Gorilla Website Marketing Course - waiting to get started
I’ve covered what was in the Gorilla Website Marketing Course package that was sent to me by ABDevelopment. However, I was still waiting to get started with my mentoring sessions. I’d been told prior to sign up not to worry about putting the $8000 on my credit card. I was told it was sound business sense and that I was doing what most businesses do. I was simply setting up a business using ‘other peoples money’. Besides, I was assured ‘I would be making money before the first credit card bill hit me’. The whole thing was supposed to be self financing, with the $8000 paid off within 6 months. This is what they led me to believe.
You know, when I look back on the claims that were made, and what they led me to believe would happen, and when it would happen, I realise that I was being told had to be impossible to achieve. I guess that at the time I had put my complete faith in them, but it makes me extremely angry to think back on it.
They must have known damned fine that there was no way I could be getting money back by the time the first credit card bill hit. It had already taken a few weeks and I hadn’t even started my first mentoring session. The mentoring was scheduled to take 8 weeks. So work it out. If 4 weeks have elapsed and I still haven’t even started the 8 week long sessions then realistically, how the hell was I going to be making money by the time my first credit card hit me !
I don’t know about you, but all the credit cards I have will have any purchases on them within 30 days. Lets be VERY generous to ABDevelopment and Glenn Canady and pretend that the timing was absolutely perfect and that I didn’t get the $8000 on the first credit card bill, but I got it on the second. That still only allows 60 days to go from sign up, to having a web site built, marketed, and pulling in money. But it was to be about 4 weeks before I started with a mentor and I then had another 8 weeks to go with the mentoring sessions. So how the hell could I be taking money from my site by the time the first credit card bill arrived ?!
The site wouldn’t even have been built by then !!! And of course it wasn’t built by the time the first bill hit me ! And by the time 6 months were up ? I hadn’t made a single sale from the site. And don’t forget Glenn Canady’s Website Marketing Course was supposed to have got my site pulling in $8000 by this time to cover the money I had paid out.
My experience of Glenn Canady’s Gorilla Website Marketing Course and ABDevelopment has been that they seem to be great at making big claims about what they can do. Closer scrutiny and personal experience have shown these to be wild claims, coupled with unrealistic timescales, that from my experience they simply cannot deliver on.
The last email that I’d had from ABDevelopment was from Vicky (Terence Davis having disappeared of the face of the Earth). Vicky was suggesting a 4pm GMT call to get me started with the web construction etc.. Here is my reply to Vicky :
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Hi Vicky,
4PM is ok with me, but what about my questions regarding my preferred choice of product (as a result of the brainstorming session) and the fact that nothing PDA related appears on the drop ship list that I was provided with ?
My understanding of the first session is that the product must be sorted out and also an idea of ‘rival’ sites, which I haven’t thoroughly researched as I was waiting for a reply on the product choice. I don’t want to waste our first session. Please can you get back to me on this.
Thanks
Chris
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In other words, they STILL hadn’t resolved the issue of finding a dropshipper for me. I had chosen my product, and here were the people that claimed they would be able to find me a dropshipper for anything I wanted, and they still hadn’t delivered on this.
Here is ABDevelopment’s response :
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Chris,
As you know the dro ship list does not have what you are looking for, PDA’s. The product is the foundation we will work from. I will be able to send you a list of wholesalers for PDA product, but not my the morning (my time) when we talk.
I recommend as you suggested in your previous email to reschedule for early next week, when are more prepared.
Tuesday @ 5:00PM your time, is my next opening.
Let me know,
Vicky @ AB DevelopmentGorillaWebMarketing
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OK, so have you spotted the problem here ? I was promised dropshippers, and what am I being offered ? Wholesalers ! Bear in mind that ABDevelopment KNOW that I am in the UK. So what the hell is the point of offering wholesalers in the US ? Absolutely useless !
Being a polite kind of guy, and not wanting to rock the boat too much at this early stage I fired off a polite reply to Vicky :
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Hi Vicky,
Thats good news that you will be able to provide a list of wholesalers for PDA products. Are these also dropshippers ?
I mentioned about my having started a temporary job which involves shiftwork. Friday (today) was my day off which is why 4pm was good for metoday (obviously no good without the product though). I am on afternoons for the next 2 weeks, which means 2pm - 10pm my time. So,realistically the earliest time I could take a call on Tuesday would be about 10.30pm my time. Is that ok with you ?
Chris
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I got the list from Vicky and checked it over. I’ m sort of tempted NOT to paste it here, but on balance, and for the sake of completeness I am going to do it. Lets face it, it was sent to me on the basis that it was a great list of sources for PDA dropshippers, and as such I found it completely useless. There are obviously PDA related items that can be sourced from this list, but there were NO PDA dropshippers. I wanted to sell the latest PDA’s, not some tacky old accessories for the PDA’s of yesteryear.
In fact, rather than just paste the list that I was sent I’m going to paste my reply to that list. It specifies the so-called ‘dropshippers’ and why I had an issue with them. Read it for yourself.
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Dropship companies emailed to me.
1. http://www.texas-sales-tax.com/wholesale.html
The only company they list is Tiger Direct
http://www.tigerdirect.com/ They run an affiliate program and offer 4% commission !.
2. http://www.pcs-ltd.com/
They just do Krussel cases and a limited range of them.
3. http://www.wholesaleramp.com/WholesaleRAMP/LotDetail.cfm?Lot_ID=13964
They have one ‘PDA’. It’s not a proper PDA. Nobody has ever heard of it. It looks like an overgrown calculator. Rubbish.
4. http://www.wholesale-pda-accessories.com/
Sell accessories (screen protectors, cables, stylus mainly). they will accept resellers, but NO mention of drop shipping, only bulk selling. Have emailed the following via their online form :
Do you offer drop shipping on your products. I’m in the UK and want to sell to US customers, but I don’t want the hassle of buying, getting goods sent to me in the UK, only to have to post them all the way back to the US.
thanks
Chris O’Connor
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UPDATE 17/11/2003 12:40 - message from them on wholesale411.com message board saying they sell in bulk.
5. http://www.shopping.com/xKW-PDA/kworg-PDA_WHOLESALE/linkin_id-2081916/DMT-4/GS.html
This is a shopping comparison site and seems to have nothing to do with wholesalers or drop shippers.
6. http://www.wholesale411.com/cgi-bin/search/search.cgi?Terms=pda
Most are not wholesalers (eg. Tucows) and no mention of any drop shippers.
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Quite frankly, at this stage of the process I was starting to get a bit concerned. ABDevelopment seemed to be completely clueless when it came to finding me a dropshipper, and obviously not the slightest bit bothered about the amount of time that was passing since I had signed up, and certainly not in the least bit concerned about meeting any targets that had been set regarding me getting my money back.
Clearly, something had to be done. I had given ABDevelopment every opportunity to provide me with the dropshipper that they promised they would find me, yet time and time again they failed. How much longer could I go on waiting ? They just weren’t delivering. I NEEDED to start getting my money back, so I made a suggestion in my covering email to them :
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Hi Vicky,
I’ve checked out the list of drop shippers that you provided me with., Unfortunately, none of them are any good, for a number of reasons. Ihave made notes on each one and attached them to this email in a Worddocument.
I was determined to try and find a drop shipper for up to date PDA’s soI paid $69 for 6 months access to The Drop Ship Source Directory at http://www.mydssd.com/ This is an excellent resource, but only had one company listed for PDA’s(http://www.dandh.com/). Their application form does not have any wayfor someone outside the US to sign up. I have sent them an email asking if it is possible and am waiting to hear back.
In the meantime I am keen to get started and feel that the product choice is becoming something of a problem. Before I signed up with youI mentioned that my wife was selling Natures Sunshine products and thatI was setting up a web site for her. It was suggested that I shouldlook at other products. I still think that these are ideal products tobe selling, and particularly so after reading the Gorilla Web SiteMarketing book.
Basically, the Natures Sunshine products are natural, herbal, and alternative health supplements. From research I have done on WordtrackerI have found that the word ‘health’ and a lot of health related phrase sare among the most searched on. People are searching for answers to problems. These products give answers to those problems. They are products that will be drop shipped for me, and, they are products that have tons of non-competing information based websites that I could belinking to. The only restrictions that would be imposed on me is thatmy sales would have to be in the UK, Eire, and countries that accept the Euro (ie. most of Europe).
I have already created a site for my wife(http://your-natural-remedies.com/) but obviously if I am working withyou guys I am happy to start with a new domain name and start from scratch on a different site. There are also lots of products that couldbe sold as niche (eg. to help with the menopause).
Please let me know what you think. PDA’s are my main interest, but Iwant to get started quickly and it is proving difficult to find a dropshipper I can use. The Natures Sunshine stuff is something I have already spent a lot of time and effort on and done a good bit ofresearch on it.
thanks
Chris O’Connor
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BTW - the UK site for Natures Sunshine (a US company) is http://naturessunshine.co.uk/
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OK, so what do I get back in response ? Here it is :
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Chris,
Unfortunately that time does not work. My schedule is full until after the Thanksgiving holiday we have next week.
I suggest that you email jason@abdevelopment.com for assistance with scheduling for another mentor. Typically I only focus on the marketing of your website, along with Zeus integration.
Perhaps they could get you in sooner, and my schedule should be more open around the same time your website will be up and ready.
Reply to confirm.
Vicky @ AB Development
GorillaWebMarketing
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So now Vicky only does marketing and Zeus integration. Do you remember Vicky’s earlier comments from a previous post :
My name is Vicky, and Glenn assigned me you file to work with you one on one through website construction, and intense marketing.
So how about that then ! Absolutely brilliant. I pay $8000 to do Glenn Canady’s Gorilla Website Marketing Course and they can’t find me a dropshipper, they can’t meet the simplest of deadlines, and now they can’t even do the mentoring they promised they would do ! Time is slipping on and already it was looking almost impossible that they would get me to a point where I would be making money before the first credit card bill hit. After all, could you create a web site from scratch, get it to page 1 on the search engines, and get it pulling in money in less than maybe 7 days ? ABDevelopment certainly couldn’t, as I was about to find out.