WTF does Tai Lopez do?

[AllenCrawley]

@csalvato some people just don't get it and likely never will.

 

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[HAL]

To me he fits into the whole Internet Marketing world -- Fastlane, to me, is about creating real value.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

To me he fits into the whole Internet Marketing world -- Fastlane, to me, is about creating real value.

The video really testifies to the kinds of thought-rifts we deal with here with some people that come and go ... there's a difference between being a marketing douchebag with a crap product, and an entrepreneur that provides real value. We can do without the MMO / IM crowd who think "the product is irrelevant" (as preached in the video) -- the means doesn't justify the ends just because you line your pockets with money. A turd dipped in sugar is still a turd-- and that just makes you the turd selling it.

A must watch vid.

 

[Andy Black]

The video really testifies to the kinds of thought rifts we deal with here with some people that come and go ... there's a difference between being a marketing douchebag with a crap product, and an entrepreneur that provides real value. We can do without the MMO / IM crowd who think "the product is irrelevant" (as preached in the video) -- the means doesn't justify the ends just because you line your pockets with money. A turd dipped in sugar is still a turd-- and that just makes you the turd selling it.

A must watch vid.

Reminds me of one of my favourite sayings...

"You can't polish a turd!"

EDIT: Just watched the video. Damn, I didn't think they'd just come out and admit it like that. So many sheeple getting expertly fleeced every single day...

 

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[Fox]

Name and shame please - who exactly is he referring to in this video?
Is there a list of these guys and what sites they use.

 

[HAL]

Here's the SCAMWORLD article that goes along with the video if anyone is interested, worth a read:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/10/2...h-quick-schemes-mutate-into-an-online-monster

 

[AndrewNC]

I just saw a commercial with some attractive male on a beach in the Italian coastline. His shirt is unbuttoned, showing his six pack abs, with a beautiful woman all over him.

The commercial was for a brand of cologne.

I went out and bought that cologne, sprayed it on: And I'm still here sitting on the couch with cheeto stains all over my torn shirt with a beer belly...all by myself. The Italian girls never came.

The product didn't live up to it's promise.

But what if it did? What if the cologne was a magnet for six pack abs and beautiful Italian women. I'd say the strategic marketing did it's job, and I would thank the company afterwards.

What if Tai's videos are actually quality information? For arguments sake, let's say they are.

Is the "exaggerated" marketing justified if the product delivers?

The other side of the argument could say yes.

If the product can help people's lives and provide real value, the business owner could use the marketing (pictures or video of a mansion) to get people in the door who were previously unaware of the true benefits of the product.

 

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[Damage Inc.]

Is the "exaggerated" marketing justified if the product delivers?

Exaggerated or lying? He's not just saying something vague like "I've reached success and wealth with the following principles". If he's literally renting a mansion for a day and posting a video saying "Hey, this is my mansion that I own - here's how I got it." he's outright lying. If he's claiming to consult multiple companies for $1mm per year yet nobody can prove it or name one of the companies, that's suspect. If nobody in this thread can name one thing he's done to make a penny aside from selling info products and yet he claims that his wealth comes from every avenue except for selling info products, that's suspect. I think the fact that he motivates a few people does not give him the right to lie.

What if I sold blue popsicles with a picture and a description of a blue popsicle, but knowingly shipped all of my customers green popsicles. Even if 8 out 10 of my customers say "eh I like green anyway these are still good", I'm still lying and practicing bad business with bad ethics, no?

 

[lowtek]

off topic, but speaking of scams: my wife signed me up for a free real estate investment seminar, associated with the HGTV stars Tarek and Christina, of Flip or Flop fame. I kind of figured it was BS but went anyway. Of course it's a sales pitch for a $1997 weekend seminar (deeply discounted from $5997) where they train you in their super duper flipping system. Once you're trained, you get access to their network of lenders, who will lend short term funding to you at a rate of 1 - 3%. Once you flip the house, you get to keep 100% of the profits. Of course, the weekend seminar is another sales pitch where they try to get you to up your credit card limit to 50k and pay for their "mentoring" program, to you know, do the real deals.

It was a really slick pitch, about 15 people got up to plunk down their 2 grand. I left at the call to action.

This is a rehash of the Kiyosaki scam - apparently the scammers just swap out celebrity names every so often.

With respect to Tai Lopez, I've found some of his free content valuable.

 

[csalvato]

With respect to Tai Lopez, I've found some of his free content valuable.

Don't you think the value is diminished when the quality of the source diminishes?

 

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[AndrewNC]

Don't you think the value is diminished when the quality of the source diminishes?

Legit doctor talks about health benefits of broccoli: Very healthy. Loaded up with Vitamin C, B-6, Vitamin A, and a whole bunch of good stuff.
Fake doctor talks about health benefits of broccoli: Causes cancer, makes you go overweight, bad for you.

Does Tai exaggerating his wealth make the broccoli any less healthy?

 

[lowtek]

Don't you think the value is diminished when the quality of the source diminishes?

No, I do not. The truth is the truth, regardless of who says it. It's helpful to be able to evaluate the merit of a claim, independent of your judgement of the source of the claim.

that being said, there are enough questions around his legitimacy that I won't purchase any of his products.

 

[AndrewNC]

Exaggerated or lying? He's not just saying something vague like "I've reached success and wealth with the following principles". If he's literally renting a mansion for a day and posting a video saying "Hey, this is my mansion that I own - here's how I got it." he's outright lying. If he's claiming to consult multiple companies for $1mm per year yet nobody can prove it or name one of the companies, that's suspect. If nobody in this thread can name one thing he's done to make a penny aside from selling info products and yet he claims that his wealth comes from every avenue except for selling info products, that's suspect. I think the fact that he motivates a few people does not give him the right to lie.

What if I sold blue popsicles with a picture and a description of a blue popsicle, but knowingly shipped all of my customers green popsicles. Even if 8 out 10 of my customers say "eh I like green anyway these are still good", I'm still lying and practicing bad business with bad ethics, no?

Believe it or not, I am more against the cologne commercials, or big mac or Powerade (sugar + chemicals + water) commercials with celebrity endorsements or unconscious influence techniques than anything else. I have a thread on here teaching this stuff. Most people think it's to manipulate others. I do it because I want to wake people up to how companies like that control you without you even knowing about it.

Perhaps I do it because I was blind and now I see - manipulated in my past from those very techniques. Now I post it to wake people up.

People buy when their unconscious mind associates the product with what they see. The professional basketball player didn't get where he is today by eating big macs. Yet people fall into that trap, load their bodies with junk, or buy products they don't need, because they unconsciously connect the product with what they see.

I had a fun convo with @csalvato on skype before where we agreed to disagree on the specifics of Tai.

My stance - I think the end product should benefit people's lives. I can't truly stand on either side of the fence because I haven't seen his product. It might be bad, it might be good. I dont know.

He has made money from other businesses in the past, and he's actually not only renting the mansion for one day to film one video (he's been there at least 2 months).

I see it as a marketing technique to get a product in the customer's hands.

My only judgement on this is this: Does the product help people get closer to their goals? And is it quality information?

I hold a different view than most on this, and just like I said with chris before - agree to disagree.

 

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[Tony I]

i finally found one of tai's companies. hes such a fastlaner!


http://www.consumeraffairs.com/dating_services/elite_global_dating.html

"I have been charged with a service by Elite Global Dating for $69.99 a month dating back to January of this year. A service which I never signed up for. Four months ago, I noticed this ongoing charge (and yes, woo to me for not noticing sooner). I immediately called a phone number, which sounded like a bad home answering machine, and left a message. About a month later, I received an email from a Maya at the company, stating they would cancel and reimburse me. Not only has this not happened, but I continue to be charged monthly for an additional 4 months. I have now paid over $700 for a service that I have never used or signed up for."

"To me, this site appears to be a scam. Perhaps a team of scam computer geniuses that had collaborated into the making of this site."

"I bought an information product from this company and did not sign up to become a member. After checking my VISA statement, I noticed that they had charged me over $200 for a monthly membership fee that I had not authorized."

 

[csalvato]

i finally found one of tai's companies. hes such a fastlaner!


http://www.consumeraffairs.com/dating_services/elite_global_dating.html

"I have been charged with a service by Elite Global Dating for $69.99 a month dating back to January of this year. A service which I never signed up for. Four months ago, I noticed this ongoing charge (and yes, woo to me for not noticing sooner). I immediately called a phone number, which sounded like a bad home answering machine, and left a message. About a month later, I received an email from a Maya at the company, stating they would cancel and reimburse me. Not only has this not happened, but I continue to be charged monthly for an additional 4 months. I have now paid over $700 for a service that I have never used or signed up for."

"To me, this site appears to be a scam. Perhaps a team of scam computer geniuses that had collaborated into the making of this site."

"I bought an information product from this company and did not sign up to become a member. After checking my VISA statement, I noticed that they had charged me over $200 for a monthly membership fee that I had not authorized."

right?

 

[HAL]

He has made money from other businesses in the past, and he's actually not only renting the mansion for one day to film one video (he's been there at least 2 months).

His other businesses are sites like: http://www.meetingmillionaires.com/

Notice when you go there you will see a bunch of gorgeous models that just happen to live in your town (IP Address) -- I had no idea. Of course most if not all are fake profiles to entice you to pay a monthly fee until you figure it all out. If you clickthrough the youtube video on the homepage to the YT channel you will find videos with none other than Tai's voice on it.

http://somefinalwords.blogspot.com/2015/02/insight-junkie-history-of-tai-lopez.html

 

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[csalvato]

Notice when you go there you will see a bunch of gorgeous models that just happen to live in your town (IP Address) -- I had no idea.

I love how Tai also uses his own picture, and just so happens to be in the exact town I am in right now

Hey, I thought he lived in the Hollywood Hills! What's going on here!

Oh, let's VPN into PA. Tai magically transports to PA!

Notice the video also doesn't reference the dating site's actual name...it's all "this site"

Even if he has truthiness to some statements...in order to verify any statement's truthiness, you need to hear it from a third party or experience it yourself...so why do you need Tai at all since he doesn't add value to the equation?

 

[Andy Black]

A few thoughts:


What I never understand is, if you're smart enough to do blackhat, then use those smarts to do whitehat, AND get positive word-of-mouth.

You can fight Google's really smart 27,000 employees, or you can have them LOVE you and have 27,000 really smart employees HELPING you.

...

As soon as I associated Frank Kern with a product called "Mass Control", I put him into a certain camp, and won't trust *anything* he says... because I think his moral compass is skew.

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

...

So they make a lot of money?

How much more would they make if they understood/believed that

"R + R = Profit"

where R + R = Repeat Business + Referrals

How much money are they leaving on the table by not putting their customers' interests first?

...

This is definitely a case of I'd rather be right than rich.

 

[AllenCrawley]

I love how Tai also uses his own picture, and just so happens to be in the exact town I am in right now

But wait! If you happen to find a great date, partner, spouse from his dating site does it really matter he "exaggerated" his location or the location of all the gorgeous models?

But there is this lingering crime of fraudulent billing practices that's hard to explain away.

 

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[wilddog]

But wait! If you happen to find a great date, partner, spouse from his dating site does it really matter he "exaggerated" his location or the location of all the gorgeous models?

I can't stop laughing. It's like when a comedian brings up a topic at the beginning of his gig, then uses that topic as the punchline to close the show.

+Rep Transferred Allen.

 

[mws87]

@Dwight Schrute no more fuel units, bro--freedom units now, we've gotta step it up.

In all seriousness though, the comments on most of his YouTube videos are quite sad (as YouTube comments often are). Just about all of them question his ownership of the house, cars, etc. rather than the product he's pushing (as though renting his cars and a mansion for all these months would somehow disprove he has money??). I'm just waiting for Donald Trump to comment and demand to see the pink slips.

It sort of reminds me of the whole GrumpyCat becoming a millionaire thread, and similar to what @AllenCrawley mentioned. Let's say it's all bullshit, yet it managed to help motivate others to go on and accomplish great things. What then? Is that value, or is it still a scam?

If there was no rich dad (or poor dad) from RDPD, yet the books still helped people, is it a scam? Unethical, sure. Dishonest, of course. Useless?

To me, it brings the concept of value perception to mind. Ever see things flying off the shelves and wonder "who the hell buys this stuff?"--I often wondered that until I realized what I find valueless others may find valuable, "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

Sure, it's easy for a lot of us here to see through things and interpret them for what they are at the core. After all, as my profile title states, reading The Millionaire Fastlane , to me, is the equivalent of putting on the sun glasses from "They Live"

So, to keep this on topic, regardless of ethics (white hat or black hat), history or approach (renting his shit vs owning), the Tai-guy is an internet marketer and sales person no matter the perspective. As MJ said, you can dip a turd in sugar (or syrup--whatever sugary delight you prefer) but at it's core a turd remains.

At the end of the day, my life is fine (just as everyone else's should be) whether Tai Lopez is legit or a scam artist. He doesn't matter to me, nor do I to him.

 

[csalvato]

If there was no rich dad (or poor dad) from RDPD, yet the books still helped people, is it a scam? Unethical, sure. Dishonest, of course. Useless?

Yes.

 

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[Damage Inc.]

That's so weird how he has my picture on his site. If anybody wants to know the 68 steps to how I got my hunk bod just send me $100 rep.

 

[Alan LT]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AndrewNC]

Well I guess it's OK for certain companies to do certain things with their marketing, but the lynching mob comes out for others who use the same type of marketing techniques, depending on the product that is being sold...I'll leave it at that.

 

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[Andy Black]

Here's the SCAMWORLD article that goes along with the video if anyone is interested, worth a read:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/10/2...h-quick-schemes-mutate-into-an-online-monster

Scarey reading...

No wonder small business owners don't trust "Internet Marketing Consultants".

I didn't realise I'd jumped into a snake pit when I took this path.

 

[IceCreamKid]

Tai Lopez. A liar. A thug. A man who looks like he rolled out of bed 30 seconds before shooting each video. Possibly the son of JackEdwards.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Well I guess it's OK for certain companies to do certain things with their marketing, but the lynching mob comes out for others who use the same type of marketing techniques, depending on the product that is being sold...I'll leave it at that.

So Andrew, just so we're clear... you believe the ends justifies any means?

Based on this, I can safely assume you're cool selling sugar pills as a cure for any issue (while calling it great marketing) simply because the placebo effect is a proven phenomena.

Hey, as long as it works for some of my clients, it's great marketing! F*ck, who cares if the product isn't legit and I know it! X, Y, and Z said it worked!

 

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[wilddog]

Scarey reading...

No wonder small business owners don't trust "Internet Marketing Consultants".

I didn't realise I'd jumped into a snake pit when I took this path.

It's almost disillusioning as an entrepreneur since success can pivot on marketing.

I know alot of people here talk about Digital Marketer. But even it's co-founder was charged by the Feds and successfully prosecuted for fraud a few years ago.

 

[lowtek]

So Andrew, just so we're clear... you believe the ends justifies any means?

Based on this, I can safely assume you're cool selling sugar pills as a cure for any issue (while calling it great marketing) simply because the placebo effect is a proven phenomena.

Hey, as long as it works for some of my clients, it's great marketing! F*ck, who cares if the product isn't legit and I know it! X, Y, and Z said it worked!

My own interpretation of his comments is that more traditional companies get a pass for dishonest marketing (i.e. implying you will attract hot women for buying X product), while people like Tai Lopez are held to a higher standard.

I don't think he is implying that he would personal sell a product he didn't 100% believe in.