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"Make over half a million dollars every 4 to 5 months from your home for
an investment of only $25 U.S. Dollars one time expense!"
You may have received emails like these from people who claim to have made it big on
the Internet. Lured by these "testimonials and fantastic promises," you then begin to look at
how you can earn the same staggering amounts and retire in your own tropical
island.
We were
no exception. In 1999, a few months before PowerHomebiz.com was launched, we received
a classy invitation brochure from a company called Galaxy Mall. It was an invitation to a
2-hour free seminar on "Learning How to Make Millions in the Internet." Printed on
the card was a guaranteed promise that if we attend the seminar, we will learn all there is know in
Internet Marketing.
That invitation couldn't be so timely. It came at a
perfect time. We were just at the conceptualization stage for PowerHomebiz.com
and we needed to know everything on how to market on the Internet.
And here comes this big company, projecting the image that they have perfected the art of making
money on the Internet, who were willing to share their expertise -- for FREE. Great timing!
The seminar, however, was nothing but an
introduction
to another seminar, this time requiring an enrolment
fee of $45.00. It was to be a full-day seminar, inclusive of free lunch.
Galaxy Mall reasoned that they want to make sure that they will be teaching
only those who are really
worth teaching; and would not waste their time and effort in
sharing that valuable expertise to the uninterested.
They dangled a few carrots, and made everyone thirst for more! It was not a
surprise to see almost everyone in that 100 capacity
ballroom signing up for the one-day $45 seminar (us included). As agreed with my partner, we will
simply consider it as a business lunch -- not as a seminar. Hence, we decided
to attend the Galaxy Mall seminar held in one of the posh hotels in our area.
The Galaxy Mall seminars, which are conducted in various U.S. cities
throughout the year, was recently the subject of the news magazine program
DateLine NBC. The story investigated Galaxy Mall's easy promises of an online
business, and how it fails to live up to this promise. The story of the
seminar, and the failed results of its teachings can be found
at http://www.msnbc.com/news/684778.asp?cp1=1#BODY.
Aside from the personal or business web site being sold by Galaxy Mall, the
Dateline story
missed to monitor another approach used by this company. They call it
"joint venture," which is so much like the MLM approach. Here is how it was presented:
You are offered to buy a web site slot (supposedly for your own store) at
the Galaxy Mall. This cost something like $1,900 excluding, web hosting and
several other fees. Even revising your web site later on requires a fee. In
cases where you need some assistance with their customer support people, there was a per hour fee. Summarily, the cost
would be somewhere between $2,500 to $4,000 to maintain that web site. The
cost increases by about $3,000 if you are going to get a merchant account
through them. The lady featured in the Dateline story paid a total of $7,000
to have a store up and running at Galaxy Mall.
During the seminar, however, the participants are encouraged not only to
buy one, but TWO or THREE slots. You do not have to build all the 3 web sites; instead you go and peddle those slots at
your own price. They encourage you to sell it to another unsuspecting
consumer, even at double the price! If you do not want to create your own web
site, you can just go ahead and sell all your three slots to somebody else -
and maybe even earn a percentage of the profits of your "joint
venture" arrangements.
The speakers were lively and their enthusiasm was infectious.
Testimonials were presented one after the other (Dateline reported that one
of those "success stories" is the daughter of the company's
president -- how's that for objectivity!).
Everyone was being "brainwashed" that the demand for slots at
the Galaxy Mall was so tremendous. People were taking out their checks and
paying down payments of up to $3,000 that very same day. We expected that they
still made a "killing" a week after the seminar. After all, who
could resist the marketing line, "Who knows, tomorrow, you
wake up with people lining up to buy your slot. If you have
several on hand, you are made." Of course, we did not join in the fray.
We have long years of experience with MLM
companies of different types and this new approach is one for the books. In
fact, we clandestinely went around the ballroom during breaks and tried to
change other people's perception on the presentation.
However, we observed
that most of the participants -- all newbies, many of whom doesn't
really understand what the Internet is -- wanted to give it a "try".
After all, they were guaranteed that they will earn big bucks. Although we
doubt if these people really did earn their millions. Many people have already
complained to the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau
about the marketing claims of Galaxy Mall. Those who have remained silent may
simply have charged their investment to "learning experience."
When you receive an offer from Galaxy Mall or any similar companies, the
first thing you need to do is to check the offer, particularly if huge sums of
money are involved. Visit the company's
web site and study how they operate. For an Internet mall like Galaxy, you may
contact some of the stores that they have on their web site, to determine whether they are indeed making the
kind of money that were promised to them. And most of all, don't immediately
open your checkbook for promises that they may not keep. Sleep on the proposal
first (after all, even Galaxy Mall gives you a week to decide). (This is
also called, "soft-selling").
The seminars are fun, however. You will gain new acquaintances and new
friends. You get to learn some new marketing games which you can use in your
own activities. Good food, too. But keep the expense at $45.00.
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