On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 11:39 AM, Mike Filsaime wrote:

(Note: This is my response to a copyrighted E-mail message sent by Mike Filsaime concerning the sale of his 7-Figure Course. That message could not be reprinted here because it contained a copyright.)

Quoted copyright from that message…
“(c) 2009, MikeFilsaime.com, Inc.
3555 Veterans Memorial Hwy, Suite C, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779, USA”

Here is the text of my E-mail response to that high-powered sales message…
_____

I don’t need another copy of the 7-Figure Code. I already have two printed copies. I don’t need another copy of the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript. I have one printed copy, and I also have an electronic copy.

I also don’t want to spend $15 for more copies of the same materials, and I don’t want to sign up for any more of your newsletters. I found that Matt Bacak’s and Russell Brunson’s newsletters to be much better for my needs than your newsletters.

I expected that access to the online 7-Figure course materials to be free, as advertised, but the $15 is not free.

Since I read the 7-Figure Code and Butterfly manuals, I am not sure that the online 7-Figure Course content is worth $15.

Please provide the totally free online content that your ads seemed to promise.

Since I read your defensive E-mail concerning all the people that wrote comments that you deleted and who posted Blog comments; I know that lots of other folks believed that the offer ads failed to live up to the promises that those ads made.

Subtle or distracting wording probably fails to meet the intent of the new FTC regulations that require transparency.

“Totally free” means absolutely no cost. $15 for shipping and handling of products that we don’t need is a cost that is substantially higher than “free.”

If you have trouble unloading 10,000 copies of these (not really free) manuals as your last E-mail plea suggests; even though E-mail sales pitches were sent to over 1,000,000 E-mail addresses touting the offer may indicate that…

1.) The market was already saturated with these manuals
2.) Each person received hundreds of the same E-mail offers as I did
3.) The perceived value of the manuals failed to exceed the cost of shipping and handling
4.) Folks were irritated (even angry) that the free offer turned out cost $15.
5.) Electronic copies of those manuals could have been placed on a DVD (with a higher perceived value) and sold at cost, including shipping for $1.75.
6.) The flood of negative Web 2.0 social media publicity cast too much doubt as to the value of this offer

Hopefully, you didn’t print all 10,000 manuals ahead of time, and only your reputation, not your pocketbook, suffered from this launch.

It will take some time before the current crop of Internet Marketing “gurus” learn to transition to the new FTC requirements for transparency and accurate (no fine print) advertising. So look for quite a few other “gurus” to retire or go out of business.

Hopefully, you won’t be one of the high profile marketers that the FTC chooses to use as a test case to compensate for the FTC’s lack of investigative, regulatory compliance and enforcement personnel.

Thank you.

Joseph Chmielewski, M.S., L.P.C.