales process so if this is a good seller I would expect to see further offers of this product but with a different, improved sales approach.

Anyway, I went off on a tangent there.

Reading through this offer, it seems to be about “domaining” and making money from virtual real estate.

Bob Ryan, the person who is offering this particular package, writes a good story. He asks:

“How Rich Would YOU be if Property was
FREE and Tenants were GUARANTEED?”

Immediately you find yourself imagining that this is another property investing course i.e. buying and selling bricks and mortar but it turns out that it isn’t.

He talks about an “Underground Elite” who use a secret method to make “Fast Cash and Lump Sum Pay-Outs”

What it turns out to be is an opportunity to learn how to setup a business buying and selling domain names and also “parking” these domains for a monthly income.

Parking means that you put up an advertising page on your site and earn money each time someone visits your site and clicks on an advert.

It’s nothing new or particularly secret but it’s true that it is a business that is largely run by a small number of investors. Probably because not many people understand exactly what domaining involves or how it works.

What seems to be overlooked by a lot of people is that some domain names have been sold for amazing amounts of money.

Take “dictionary.com” - this sold for $100million just a few days ago. Of course, there was a whole business behind it but it started with the purchase of one little domain name - and domain names are currently available for about $8 (4 pounds) a year.

You won’t get a domain name like “poker.com” by just visiting GoDaddy. All dictionary words with a dot com extention were registered some time ago. However, you can still find gems by doing some research, for example a domain name with three keywords. You will simply have to take the time to research what keywords are likely to attract visitors.

The package on offer here is some software that Bob Ryan has developed that will make “income-generating websites” for you at the push of a button.

That would probably be a “parking page” - which you can get for free at http://www.sedo.com

There may be more to it but there may not.

Seems like this could just be a “newbie” package to tell you how to buy a domain name and put up adverts on it. You get traffic from people typing in your domain name by mistake whilst looking for related information.

It’ll be very interesting to hear more about this one but I’m not going to bite.

The product I recommend on the subject of “domaining” is Paul Gunter’s Domain Profit Guide: http://www.DomainProfitGuide.com which is ever-so-slightly cheaper.

However, if you do buy the Profit Portal opportunity please do let me know what you think…

Hope are having a nice week and looking forward to the weekend.

First thing I want to say is that I cannot go forward with the Trader Day meet that I mentioned in an email a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately the interest was low and I don’t think it will be worth your time to attend.

If I can get more interest in a meet then I will sort it out but for the moment I am afraid it is “on hold”

So, apologies for that…

Pat Adams Retirement Seminar:

Got a letter from someone who had been reading an article on BizOppsUK.com and this person wanted to correct me on a few things I have said there.

Can I just say that I am always happy to correct anything that I place on the site so if you do see an error, please let me know!

Back to Mr Adams, I have posted the comment on the blog so if you have had similar experiences to the mystery writer, please let me know:

Some Controversy About Pat Adams’ Retirement Seminar Package

Big, big opportunity:

Back in April I went to the Entrepreneur Weekend seminar in Birmingham and met lots of property investors and internet business owners.

It was really, really good and well worth the time and money to attend.

You can read more about the seminar here:

Entrepreneur Weekend Seminar - Birmingham - April 2007

As you will see, it is a work in progress or a “whip” as they used to say in the pizza factory I worked in when I was a student.

I’m half way through the Sunday write-up so please check back in a week or so and I should be further along.

Anyway, at this particular event were two young internet entrepreneurs called Paul and Andy. Their presentation was about “domaining” i.e. buying and selling domain names for profit.

As is pretty typical of me, when I find something I am really interested in it kind of takes over my life and I do a whole load of research.

This is a booming market so make sure to read the blog post I wrote detailing what I have found about domaining as a business:

Could This Be The Next Big Money Maker?

John Cummuta:

Finally, there’s a new review on the site here:

Transforming Debt Into Wealth by John Cummuta

Have a great weekend.

Thanks,

Ben

——————————————————————

UPDATE:

Shortly after I sent out the above email, I got another email about the Pat Adams subject:

“This may sound uncanny, but since I mentioned to you about Pat Adams not sending me all the software etc and my website being taken down, he emailed me yesterday and said he will be sending me the software and will get my website put up online again. If this happens, then I have to take back what I said, but it has gone on over a long period of time that I have been waiting for the promised software. Having seen your article about this on your site, I will be interested to see if any of the others who attended his retirement day have had the same problems as me….keep up the good work.”

Interesting…

Back in 2006 I put up a page about Pat Adams and his retirement package.

Although this offer has long since expired, the page still exists:

Pat Adams Retires

This write-up has a lot of details about the contents of the package that Pat was offering - which in all fairness was very impressive.

It’s been quite a while since I looked at it but today I received some DVDs that I bought from eBay and written on the back of the thank you note was a letter:

“I looked at your website, and the facts about Pat Adams’ retirement package are not entirely true.

I bought it, went to his retirement seminar day and was promised loads. He did give us a shopping cart website to sell his stuff, and I added lots of my own info, manuals/CDs but I discovered 3 weeks ago he has taken it down without letting me know and he is not answering my many emails.

He promised us the next 2 seminar DVDs etc and I only managed to get one lot of stuff by continually pestering him for it. I still haven’t received the newsletter software he promised for the 1st seminar.

I feel badly let down, but I don’t have contact with other people who went to the retirement day to see if they have had anything from him or not”

Now in all fairness to Pat, emails can go astray and therefore remain unanswered. Years of continuous spamming by morons means that many people have over-zealous spam filters which will gobble up the most innocent of emails.

However, as this person was kind enough to take the time to write to me I would like to ask anyone else who bought this package to get in touch and let me know if they received everything that was promised.

I have just bought a package which promised several expensive bonuses which I have yet to receive and so I can understand how frustrating it is. The person who offered these bonuses is currently not responding to emails or help desk tickets and there are many people who are starting to worry.

So, if you did get Pat’s retirement package, please do get in touch and let me know how you found it. You can find my email address on the main site at:

http://www.bizoppsuk.com/feedback.php

“I received an email you sent out recently regarding Tim Lowe’s ‘How to make £15,000-£25,000 per month from cheap little web ads’.

I had previously purchased the dvd course and having sourced a product and set up a web site i began doing some free advertising and got the odd one or two sales.

I was wondering if you have had any experiences regarding placing classified ads in any of the papers Tim mentions on the dvds, I am at a stage where i would like to advertise to a larger audience but am a little put off by the fact that these papers can be slightly difficult to deal with ie, wanting references etc.

Have you had any success with them or can you recommend alternative places to advertise?”

Thanks for the query but I would just like to ask: have you contacted any papers at all?

If you are selling a biz opps type of product then I will assume you are talking about advertising in the Mail on Sunday or the Sunday Times. I get these papers every week just to check out the new adverts in the Business Opportunities section.

Anyway, there are always new adverts coming and going - including many from people who seem new to the “game”. I would be surprised if they had references which they could use…

When I placed an ad in Exchange and Mart, the sales person I spoke to laughed when I asked if he needed any references!

He just took the money and placed the ad which was good for me because I am not sure that I could’ve got the references required.

You can read about my experience from that advertising here:

Advertising Offline to Drive Traffic to a Website

When you bought the package part of the deal was that you could ring Tim to get an evaluation of your website. I would suggest that you take him up on the offer and ask his advice. After all, if Tim Lowe offers you a consultation about advertising in the press and you have questions about the same topic - take him up on it!

As for other places to advertise, there are loads.

Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, biz opps ezines, banner ads on relevant websites etc

Or you could search out potential Joint Venture partners who will spread the word for you in return for a commission on the sale.

First thing’s first, though, I think you should take Tim up on his offer of a consultation.

And if the idea of joint ventures interests you, I know of a great guide to getting JVs:

The Sara Brown Ultimate Income Plan