Whether investment advice or fitness advice, I'm still paying money to an expert to guide me on a subject I don't know much about. As a potential (and clueless) consumer of personal training products and services, I call upon all guru's to either ditch the testimonials all together, or otherwise provide a representative sample of negative testimonials as well.
Aside from it being a completely stupid idea from a marketing standpoint, there would be some serious logistical issues with actually getting people to post negative stuff about the practitioners they worked with. Not only that, I post pictures of those giving testimonials, and imagine what a joke it would be to ask for a pic of the person next to their negative comment. Not only that, I'm confident that 99.9% of the folks who have not succeeded with me will fully admit it was a compliance issue on their end. Who wants to air out their own failure to follow a program? NO ONE. Like I said, the problems with getting neg testimonials are logistical in addition to being a flat-out stupid idea. I'm confident about my ability to help people (that's all I do to support my family), and whoever cruises by my testimonials page and writes me off due to an absence of negative testimonials can keep walking, I wish them good luck.
Maybe all fitness professionals should sell all their services through Amazon.com. Then, you'd merely be accused of bribing people to go and post good reviews.
Maybe all fitness professionals should sell all their services through Amazon.com. Then, you'd merely be accused of bribing people to go and post good reviews.
Yeah, or if you're like Jamie, a bunch of troll-stalkers will post a bunch of crap to try to take you down. "Try" being the key word.
I was fine with Pug's post until the last segment where an appeal to switch policies/procedures from one context to a completely different one was made. I can do the same thing and say, okay, when you're trying to get a job somewhere and you submit a resume, why not include your career fuck-ups along with your career accomplishments?
Alan, unless you know Pug from somewhere else, I think you might be overreacting to his "thinking out loud" comments, though. I can understand the feeling, but you can apply that same feeling to thousands of other products/services. The SEC comparison isn't the best one.
To Pug. IMO, the SEC started regulating those things because of what a chain reaction/cascade of good or bad advice and practices can do to the entire economy. Then, they started the nitpicky regulation once they had their hand in there.
I'm not even sure I think that that regulation is necessary, but I certainly don't want to start overregulation the rest of the industries (fitness, cars, food, etc.) to that extent.
I always pointed out my fuckups, what I learned from them, and how I used that to be more effective later on. I always got the job.
I don't think the negative testimonials, if you will, make sense, either. How about a "results not typical" disclaimer. , LOL
What MIGHT make sense is to talk in terms of one's rate of success or positive results.
I can talk about the one national champion I produced, while everyone else is just a run of the mill hack. In fitness, this would translate into "These ten people got lean and were fitness competitor champions; the other hundred I've worked with are still fat asses. Or, I can put out there the vast numbers of people, the high percentage of students, who have achieved xyz results. This is to show that, in fact, the results shown ARE typical.
Someone with a very low success rate is, of course, going to try and hide it and highlight their accomplishments. So, is there any way of requiring more full disclosure? I'm not sure there is. Should it always remain a case of "caveat emptor?"
I always pointed out my fuckups, what I learned from them, and how I used that to be more effective later on. I always got the job.
I think you always got the job through your disarming charm and scintillating wit. Don't be so modest, Sifu Correia
But seriously, you can't put a disclaimer about how you've improved your game since this or that fuck-up in a testimonial. It's completely different in print without real-time interaction.
Whether investment advice or fitness advice, I'm still paying money to an expert to guide me on a subject I don't know much about. As a potential (and clueless) consumer of personal training products and services, I call upon all guru's to either ditch the testimonials all together, or otherwise provide a representative sample of negative testimonials as well.
Then as a consumer, it'd be your duty to do your research or live with your bad purchase decision. Toyota isn't gonna tell you how their cars suck, it's your job to look that stuff up when you're deciding to get a Toyota or GM or whatever. Do your research, test drive, try the clothes on before walking out of the store, have your first date in a public place.
But seriously, you can't put a disclaimer about how you've improved your game since this or that fuck-up in a testimonial. It's completely diffrent in print without real-time interaction.
Reminds me of "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT" signs. *laugh*
I find it increasingly interesting that Craig has stayed very silent on this whole thing knowing Jimmy took his stuff. Maybe Craig let him? Maybe theyre trying to be the same person? Who knows?
__________________
"The strongest steel goes through the hottest fires."-Anonymous
"When you begin to believe nothing is heavy, all weights become light." -Rossbow
"Just remember, somewhere there is a little Chinese girl warming up with your max."-Jim Convroy
"It's a round hole, dammit. Everyone fits."--Anonymous Mod at Strengthmill
Craig, like Ryan Lee before him, and like Matt Furey, even earlier, has made the leap to "selling to the sellers"
Courses on "How to make moola in fitness" have an inherently more higher motivated market than "How to get bro-abs in 28 days", and also that market will pay more and more often to get the info.
Jimmy obviously didn't customize the templates as much as he should have. In fact, he did a pretty sloppy job at it.
They're not the same person. I have met them both. I'm sure Craig's silence is more out of professionalism than anything nefarious. My experience with him over the years is that he's very serious about his work, and I doubt he had anything to do with Jimmy's site.
As for Jimmy? Well, when I was his age, I'm just glad that there was no internet around so I could have my mistakes well-publicized, because I made my share of them. He'll figure it out. Like somebody said earlier in this thread, hopefully this will serve as a valuable learning experience for him.
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I think that even a noob would probably smell something funny with all the hype and sloppy mistakes that were on that site. If they didn't, well then the rule about suckers and how often one is born comes in to play.
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First off, I hope JP or any moderator will move his post into the recent thread about me and my "product".
Let me start out by saying that I still have ZERO clue about what has been going on. I've had a crazy travel schedule the past three weeks and haven't checked the message boards within that time frame. If it wasn't for some concerned colleagues/friends I still would be in the dark.
That wasn't my site, I didn't make it, I didn't construct it. You can choose to believe me if you want, that's up you. I even have some evidence to show that I was not involved in it.
I did create a rough, rough document for fat loss with the intent to sell it. I did get testimonials from Kevin and another associate, Mike Y. I did have a JPer make the graphics. That's all I did.
In this post "four hour work week" era, outsourcing tasks is a very popular way of getting things done. I did hire a foregin webmaster for cheap who was to design everything, construct the site, and advise me along the way as that was to be my first project.
This webmaster had complete access to my files to design my website and any other website. I did give them numerous fitness sites to model my site after. I made a mistake of having my email, ftp( the file you use to make websites) and my passwords for certain websites all being more or less the same.
This webmaster became arrogant and insulting shortly after I hired him and I had no choice but to fire him. TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE, THAT ENDED EVERYTHING WITH THE PRODUCT.I didn't have a webmaster, I was busy with the Muscle Bible and other things.
That was about 6-7 months ago and I decided not to do anything with the document. I moved onto the Muscle Bible and other projects. I got a email from affiliate asking why they couldn't find the product in clickbank under my clickbank ID. I was confused, I emailed clickbank and they told me that every account can only sell one product and mine was obviously the Muscle Bible. I only have one clickbank account.
It wasn't until I received a text message from Kevin and a email from the person I was accused of scamming that I had any knowledge that a site was up. I don't even check my main website everyday nor do I check the site for the Muscle Bible every day.
I quickly checked the site and then went to work getting it down. Now remember, I fired this webmaster 6-7 months ago so it took me a good amount of time to even figure out to get the site down that night.
I just learned a few minutes ago that me taking the site down happened at the exact same time that this message board was buzzing about me and the product and saying that I copied and stole testimonials. So obviously me taking the site down seemed like I was "caught out".
Again remember, my life has been very busy so I haven't been on the message boards so I had no clue that there was a thread about it, I didn't even know that testimonials were taken from my main site.I had no knowledge that this site went up. Some evidence:
-I was told that the writing in the book was sloppy and unedited. I've hired people from this message board and other places to edit and proof my articles before I've submitted to editors.
-If you're on my email list you'll know that not once did I promote or send traffic to that website. You can take the worst marketer in the world and even he'll know to promote to his in house list. I didn't even blog about it.
-When I quickly checked the site, the name Jimmy Smith was on it but the address and phone number were not mine. They closely resembled mine but were not mine as I believe I could legal action in that case. Obviously I can't sue someone for using the name "Jimmy Smith", it's too common. I believe even my email address was on it which someone can do.
-I've lived this industry for the past few years and have traveled to any seminar that I could in order to learn and meet some of the top people in the field. My name and reputation is all I have and I wouldn't spoil that for some ebook.
Now I'm not asking you to believe me, I just wanted to give everyone the truth. This entire situation is a big misunderstanding.
I know that there will be people that want to tear me down and try to find something about the site that makes it mine and that's fine.
I'm putting the truth out there, everyone can choose to do what they want with it. The truth is, I gave someone complete access and they scammed me.
To any of my associates and colleagues in the fitness field, if you felt offended by this in anyway then please contact me directly.
*I merged Jimmy Smith's original post with this one, but then somehow fucked up the title of this one... my mistake... and I can't remember what this one used to be called...???*
I'm going to bump this so that everyone sees that I had NOTHING to do with this. I got scammed. Ask anyone that has ever met me in person or that knows me, I'm not the type to do this and I certainly wouldn't be that dumb. Like Jesus, even if I was completely ripping someone off, to even leave his name in it, let alone to do it to someone who's a mentor of mine? Come on
You've got to be kidding me. If I was dumb enough to do that I'd hope people would get on me about it. Even if you don't like me at all (for articles I write which is another dumb topic) you have to admit that I'm not even that dumb.
Point blank, I had zero to do with it. I'm not going to rip someone off in this industry, this industry is so small it isn't funny. I'm not going to throw away years of hard work for an ebook.
Craig's testimonial's are real...I've written a couple :p
perhaps Jimmy was using this as his 'template' and forgot to finish it before he made it public. Either way, looks bad.
On the other hand...I was trying to reccommend a friend, who's not a part of this on-line community, to a nutritionist and I was frankly embarrased to link to some good names with some hard-sell infomercial websites. Luckily Alan's site is as no-nonsense as the info he gives and it was at the top of my list.
I really want to attempt to force the point home. I, Jimmy Smith from t-nation, the fitcast, the muscle bible, and my blog/website, did not edit nor create any of the web site pages
Lesson learned..type every word on every page....
Nor did I have any control when it went public.....
I was not using anything as a template and I wasn't just going along and changing words here or there. The entire job was given and paid for, to a webmaster who I then fired.
Jimmy
Quote:
Originally Posted by cappuccino
Craig's testimonial's are real...I've written a couple :p
perhaps Jimmy was using this as his 'template' and forgot to finish it before he made it public. Either way, looks bad.
On the other hand...I was trying to reccommend a friend, who's not a part of this on-line community, to a nutritionist and I was frankly embarrased to link to some good names with some hard-sell infomercial websites. Luckily Alan's site is as no-nonsense as the info he gives and it was at the top of my list.
Good one, If I wouldn't send it to my list, mention it my blog, or in my t-nation articles then why would I write articles about it? Come to think of it, I might of submitted some random articles about it before I was set to launch it to drive traffic who knows,
I am relieved to hear that, Jimmy. See... If you checked in here more often you would have caught this before it blew up!
Who was the firm you hired? I would like to know just so I know not to ever hire them for any of my web work.
JP-
I want to be professional so I won't mention them here but if you email me I'll be happy to tell you. I can tell you who it wasn't though so "Steve Martin" whatever your screen name is, can stop bothering the girl who did my first site. She had nothing to do with it..
You might as well close this thread JP because I'm not responding. I said my piece and I'm not coming back because I can see this getting ugly....
Good one, If I wouldn't send it to my list, mention it my blog, or in my t-nation articles then why would I write articles about it? Come to think of it, I might of submitted some random articles about it before I was set to launch it to drive traffic who knows,
So you write recent random articles to drive traffic into a site you havent had anything to do with thats under the auspices of a disgruntled webmaster out for revenge?
Quote:
You might as well close this thread JP because I'm not responding. I said my piece and I'm not coming back because I can see this getting ugly....
This isnt t-mag and no one is violating any of the board rules so theres no reason to close it. Im not sure where you see its 'getting ugly' unless having people question you or point out inconsistencies is your definition of 'getting ugly.'
__________________
"The strongest steel goes through the hottest fires."-Anonymous
"When you begin to believe nothing is heavy, all weights become light." -Rossbow
"Just remember, somewhere there is a little Chinese girl warming up with your max."-Jim Convroy
"It's a round hole, dammit. Everyone fits."--Anonymous Mod at Strengthmill
That wasn't my site, I didn't make it, I didn't construct it. You can choose to believe me if you want, that's up you. I even have some evidence to show that I was not involved in it
What is with the advertising/marketing approach for fitness programs?? Even high quality programs have such cheesy, bad-infomercial copy that I shy away completely from it. A major re-think towards a more professional, classy, informed, educated approach would serve a lot of these folks really well.
Sorry to rant, just my two cents as a novice looking in at the industry...
exactly. I NEVER understood this. I feel cautious putting my CC into a website that has blaring red comic stanz lettering. It seems like a product would sell better if the website was clean and professional looking. I figure it would probably be worth the extra cash to higher a web designer for this.
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