7 Home Business Lessons From StomperNet
First, if you haven’t already read it, go read Is StomperNet a Scam? A Home Business Cautionary Tale. Second, I haven’t had any coffee yet. If I’m not lucid, you know why.
After taking a little more of a look around StomperNet last night — because why spend time with your family or read a good book when you can obsess about your home business? — I made an interesting discovery.
Turns out, there are actually 117 videos — really core and valuable concepts — that they mail you on DVD at the beginning. If you don’t want to wait for them, you can get them all online, now and forever, for free. These videos are pretty necessary before the premium content will even make sense.
After taking a gander (I’ve always wanted to say that), it occurred to me that THOSE videos you couldn’t get through in a month. Or two months. The premium content stuff, while still sneaky and weird, was not as bad as it first seemed.
There are home business lessons to be learned here, people.
1. Too much buzz gets people hyper.
When we joined, they sent a “read this first” document. They mentioned something about sending DVDs. Was I paying attention? NO. I was hyped. I was stoked. I wanted to get to the meat. I had just gone through days of waiting and hyping, and I didn’t want anything to do with boring ass “How to use this program” documentation. (EDITED TO ADD: I’ve read the documentation now, and it still doesn’t say anything about premium content OR credits.)
I got to what I thought was the meat and it said I had to pay. I went from zero to livid in 1.2 seconds. My very first experience as a customer was one of feeling screwed. Was I being screwed? Not as badly as I’d thought. But this shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
Did I jump to conclusions? YES. Should I have investigated every conceivable angle before I posted about this to a bunch of home business owners on my blog? Maybe. Should they have tested this shit with the dumbest people they could get their hands on before releasing it to the public? Hell, yes.
Marketing is about psychology. As good marketers — and damn, are they ever good marketers — they should have realized that this much buzz and urgency would put people into a non-rational state. When you’re dealing with a bunch of people who are hyped and irrational, it’s good to make things REALLY FUCKING CLEAR.
2. Too much buzz gets people dubious.
“Too good to be true” bells were ringing in my head. I was already looking for the way they were going to screw me. At the first whiff of screwedness, I was already pissed. I was primed for a fight. Again, basic human psychology says this will be an automatic reaction. Mitigate it, for God’s sake.
3. Pay attention to your copy.
One line would have fixed this. It could have been “to prevent sneaky fuckers trying to game the system, we’re capping certain downloads.” Or “if you’re new to StomperNet, these videos aren’t really suitable for you. Watch the 117 videos first…”
Considering the amount of money they must have spent on this launch, SOMEBODY should have caught this. Remember when we said “think of the stupidest person in the world. That person is your customer”? If they thought to add “If I haven’t logged in for a month, do I still have to pay?” to their FAQ, they should have thought to add something here. If 90% of the blogs out there have a little icon that says “What is RSS?”, these guys should have something that says “What is premium content?”
4. Your readers have a right to do what you don’t want them to do.
As an honest user, I wasn’t aware there was a system to game. Let’s say I was only going to stay for a month, get everything I could out of it, and leave. Would there be anything wrong with that? Would it be against the Terms of Service?
If they wanted to kick out the gamers, they should’ve said “We’re doing this to kick out the gamers.” Then I, as a non-gamer, might have been more sympathetic. Instead, I felt like they were accusing me.
At this price point, there are probably a lot of people who used their last damn dime, figuring they’d go in, sponge as much information as they possibly could, learn from it, and maybe come back for the full year next year. There might be some crazy polyphasic sleeper out there figuring they’ll watch videos for 20 hours a day. That is their right.
5. The internet amplifies all of your screw ups.
Would this have happened 15 years ago? I can be blogging about this in minutes. Yes, I can post something well reasoned and rational the next day, but what about my drive by traffic? What about the people who found this on SU, read it, and will never be seen again?
Maybe articles like this increase the buzz around an already overbuzzed product. But out of the couple thousand people reading this blog, I’d venture to say that 1700 of them hadn’t even heard of StomperNet until yesterday. Now the first thing they hear is bad. If you’re going to do business online, you have to be aware of this and do everything you can to prevent it.
6. Don’t be cheap.
The primary feeling I had coming out of this was that they were being cheap. I’m spending a lot of money, and they’re nickel and diming me on premium content? Um, no. You got me, okay? I’m sold. I’m in. Don’t keep hyping me. I’m loyal now. Don’t screw it up by trying to capitalize on your hype. Just don’t. It’s not nice.
7. Plan for this.
Some people will game your system. Some people will take all of your content and slap it up on torrent sites. It’s going to happen. Do not penalize the good guys in an attempt to stop the bad guys.
If you must do this — and really, you shouldn’t, but if you must — WARN THEM. If you’re going to put cameras in the change rooms, put a fucking sign up that says you’re doing it to prevent shoplifting. Do not think people will come to this conclusion on their own. They won’t.
Next Post: Home Business Marketing Package Update
Hee hee hee.
Okay, I love you, and I totally get why you’re pissed, but I kind of love it that you failed to read the instructions and now you’re pissed at them for not MAKING you read the instructions. And for letting you write a ranty blog post about it. Stupid bastards. Don’t they KNOW you’re impulsive like that?
No, seriously. Don’t they? Because this is something I personally would totally factor in if I was selling you something. I’d put a big 1-800 number with the best customer service rep in the history of mankind on the other end, just for Naomi, to explain in the gentlest, most non-judgmental voice ever that you might want to read the instructions.
Though I’m with you on not capping the videos. Just cap the downloads or something. Wouldn’t that stop people trying to play the system? Then you could watch the video, and if you liked it, you could download it, at some reasonable rate, like maybe two a day, or something.
Hee hee hee. Okay, sorry. Stick it to the man, Naomi!
@ Tei — I love you too. I’ve edited the post to address your comment. :)
Naomi, dear,
I just wrote a three part series on this subject this week. (Not about this company.) I know, we minions read YOU and not the other way ’round, but if you have a moment, take a gander. It’s an IttyRant of sorts, with takeaways. And a bit less… flair. :)
Rather than repeat myself over here: I agree with you (mainly) on both of your posts, the bad and the less bad. I chose not to name names, which can keep things a bit cooler. You have a much bigger bullhorn than I do, lucky lady. You rock the world when you get upset.
“When Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
Nothin’ wrong with a rant. It’s your place.
Keep rocking the boat.
Regards,
Kelly
So that’s thde way Ittybiz works? Point out that the Emperor has no clothes and you aren’t welcome?
Fine. Be a fool and waste your money. Last comment, last time I’ll bother to visit.
@Tony - I don’t think anyone was objecting to your statement that it wasn’t worth the money. Disagreeing perhaps, but you know. That’s ALLOWED.
I believe the objections came in when you started implying that you are the only person on the internet who makes decent money with your website, that you make more money than all the rest of us, that we, in fact, have no chance to ever see the sort of hourly wage that you apparently do, and that we are idiots for seeking out potential ways to improve our store of knowledge.
Stating that you believe this isn’t a great way to improve our store of knowledge? Totally valid.
Stating that we’re all low-paid, incompetent idiots? Not so much.
Personal attacks just don’t do it for us. We’re weird that way.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Tony Lawrence has left the building!
We tried, but judging from his last comment he doesn’t even understand why we cautioned him. There is no hope here.
Thanks for your patience.
Boys,
I think it’s time to stop acting like 5 yo. Just step back for one hour, rather than reacting. And don’t shoot the messenger, thx.
oh but we does love our lessons …
more tea-out-the-nose on this one dear … &, inexplicably I find myself continuing to de-lite in ‘ow yer mind works, go figure [heh-heh-heh]
– Joyce
So now that you have had a day to play with this new toy (assuming you didn’t cancel your membership in a rage the day before, which totally sounds like something I would do!). Tell us what you think. Is it worth the $800? Do you think the average company that has been around and has managed to maintain an ungodly growth cycle for ~5 years (ie…ME!) would benefit from it? $800/month is a LOT of money. That is like a third of my shipping budget per month. And the idea of plunking that money down on something that I most likely don’t have TIME to deal with makes me nervous.
But yes, the marketing is fabulous, because I WANT to plunk down my $800 (that I don’t have) to learn lessons (that I don’t have time to learn) and improve my business conversions (even though we can’t keep up with orders as it is).
Jamie and Naomi:
I haven’t left quite yet. I want to apologize for hurting your feelings. I was actually ticked off at Michael Martine for his dumbass comment and not angry with you.
I am honestly concerned for you. I know better than you: this is crap and you need to get your money back NOW. For crying out loud, look at how it is marketed! Would YOU market a product like this? Understand that I’m not saying that kind of marketing doesn’t work - obviously it does, but would YOU stoop to that level? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Aside from that, for double crying out loud: YOU are a marketing person! Step back, take a deep breath: do you REALLY think these people know more than you do about marketing? Really???
This course isn’t worth the money. I know damn well you’ll see that someday. I hope your friends will take you aside, hold you by the shoulders and get you to look at this rationally before you throw away more of your hard earned money.
And Michael Martine: shame, shame shame on you for encouraging them in this stupidity.
At the risk of entering into this discussion kind of late, I think Jamie made a really good point on the last post about the value of time. Time is everything. I don’t know anyone who has enough of it. And when you start making $100+ an hour, doesn’t it become even more valuable?
Years ago, when hubby and I were barely making ends meet, I was visiting a successful lawyer friend of mine and when I took a look in her fridge I saw a pre-made package of hard-boiled eggs from the grocery store deli. I flipped out. I was like, “Are you crazy? If you don’t have enough time to hard-boil an EGG, you’re too damn busy. Take a step back. Enjoy life a little. Sheesh.” Needless to say, she looked at me with a weird expression on her face and shut her refrigerator door.
But now, I totally get it. Now that hubby and I both work from home and both work on our own businesses (and I don’t think it’s necessary to put up numbers here, but we do just fine), time is money. Every minute that I spend boiling an egg, or cleaning the house, or **hunting and pecking for information when I could be getting it all in one place**, is time that could be spent making money.
And if that time is spent on new ideas and techniques for marketing or honing my craft, so much the better.
Naomi and Jamie, I hope you guys find the service valuable. But even if you don’t, it doesn’t have to be money wasted. You gotta learn from somewhere.
I’m one of those who had never heard of StomperNet until your post. Of course, I had to go check it out, and I must say I’m completely overwhelmed. There’s a LOT of information there, even on the free side. And I’m definitely of the camp that wants all of my info in one place: I’m working in-between baby-naps and playtimes, and 1/4 - 1/2 hr spent searching for something, when I could be learning something, is something I can’t really afford.
I don’t know how long it will be before I could ever afford something that costs $800/month, but you can be darned sure I’ll be reading terms of use pages with a magnifying glass, even on things that cost much less. (Sometimes I just skim those things because I’m in a hurry to get to the good stuff; I’ll be more careful now. It’s a good lesson, and I’m glad to learn it from you, rather than the hard way.)
Yes, yes, yes!
You are right on the money, Naomi. Don’t back off the main point of all this — a service offering of any kind shouldn’t leave it up to the customer to discover the fine print after the sale!
One of my favorite sales quotes is “people hate being sold to, but they love to buy.” The StomperNet style of sales pitch leaves people wary, even the excited ones, because of the very aggressive structure of the launch. They are lower key than some I’ve seen, but I’m still being heavily sold to.
It’s not about whether the service is good or bad. Even if it’s truly the best content in the history of the Internet, you are pointing out a flaw in their sales process. I’ve learned a good lesson. Thank you.
Oh yeah, one more thing.
Think about what this credit system does for your newly minted customer.
- You created scarcity (premium content) and a way to remove it (all this is yours for $800 per month)
- You immediately re-introduce scarcity (customer only has 375 credits per month — better use them wisely!)
Why do that? Who benefits from having your customer harbour this feeling of scarcity all the time? Why are edgy customers better than content customers?
It doesn’t matter whether it’s possible to use all the credits in a month — why put that seed of doubt in your customer’s mind?
Tony, I stand by everything I said.
Everything.
I feel no shame whatsoever. Have fun with your job.
Well, Michael, I’m sorry, but I think you are doing these kids a disservice. They respect your opinion and you are leading them wrong. I hope they wake up soon and see that.
And yes, I certainly do have fun with my “job” :-)
@tei: I’m sorry it came across that way. I was simply reacting to Michael’s coment that anyone who doesn’t think Stompernet is fantacabulous doesn’t know what the fuck they are talking about.
I DO know what I’m talking about. Nothing was meant as a personal attack. I simply meant that many of the people singing the praises of this really aren’t qualified to do so.
I’m quite sure that time will show that I am correct. We’ll see how ecstatic everyone is a year from now, shall we?
*meanders onto the scene and observes the situation*
@ Michael, Tony, and Jamie - The three of you griping together actually makes the comment section very unpleasant for everyone else to read and visit.
Please. Stop it.
Michael, I love you to death but you’re acting like the lion defending a kitten when there’s no need. You’re as bad as Tony. Take the high road and quit sniping ack.
Jamie, I hope you emailed Tony before hitting the “block” button, because that’s integrity. Address it personally. If there’s no hope, then do what you have to.
Tony, I respect your views and understand them. I agree with some of them. But making people feel stupid in public and name-calling isn’t the way to be heard.
I don’t care what you three people think of each other, but take it off the fucking blog, okay? Because it’s upsetting to everyone around you.
Email each other, call, work out your issues. Tony isn’t a bad man, Michael isn’t an impulsive hater and Jamie isn’t a trigger happy Canadian. (Do we even have those?)
Onwards.
@ Naomi - It’s always written somewhere, because these guys like to cover their ass. “You MAY receive 300 videos” - not “you will” and “You COULD experience” - not “you will.”
Writing tacky-ass sales copy for places like these is what I do from time to time. It’s a game to put up a solid page of web content and see how many holes you can create beneath the veil the public sees.
@ Alisha Navarro - Whether the program is worth $800 or not according to Naomi is irrelevant, unless you have no job, no time and nothing to do. There is too much information to absorb in that course and the average person will never get back their investment because of that reason.
What I’d like to see is a freaking text-based (NOT video. God I fucking HATE videos. Why didn’t they release a book?) that goes through the “do this. Now do this. Do this. That. This. Okay done, thank you, good job.” I don’t have time for anything else, and I don’t have $800 a month to tinker with my SEO. I want the fast, dirty, cheap version.
James, I consider myself slapped, and probably needed it. My apologies to all if my comments here made it unpleasant for everyone else to hang out.
Tony is right, a year will reveal a lot. No pressure or anything, Naomi.
James, I’m really not intending for anyone to feel stupid. But each and every one of us can BE stupid from time to time, and that’s what I think is going on here. Trust me, I know stupid: being stupid cost me a hundred grand once. I’d rather have been $800/mo stupid than that :-)
I think you know this is a bad idea. If you think of Naomi as a friend, you should help her see through this nonsense.
But I’ll apologize again: nobody is “stupid”. Michael isn’t a “dumbass” even if I thought his comment was. I dunno what other pejoratives I might have used, but I’d like to give them a blanket sugar-coating and remind everyone that I’m a sarcastic, grumpy s.o.b. but my intentions are good: I think this is an utter waste of money and I HATE seeing good people sucked into it.
And yeah, videos bite. Too slow.. and I’ll bet there’s a lot of redundancy also.
@James “Why didn’t they release a book?”
A little hard to get $800/mo for a book :-)
Speaking of books, I didn’t buy Darren Rowse’s http://probloggerbook.com/ book, but that’s probably at least 20% of what these videos cover. Just a guess, of course - not meant to be controversial or to spark a “that wouldn’t touch on five percent!” arguments :-)
I did hear that the Problogger book really was useful - and I do like things that are portable so that I’m not always chained to a computer. It’s nice to read a paper book, y’know?
I also heard that the more advanced net users (and I mean true probloggers like myself) would probably get less out of the book - they already know much of what’s covered.
I think Darren also doesn’t cover SEO well at all. I’ve been reading him for years and I know that I’m not learning enough in that area. He’s a “make money online” guy.
Which we all know, comes down to time, effort and dedication ;)
(Thank you to you and Michael.)
Well, very honestly with SEO there isn’t that much to learn unless you want to get into the “dark hat” areas. Most of us don’t want to, which means we’re are left with the basics: write good content and lots of it and make it easy for Google to understand it.
That’s all I have ever done and I’m high up on the first page of results for every search that I want to be. No black magic involved, no keyword stuffing, no cloaking, no artificial linking, no link sculpting, nothing but the basics. That’s all you really need to know.
“That’s all you really need to know”
About SEO. NOT, I repeat NOT about SEM.
@ Tony - That’s incorrect, actually. There is a lot of the construction of sites and coding that affects SEO in a major way. Yes, good content, relevant content and keywords are crucial, but a page that has no meta data, a poor keyword-rich meta on pages or that doesn’t display secondary pages in search returns… that hurts. Validation errors on sites, missing links, broken links… that hurts too.
This is what most people miss out on.
I got an advanced copy of the book at SOBCon 08 and read it on the plane during the trip home. It is well-written and thorough, but definitely it’s a beginner’s book. There was something really neat about seeing all that stuff in the form of a book and I enjoyed it. It did really well on DeadTree platform 1.0. It would make a great gift to friends or family who are still not sure about this whole blogging thing.
Side note: since Chris Garrett was co-author of the book and we hung out at SOBCon, I asked him to sign my copy. He wrote: “You don’t need this book.” But I do need it. We all need it. Rather, what we need is to consider what it means that such a book has been published. It makes me feel like possibilities abound.
So now my burning questions is, “IS there a kick-ass SEO book put out by *quality* people that we *know*?”
If you didn’t catch the meaning, that means don’t tell me JoeBaloney from ScrewYouBlind.com has a great book and you recommend it 250% because you get major affiliate payout.
I want a name that I can nod and say, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that guy.”
@James - Probably SEOBook by Aaron Wall is the most well-known.
Well, James, I’m going to both agree and disagree.
Validation is important - you’ve certainly seen me carping at web design places whose own pages won’t validate. But honestly: it’s not THAT important for SEO. I only got on the strict validation bandwagon a few years ago and my pages were top hits in search long before - when they were still full of broken HTML.
I can say the same thing about metadata - it doesn’t mean that much. It’s something that might help Google et al. understand what your pages are about, but well written content usually does that anyway.
Broken links? Well, again, that’s just basic helping the search engines grok your site. Anchor text is important, but it’s pretty obvious: if I’m going to point to a page of mine, it would be pretty silly to have the anchor be “Click Here” or anything else unrelated to the subject.
Most of the SEO stuff I’ve seen is about trying to game the system - getting search engines to think your pathetic little site should get more attention than it really deserves. On the other hand, you can just produce authoritative and useful content and the search engines will figure that out pretty easily. You can do that and screw up everything the so called SEO pro’s talk about and still do just fine. Ninety-nine percent of websites need to worry about content far, far more than anything else.
Just standing on the sidelines to watch the death match turn into a grown-up discussion (thanks for mediating that James) has been really instructive. Because higher debate is a trade of experience and opinion and it can be an education on its own.
Very cool that IttyBiz continues to advance the bigger issues with a place to talk like this. Thanks for keeping it positive and educational.
@ Tony - Oh, for sure! There are so many shitty websites out there that they should focus on better content first and foremost. Hands down, yessir.
But say they have that? They may have a PR 2. Or 3. Or 4. Then what? Their traffic sucks… not bad, no, but could be better… or maybe they’re not getting enough search engine traffic and depend more on other people linking to them… SEO can help, definitely.
Also, if these people did SEO right from the very start, that’s one thing less they have to worry about. Build a site properly with good structure for the best possible results.
And hire a writer to populate it (like Men with Pens, the very best in the online writing world!). ;)
@ Girl - I have to admit, the name GirlPie always brings up rather graphic thoughts that lean towards the porno version of pie. Not that my mind thinks that way and I really could do without the visual image… but might be something to think about ;)
As for my mediation talents, as Naomi once pointed out, my tendency is to zig when others zag and to zag when they’re all zigging. Part of my Canadian charm.
Which is now making me think of beavers. I’m doomed.
@ Michael - Was actually checking out SEObook earlier this week, but it doesn’t seem to be a book but rather another damned training program. Unless I’m looking at the page wrong…?
@James - Oh… that’s right. Sorry, I had forgotten they had transmogrified. Gee, I wonder if somebody was in Teaching Sells? I might have some stuff I can send you.
Well, James, we’re going to have to disagree. I don’t want to beat a horse forever.
I have little respect for SEO as a profession. I suppose there are people helpless and hopeless enough to need guidance, but I doubt you are one of them. I wouldn’t advise you wasting much money searching to improve your SEO skills; I suspect you won’t gain much for your money. SEM is an entirely different story, but SEO is mostly common sense and the very few things you need to know are readily available free or at very low cost.
Speaking of that, I do recommend Avinash Kaushik ’s book: http://aplawrence.com/Books/web-analytics.html and his website, http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/
Not for beginners, but I think you and some of the other readers here might enjoy it.
I wish SEOmoz would distill their stuff and do a book. They are brilliant, but I’m a book person as well. I want to read in bed, dogear, mark things up, etc. I do too much screen reading as it is.
No recommendation here. I’ve tried a few books but they’re too elementary, so I read SEO by the SEA’s blog (geeky) and SEOmoz’s (easy to understand and high-level).
My impression is that beyond the basics, the answers are fast-moving fish. High-level SEO thought might be outdated before you can say “Jeff Bezos.”
Terrible, horribly incomplete metaphor there. Ugh. :)
@kelly
I dunno about “outlawed” but possibly pointless.
Search engines want to produce honest results - the best matches for the search. They are constantly improving toward that end. Five years ago you could play games that will net you nothing today. Today, most gaming won’t get you much, and Google et al. are working hard to close all those gaps.
SEOMoz is good (and well regarded), if SEOBook has gone completely to a membership model.
SEOmoz does have a membership site (not new—they always have), if you want to dig in deep, but their blog is still free and I get everything I’d want out of it. Their Whiteboard Fridays (short, pithy vodcasts) alone will teach you everything you really need. Their community is really active, too.
Not so important to their information, but everyone there is really good people.
But what I really wish is, I wish I’d said “really” one more time in that comment. Really.
I second what Kelly says about SEOMoz. James hates video, Kelly. He won’t be very tempted by that. ;-)
Ha, yes, I think I heard that. Me, too, normally. Walk around with it and all that.
No, Rand’s vids are short-short-short and have the whiteboard and often some printed stuff too. You don’t need them written down, because you can really take away the lessons in your head with only a loss of 5 minutes or less.
I have trouble handling a 20 second video clip - ask Michael lol; I’m always giving him grief when he puts one up.
Naomi, I love a woman who is able to tell me how she really feels and bare no guilt…you go for it girl…been there done that..(fine print) and it’s exasperating.
Great post, great comments.
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call your gram
http://www.grammology.com
[...] 23rd 2008 4:04pm [-] From: ittybiz.com [...]
[...] are not immune to getting hooked by marketing crooks and liars. (Read the Itty Biz post 7 Home Business Lessons From StomperNet for an in depth explanation from a web savvy business owner who got “caught up” in the [...]