The Rich Jerk caused a big storm when it was released in 2005.

This, of course, was back in the day when everyone was buying.

The “Jerk” was a cartoon character created to mask someone who wanted to remain anonymous but it worked a treat. The sales letter sold thousands of copies at as much as $97.

Of course, over the next couple of years there were more products including some very dubious “coaching programs” and also an infamous party at the Playboy Mansion.

More recently the man who was behind the idea has come out and revealed himself. He has even created a blog that gives some insight into his past and some of the quite fascinating success he had even before becoming the “Rich Jerk”.

It’s well worth a read so I’m happy to provide a link:

Prelude to a Rich Jerk

It seems like a lot of the biz opp related news on this blog recently has been negative. That’s just the way it is unfortunately – good products are very rare at present but scams and junk are plentiful.

Previously “successful” internet marketers are finding it very difficult going in the current environment, despite what they may say.

One UK-based marketer was this week found to be having some serious financial problems, perhaps explaining why his software suddenly disappeared from the market a couple of months ago.

Another US “guru” is now at the point of having to go back to getting a regular 9-5 job despite having several top-selling Clickbank products in the past.

And I’m having a lot of trouble getting paid commissions going back to February 2009 from another US marketer who is universally considered an internet marketing “guru”. Everytime I ask for a payout I receive the same reply to my support ticket – “Payouts are scheduled for this week” – but this is the fourth time I’ve asked. I’m starting to think he just doesn’t have any money to use to pay me!

There’s no denying it, things are bad.

However, there is some good news – a decent product at a very attractive price.

Info Product Killer is a set of templates, videos and reports from Craig Kaye that show you how to make big money selling REAL products for commission. By “real” products I mean consumer products that you can touch – not the “how to make money on Clickbank” junk that’s usually thrown about.

I’ve just bought it this afternoon and after looking through the member’s area I can see it’s a great little package.

The problem is that it’s almost sold out so I can’t go into too much detail now except to say go and check out the sales page before it’s too late. Apologies in advance for the auto-start audio. It might be an idea to turn your speakers down now, before you click:

Info Product Killer

Craig has said there were only 300 or so spots available and just 47 left now so be quick.

I’ll be doing a full review very shortly.

Anyone who keeps up with my seminar listing site – Internet Marketing Seminars in the UK – will have been aware that this past weekend Robert Puddy held a seminar in Bristol.

If you weren’t aware, and now wish you had’ve known, then make sure to bookmark the site so you don’t miss future events.

Robert managed to pull in a load of expert speakers from both the UK and also across the pond.

Aside from the speakers he also managed to attract a lot of VIP experts who were generous with their time (and in some cases their hotel bar bills) in the evenings and between presentations.

I’ll do a full review in due time as I managed to catch every speaker and hotseat session and make plenty of notes.

In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of who spoke and what they spoke about:

Donna Fox: Donna did two sessions as well as the introductions for each speaker. Her first session was a kind of motivation session, encouraging the attendees to think about what they wanted to achieve from the event. The second session was entitled “Internet Marketing for Muppets” and as you can no doubt imagine it covered some IM basics.

Robert Puddy: Bob spoke about his membership site process, something he calls “Login Frequency Marketing” which involves using integration points on membership sites – so-called “dead” real estate that many neglect to use.

Omar Martin: Omar, on his first trip to the UK, gave a presentation which showed exactly what he’d been through in his career that led him to internet marketing and the 6 figure business he now runs.

Martin Avis: Well known for his “Kickstart” newsletter, Martin gave the audience a great run-down of how he works just a couple of hours a week writing, yet draws in a very impressive income from a small subscriber list. Takeaway thought from his presentation was – you don’t need a massive list to make a great living online.

Simon Leung: Previously a Google employee, Simon is now a leading expert on Google and so his presentation gave us the 10 secrets that Google really doesn’t want us to know.

Jonny Andrews: A real character, Jonny shared how he went from living in an office in his former workplace (without his bosses finding out) to selling very high ticket (tens of thousands of dollars) products.

Ambar Hamid: Ambar works with big businesses and shared his process for going from no sales to big sales in the quickest possible time.

Sterling Valentine: Another speaker who was enjoying his first trip to the UK, Sterling went into detail about how he became an “overnight success” starting from absolutely nothing.

Jani G: Jani’s a UK marketer who specialises in promoting launches and getting into the top 10, and higher, in JV contests. His full name is Jani Gaffhor and he covered his methods for making big profits from a tiny list.

As I said, a full review will follow.

One thing I can say is that travelling First Class with Virgin Trains is excellent, especially when you’re the only customer in the carriage!

It must be wonderful to have a friend/business partner like Simon Stepsys when he is willing to shamefully shill for you.

Stepsys has published two poorly written articles on “articlebase.com” to try and rank for the term “Shaun Smith Scam“. Looks like he is trying to help out Shaun as they appear to be working together in order to sell a product.

The product is called “How to Market Experts” and promises £70,000 per month. In fact, Shaun and Simon are, according to their adverts, “Two of the Top UK Internet Marketing Experts“.

Not sure I could agree with that description. I’m not even sure I could find anyone other than those two who would agree with the description either.

Shaun is facing problems as some of his customers aren’t altogether happy with their purchases and his poor guarantee.

For example, there is this site:

Shaun Smith Scam

According to that report Shaun is only prepared to give a refund on his “700 per day” product if the purchaser follows Shaun’s step by step instructions. Also Shaun warns that should the purchaser “miss use” (nice spelling) the system, no refund will be given.

Sounds like a great excuse to use whenever he doesn’t want to refund unhappy customers.

Onto Simon’s articles…

The first one is called “The Truth Behind The Shaun Smith Scam Issue“.

Simon says: “Shaun Smith has started in the internet marketing business sometime in 2005”

That’s probably true. From what I’ve read Shaun was in prison before that after being found guilty of fraud.

The remainder of the article is a poorly worded attempt to keyword stuff the term “Shaun Smith Scam” in as many times as possible. I guess Simon thinks that is the best way to rank high for a term – he should know, being one of the “Top UK Internet Marketing Experts”

Simon’s second article has the title “Why The Shaun Smith Scam Is A Lie“.

Apparently “a certain Shaun Smith have been accused of selling products that did not deliver what they are supposed to do“.

Simon even concedes that Shaun’s products could be considered “ineffective” and that Shaun really could be out to swindle his customers’ hard earned money. Don’t believe that Simon would say that? Here’s what he wrote:

“You see, the Shaun Smith scam issues solely revolves on the fact that a couple of clients and customers are unsatisfied with the turnouts of their ventures with the marketer’s products, claiming that the whole product is ineffective and that the man is only out to swindle other people’s hard earned money. This could be the case“.

So, is “Shaun Smith Scam” a valid term to use?

On the internet people will tend to ask a question like “is [insert marketer’s name here] a scam?”

It isn’t a valid question. A person can’t be described as a scam but their method of doing business can.

For example, let’s say someone purposely sold a poor product with inadequate advice but then refused to refund unhappy customers. Could that be considered a scam?

What about if a marketer openly promoted what is basically a thinly disguised pyramid scheme, could you legitimately call that a scam?

How about if that same marketer was caught copying proof of earnings from another marketer’s site and claiming them as his own?

What about if a marketer claimed to be “bringing in £20k a month” but was actually spending £19k on advertising to make £20k, leaving less than £1k profit?

I think you’d agree that those methods of doing business are pretty scummy and could probably be labelled as a scam.

Shaun Smith is very vocal about how much he likes YourNetBiz. That particular “opportunity” is covered on another blog post and the main website:

A Couple of Things That Worry Me About Shaun Smith and YourNetBiz

An Outsider’s Review of YourNetBiz aka MyInternetBusiness

Simon Stepsys spent a lot of time in 2006 promoting the illegal pyramid scheme “Prosperity Automated System” in the National papers (before the SEC shut it down).

I certainly can’t blame anyone for labelling what these two marketers do as a “scam” following their past behaviour. 

And I wouldn’t EVER recommend either of them, or their products.

—————–

As an amusing aside, Shaun has posted a video of himself on YouTube:

I’ve taken a copy for myself in case he tries to remove the video so I can re-upload it. Check it out around the 2:50 mark. He has one of his mentoring students, “Mick”, on the phone as he is driving:

Student: I’ve signed up for Twitter and all that now but it’s two weeks and I’ve had no-one. I’ve tried eight or nine places every morning and had no-one.

Shaun: So you’ve had no opt-ins at all or?

Student: Not a thing, not a single thing.

Shaun: Right, OK, errrrrmmmm…. OK…. we’ll have to… errrmmmm… are you doing any YouTube videos at all at the moment?

[some further conversation] 

Student: YouTube? I haven’t done that yet Shaun, just advertising in eight or nine places every morning doing it over and over again and I’m getting nothing…

There you have it folks, Shaun Smith’s mentoring student has been following his advice for two weeks and hasn’t had a single person opt-in to his newsletter.

I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions from that…

Robert Puddy is holding his annual UK internet marketing seminar in Bristol on the weekend of the 7th, 8th and 9th of May 2010.

This annual event is one that I’m always happy to promote because I know first hand how beneficial it is to attend.

Seminars can be a very difficult sell because people simply don’t realise their worth until they’ve actually been to one. It’s much easier to sell a ticket to someone who’s already attended an event because they know how valuable seminars can be.

So, here are 13 reasons why I think you need to book your ticket to the LFMpire seminar now and get to Bristol for the 7th May:

1. No one is successful as an internet marketer when working completely on their own, it’s a team sport. Look at any of the big marketers, the ones who pull in a lot of money, they all work with friends. You find these friends by going to events and meeting people

2. A ticket for the three day Bristol LFMpire seminar is just £67 at present, which is a bargain

3. Robert has attracted many excellent speakers across the pond in the past and this event is no different. You’ll hear from Donna Fox, Johnny Andrews, Simon Leung and Omar Martin plus from the UK there’s Martin Avis and Robert Puddy.

4. Getting away from distractions will leave you free to concentrate on your business for three days – when was the last time you could do that?

5. You’ll meet lots of people who understand what it is you’re trying to achieve online

6. No matter how experienced you are, you’ll learn something – probably from the speakers but don’t be surprised if one of your fellow attendees gives you some great, useful information in the bar one night

7. If you’re looking for joint venture partners, marketers you’ve met ‘in the flesh’ will be far more likely to JV with you than someone you’ve only spoken to on a forum

8. When someone’s had a drink, they often let their defenses drop a little which basically means they tell others things they wouldn’t usually. Gossip, stories, promises, hints, tips, secrets; they’re all shared late on at an event. If you’re not there, you’ll never know.

9. I won’t namedrop but I’ve spoken to plenty of big names one-on-one at events and now they know who I am, answer my emails and often help me if I need it. All this from spending ten minutes chatting over a beer once at an event.

10. The hotel is big, comfortable and inexpensive. I’ve booked a room on B&B rates for £55 per night. Compare that to one event I attended – it was in a hotel that cost me £170 (ex VAT) for the first night without breakfast…

11. I’ll be there… but seriously, you’re reading this blog and now know I’ll be at the event. You regularly read emails and blog posts from other marketers, some of whom will be in Bristol in May. It’s surprising who turns up as an attendee but doesn’t advertise the fact they’re going.

12. You’ll get to meet Robert Puddy and experience his unique sense of humour

13. You’ll get a lovely badge with your name on it!

So step out of your comfort zone and get yourself down to Bristol.

By the end of the Sunday you’ll be kicking yourself for waiting so long to attend an internet marketing seminar.

Tickets are still available from the website at just £67 for the entire weekend:

http://www.lfmpireworkshops.com

Running this blog requires daily attention to moderate comments. Moderation is a must as I don’t want any valid comment to go astray and neither do I want useless junk comments to appear.

Unfortunately some marketers think it is a good idea to post comments on this blog in order to try and advertise their products and services.

And this is despite the warning on the About BizOppsBlog.com page that tells would-be comment spammers that their comments will never appear.

This morning I logged into the admin area to find a wonderfully useful comment by “jereWevonge” who wanted to let everyone on the Global Pension Plan post know about Shaune Clarke’s copywriting website.

The message said:

“[URL was here]
Shaune Clarke has the gift to double the response of existing big guru campaigns is why copy writing celebrities like Brian Keith Voiles – Terry Dean – and Mark Joyner praise his work.
He’s a former Canadian Television host, whose No-Hype, special style keeps him booked solid 8 months in advance for copy services and consulting.“

First question:

What is the first sentence supposed to mean? Read it again, it doesn’t make sense. And remember that this is an advertisement for copy-writing services!

Second question:

If Shaune is booked solid for 8 months, why does his website (that I am purposely not going to link to) say:

“OK, Why Not Try Me Out — No CHARGE!
FREE 30 Minute One-On-One Coaching Session” ?

If I was booked solid for 8 months I wouldn’t be touting for business by offering free 30 minute sessions to any Tom, Dick or Harry on the web.

Maybe Shaune Clarke has been hit hard by the downturn in the economy and is finding that he can’t quite get enough business at the moment, hence the blog spamming.

1/10 for effort Shaune but you really need to check where you are placing your adverts in future.

Seems to me you should know better; after all, you are a “Genius” according to “copywriting legend” Brian Keith Voiles…