E-Commerce Courses Advertised On Youtube. Are They Worth Paying For?

” Hi, my name is X. This video is especially for those who wanna be able to start a business, and travel every month…”

I know the first name that comes into your mind.

No, that’s not him…

How Legit Are Those Get-Rich-Quick Ads

If there is anyone more famous than our local youtube celebrities, it will be the group of fellow internet marketers selling get-rich dreams or telling people how they can easily build a passive income through E-commerce.

I generally pay little attention to get-rich-quick schemes. Neither do I look too much into people boasting about their digital marketing skills, but constantly sliding advertisement into my favourite dogs and parrots youtube videos is crossing the line!

Imagine seeing this:

Before you watch your youtube video on this:

INTRUSIVE, I must say.

Curious, a little angry, and wanting to get rich too, I did a bit of research on these courses.

Disclaimer: The people behind some of these ads might be legit and a percentage of Singaporeans may benefit their courses. Seedly is here to provide some research and to highlight some things to look out for, to help Singaporeans make smarter personal finance decision. 

TL;DR – Online Get Rich Courses And How Much They Cost

While trying to do a little compilation of the prices for these courses, here are some difficulties faced:

• Lack of transparency in terms of price (Free trials, free sessions everywhere)
• Multiple websites and different domains leading to the same course
• The need to rely a lot on forums to find out a good estimation on how much people are paying for these courses

Check The MAS Alert List

Singaporeans should always check if the course that they are signing up is on the MAS Alert List, and be extra cautious if it is listed.

We did a little quick check and we found a really familiar name on the list, Ace Profits Academy Pte Ltd (APA).

Do also note that if the company is not listed, it does not mean that it is 100% safe.

What To Lookout For, Before And After Signing Up With These Courses?

These internet marketing courses do not come cheap, hence, do take note of some of these pointers before jumping on board.

The Perception Of Success

Pay extra attention to the setting of most of such youtube advertisements. To be able to capture Singaporeans’ attention in the quickest time possible, these videos need to be able to sell you a dream in the quickest time possible.

This is why most of the setting of these videos open with a scene of either:

• Shows the coach of these courses travelling
• Talking in front of an expensive property
• Casually talking about his course, while driving a car

All of which is leading the Singaporean Dream. Behind it carries a subtly message to ads viewer that “if I can do it, so can you”.

They then seal the deal by putting the cherry on the cake with terms such as entrepreneur and passive income.

Assuming those properties, cars or lifestyle truly belong to them, what allows them to purchase those expensive assets or keep up with that type of lifestyle is unknown.

Singaporeans should not link the wealth seen on video with the course being the sole reason why.

Creating Of Possibly Fake Demands

” We are down to 20 seats, I will only be here for an hour. Sign up now for this price, else it will double tomorrow.”

According to some reports from netizens, here are some marketing strategy commonly used to put pressure on the people attending the course to sign up more.

Some sales techniques include:

• Putting a time pressure on it, saying that the deal will only last or a limited amount of time
• Pretending to be receiving a lot of enquiries on the course
• Pretending to have an influx of sign-ups in front of a live audience.

Upselling

Like many other seminars, there is usually a free session, followed by an upselling of their product. Hence, it is important for Singaporeans to expect that and only sign up if you have done your research and believe that the course will be able to benefit you.

Do not feel obliged or be pressured to signing a package on the spot.

Guaranteed And Get Rich Fast Method

Beware of the overused word, “guaranteed”.

Nothing in this world is guaranteed, and past performance may not be an indication of future results.

Take whatever was promised with a pinch of salt. It is always important to read their reviews.

Technical Skills Required

From an internet noob to internet millionaire after 1 course and a few thousand dollars in terms of school fee? Sounds like a good deal, yet why are we not seeing the majority of Singaporeans becoming millionaires overnight?

If there is one thing we know about internet marketing, it is that technical skills and creativity is extremely important.

If They Make Millions, Why Would They Spend Time Teaching?

” I am an internet millionaire, but let me teach you my strategy with a few thousand dollars.”

Does this not raise any red flag already?

It is important for Singaporeans to understand that there is no guaranteed get-rich-fast method. Most of it comes with high risk or hard work. Also, some of these courses might be part of a Multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme to acquire more down-lines.

What people on the internet are saying?

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Before paying a huge amount of money for a course in an area, such as E-commerce or internet marketing, which you are not familiar with, it is important to do a little bit more research on it.

Simply read up on the reviews of these courses to have better insights from past attendees of these courses.

We did a bit of our research on courses (which we may or may not have mentioned in this article).

A Real User Review On These Courses

Here’s a detailed one we chanced up:

” A 36-year-old male sales executive shares his experience on how he dropped S$5600 on internet marketing courses in the hope that he would be able to make a quick buck, but was left sorely disappointed. He wants to warn readers about such schemes so that unlike him, they won’t part so easily with their hard-earned money:

Dear Readers,

I am sure you all have seen countless self-claimed ”INTERNET MARKETING GURUS” trying to tell you how easy it is to own an internet business/do internet marketing and how you need to spend so little time on it such that the whole thing is automated and you just sit there and watch the money roll in.

There are many such ads on facebook and they get blasted into our emails too.

I would like to share my negative experience and honest review having attended one and paid MORE than $5,600 in all. I hope people will not waste their money like I did.

1. How I got to know this internet marketing course preview?I got to see Mr X’s advertisement on Facebook and decided to attend the preview. The advertisement was very impressive looking and had lots of people smiling and posing in pictures with him.
2. What happened during the internet marketing course preview? 

   During the preview, Mr X showed the audience how much money he has made using the power of the internet. Nothing was really verified by an independent 3rd party and the audience did not ask for evidence. Mr X presented as though money will keep on coming in through internet marketing.

During the seminar, Mr X asked us to buy handouts to see what is included in the course. I was quite shocked. I thought such basic handouts are free but I paid anyway.

Mr X then told the audience the following:

• “NO TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE IS REQUIRED”
• “NO START UP COST NEEDED”
• “IT IS FULLY DONE FOR YOUR SYSTEM”

I thought it was true so I signed up.

However, during the course which I paid to attend, this was what I found out

• “NO TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE IS REQUIRED”
  Not true. A lot of technical knowledge is involved. It was left to us to come up with our own website.
• “NO START UP COST NEEDED”
  Not true. Not only do we have to pay for the cost of hosting, but there are also A LOT of hidden costs that were not mentioned during the preview.
• “IT IS A FULLY DONE FOR YOU SYSTEM”
  Not true. There is no such thing as FULLY DONE FOR YOU, because there are still a lot of things to be done. The so-call FULLY DONE promised and delivered was probably at most 5% of the whole system.

How did Mr X get people to sign up?

After the preview ended, Mr X told the attendees (including myself) to sign up by saying that there are limited seats left and Mr X will keep counting down the number of seats left.

I later found out it was not true. Because even after the preview, there are still people signing up for the course! Unfortunately, I too succumbed to the pressure and signed up, believing what was promised in the preview.

What happened during the 2-day Internet Marketing course? What was taught? (I paid more than $1.8K for this 1st course)

Day 1

Basically, I only learnt how to create an advertisement using Facebook which took Mr X, 8 HOURS to teach!

I already know how to create Facebook Ads. It is easy and anyone can do it within an hour max.

Mr X didn’t teach us how to sell on the internet as promised but how to market his course. This is definitely not what I had paid to learn! I wanted to learn how to market my own products, not Mr X’s course. And not just on Facebook, but on different platforms.

When we market Mr X’s course on the internet, a very attractive referral fee will be paid. So, in the end, we were just trained to sell his course. The amount of money one needs to spend on the internet ads might not be recovered if you don’t get a converted lead.

I wasted 8 hrs. Just like that.

Day 2

Mr X taught how to do affiliate marketing. However, I soon realized that the cost involved to do affiliate marketing is easily more than you can earn.

For example, one has to spend extra money to buy an email list, facebook ad etc which can easily go up to more than $1k without getting a single sale. It’s not as if there are no extra costs involved. I wish I was told earlier during the preview instead of finding it out only much later during the course.

Just before Mr X end the course, Mr X tried to upsell another course(2ND COURSE) to us! Using the same method, counting down the number of seats left, to make the attendees make a fast decision.

Mr X told us, “Today will be the last day that you can buy this course at $XXXX dollars”, tomorrow will be double. But UNTIL TODAY, THE COURSE FEE IS STILL THE SAME!

A LOT OF PROMISE but DELIVERY a LETDOWN! (I paid more than 3.8K for this 2nd Course)

I was so naïve to think that the 2nd course will be better, so I signed up for it.

During the 2nd course, Mr X promised us a series of modules that we will be going through together. But nobody knew that in actual fact, only 2 modules are conducted as live training!

The rest of the modules are basically delivered to us via downloadable videos, telling us to learn on our own. In other words, they used old training videos and told us to learn on our own.

And in a nutshell, this is how they delivered their training which I spent MORE THAN $5,600 in total.

I know that many netizens will comment that I was silly for paying so much for attending the course. But I know if I keep quiet and not share my experience, more people will lose their hard-earned money like me. So I shall not keep quiet like the rest even though I know I’ll be ridiculed. I have decided to speak out so others can learn from my negative experience.

Be careful of these overhyped seminars full of promises and claims and boast how easy it is to make money. I should have left my wallet at home like a friend advised me. But it’s a lesson learnt that I will never forget.

All in all, I wasted my time and money. Don’t repeat my mistake. I’m just one voice but if my sharing prevents just one person from losing his hard-earned money, it would be good enough.”

Source: redwiretimes.com/letters/beware-s5600-down-the-drain-on-easy-money-internet-marketing-courses/