You Are Not Going To Believe This!

So, there I was on the sofa, doing my taxes on my laptop PC (taxes are such a pain, even with TurboTax!!) and I get this phone call on my business phone.

Happy for any excuse to get away from the taxes for a while, I walk over to my home office and pick up and I hear this woman's voice say hello and my name. Her voice sounds so familiar. Then she introduces herself and I am shocked to realize...

It is Mary Gersten Herself Live on My Phone!

It was Mary Gersten, the VP of Global Cash Flow Network. SHE actually CALLED me, one on one, in person - live! This is amazing, because she's nearly impossible to reach normally.

You can hear her voice on my main CMPS splash page where it says "Hit Play For A Special Message." It was her voice!

I could hardly believe my ears, and was sort of in shock for the first few minutes as she started talking to me about why she was calling.

She was very polite, by the way. And yes, she knows my real name, since they have my records & everything based on my website address. (I just like to maintain a little privacy on the web, that's why I write under my nickname of Koala Bear)

Why Is Mary Gersten Calling the Little Ol' Koala Bear?

Well, apparently, my blog (and my Squidoo page, GCFN - My True Story) are high profile on the internet (when you search for GCFN or CMPS) and they've noticed my blog and actually read and follow my posts.

Amazing.

Based on some of my recent post, Mary wanted to "clear up" some "misconceptions" I have about the Ultimate Traffic System/Guaranteed Traffic Program. She also wanted to make sure I got my latest referral bonus commission check for $208.

Yes, Another Check. $208. Here's the photo!


So anyway, she basically called to explain some of the things I didn't understand about the Ultimate Traffic System, and let me know about recent upgrades that have become available since I first signed up with GCFN last year. And she let me ask a few questions. She said she only had a short time to talk before she had to get to another meeting, and we only talked for a short time. I asked her two questions (one about what happens when someone doesn't get the Ultimate Traffic System, and another about why they don't have a way to track your results...I would have asked more but I couldn't think of anything, I was sort of shocked I was actually talking to her like this).

The "TRUTH" About The Ultimate Traffic System (UTS)

One of the first things Mary Gersten wanted to explain to me was that they've made some changes to how they "sell" the Ultimate Traffic System (UTS). When I signed up, the Level I coaches "overemphasized" the "guaranteed traffic" aspect of the system.

But, according to Mary Gersten, the "guaranteed traffic" isn't the main point of the system. The UTS is really an added training package (on top of the $300 basic CMPS training package) that comes with extra bonus trainings and the "black binder" of information that helps you learn how to generate massive traffic yourself on the web.

My take: Mary's explanation made a lot of sense. She was sincere and trying to help clear up any confusion I've had (and that I am spreading via this blog...) I've felt for a while that this whole CMPS thing is great as a LEARNING EXPERIENCE and TRAINING COURSE, but the conversion rate of those guaranteed visitors to buyers was a percent or less. And that's basically what Mary was telling me. The real value of the Ultimate Traffic System isn't intended to be in the thousands of visitors they will give me, but rather in the extensive training provided about generating your own targeted traffic.

You have to remember, this is a "certification" program, not a "make money fast" program.

Apparently, the ONLY way to get the special training about generating massive web traffic for your business is by ordering the Ultimate Traffic System.

IF you don't get the UTS, you won't receive the black binder or get access to a several of the online "surprise" bonuses.

I knew you wouldn't get the black binder if you didn't get the Ultimate Traffic System, but I didn't realize that some of the best "unannounced" bonus internet marketing courses that I've been studying only come to you if you sign up for the Ultimate Traffic System. Those "unannounced bonuses" are among the most beneficial things I've been studying as a CMPS student!

UTS Delivers Double Commissions

Regular students who sign up for the CMPS program but don't get the UTS will only receive a 10% commission. Mary told me that when a CMPS student also signs up for the UTS, they actually receive a 20% commission on every referral. I've actually been getting 20% commissions, not 10%. This is the only way to get a 20% referral commission as a CMPS student.

Obviously signing up for the UTS can make a big different to your earnings.

Other Interesting Program Improvements: Improved Tracking Option

Among the recent changes and upgrades to the CMPS program since I first signed up is an ability to have multiple phone number extensions to allow you to track your results against different types of advertising methods. I plan to get that upgrade, and will let you know more about it in future posts.

The reason they don't have a more straightforward tracking mechanism (like what Clickbank.com uses) is that the phone number and extension are on all your advertising...so if you just used a web "tag" or "cookie" type of tracking system, you wouldn't really be capturing all the responses to your ads. Many people call in before signing up, and there's no easy way to track where people got the phone number and extension when they call in.

But by offering this upgrade where you get multiple phone extensions, you can actually target specific advertising to specific phone extensions, and in that way you'll track nearly everything.

It's not perfect, but it sounds sufficient for what I'm looking for. And it's a massive improvement over not knowing ANYTHING about which traffic is converting (which is where I am now without this upgrade).

Radio and TV Advertising Too?

Mary also mentioned something about their including TV and Radio ads as part of the program now, for Ultimate Traffic System buyers. That sounded really cool, though she didn't explain it in any detail. Hopefully I'll get a chance to learn more about it. If/when I do, I'll let you know.

That's all I have time to write tonight. But it's been a really interesting night!

Viewer Comment - Cancel or Not?

I just saw this comment from reader elizstrand and wanted to respond for everyone's benefit.

I just signed up with Global Cash Flow Network today and have charged $8590.oo in fees for the whole program including the Dan Kruscher [Kuschell] mentoring program.

About 2 hours after my Level 1 Consultant sign-up I received a phone call from another "work-from-home" sales rep for "Typing from Home" When I mentioned that I just committed to Global Cash Flow Network the caller dove into a full blown rant about what a ripoff, scam bad deal Global Cash Flow is and that I should immediately cancel. The caller wants to call me tomorrow and assist me in cancelling Global. I'm sick to my stomach thinking about this situation. What are your thoughts?

Talk about bad-mouthing the competition -- is there anything out there that's legit? What do you suggest I do? Cancel or work through the program?Thanks.Strand Communications (elizstrand)

Evaluating Advice

elizstrand, I feel your pain. I guess you were on a list for home-business information, and that's why the Typing From Home rep called you. The one thing that is important that I think you must realize already is that the Typing From Home rep you spoke to has a vested interest in getting you signed up with them, rather than GCFN. I've belonged to a network marketing company for a while and have found it hard to make any money (I've spent more on products than I've ever made). So I can't recommend Typing from Home!!

(I don't know much about that company, but you can follow this link to read a review about those types of "typing from home" opportunities/scams)

So bottom line, I WOULD NOT sign up or accept further help from the Typing from Home rep!

What About GCFN - Cancel or Not?

Whether you should cancel or not depends on your goals when you signed up. If you are expecting to make money fast (to replace your income quickly to just work from home and not need another job), I'd consider quitting. GCFN isn't a "make-money-instantly" program. It takes effort to study and then apply what they teach you, and I think the Kuschell mentoring takes place over a few months - so it would be months at least before I'd expect you to make any real money.

On the other hand, if you signed up thinking within a year's time you want to be trained in advertising and internet entrepreneur stuff, then I'd stick with the program and not cancel. From what I can tell, if you actually follow the program and use the mentoring (which sometimes takes persistence because the mentor lines tend to be jammed with calls), you will be able to start earning some real income a year or so later. Even now, while I've had a few big checks come in, I feel like I'm just learning.

Is GCFN a Scam?

I don't think it's a scam. At this point, they seem like a legitimate company to me. But I'm still debating whether or not it's a rip off.

I'm still undecided, for the many reasons I've stated in this blog in the past - it's hard to reach mentors on the phone, and there's no good way to track your advertising results when promoting GCFN. But they do offer a LOT of training and have connections to some good internet entrepreneurs like Joshua Shafran, for whom I've gained a lot of respect since subscribing to his "Two Comma Club" newsletter thru the CMPS program.

As an affiliate of the Global Cash Flow program, it clearly has an awesome back-end (customers you find will be spending thousands, which means you make a significant cut 10-20% each time, which can add up fast if you can find a good advertising/marketing method that works for you - as seen by the checks I've received). But correlating your earnings to your advertising is nearly impossible and something they really need to fix before I'll be able to say definitively that it's a good program.

Frankly, if you are signed up with the Dan Kuschell mentoring program, I'd give it a chance to work out for you. I didn't sign up for that, and actually regret it (since the "Guaranteed Traffic" was a total let-down, I wished I'd spent that money on the mentoring). My sense from talking to my level-2 coach has been that the Dan Kuschell mentoring students get a lot more help and advice. So the fact that you signed up for that is a plus - you're just going to have to work hard to get value from it.

With the CMPS program, you'll learn a lot about advertising and internet marketing stuff with the free "bonus" courses you'll receive electronically over the next few months, but you still have to figure out how to use that knowledge to make some money. Ideally you want to get in a position of promoting products OTHER than GCFN or Dan Kuschell's stuff. But you won't know enough to do that for a while.

That's why I've been saying in some of my past posts that I think the only way to succeed or get value from GCFN and the CMPS program is to look at it as an education/training course more than a money-making opportunity. You'll spend time and money now at a short-term loss, but I think long-term you'll have learned enough to start making real money on your own (not necessarily thru GCFN) within a year.

Bottom Line - Quitting or Sticking With It

It depends.

A) If you can afford to spend the $8500+ for the CMPS/Kuschell program and still be solvent if you don't make much/any money back for the next 6 months, you should definitely stick with it and not cancel. After 6 months, if you've really been following the program, you should be making that money back. And if you could leave a comment here about the Kuschell mentoring, that would be really helpful (because I'm assuming here that his mentoring program really has value to it, and isn't like the Guaranteed Traffic disappointment)

B) If you are going to be in financial crisis and not able to pay credit card bills unless the program starts producing massive amounts of cash for you, I'd recommend you quit and get your refund ASAP. From what I've seen, if you need this program to make money fast, you're going to be very disappointed.

C) If you are somewhere in-between - you can't wait 6 months, but you can afford to pay your bills (maybe you have another job) - then you should stick with it and not quit. You really will learn some stuff. I believe what you'll learn can pay off big-time down the road...but it's not going to pay off right away.

The hard part is applying what the CMPS program will try to teach you. It's all home-study, except for the times you speak to a coach and ask questions. If you don't apply it, you are wasting your money and will never get anywhere. You need to commit to really trying to apply what you'll be offered in training. I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but honestly, no home biz program out there is going to work for you unless you put some serious elbow grease into working your own education and business efforts. Unfortunately, even working hard won't guarantee success, but having any chance at profits at all starts with working hard.

Is There Any Legitimate Work from Home Program Out There?

I honestly do not know. I'm pretty cynical. I've bought plenty of courses, not just the GCFN/CMPS thing, and have yet to make any of that money back entirely by applying the material. But then again, I generally have been lazy and not diligent at applying the stuff I've bought.

The only reason I'm not entirely negative on GCFN/CMPS is because of the big checks I've been getting lately (roughly one big check $600-$950 a month for the past 3 months). It's hard to be negative about a program that sends me $950 checks.

I hope this helped. Please, let me know what you decide to do in a comment.

P.S. I have NOT received another check yet since my last post. But stay tuned!

Shocking $951 Check Received from Global Cash Flow Network

Last week I received a check from GCFN for $951.00! Signed by Mary Gersten!
I actually received a $50 check several weeks before this, but didn't think it was worth mentioning (I just didn't have time to photograph and post it).

If I've done the math properly, this brings my total "earnings" so far from promoting GCFN with web-based advertising and postcards to about $2800. I spent over $5000 total to enter the Certified Media Placement Specialist program, so I haven't broken even yet. I've got to make about $2300 more to break even. (Actually, it's probably more than that if I take account of postage spent on postcards. I'll try to add that up and mention the actual numbers in my next post. I do most of these blog entries without looking up my detailed accounting records).

I've actually been slacking on the postcards. Postage costs 26 cents per postcard. If you mail 500, that's $130. I plan to try it again based on this latest check, but I'm beginning to wonder if web-based marketing is more cost-effective for me.

The sad thing is, right now there's no way for me to know whether it's postcards or something else that is working.

Does Anyone Know What Is Working ?

Although I still have some concerns about the way the GCFN sales process is hype-intensive, I am definitely on board with this as a way to make some money on the side! The CMPS program is a legitimate training opportunity with real income possibilities as far as I can tell! You just have to stick with it, look at it as a training/certification program (not a pure money-making machine) and keep trying different things until something works. A bit hit or miss, but that's honestly all I've been doing so far.

Apparently my advertising is working now that I fixed my problem with domain-masking (see my Feb post about that). I've mostly been using some super-cheap pay-per-click type advertising (using very narrow, focused keywords that gives me a few dozen hits a week), plus Squidoo, this blog, and free advertising on TrafficSwarm and TopSurfer.

But the thing that really bothers me is that I have no way to actually track WHICH advertising is working.

Every advertisement is just a shot in the dark. That's not a 21st century approach to marketing!

Internet Marketing Training

Since I started with the CMPS program, I've been getting internet marketing trainings from Joshua Shafran and others (I get Josh Shafran's "3 comma club newsletter" via CMPS at $47 a month and worth every penny I would say).

The key to massive success as far as I can tell from all the resources I've read about making money online is that you need to be able to track what advertising and marketing channels are working, and which ones aren't. To maximize profits you need to optimize the winners and cut-off the losing advertising that is costing you money but not making any back.

So far, GCFN hasn't provided the features that allow me to do that. I just have to average over all of my advertising costs. Very frustrating.

Judging by the checks that keep rolling in, SOME of my advertising must be working. But I don't know which parts!! If I did know, believe me, I'd be ramping it up!

Checks Delayed 30 Days?

By the way, according to the GCFN back office, the checks are sent out 30 days after the sale. This makes sense, as they need a delay to be sure the order hasn't been canceled or contested by credit card companies. But this means the successes I've been having occurred 30-days prior to the check being sent. So this latest $951 check was earned from sales made prior to Feb 12.

I have hardly a clue about what I did in Jan/Feb that would have brought in all the sales required to make me $951. Between Jan 1 2008 and Feb 14 2008 I collected 9 prospects in my back office. If each sale was several thousand dollars total and I earn 10%, then $951 represents maybe 2-3 sales. I'm not sure if phone-ins are counted in my back office (and some of my advertising points people to call the phone number with my extension, not go to the website) so there may have been others not listed in my "MyWebCashStore" back office.

The point is, without a tracking system, it is really hard to justify putting massive effort into more advertising. I don't know what kind of return to expect. And therefore remain a bit skeptical about this as a business with "full time" earnings potential. (Is anyone from GCFN taking note of this??)

Anyway, I'll keep you posted. Thanks for submitting comments, it's good to know you are reading this and getting something out of it.

I do plan to put together some tips on how to do better with promoting GCFN (and other things, like ClickBank). But I'm still working at a job that completely drains all my mental energy and haven't gotten around to it yet. Sorry...but I'll be working on it, I promise.

Warning About URL Forwarding/Masking and Affiliate Tracking

A few months ago I was reading something about internet marketing (honestly, I do not remember where I was reading it) and they talked about using your own URL to foward people to your affiliate website.

Having a unique URL (like the one I use for my GCFN affiliate website) can really make a big difference - so I am told - in getting people to your actual affiliate page.

If you have a page with an address like www.24hourwebcash.com/myusernameis
a lot of people who see your link will just type it in as

www.24hourwebcash.com
and leave off your username. This results in visitors coming to the site, but not to your page (resulting in YOU not making money).

So the best thing to do is get your own URL
(GoDaddy.com is a good cheap source)
and then forward your URL (say it's http://www.mywebsite.com/ ) to your affiliate page.

BUT... (there's always gotta be a "but..")

Warning - Do not use URL Masking

What I discovered to my dismay in December however, is that if you "mask" your affiliate URL, affiliate systems will not be able to "drop cookies" properly to give your credit, and you will lose comissions.

Since the end of September I had been masking my affiliate URL...and not getting a single check since October! I had also been putting stickers on my postcards and having my own url (cashflowurl.com) over the regular url.

Oops!


What Is Domain-Name Masking?

Masking is an option you can set when you set up the domain forwarding, so that the person going to your URL only sees your URL name, and never sees your actual affiliate link.

For example, if you have a URL mywebsite.com and forward it to your affiliate link
http://www.24hourwebcash.com/myusernameis

then when someone types in "mywebsite.com" into the browser address bar, the browser will get forwarded to your affiliate website and show
http://www.24hourwebcash.com/myusernameis
in the address bar, not "mywebsite.com."

On the other hand, if you use the domain name masking option when you set up forwarding, when a person types in "mywebsite.com" into the browser address bar, the browser will still SHOW your affiliate page, but the address in the address bar will still read http://mywebsite.com

This way, the visitor never really knows they are looking at an affiliate website. Except you don't get credit for the sale either, so it doesn't help!!


Unfortunately for me, this also means if the visitor signs up for the GCFN online (by putting in their name & info, then reading the "one time offer" special page and signing up right there rather than calling in...) then I won't get credit for any sale.


The Solution
So I realized my mistake at the end of December and turned off domain name masking in my GoDaddy.com account. So now when somone types in my URL, they can see my affiliate page name in the address bar...and I should get credit if/when they apply for the CMPS program online.


The Reward: A $899 GCFN Check!

And guess what? I have not sent out postcards now for over a month, but I have been doing some free advertising at places like trafficswarm.com and some cheap paid classifieds.

And completely out of the blue, I got a check for $899 from GCFN last week.

(I took a photo of it before I cashed it in, but sorry - the photo almost too blurry to read. But it looked like real pen & ink on the signature, like maybe Mary Gersten actually signed the check herself!)






This thing with the domain masking explains why I didn't make money from my last postcard mailing in October, since I had covered up all of the original web addresses with my own address (which was using masking at the time).


I don't know if this will help any of you out there, but if you are using Domain Masking...stop doing it!