Angel Investor Results

[ari_ari]

tldr; Someone is trying to pimp an affiliate link. ASM sells a "dream" and an "opportunity" and you can learn everything you need by either doing or by googling or by buying far cheaper, albeit less slicker, courses. It itself is great marketing and you should watch and learn from their execution, their price points, their production values, and their army of affiliates which gives them scale and magnitude.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy it, and I'll tell you why:
If you strongly believed in it, then you would post a link without your bonuses. Posting an affiliate link with a commission potential of four figures = "Something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark".
In terms of getting things to FBA from china, let me save everyone $4k in 6 easy steps:

1. Buy a UPC - Vigilante mentions how, or just use google. Cost $10.
2. Have your graphics designer incorporate the UPC into your packaging design. Cost $50-200.
3. Make sure your supplier in China users your design. My cost was $0.
4. Go into FBA and select the option that allows for commingled inventory. Since you are selling your own private label product, this is not a big deal.
5. Create a new shipment to Amazon. They will provide you with the address of the fulfillment center.
6. Have your supplier ship to the distribution center, providing them with links to Amazon packing instructions. They will also need to add the shipping manifest and labels provided by Amazon. Again, my cost was $0 on this.

BTW - do you know why I know this? Before I Realized that I could not be working on 30 projects at once, I did exactly this. I did it because I got so many emails about ASM and thought it was ridiculous. So I put a lot less $$ down to test.

Anyway, let me continue to save everyone $4k. Here's how you market an Amazon listing:
1. The same way you market any other product or service. ASM specifically will talk about SEO and FB. If you are a non competitive keyword you can rank the page itself with some easy black hat seo techniques, if competitive it will be more difficult and you will have a lot more success with parasite pages.

Here's how you determine if something is worth selling:
1. Go into Amazon, drill down into categories and sort by top sellers. You can also use the AZON software ( I need to find a link) that does this automagically for you.

There is a great course called Proven Amazon Course by a guy named Jim Cockrum that covers pretty much all this, I think it's $99, so about 1/40th of the price.

With $4000 you can pretty much start an online business in almost any vertical. Why would you spend it on Gurus? This stuff is antithetical to everything MJ espouses.

The only reason I posted anything about asm here was because someone asked about the results from the angel investors.

Like any product, some people will succeed, some people won't do a darn thing with it... even if it is given to you for free... even if they pay $4k for a course. The angel investor results prove this.

Sure anyone can buy products on Alibaba then slap them up on Amazon to sell them. You don't need a course to do that. There is plenty of free advice here and other places. If you don't have much money to get started, you can roll the dice to see if it works.

zen******* and I agree that it is worth paying for information to learn how to know which products have the highest chance of succeeding, the best way to get them from China to FBA, and how to market them to get maximum sales results both initially and ongoing. This also reduces your learning curve

Some are opposed to paying for any course and prefer to learn things the hard way even it takes twice as long and you lose money along the way.

It is against the TOS for members to review each other's products.

MARS, I would not recommend borrowing the money for the course. It would be better for you to get started with some wholesale real estate deals so you can make some money. ASM will probably be available again next year. Even with a wholesale business, you will learn a lot about negotiating which will help with any other businesses you start.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[mars]

Thank you all for this. Ari any sales #s to show you where successful doing it your own way. What where you averaging a month in sales. I have a pretty good concepts of how this works from reading this forum and various other ones, but what I like about ASM is the spin on private labeling and FBA. I haven't heard the best reviews about PAC.

I know this goes against what MJ teaches, but I've read many of times to not be afraid to pay for training.

 

[DeletedUser2]

I have paid alot of money for training over the years.

I don't follow a GURU model, but I like hard information short cutting my path.

saying that its BS is limited thinking, and a narrow vision. perhaps it does not work for you.

I have paid for Real estate training, that cut years off my learning curve, spend 10K made millions.
I have paid for Internet stuff that worked well also, paid a consultant 3K make 25K a month...

My Real Fav is paying the experts directly, and have them do the work. (pay someone 50K a month, have them make us 500K a month.... yep...)

I like to pay for specific information. ASM, from our experience, I was able to buy, give it to one of our employees, and boom she is generating 35K a month it. was that good math? uh, yes.

so while I respect your rant on there are other ways to do it. the way some of us big boys do it, is pay for expertise and go alot faster.

part of what makes it useful, is I know what to do with information once I get it. most people are just floundering wondering IF it will work. I just assume it will once I get my hands on it, and then I adjust. all courses and learning, are just a leap off point for me. the rest I already know to do.

this thread is making me think that We should extend our ASM model a bit farther and maybe put together a team of people were we can hold them accountable and use them as our own investment pool, and accountability project....

perhaps another guppy tank? have my ASM team do it?

wont be for free, but if there is interest then I may just put it together...
no need to buy ASM at that point. because you would have a direct line to the people doing it....

meh, we will see. if people are interested. and I get enough PM's ya, Ill put together something.

Z

 

[ari_ari]

Zen
I have spent a small fortune on training and value it tremendously. I have no problem dropping $500 an hour to the right people, and no problem paying 5 or 10k to meet the right people. I've done it and will do it again. I have gone out of my way geographically and comfort wise to meet billionaires and learn from them.

I posit that ASM is a biz opp. The product is not amazon but the dream.. It allegedly started out as a wso so there you go.

I think it's great that you buy it for people as a training tool. But I think for someone with no or little capital it's a money loser. Do they teach you about optimizing for a9? Not really. The tricks to manipulating amazon search? No.

Any "opportunity" launch that relies on false scarcity is 100% dream selling, not skill selling.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DeletedUser2]

I posit that ASM is a biz opp. The product is not amazon but the dream.. It allegedly started out as a wso so there you go.

ill agree they are surrounding it with slick marketing.
the information on the inside was good enough to work well for my team. now they also had me carving away the BS, and the fluff, and said. DO steps 3-9 and repeat. instead of all the other fluffy stuff.

but we had to buy the fluffy stuff to to get to the core course. If I had asked my team member, to go figure it out. would have have spent months paying her to learn. here i shortened that timeline (and the costs)

and frankly those that don't have the money, need to do something to scrape together a couple grand.

could it be learned for 99 bucks? yep.
could it be learned for free? yep, all the info is out there. but is difficult for most people to find the data, and then determine what is useful, what is not etc.

(that's more a lack of a learning strategy than anything else, Piss poor teaching in schools, but that's another rant.)


Z

 

[mattspaeth]

New here, first post. Just finished reading MJ's book.

I am contemplating buying ASM on this launch. I have been watching the launch videos and I have a friend that took the course and he recommends it. I didn't get sales numbers from him, but he says he's doing well.

It seems to me like the marketing of this course rides the border of MJ's barriers to entry principle. And that's why I am wary of it. But I guess they just spin it that way and it actually does take a good amount of process to get the business going.

I can afford the $4K and have bought many courses in the past that have given me value. There is a lot to be said for having all the information presented in one place because you might learn something that was not on your radar.

I get so turned off by cheesy marketing though and these guys are full of it. For my tastes, they could turn it down and I would have more trust in it. If my friend didn't recommend it I would have been turned off long ago.

What's their refund policy?

I'm going to scope out what I can find for free on these forums. If anyone has any other resources (books, blogs, courses, links) to share on this topic I would love to see them.

 

[CashFlowDepot]

I agree with zen******* - sure you can figure it out on your own. Maybe not as good as the training but good enough to make money selling products on Amazon.

Ari Ari, it has nothing to do with manipulating Amazon. (not that you could manipulate the largest online retailer in the world).

There is a 30 day money back guarantee

Besides the training, I think the biggest value is networking/access to all the other people who are actually doing the business and who are very successful.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[mattspaeth]

Thanks CashFlowDepot for your quick response. If it makes me more money and faster, then it is a no brainer for me.

I can see how networking with other successful people in this model would be great motivation.

One of my businesses (I now know I need monogamy!) is doing web development and graphic design and even though I charge a great rate, it's hard work to pull in $6k a month from that business. Screw deadlines and picky clients, this sounds like where it's at.

 

[ari_ari]

Ari Ari, it has nothing to do with manipulating Amazon. (not that you could manipulate the largest online retailer in the world).

If there is a search engine, it can be manipulated. If there is one thing I am certain online, is that any search engine can be gamed/manipulated to produce desired results. And if what purports to be the best training out there is not teaching you how to manipulate a9 and understand AMZN ranking factors, then what are you paying for?

 

[mattspaeth]

From their launch videos, it seems like they get into optimizing for improve results in Amazon's search engine. I see this as more akin to white hat SEO tactics (optimizing) than black hat SEO (manipulation/gaming).

Black hat never gets you lasting results because you are always one update away from losing all of your work. Even though Amazon is huge, they are not dealing with nearly the volume of Google. Their product listings are also uniform and internal so they can keep a tighter system.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[randomnumber314]

Interesting thread. Sounds like a disagreement on philosophy mostly. Analogies:

Some people spend $50k on a college degree, get a job, learn a trade, go into business for themselves in their thirties/forties.

Some people spend $5k on trade school, open a business in their twenties.

Seems like you just have to decide whether you want to spend years learning for yourself at a higher cost, or get the niche expertise up front. I know @zen******* prefers the fast path.

 

[ari_ari]

Interesting thread. Sounds like a disagreement on philosophy mostly. Analogies:

Some people spend $50k on a college degree, get a job, learn a trade, go into business for themselves in their thirties/forties.

Some people spend $5k on trade school, open a business in their twenties.

Seems like you just have to decide whether you want to spend years learning for yourself at a higher cost, or get the niche expertise up front. I know @zen******* prefers the fast path.

Not Really. @zen******* and I are actually on the same page about many things.
The correct analogy would be do you pay for a University of Phoenix degree, which charges $35k because it knows you'll go and get a loan to pay for it, or a community college for $5k. Both teach you more or less the same thing, one just has a much better marketing machine.

 

[DeletedUser2]

The correct analogy would be do you pay for a University of Phoenix degree, which charges $35k because it knows you'll go and get a loan to pay for it, or a community college for $5k. Both teach you more or less the same thing, one just has a much better marketing machin

and both have an arbitrary speed limit that sucks. 4 yrs? really it will take you 4 yrs to learn? HELL NO...

Z

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ari_ari]

and both have an arbitrary speed limit that sucks. 4 yrs? really it will take you 4 yrs to learn? HELL NO...

Z

LOL I think the analogy got derailed quickly - I'm a proud drop out so you know you're preaching to the choir

 

[robotunicr0n]

Thanks for the level-headed discussion. I had been eyeing ASM for the last few months but have been fairly close minded about being able to raise capital. Perhaps this is because I tried to raise 50k+ to buy into Robert Kiyosaki's real estate stuff and failed miserably (didn't have the resources or tools that I have now thanks to MJ's book and forums). I wish I hadn't been out with bronchitis all weekend so I would have seen Z's offer for guppy tank. I would have jumped on it as fast as I could. That being said ASM is still an option but I am skeptical that I can raise the funds to buy in by midnight tonight.

There does seem to be indication that this will come around again next year, and maybe I need to wait that long to learn some basic capital raising procedures. I have been interested in wholesaling real estate for over a year but it had fallen off my radar so now I'm inclined to browse the forums here for information on the best way to do this. I'm in a big city I'm comfortable with now so I can easily drive around and find places.

Thanks as always for the kick in the pants @zen******* My INSIDERS membership has been paid back in multiples thanks to your and others participation on these forums.

 

[mars]

@robotunicr0n what do you need to raise the funds for? Is it the cost for the program or for expenses afterwards. I know the program is expensive. Do you have any savings or any way to get the money or are you working? I was going to sell a bunch of my personal stuff to get the money.

I was really on the fence if I should have gone the wholesale real estate route or ASM. I decided ASM would be a better ROI initially, but continue to study the wholesaling side. I'd look up the forum on bigger pockets and listen to the sean terry podcast. I found a lot of good information on there.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[robotunicr0n]

I actually can't afford the first payment at all cash wise right now... My paycheck got F*cked thanks to being sick...