2012 | Finch Sells

How to Learn by Osmosis: The Traits of a Successful Affiliate

Nov 20 2012

There are many blogs, forums and ebooks where you can learn the intricacies of online marketing. Some are great, some are poor, but nearly all are inferior to the process of learning by osmosis.

Osmosis is the art of unconscious learning. It is where we stop studying materials, and start absorbing them.

1) Park balls on knowledge 2) … 3) Profit $$$

Learning the Facts vs. Learning the Meaning

Imagine two kids go in to a lecture. One has a stack of notepads and pens. The other has his hands in his pockets. We’ll call them Kid Prepared and Kid Unprepared.

As the lecture begins, Kid Prepared starts scribbling notes. His hand whirrs furiously across the page, siphoning sound bytes and trying to record every last tidbit for future consumption.

In the next seat, Kid Unprepared stares blankly, soaking up the information and searching for its meaning.

Who do you think is more likely to be successful?

The plague of academia suggests that it will be Kid Prepared; the perennial note-taker, he who responds so intently that no fact is left behind. He is the kid that breezes through college, aces his degree, and should be changing the world.

Except in the real world, success goes to he who shuts the hell up and listens.

Learning by osmosis is all about listening. It is absorbing the world as a human sponge. It is how you apply meaning to what you see around you.

This innate talent for plucking the meaning out of a lecture, rather than the facts and figures, is how we develop intuition, which is the pulling force that separates successful entrepreneurs from bankrupt sob stories.

If you are an affiliate marketer, or if you do any kind of work online, learning by osmosis is especially important.

I believe many affiliates are trapped in the superficial mindset of Kid Prepared. They’ve read all the books, blogs and forums, but their ability to translate those principles in to a tangible business plan is still highly flawed.

They know what to do, they just don’t know how to do it. Their intuition is lacking.

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
– Oscar Wilde

That was 122 years ago.

God only knows what Oscar Wilde would make of the Internet. There has never been such an overflow of information at our fingertips – and most of it is useless.

Here are three strategies that are great for unconscious learning. They share a common trait, and that is to tear you away from your comfort zone.

Joint Venture with the smart and passionate

When you are running more online businesses than you can keep a tally on, promoting dozens of products, in a handful of different verticals, there is no way in hell that you can retain as much information as somebody who has specialised expertise in a single market.

The best you can hope for is an exceedingly good business partner who is willing to share the bacon.

My view is that every affiliate should be joint venturing, but only with the right people.

We are primarily monetization experts who know how to drive traffic. Our weakness is usually the product. We just don’t understand what we are promoting properly, and the Internet plus its millions of consumers suffers for it.

When I joint venture, I do so with individuals who are passionate in the market we are targeting – much more passionate than myself. Not only is their spirit contagious, but it pays to have somebody who is in touch with the grassroots of that market.

The secret to creating awesome affiliate websites is not rocket science. It’s having your ears pinned to the ground.

When you work with somebody who knows the market conditions, or is the market, you can learn a hell of a lot by shutting up and taking stock.

“If you always hire people who are smaller than you, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you, we shall become a company of giants.”
– David Ogilvy

I believe this same principle applies to personal growth, career advancement and just about any item in a respectable Bucket List.

Work with people who know more than you, befriend people who are happier than you.

If nothing else, I’m sure your Facebook feed could do with the detox.

Bounce off a small mastermind group

Small mastermind groups are brilliant for those who work on their own. I’ve noticed a booming trend of Skype groups in the affiliate space.

If you can gather 4 or 5 ambitious minds, meld them to a routine, and share everything that is learned – the task of conquering affiliate marketing is suddenly a team effort.

Not only can you bounce creative ideas off your partners, but they will hold you accountable when you’ve spunked the entire day playing Civilization V with no new ads to show for your efforts.

Ahem.

Nobody wants to be the weak link in a mastermind group.

Get your mind out of the basement

What are you learning from your work environment?

If you work at home, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to unconscious learning is the home comfort that you are surrounded by. A stale non-challenging work environment is a catalyst for stale, unambitious ideas.

If you really want to take your business to the next level, you should first try taking it out of your mother’s basement. In your head – and probably in the literal sense, too.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many benefits to working from home:

No commuting in the winter cold
No boss peering over your shoulder
No colleagues to steal your milk from the fridge
No shirt and tie, more slippers and slacks

But there is one major disadvantage:

Who – and what – are you going to learn from?

The whole principle of learning by osmosis, of unconscious learning in general, is that we absorb the world around us. If your work revolves around a dank, stench-filled office that hasn’t been scrubbed since 2007, then that is not a particularly healthy world to absorb.

I believe business growth is stunted by the lifestyle that most Internet Marketers choose to adopt. It’s not that we don’t have the opportunities to learn from behind a screen, it’s that we fail to grasp them.

We wrap ourselves in home comforts while the truly great achievers are contorting their minds with new and uncomfortable challenges.

I can’t stress this advice firmly enough: network, network and network some more.

There is a sad belief that if we rock up to a marketing conference and fail to uncover a golden nugget, a brilliant traffic source or a hot new offer, the experience has been a giant failure. While I can understand the need for inspiration in these challenging times, the strongest incentive to network is the effect of being around equally ambitious minds – as well as the social interaction.

Your networking does not have to hinge on strictly marketing conferences.

Talented entrepreneurs are aware that some of the best ideas you will ever have are the result of ‘cross-pollination’ from meeting diverse and unusual characters a world apart from your usual comfort zone.

I often say that you can tell a lot about a man by his five closest friends, and you can tell a lot about his career by his five closest advisors. If we are the product of those combined forces, it makes sense to choose them wisely.

There’s a simple solution.

Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by your comfort zone. Snap out of it.

We, more than anybody, are prone to falling back on home comforts when we should be gasping to learn more. If you want to unleash the full effect of learning by osmosis, the good news is that you already are.

You just need to change the source.

Recommended This Week:

After much writing, re-writing, editing, head banging and more writing, the final volume of Premium Posts is complete and ready to set sail. It’s called The Empire Strategy and it will be released later this week. Drop your email in the list below for a chance to get it before everybody else (plus the free 50 page Survival Kit!)

Banners Broker Scam – Don’t Let It Affect You

Oct 21 2012

572

UPDATE DECEMBER 20th – I have posted a brand new update on the Banners Broker Scam. Read this new article for a more complete breakdown of the facts and evidence.

Banners Broker is one of the most popular MLM programs of recent times. It also happens to be one of the most sophisticated and bloodsucking ponzi schemes I have ever come across.

Banners Broker is based around an industry we know a lot about – online advertising.

Before I continue, let me point out the obvious. This post is not written for my usual readers.

If you’re expecting tips that can improve your ROI, or increase your conversions, this post will flop like a wet flannel. Guaranteed. But I do have a motive for writing it. Over the last few months I have seen some of my nearest and dearest plunge head first in to Banners Broker. And they are not the only ones.

The program is alleged to have attracted over 160,000 investors.

A large number of these investors will be left out of pocket when the scheme inevitably collapses.

What the Banners Broker Scam Claims to be

“A revolutionary way to earn revenue online.”

Are you prepared to have your mind blown?

Here is a video that describes the Banners Broker business model.

If, while listening, you begin to feel drowsy, or if the unmistakeable whiff of bullshit lodges itself up your nose, fear not. I have yet to speak to a single honest soul who could watch the whole 9 minutes and not come away feeling disorientated, mind-fucked, and a little bit uneasy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9NSXz2t9vM

Rule number one of any ponzi scheme: Do not give anybody the slightest hope of understanding your business model.

Update: The guy whose hilarious example I used to explain the Banners Broker business model has contacted me asking for his content to be removed on copyright grounds. Fair point. Well if he’s not happy with me quoting it here, I will link to it instead. Enjoy the read!

Yes, an advertising platform where not only are you the advertiser – but you’re the publisher too! You buy ad space on your own rented property. Then another advertiser buys space on it. Then magic happens. And somehow you come away with a 100% ROI.

As you would expect with any ponzi scheme, very few investors take the time to understand how this ad-pub nonsense works.

I guess it’s just as well Banners Broker simplifies the art of online advertising in to six coloured panels. They might as well have named them after the Teletubbies.

Buy panels… get paid?

Double your money by doing nothing, stupid! Let’s hear how this works…

As a quick example, if you bought the red package when you first joined banners broker, this would have included the yellow, purple, blue, green and red panels within your purchase.
Your purchase would have cost you $1225 (including first month admin fee).
The red panel takes the longest to mature out of these panels (5-6 months). So within that time you would have paid $15 x 5 = $90 in admin fees.
After a few weeks, the yellow panel would have paid out and you would have received $20. After that, the purple would have paid out for another $60. Then the blue after that with another $180. This is followed by the green with $540. Finally, the red is the last one to mature paying out $1620.
So all in all, your costs were $1225 + $90 admin fees = $1315
Your gross income over that time period was: $20 + $60 + $180 + $540 + $1620 = $2420
Your profit = $2420 – $1315 = $1105.
Source: The Banners Broker System

Don’t you see?

What we have here is the most remarkable online advertising loophole known to man.

While the rest of us mere affiliate marketing mortals have been investing thousands for a slender 25% ROI, Banners Broker users have been buying ‘impression panels’, waiting a few months, then banking the handsome rewards.

It makes you wonder what really goes on behind this advertising system. How are Banners Broker managing to double your money, as well as taking their own cut, in an industry which has never been more competitive?

The answer, of course, is that Banners Broker has nothing to do with online advertising. The talk of ‘impressions’, ‘inventory’ and even ‘banners’ is a complete and utter fraud. I’m not a man for conspiracy theories, but if this smokescreen hasn’t just reached out and slapped you in the titties, you need new glasses. There’s a very simple explanation for how users are able to double their money with Banners Broker – and that is by recruiting other investors. It’s a cash cycler. Simple as that.

I’ll show you the joke that is the Banners Broker advertising platform later in this post. But let’s take a look at who runs the Banners Broker ship. Who is in charge of the world’s most remarkable online advertising platform?

Who is Behind the Banners Broker Scam?

You’d think the men behind Banners Broker would have surfaced on TechCrunch by now, right?

An advertising network that ‘doubles your return’ even if you are one of 160,000 unskilled investors who knows nothing about advertising. I mean, wow, that’s a story. If I had discovered such a system, I’d be fighting off venture capitalists from day one. At the very least, you’d expect these guys to show their faces at a reputable advertising conference.

I asked a couple of reps if they’d heard of Banners Broker when I attended London Adtech. The answer I got – to be expected – was a “Say what?” Followed by lots of LOL when I explained their scam.

Banners Broker Scammers

Image source: Real Scam forum

This blog has a lot of readers in the advertising space. So, let’s see. Has anybody encountered the urchins above at a trade conference? They claim to be paying out over a million dollars per day to their ‘investors’. That’s a lot of banner impressions. You’d think somebody must have dealt with these people.

For a company aiming to topple Google in the future (LOL), I’d expect to be reading books on these wizards.

Evidently they have yet to crack the customer service nut. I dropped their support an email offering to spend $100,000 on their platform. You will hear nothing back. In the advertising business, especially in such uncertain times, $100,000 ad campaigns do not go unanswered. Unless what you are actually running is a Ponzi scheme.

But wait, who is this Rajiv Dixit? He is the Head of the Banners Broker Canadian HQ, but his name looks familiar.

Ahh yes, Rajiv Dixit. The same Rajiv Dixit of Ontario, Canada who co-ran the notorious ICF World Homes scam in 2009. He was shut down by the Competition Bureau.

Now ask yourself this.

Is it likely that since ICF got busted, Raj Dixit has grown some morals and uncovered a remarkable win-win business model in the online advertising industry (that blows Google out of the water)?
Or is it likely, as I somehow suspect, that Raj Dixit is still a scumbag? And that Banners Broker is his latest fraudulent enterprise?

Would You Trust Your Online Advertising to this Company?

You’d think that Banners Broker — a rapidly growing company paying out over a $1 Million per day — would have a pretty cosy office setup, right? I’d expect some bean bags, a gymnasium, maybe even a flash canteen serving only organic.

Wrong.

Here’s the Canadian ‘HQ’ of Banners Broker:

Banners broker scam HQ

Silicon Valley, move the fuck over. The big boys are in town. And they work… above an autoservice garage? Seems about right.

But remember guys. This is not a ponzi scheme!

Update: Since this post went live, Banners Broker have changed the official address on their website. It now points to a slightly more impressive building in Whitby. My guess? Probably a virtual office.

If we really want to be pedantic, we could reference the fact that ComScore has never heard of Banners Broker. Neither has a single advertising trade journal, or anybody at an ad conference who wasn’t cackling with laughter at the very thought of their preposterous claims.

Exposed: The Banners Broker Advertising System

Okay, enough of the anecdotal BS. The most damning evidence against Banners Broker is what happens when you actually log in to experiment with their system.

I was pretty inquisitive to explore the Banners Broker inventory. I am, after all, a hungry lion when it comes to new traffic sources. I like some Google, some Facebook, some Plentyoffish, some Pulse360.

Alas, the Banners Broker advertising platform is a damp, fraudulent squib.

It has two options for advertisers.

The ‘Choice’ Network – Pick the website you want to advertise on.
The ‘Blind’ Network – Choose your category (5 choices!) and hope for the best.

I tried both platforms, and here’s what I found…

The Choice Network

Advertisers who like to have full control over their placements may choose to run traffic through the Choice network. Simply pick the websites you want your banners to show on, upload the banner, and you’re good to go.

Considering how many ‘impression panels’ go sold every day, I was expecting the Banners broker inventory to stack up favourably to a respectable marketplace like, say, BuySellAds.

Yeah… not so much.

I first chose to run a financial campaign.

Here are the websites I could place my ads on:

The Choice Network

Five whole websites! You better be housing the world’s most highly trafficked financial websites or I’m going to get antsy.

Let’s take a look at website number one.

150Cash.com

Banners broker scam

150Cash has not been updated since April 2012. The posts are junk. There is not a single comment on the site.

Furthermore, there is not a single banner. Not good news for Banner Broker, being the broker and all, as they must currently be making $0 from this site.

As an advertiser, I hate to say it, but I will not be investing in this site.

Let’s see what other inventory the Banners Broker ‘Choice Network’ has available:

ForSaleorBail.com

The ponzi scheme in action

ForSaleorBail has also not been updated since April 2012. The posts are junk (all 7 of them in the space of 5 days). There is not a single comment on the site.

Oh, and the banners that Banners Broker are selling through this site? No takers. Despite it being just 1 out of a very small pool of 5 sites in their ‘financial portfolio’.

As an advertiser, I will not be investing in this site.

ProsperGo.com

Prosper Go?

ProsperGo… has not been updated since April 2012. The posts are junk, and there are only 3 of them. Not a single comment posted. And yet, Banners Broker expects reputable advertisers to buy space on this site?

Yep, you guessed it. I will not be investing in this site.

There’s a peculiar trend to the websites that Banners Broker wants you to advertise on.

They were all created, in a hurry, during April 2012.

It’s almost as if Banners Broker in a rush to add legitimacy to their pathetic advertising service, created these websites themselves.

Do you know what else is interesting about these websites?

They are all located on the same web server:

Laughable Banners broker

It’s laughable, really. Imagine if Google slapped together a bunch of shoddy two cent WordPress themes then asked for your money.

When I confronted the drones of Banners Broker over these glaring faults in their advertising system, I was met with a rather blunt excuse:

“It’s in Test Mode.”

It would be nice if they’d informed their paying advertisers who – to this day – can sign up and spend money on a system that is in ‘Test Mode’. Now that’s not very professional, is it?

Alas, let’s talk about the Banners Broker ‘Blind Network’. It’s the crown jewel that nobody can say is in ‘Test Mode’. With investors earning millions every day, you would expect a show-stopping ad platform. Unfortunately, that’s not what you are going to get.

The Blind Network

Ready to be blown away by the targeting features of the world’s most remarkable online advertising platform?

This is it:

Banners Broker Blind Network

Yep, seriously. That’s all there is to it.

The next page asks you to upload your banner, while kindly waiting 5 minutes because it won’t appear immediately. I’m not sure what happens in this time. Presumably it’s to give you the opportunity to reconsider. Instead of advertising on Banners Broker, maybe you would care to engage in the world’s longest facepalm?

Two things I noticed about the Blind Network:

Banners Broker has done away with CPM bidding. That was for the dinosaurs anyway, right? Instead it is fixed price bidding. You buy impressions. And hope to God that your banners land on the right pages. Pages are divided in to categories. This is your only targeting options, besides Country. But don’t worry. This is the same platform that is going to topple Google and double your money.
It doesn’t seem to serve any ads. After 3 days, I still haven’t managed to use my 1000 impressions. It’s not like I was targeting down to the keyword. This was a broad campaign aimed at every website in their ‘Business and Commerce’ category.

Of course, I don’t want to get hung up on the bleeding obvious.

One glance at the Banners Broker advertising platform and anybody who has collected even 30 seconds of experience with a real advertising platform will write it off for the garbage it truly is.

But that’s irrelevant. Ponzi schemes don’t need to sit on good advertising platforms. Just a big enough pile of steaming bullshit will suffice.

Why Banners Broker is Dying

Banners Broker has been going strong for a couple of years now.

I have no doubt that many investors have made a genuine profit from the scam. In fact, to this day, most of the experiences associated to Banners Broker have been positive.

One search on Google and you will find drone after drone after tireless drone. “I’ve been paid!“, “I just made my first 1K!“, “I make real money with Banners Broker“.

The beauty of Ponzi schemes is that for the majority of their existence, you have no reason to question how the system works. Or why it works. You just accept the fact that you’ve been paid, along with hundreds of others.

You reinvest and you reinvest until one day – BOOM!

Banners Broker doesn’t respond to your withdrawal requests anymore.

Raj Dixit has run off to his next scam. The money you invested has been shovelled away to an offshore account in Belize (seriously, that’s where they’re banking!). You will be lucky to see a single penny.

When will this Judgment Day arrive? The writing is on the wall. It will arrive very soon.

The Banners Broker ponzi spread across the Internet like wildfire through much of 2012, but it has been losing steam at an alarming rate.

The forum threads are dying, negative attention has been drawn to the business model, and the Banners Broker management are implementing a number of ‘damage limitation’ ploys to slow down the speed at which members can withdraw their cash.

This does not bode well in the run up to Christmas.

If history says anything about an online ponzi scheme, it’s that members are far more likely to be cashing out in the holiday season. Banners Broker cannot ‘feed’ its existing members. The cycle of new victims is no longer enough to feed the chain.

It’s impossible to say whether Banners Broker will make it beyond Christmas. But I would be incredibly surprised if it lasted through to spring. If you have been coaxed in to this program, get out while you can. You may still make a tidy profit.

Give up the dream that you are involved with a legitimate online business. Banners Broker is a ticking time bomb. And when it blows up in your face – which it will – you don’t want to be at the back of the queue with a lawsuit and a sore arsehole.

A lost investment may actually be the least of your worries.

I find it shocking to consider, but it seems that thousands of Banners Broker users have been persuaded to supply their passport scans as a form of verification. I can’t for the life of me find one good reason why any advertising company would need this information.

Don’t be surprised if you find your identity stolen several months from now.

I would certainly not be trusting my intimate details to a guy like Rajiv Dixit. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

It’s your choice.

The Psychology Behind the Banners Broker Scam

It’s all very well for me to write a 3000 word post ‘hating on Banners Broker’ (as I’m sure they’ll brand it). But there will always be another Banners Broker. There will always be another ponzi scheme using cunning and elaborate ploys to steal away with your life savings.

If you want to avoid these traps, the real change has to come from within.

Unless you are an millionaire, there is no online investment program that can provide a truly risk-free future without great skills on your part. Getting something for nothing just does not exist.

Ponzi schemes and fraudsters are adept at preying on two human flaws: greed and entitlement.

Greed: The idea that money grows on trees and you can have as much of it as you fancy.
Entitlement: The idea that making money requires no skill-set, no hard work, and no risk. In the real world, it requires all three.

But we’d love to believe otherwise…

Every good ponzi scheme capitalises on these flaws. You can stay protected by arming yourself against naivety.

Truly, if you want to become a millionaire, you have to give a million pounds of value back to the world. It does not happen on auto-pilot. There is only one ‘get rich quick’ ticket, and you can buy it in your local post office.

It’s called a lottery ticket.

When you separate yourself from the odds of fate handing you a winning Lottery ticket, you’ll get on with the real task of adding value to the world. I’m afraid you will be waiting for a long time if your business partner is Banners Broker.

Recommended This Week

Don’t join Banners Broker. It’s a scam.
Do subscribe to the Survival Kit below. It’s free, and it’s not a scam.

Change of Plans: I’m Moving to America

Oct 15 2012

By now, you are surely familiar with Finch’s twice-a-year, “I’m Moving to…” post.

I change plans faster than a badger in a honey maze. The latest twist should therefore come as no surprise.

Only a few months ago, I revealed that I was trading London for Bangkok (where I lived in 2010/11). Much has changed since then. For a start, I got engaged to an American girl.

Engagement raises a lot of ‘life questions’.

Questions such as:

Should I houseban Pinterest until the vows are exchanged?
Does she really think a herd of pink unicorns with chandeliers hanging from their bollocks are going to be available for catering?
Will I escape this wedding alive?
Holy shit, where are we going to live?

After much consultation, we were able to answer one of those questions.

~~Unfortunately, it did not bode well for a unicorn payday…~~

Our conclusion: Living in America sounds pretty cosy.

New York City: The daddy of the concrete jungles.

My Fascination with America

I fell in love with New York City when I visited in May. There’s something about Manhattan that captures your imagination.

If you are Felix Baumgartner, standing on the precipice, about to dive balls-deep in to the abyss, you would not be surprised – no, you would expect – gravity to tug you straight in to the heart of The Big Apple. It is a city that feels like the center of the universe.

And to many New Yorkers, that’s exactly what it is.

Even the dude selling hot dogs out of a broken cart gets to experience that rare sensation of the world revolving around him; tumbling skyscrapers in every direction, the buzz of something happening.

You come away from NYC feeling small, humble and a trifle shagged in the wallet. Victim of the tipping shakedown, aka “I’ve just wiped my arse using some of your toilet paper. Here’s ten bucks. Please — Don’t hustle me! I appreciate the service!”

While I won’t be moving to New York City straight away (We’ll be crash landing in the Midwest to build a house, if all goes to plan), I do want to make myself familiar with the bits of America that I haven’t already visited.

And that’s a good thing.

Besides New York, I have seen an abundance of corn and some Amish settlements. There has to be a middle ground, and I intend to find it.

Where should I visit?

Places on my To Visit list, in no particular order:

San Francisco
Chicago
Las Vegas
Jersey Shore (I’m interested to see if we’re the same species)
Hollywood
Miami
Yellowstone Park
Hawaii

Yep, you could say my list resembles the tourist’s guide to ‘playing it safe like an unadventurous motherfucker‘. I’ve seen one too many motel slasherfest B-movies to chance my arm.

If you have any suggestions of awesome places to visit in America, hit me with them.

I’ll be taking a trip to Thailand next month. I’m hoping it suppresses my appetite for beach cocktails and chilis over breakfast. Christ knows, if I don’t get my hands on some Mango Sticky Rice soon, there’s no telling how many kittens will perish.

See you in another six months for news on my immigration to China.