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I’m a Jay Abraham protege. One of the most powerful methods to increase profits that Jay teaches is ‘continuity selling’.
- If you trim borders and trees, you could set up an arrangement with clients to work on their garden every month – and bill them for it automatically.
- If you’re a hair-dresser, offer customers a special discount if they’ll commit to having a haircut every month or 3 weeks.
- If you’re a carpet-cleaner, tell your clients you’ll come to their home every 6 weeks and clean their carpets – and charge their card automatically.
All these are value-added services to your clients – because you are offering them MORE of what they already purchased from you.
Conveniently, so they won’t have to remember to call you each time.
At a discount, to reward them for their loyalty.
Yes, continuity selling can explode your business profitability.
It can also ruin your reputation, cast doubts on your integrity and brand you as a snake-oil salesperson if you do it in a sneaky, secretive or hidden fashion.
It may even put you behind bars!
A few days back, I bought a $9.95 ebook called Adsense Secrets. It was well worth the price and more. I even told my list about it. Because it was a good deal.
Today, I found out through Twitter that there’s a ‘forced continuity’ rebilling phase to the offer. I was surprised – because I completely missed it.
So I went back to the sales page and re-read it again carefully – and found the details where it was tucked into a short sentence in FAST ACTION BONUS #3.
It was no doubt deliberately positioned to be overlooked by all but the careful readers… nested quietly in between the bright red “FREE”s.And then, it is reiterated on the order page (though I’m quite sure it wasn’t there when I ordered, I could be wrong). However, it is now – this is how it looks:
So it appears that if I DO NOT like a report that’s thrown in as a FREE BONUS to the product I’m buying, I will have to “call and let you know” that I do NOT want to be rebilled for a continuing subscription!
And on the email receipt I received after ordering, there is NO MENTION AT ALL about the rebilling monthly subscription!
See how SERIOUSLY this is different from the kind of continuity Jay Abraham advocates – and how using such tactics can cast doubts and aspersions on the entire powerful strategy of ‘continuity selling’.
Ethically and correctly done, it is an EXTENSION of a service already purchased – and that adds convenience, value and benefit to the buyer.
Done wrong and sneakily, it is an IMPOSITION on a buyer, who is forced into a re-billing situation to get a product/bonus s/he NEVER WANTED in the first place!
When I make a buying decision on a $9.95 product, that is ALL I am making. NOT a buying decision on a $29.95 per month re-billing subscription!
Why not make it an UPSELL?
It was oh-so-simple to make an offer like that AFTER the sale – as a second offer, which a buyer could then consider independently, on its own merit.
But that means some buyers will NOT take up that offer… and for that slight increase in sales, the marketer in question was willing to take a chance.
Well, I don’t like it. At all. I’ve written to Joel to tell him that.
And I’m apologizing to everyone who was led to this offer through my posts or emails about it.
I did not know. And that is NOT an excuse. I apologize for a mistake. I will try my best not to let it happen again.
If you have already bought through this offer, and like me, if you were unaware of the forced continuity rebilling arrangement, and are NOT interested in the “Top 1% Report”, please cancel your subscription.
And for those who are thinking about using such an approach in your marketing, I refer you to a post I recently read on Tony Blake’s forum – “Illegal Forced Continuity Programs”
Here’s what the FTC has to say about continuity programs – Facts for Consumers: Continuity Plans
And keep this in mind. Even if you are ‘legal’, you can still be ’sneaky’ or ‘deceptive’ about your practices.
If that’s what you want, it’s your business. I highly recommend following not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of it, with regard to ‘forced continuity’.
UPDATE:
I’ve received a few messages by email and on forums. So I wanted to clarify something.
This is NOT a personal attack on Joel Comm.
Joel is my friend. He is also someone I admire and respect, NOT because of his marketing skills or extensive contact database, but because of his HUMANITY.
Just 3 days back, I wrote him this email about his support for a young man facing a deadly condition called ‘Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy‘ (DMD).
“Joel,
Thanks for turning the spotlight on DMD.
It’s a disease that hits particularly close to home.
… (personal bits edited out) …
Sorry if this was too saddening, I hesitated a lot before
writing it – but wanted you to know just how deeply I
(and doubtless many others) appreciate what you’re
doing to help little Petey.God bless you, Joel, for what you do.
All success
Dr.Mani”
Joel Comm is also one of the strong supporters of my work with CHD.
This post was made to showcase a less than stellar implementation of what is a really powerful strategy that has potential to boost your profits if done right.
Joel wrote this morning to say:
“Just wanted you to know that we finally got the “bundle” working in the shopping cart and the newsletter is a line item.”
So obviously he is taking steps to make it more clear to buyers that there is a ‘forced continuity’ component to the order – by adding it right on the order form.
That’s one more reason I can condemn the way this tactic was implemented – and still admire the man!
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This did violate one of the terms: “Sellers must give you information about the plan’s terms and conditions, clearly and conspicuously, in their promotional materials.
Obviously, this auto continuity plan was not obvious.
Hi!
I always find it weird to see such major names doing sneaky things like that.
Maybe it is because they think “ah well, I’ll do it, and if any problems arise, I’ll just refund the unhappy ones”.
But it seems they forget the “reputation” aspect of doing it: building a great reputation online takes time, and demolishing it takes a few seconds sometimes.
I always prefer to use the honest route, even if sometime it means fewer sales, or slower sales!
Some people are getting too clever with this method. Vince James has influenced many IM’ers and remember what happened to him….
Dr. Mani – Thanks so much for the heads-up, I glossed right over the automatic charges and have already submitted a ticket to their help desk.
Were it not for the fact that I am on your email list, I would not have realized this until after the charge had occurred. And just an FYI, I did not order through your link, but so far you are the only one who has emailed me about this.
Wow! I read that originally and in excitement took it to mean that I would be given an option to continue when I received the first issue, but either I was reading it the way I wanted to see it or it is different now.
I can never know for certain, I’m pretty sure I would have noticed that if it was worded that way on the sales page and gained a different impression. Maybe I was distracted by the other upsell and the affiliate offer? Maybe it was changed after the other recent notable $1 offer that resulted in a lot of people having to apologize to their lists.
Thanks for putting out this information. I missed it on Twitter as well.
Thanks!
Carl Pruitt
I read about the membership at the order page and resisted.
Only after getting a clear response to my questions about how to avoid the membership, I ordered the Ebook.
Joel answered the question over at Lynn Terry’s blog
http://www.clicknewz.com/1449/download-joel-comms-97-guide-for-under-10/
Just so you know!
Matt Bacak did the same thing as Joel Comm
Dr Mani:
Thanks. I missed the FREE newsletter bonus when I bought the ebook.
I assumed that the OTO was the sale he was looking for.
Some marketers send an email just before billing starts on the trial membership, but it seems most do not.
Caveat emptor.
Ultimately the buying public will determine if this practice stays or becomes history. If it is a profitable practice, it will stay. If buyers make it unprofitable due to their purchase decisions now and in the future, it will disappear.
Hello Dr. Mani
I am sorry to learn that a marketer of Joel’s reach and financial worth had to resort to such a dubious practice. I have blogged about it at Adsense Secrets 4.0: sneaky subscription built in and I am worried that other marketers with lesser success may be tempted to pull this off with their customers too.
Thanks for raising your voice against such practices – you have support!
I agree that this was sneaky and I think it is likely to bite Joel Comm in the behind. If his content is as good as he says then why does he need to sign people up without their explicit and intentioned consent? He is probably laughing his way to the bank but has he lost a lot of the trust of his consumers? I, for one, will be very wary of ordering anything from him in the future.
@Renee – I don’t think it did. Of course, a lot depends on the interpretation of the term ‘conspicuously’, but the psychological triggers used to focus attention elsewhere from the bits mentioning forced continuity were powerful enough to make it ‘invisible’ to many.
That’s why I mentioned at the end of my post that one can be ‘legal’ and yet ‘deceptive’. Breaking the letter of the law and the spirit of the law are two different things – and that stems from the way you think about your prospective buyer!
Dr.Mani
@Stephanie – I agree. I can often find it in myself to make excuses for a struggling newbie to try out weird things – because of desperation or frustration. It’s quite a different thing to see a successful marketer doing the same things.
See “The Ethics of Influence”:
http://moneypowerwisdom.com/the-ethics-of-influence/
Reputation is a fragile asset in this lightning fast, globally networked world. Everyone needs to remember it.
The corollary is a bruised or damaged reputation can also be very quickly fixed! Joel’s corrective action to repair what could have been a nasty situation is a case study on how to handle feedback and create raving fans out of critics!
See how he did it – there’s much of the discussion/information on Lynn’s blog at http://www.clicknewz.com/1449/download-joel-comms-97-guide-for-under-10/
Dr.Mani
@James Schramko – I’ve read Vince James’ book. Paid a lot of cash for it. Learned a lot of USEFUL stuff too. Vince does NOT recommend or teach this method!
He built big businesses on ‘forced continuity’ – but did it the way it was supposed to. Sell supplements or balms or other less savory stuff and set up a ‘TFN’ (”till further notice”) rebilling arrangement which the buyer can cancel at any time.
As he explains it, he ran into cash flow problems when a HUGE crowd suddenly wanted refunds on a particular product – which brought down his business with a crash and landed him in prison.
He also explains a method to cover costs from non-refundable components of the order – but does NOT suggest doing it in a sneaky or deceptive manner. By being upfront about what you’re doing, you’ll likely get fewer clients – but your profitability will be high, and your reputation is intact as well.
Dr.Mani
@Yvonne – let’s both thank Twitter – because without it, I would have missed this too!
@Carl Pruitt – I didn’t read the offer as carefully as I should have either. Or that I might have if there was a HINT of a forced continuity in it all.
@Steve Markowski – Me too. And there were TWO OTOs that I ignored. Figured that was all. As I said, I’m more angry at myself for letting myself get fooled than with anyone else!
@Roger Carr – Interesting comment. Unfortunate as it may seem, barely ONE PERCENT will ever do anything based on such an experience. Two things make the practice profitable – Inertia and Apathy.
Both are as old as humankind on Earth! So my guess is it will stay for as long as we exist… and the reason for this post is not to hope it will go away, but to caution readers that it exists, and that it’s up to every buyer to take care!
Dr.Mani
@Arun Agrawal – Thanks for the comments. Looks like Joel’s reason was a technological challenge that is now fixed, so there’s less chance of someone unwittingly subscribing to a continuity program.
@Katherine Reschke – I have no doubt it had the potential to hurt Joel – except that he is a SMART and concerned person.
He watches and LISTENS to his audience and feedback. Already Joel has announced changes that make the continuity element more visible and harder to miss. And he has engaged in the discussion over at Lynn’s blog – if you follow it, you’ll notice how he has EARNED RESPECT from his handling of the situation.
Sure, some of his trust has gone. I personally will look VERY carefully at his offers in the future, and will not trust easily again. But that’s what I should have been doing anyway – and the price I’m paying is for blindly trusting. So I agree with you, Joel did NOT get away scot-free from this experience.
But he’s also taught us all a valuable lesson in damage control and ‘audience management’… a lesson that MANY top-level marketers have NOT learned, nor bother to learn – and which will surely lead to nasty downfalls in the future.
Dr.Mani
Thanks for the heads up on this Dr. Mani. Especially since you bought and promoted it yourself. Many other internet marketers would not be so willing to admit to such a mistake.
It’s good that people with your status point these sort of things out, and other such things that go on in the internet marketing niche.
It takes people of your status and calibre to ‘get away with’ calling attention to this sort of stuff, so to speak. The newbies and unknowns can’t without getting a load of flak from every other internet marketing wannabe!
I the internet marketing niche could definately use more blogs such as yours which are willing to point out all kinds of things that go on in internet marketing, and not just the ‘feel good’ stuff or the politically correct stuff that always gets sugar coated and never gets real.
This particular marketing tactic is also not a new one. I think the first time I got a taste of the ‘forced continuity’, as you put it, was like about four years ago, by one of the gurus who is considered very respectable by many.
Like Stephanie said, this is also being done by internet marketers with very big names. What surprises me is not that they do it, but how many so called ‘newbie’ internet marketers still look up to and revere these internet marketers. Go figure!
Misato
Here is one other thing to note about ‘continuity’. I have noticed a real big increase in the number of subscription / membership type of offers in the internet marketing field.
This is what I think is probably going on. Many of the other gurus are probably counting on the situation that Dr. Mani found himself in.
I don’t think they are coming up with these ‘repeat billing’ products or services because they actually think that their product or service is actually worth a monthly expense.
I think what is going on here is yet another new unethical marketing tactic they’ve just discovered. I think what is happening is a ‘let’s throw as much as we can at the wall and see what sticks’ kind of thing.
In other words, they would normally bill once, but now they see they have nothing to lose if they trick their customers into a monthly committment.
They’ll put the ‘not so obvious’ mentions of a monthly expense in their sales letter, and count on the fact that a lof of their customers won’t even realize that there is a monthly expense.
And what if a customer does complain about continual billing? Well, no big deal. They simply cancel the subscription. They made the money they REALLY wanted anyway, in the initial charge, and they end up with some residual income to boot, so to them, it’s worth a shot and they have nothing to lose.
I am no phsycologist, but if you could read the minds of some of these internet marketers, I think this is what you would find.
Misato
I agree – Matt and I went back and forth all week on this and I even posted about this on our blog at : http://www.surefirewealth.com/blog
However I will stick up for Joel as we also talked and he said they wanted to make it an option but couldn’t get it to work technically until today. They have improved their system finally and is better now.
I will never promote forced recurring billing for anyone.
If it is part of the main offer like try our newsletter free for 30 days then you will automatically be billed $19.95 or something is fine if that is the main offer and what you are trying to sell.
But putting it forced on to another product you are selling at a low price – without giving the customer the option to NOT get the ‘free bonus’ and then bill them later every month is not cool.
Many times the customer totally misses that the ‘free bonus’ is in fact just a way to get them to give their credit card info so they can autobill them without the customer really knowing.
These things must be VERY CLEAR right on the order page the customer is looking at before putting in their CC info.
A friend of mine called forced recurring the dark side of marketing and I tend to agree.
I’m not surprised at the initial deception, intened or not. I’m always a bit suspect of many if not all Internet “deals” that come across my email. It does highlight things to do as a consumer and a provider in this arena. As a consumer, we need to read fully the offer in front of us, and as a provider we need to fully disclose our offer to the potential consumer. I’m pleased that the power of the Internet and the Social Network was shown to make thing work in this instance.
@Misato – thanks for your comments.
You said:
“It takes people of your status and calibre to ‘get away with’ calling attention to this sort of stuff, so to speak.”
I very likely “get away with it” because my comments are about issues, not individuals. And they are motivated by wanting to share a lesson, highlight a wider problem, or even suggest ways and means so that readers can avoid getting into a sticky situation.
In other words, I try and focus on SOLUTIONS. And believe that people are innately and intrinsically good, ethical and honest – though they behave at variation from their nature under certain circumstances.
Sometimes, it’s an error of judgement. Other times, it’s getting carried away when testing or trying out new ideas. And very rarely, it’s a sign of desperation.
On very few instances, the motivation is dishonest… though such situations no doubt exist, they are few and far between. At least, that’s the way I believe this Universe works. And my favorite quote is:
“What You Believe Is YOUR Truth!”
All success
Dr.Mani
I read the ‘forced continuity’ topic that is also on the surefirewealth website that you mentioned Jeremy, except there is one thing I do take issue with.
You label this whole thing as basically nothing but a mistake.
Trust me. How the rebilling was mentioned, when it was mentioned, and where it was mentioned, it is clear this was no mistake. No, this was intentional unethical marketing.
Sorry if this seems like I am dissing a friend of yours or something, but I call them like I see them, and I think most others see it the way I do also. It is rather obvious after all, if you ask me.
Misato
I agree with Misato. This stunt unleashed such a firestorm of controversy on so many forums and blogs, some damage control had to be done, and it was.
However, if you believe it was an unintentional error or a software problem, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you for $9.95 down.
@Sally, the bit about Brooklyn bridge is marketing spin!
I believe Joel made an error of judgement. That’s based on knowing the man for close to 7 years, having followed his style of marketing and buying many different things from him over this period.
To insinuate that if anyone believes his error was ‘unintentional’ indicates gullibility and a naivete equivalent to buying Brooklyn bridge is neither fair, nor true.
I re-state my belief that MOST people are good, honest, ethical… and only behave out of character under unusual circumstances, more often from errors of judgement than vicious intent to defraud and cheat.
All success
Dr.Mani
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