Losing Money

So here I was, the newest of Newbies to Internet Marketing, and I had just spend $4,495 USD to get 20,000 “targeted, unique visitors” to my site. (Read the first part of this story here). When I think about this now it makes me feel sick – here is a tip for any new Internet Marketer out there: Do NEVER EVER spend that much money on generating traffic to your sites, EVER!

But, as I was still all “ready to rock and roll”, I dived into the study material I had received – which, I have to say, is quite comprehensive and valuable -, and I went on to send out the direct mailers which were a free bonus in this “Ultimate Traffic Program”. I think I got about 500 direct, pre-printed mailers on which I had to stick the pre-printed address stickers supplied by GCFN. And then, of course, I had to send them out! Now, because I am in Australia, and all these “targeted leads” were in the US, I had to buy stamps from the US, had them shipped to me, put them on the mailers and sent a package with all of them back to GCFN to put them in the mailbox in the US for me (they offer that service for overseas customers). Total cost: $136.00

All the while this was happening, I was also actively advertising my websites on classified ad sites, as I had been instructed. I spent hours and also quite a few dollars on advertising on classifieds websites.

Losing Money

And the weeks went by. I had bought the “Ultimate Traffic Package” and I was promised 20,000 unique, targeted visitors within 3 months. If that target wasn’t reached, Global CashFlow Network offered to re-run the campaign for no additional cost. And guess what – we fell a few hundred visitors short. And I have to say, they held true to their promise and re-run the campaign no problem.

My problem though was that out of that many visitors to my site, all I had been able to generate was 11 people who had signed up to get more information (one of them being my partner, – I signed him up at some stage to test whether everything was working alright because there were no prospects!). I had made one referral and earned myself $110 USD (when I deposited that check in my account, I had to pay a $15 fee because it was a foreign check!).

When the campaign ran out for the second time, another 3 months had gone past and I had not added any more prospects to my list. None. Zip. Nada. 11 it was. I had received my second set of direct mailers, but by that time I had – understandably! Even the slowest people get it eventually – lost my confidence in the program and its results. I was pretty pissed off and felt ripped off!!!

So one day I decided to go ahead and ring them and ask them for a refund of as much money as I could get back from my investment (which came up to nearly $6,000.00 by now).

I have to be honest – they were terrific on the telephone when I called them. Whenever I had a problem before, I could call them and discuss things. They DO have a great customer support/service and are easy to reach. I rang them quite a few times, and they were always very helpful and professional.

My Money Back

Same thing this time around. I was prepared for a fight (and believe me, I am not a person who likes to make a scene!), but the staff on the line were very good, and after a fairly short time they did agree on paying me back my sign up fee and all the costs associated with the startup of the program. Unfortunately, they could not pay me back the money for the traffic package, but I can tell you, at that stage I was very glad that they had agreed to pay me back $1,694 USD. So I took it and ran – off to more fruitful adventures!

The End.

So there you have it, my story on Mary Gersten’s Global CashFlow Network. Now, I do believe that they mean well (…), and you do get a lot of good stuff to study, and some guidance, but you will not be earning a living online with GCFN – unless you are extremely lucky (that’s my humble personal opinion).

I found a good discussion thread on GCFN here, where you can read up on other people’s experience with them. There is also a fantastic lens on Squidoo about it – somebody else’s experience. I could have written that! Also, I would love to hear your comments about GCFN here on my blog, if you have got any

After the disaster with Data Entry Business, I was absolutely not ready to give up. I kept searching, and the next program I came across that looked like the real deal and sounded absolutely fantastic was Mary Gerstens “Global Cash Flow Network” (GCFN). Now, this is by no means a cheap program, but I was all fired up and ready to make some cash! I liked what was promised and took the plunge to sign up.

Total cost over the next few weeks: $781.73 USD. This included signup fee, setup costs, study material and things like that. (ouch!!! – some of you internet marketers might regret now that you didn’t come across me a year ago!)

I invested in everything to do with Global Cash Flow Network I could get my hands on. I had said to myself that I really wanted to make it work and then I had to give it a fair go.

After a few weeks with the program and learning quite a lot about media placement, I got a phone call very early in the morning (must have been around 5:30am or so; people forget the time difference between the States and Western Australia). Pretty much still half asleep I had this person from GCFN on the phone telling me about this fantastic offer of a three months advertising campaign to bring highly targeted traffic to my site. A flow of 20,000 guaranteed visitors to my site with a high conversion rate.

By that time I had learned that my websites were only going to be successful if they had visitors that converted into sign-ups to the program, or that bought something from my store.

Again, I had some savings at that time, and as I still wanted to make this a success, I agreed to buy their Premier PlusTraffic Package. It included 20,000 highly targeted visitors to my site(s), a direct mailer program with a 2-4% response rate (pre-printed postcards for me to send to already very interested “leads” which all got supplied to me through GCFN), and quite a package of information and study material about traffic generation. This was sure going to get a lot of sign-ups going! (Per sign-up I could receive between $100 and I think $1000, depending whether the sign-ups bought the traffic package deal).

Total cost for this Premier Plus Traffic Package (hold on to your seats, please!): $4,495.00

I must have been MAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To be continued……

By the way, here are the 2 websites I have with Global Cash Flow Network: http://www.cleverwebcash.com and http://www.mywebcashstore.com/weiss9719

So I wrote a short email to the stated address asking for a refund. And – voila! No problems at all. I got promised a refund, and a few days later I had even a bit more money back on my credit card than I originally spent (exchange rate)!!! So I am very pleased with that.

Nevertheless, my advice for anybody would still be: Data Entry from Home – don’t do it!

They say all you have to do is to fill out simple web forms and can easily make $30 – $50 per form or so. No internet knowledge etc. required. Sounds like a great idea for someone like me who has no prior experience, right?

Oh boy, was I disappointed! I tried very hard to make it work, but I have to say the instructions were anything but easy to follow for a newbie. When I read them now I have to laugh, because now they seem very easy, but back then  it was a nightmare. Basically, I never got it to work and called it quits after about 1 1/2 months.

What I found out afterwards? – Data Entry Jobs are nothing else but promoting other peoples products in sponsored Google ads with pay-per-click.  You don’t need a Data Entry Membership to do that! Also, I find it incredible that these companies make it sound so easy! PPC is anything but! It is a whole science in itself, it is what so many manuals have been written about, what every marketer out there is trying to master.

Review of Data Entry Business

To me now it feels like I was set up, and potentially could have lost a lot of money. When they said you can make $30 – $50 per form, that is if you actually make a sale. It doesn’t count in though the money you have to spend to get there.

So, my experience has taught me to stay clear from Data Entry Jobs.
My Loss for this project:    $64.07 AUD (Australian Dollars) for signing up for the site.

The following cartoon is rated PG – it contains drastic images and violence – some viewers might chose to exit the site

But if somebody would have mentioned the word “blog”, for example, I would have looked at them and thought they’ve gone absolutely mad!

Computer and me and anything technical in that direction just didn’t seem to go with “Petra Weiss”.

What on earth made me decide to try and make money online, then?!?!?!

Maybe it was the little monkey in my brain who LOVES a challenge? Maybe it was the “old” Petra still in there somewhere (surprisingly, after a few years of bringing up babies/toddlers/little terrors) screaming to prove to herself that she could do it? The old me, wanting to have the feeling that I had taken control over my own life again and was actively learning something useful?

In the end it was a combination of all of the above, plus I simply wanted to start earning money of my own again, but without having to go out and work for somebody. I wanted to create a business which would earn me money even if I didn’t “work” for a few days, or weeks, or months (doesn’t everybody want something like that?). AND I WANTED TO PROVE TO MY PARTNER THAT I COULD DO IT!

So one fine evening in September 2007, I was sitting down at my computer and started googleing for (guess!) “make money online”. And got absolutely swamped with results. (This is very likely the starting point of my suffering from Information Overload).