As business demand for local online marketing solutions has increased dramatically in response to consumer demand for local business information online, many of the “usual suspects” in the internet marketing world, in this case, in Howie Schwartz and Kevin Wilke, in particular, have implemented local marketing online. Training programs.
They claim that the information products they have developed – IM Leadership 2.0 and Local Business Money Machine, respectively – are designed to help students capitalize on a huge opportunity (described in Schwartz’s sales letter as “Freakin’ Huge” ) to meet this demand by applying what they learned from the previous information products they purchased (from Schwartz, Wilke, and probably others) to the marketing plans and efforts of local businesses, whose owners they say know little or nothing. about what is possible with online marketing.
IM Leadership 2.0 and Business Money Machine promotions make outrageous claims
There are many outrageous claims that are common to the sales letters and webinars that both Schwartz and Wilke have been using to promote IM Leadership 2.0 and the Local Business Money Machine, including:
- You don’t need experience in the offline business world (this is not surprising, as neither Schwartz nor Wilke speak of a track record of success in local online marketing, presumably because they don’t have one)
- You don’t need a website (kind of ironic, don’t you think?)
- It’s easy to get a local business website to rank well for geo-targeted keywords (if it ever was, that disappeared last week when Google launched a new search engine results page whose local search results now are the result of a classification). algorithm which is the consolidation of previously separate web and local ranking algorithms)
- Clients are easy to come by and they will be so appreciative of what you can do for them that they will gladly pay you thousands of dollars each month just to stay on board as one of their clients (at least they seem to have reduced revenue). projections that your other information products claim people can achieve)
Those are just a few of the many outrageous claims made in IM Leadership 2.0 and Local Business Money Machine marketing materials.
IM Leadership 2.0 and Local Business Money Machine promotions have a lot of excitement
The promotional content for Schwartz’s IM Leadership 2.0 and Wilke’s Local Business Money Machine are, unsurprisingly, over-the-top and flimsy. Schwartz’s IM Leadership 2.0 sales letter is filled with “compelling” testimonials from people along with, in some cases, images of “real” checks people allegedly received from companies they claim to have consulted with after taking IM Leadership 2.0.
In light of this hype, it’s worth noting what the disclaimer at the bottom of Schwartz’s IM Leadership 2.0 sales letter says:
DISCLAIMER: THE PERFORMANCE EXPERIENCED BY USER COMMENTS AND TESTIMONIALS ON THIS PAGE AND/OR OUR WEBSITE IS NOT WHAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE. THE COMPANY HAS NOT INVESTIGATED OR SUBSTANCED ANY OF THE USER’S COMMENTS OR CLAIMS. SOME OF THE USERS MAY, IN SOME CASES, BE INCENTIVIZED TO SUBMIT THEIR COMMENTS, AND THE COMPANY HAS NOT VERIFIED THE FIGURES QUOTED THEREIN.
Two lines of the disclaimer (taken directly from the IM Leadership 2.0 sales letter) bear repeating: “The company has not investigated or verified any of the user comments or claims. Some of the users may, in some cases, be (sic) incentivized to submit their comments and the company has not verified the figures quoted in them.”
Kind of takes the breath away from all the testimonials, doesn’t it?
Wilke’s sales letter for the Local Business Money Machine appears to be dormant at this time, claiming that registration is closed because all the spots are taken and that they are focused on helping “every one of those people become amazing success stories.” ” (that’s a direct quote from the sales letter).
The bottom line of the local online marketing opportunity
What’s really disappointing about products like Schwartz’s IM Leadership 2.0 and Wilke’s Local Business Money Machine is that they seemed to be designed to do nothing more than separate your hard-earned money (the price tags seem to hover around the $$ levels). $1,000 and $2,000, respectively) of good—that is, people in exchange for products that have so little substance that it takes a lot of publicity to generate interest in an opportunity that is fundamentally good, if not great.
Good products that are designed to help people capitalize on unmet demand don’t need hype. They just need some “noise” about the opportunity and some direct conversation about the essence of the product.