"The challenge of any organization is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another - because the question is not how well each person works, but how well they work as a TEAM!"
You Don't Get Tackled Unless
You're Carryin' the Ball!
Now just wazzat mean?
"You don't get tackled unless you're carrying the ball."
Another way of saying it would be, "It's always the biggest elephants that get shot at the most." Starting to get the picture?
The Big Dogs organization has an enviable reputation as one of the longest running, yet most stable and successful sales teams on the Internet. (You new folks who have just recently come on board the Big Dogs train may want to look at some of our recent statistics in a previous Bulletin article at "The Big Dogs Just Keep On Goin!")
It is inevitable that ANY organization as successful as the one that you "troops in the trenches" have built is going to come under fire. Hunters don't take shots at the littlest deer in the herd! They're always after the biggest, strongest buck - that TROPHY buck!
Doesn't it just make sense that if they're trying to promote a little-known program that they're going to try compare it to a well-known, top-ranked program like Big Dogs? And, of course, they're NOT going to make positive statements about that well-known program, are they? That would defeat the purpose of trying to promote the little-known program!
So you folks should not be concerned when you receive an email in response to one of your ads that attempts to put down Big Dogs. Somebody's ALWAYS tryin' to bring down the "big kid on the block" - that's the price one pays for being king of the hill. (Incidentally, if YOU have ever received one of these "put-downs," have you noticed that the writer invariably then goes on to try to pitch HIS program!!!??? Hmmmm!)
One of your fellow Alpha Dogs, Darrell Hare, was generous enough to email me a message he received in response to one of HIS ads about Big Dogs. I've NEVER been upset with criticism, folks, and I wanted to reprint portions of this message because it brings up some very interesting points.
Now, I'm not going to publicly embarrass the writer of this particular message - believe it or not, he happens to be an ACTIVE Alpha Dog! Besides, his message was rather gentlemanly and mild in tone (I've seen LOTS worse!), and, in a way, courteously professional. So we'll just refer to him as "John Doe."
What I would like to do is to comment on some of John Doe's comments in his response to Darrell Hare's Big Dogs ad...
"Hi, Darrell,"
"I am already an ALPHA DOG (don't stop reading yet!) An Alpha Dog is a member of Secrets of the Big Dogs (people who bought the ebook). It uses Coordinated High Income Programmes (C.H.I.P.) to generate leads. Personally I found these programs disappointing in their advertising results, and I feel we are trying to sell our site to other Big Dog affiliates."
My Comments:
Let me make two points. Point # 1: The leads generated by the C.H.I.P. programs are among the BEST you can get! Why do I say this? First of all, they are F-R-E-S-H. The leads you receive from the C.H.I.P. are people who within the last 24 hours have posted an ad to an FFA site or have sent an ad to a safelist. Secondly, these folks are ALREADY actively promoting something, so you KNOW they are "ripe" for another, better opportunity. In other words, they are ACTIVE - not just people who "expressed an interest" in starting their own business weeks or even months ago.
And of COURSE John Doe found "these programs disappointing in their advertising results!" If YOU just purchased a McDonald's franchise you're not going to tell everyone how great Wendy's hamburgers are, are you!?
Point # 2: John Doe makes the comment, "I feel we are trying to sell our site to other Big Dog affiliates." I get this comment a lot from newbies who see several Big Dogs ads in their email. Geez, is there anyone who wants to be the ONLY one on the Internet promoting a program!?
Y'see, friends, seeing a lot of Big Dogs ads is a GOOD thing! Keep in mind that your prospects out there don't want to join a program that is NOT popular. They want to join a successful program, and the more they see Big Dogs ads, the more successful they feel the program is! It is up to YOU to create unique ads and unique subject lines that take advantage of the notoriety of Big Dogs so prospects will join under YOU.
NOT A SINGLE DAY GOES BY WHEN I DON'T RECEIVE AN EMAIL LIKE THE FOLLOWING...
"Every time I open my email I see ads for the Big Dogs! It seems like everybody is a member but ME! I guess it's time I jumped on the bandwagon!"
Now let's continue with John Doe's message...
"I searched for better advertising tools. I found writing articles and posting them in ezines is MUCH more effective..."
My Comments:
Whoa! Hold on! Wait a cotton-pickin' second! If you'll recall, in the "Secrets of the Big Dogs" ebook we, ourselves, referred to ezines as the ultimate form of advertising, didn't we!? In fact, C.H.I.P. program # 15 is a entire directory of ezines! And in the past we've written, not just one, but TWO articles in the Big Dogs Bulletin about the effectiveness of writing articles for ezines!
As far as "searching for better advertising tools," don't we ENCOURAGE you to do this!? In fact, in the ebook we even state, "The C.H.I.P. is not designed to be the 'end-all-and-be-all' of your promotional efforts. Rather the C.H.I.P. is designed to be a solid foundation upon which to build your marketing efforts."
An effective marketer can never have too many advertising sources!
ARE there other good programs and products out there that can generate traffic? OF COURSE THERE ARE! And, as I stated above, we encourage you to try them. BUT!... most of these programs, quite frankly, are junk and in order to find the few that ARE worthwhile it's necessary to spend quite a bit of money on a regular basis to find the good ones. Most marketers haven't reached a point in their careers where they have this extra cash to "experiment" with, so they should (at least initially) utilize programs that have been proven historically to WORK!
And John Doe continues...
"LISTEN CAREFULLY: The most important ingredient for success on the net is to build your own LIST of responsive, motivated people. You need their name and email address and permission to receive YOUR mail. When your list gets big enough you can mail them any opportunity you wish, with amazing results."
My comments:
Do I hear ANOTHER "Whoa! Hold on! Wait a cotton-pickin' second!?" You betcha! Let me quote from Chapter 5 of the "Secrets of the Big Dogs" ebook where we are describing the value of using a Group Mailer...
"It doesn't happen overnight, but over a period of time you must work to build your own IN-HOUSE mailing list! Your "in-house" mailing list is a list of current and previous customers, clients, downline members, friends and associates with whom you have had some sort of previous contact. These are the folks with whom you should be maintaining CONTINUOUS contact - through a regular mailing, a bulletin, or even your own ezine. Once you have established an ongoing relationship with these people, they will become your most important source of continuing business. Once again, it takes time to build your in-house list, but when it reaches a certain size - "critical mass" - you will never have to worry about having prospects again!"
In addition to this direct quote from our ebook I have SEVERAL times related how I initially built the first group of Alpha Dogs through my in-house mailing list that I had developed from my initial Internet experience with FFANET.
I always encourage marketers to concentrate on building their in-house list and, as Chris Gibson would put it, "The 'loot' is in the list!"
And John Doe continues...
"The second most important ingredient is to build a vast automatic web of FREE advertising that works day and night. I failed miserably with the Big Dogs ebook until I understood these principles..."
My Comments:
I'm not even gonna talk about the concept of FREE ADVERTISING. Effective "free" advertising is the holy grail of Internet marketing, friends, and it just don't exist!
However, John Doe continues by relating what a "miserable failure" he was with Big Dogs. Now, I took the liberty of looking up his records. Indeed I found he had not sold one ebook - that much is accurate. But what I ALSO discovered was that John Doe - although it SOUNDS like he had spent several unproductive months trying to promote Big Dogs - HAD BEEN AN ALPHA DOG FOR BARELY FOUR WEEKS before he wrote his message decrying the Big Dogs program!!! That's hardly a proven track record!
John Doe continues by (surprise, surprise!!!) telling you about HIS "hot" opportunity, and then gives the URL where you can go to look at it. In the interests of privacy, I'm not gonna give the real url, BUT IT'S IN THE FORM OF...
http://www.adminder.com/c.cgi?XXXXXX&XXXXXX
Anybody notice anything!? Yep! John Doe is using an AdMinder tracking URL, so once more it's rather apparent that he learned SOMETHING from being a Big Dog!!! EVEN THOUGH HE'S NOT CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF IT!Again, folks, I'm not trying to berate John Doe. As I stated above, his sales message is professionally and courteously done, and if he feels he's found his marketing niche, then more power to 'em.
Incidentally, I personally went to the site he is promoting to check it out. Sure enough it's a well done site by an established, very reputable Internet guru. In fact the guru (we'll call him Joe Smith) states on his site...
"Do a search on any search engine for (my program) and you will see how much I have impacted the Internet! According to Alexa.com (my program) is a five star site and is in the top 1% of all rankings. My other Web sites (including this one) actually do better, because they earn the money!"
For those of you who aren't familiar with Alexa.com, it is an international ranking organization, similar to the Nielson ratings in the United States for the most popular TV shows. Alexa.com ranks MILLIONS of Internet sites!
And I want to congratulate Joe Smith!
When I visited the Alexa.com site I found that the first site he mentions IS a "five-star" site and is ranked an astounding 38,696 out of MILLIONS of Alexa-ranked sites. This is truly an outstanding achievement, and again I congratulate him!
Not only that but when I looked up the second site he mentions ("My other web sites...actually do better!") I found THAT statement to be true also! Not only is it truthfully a "five-star" site, it is ranked 26,154. Amazing!!!
Any of you Big Dogs know where I'm goin' with this!?...
Yeah, you guessed it! If you go to Alexa.com and search for bigdogsecrets.com, you'll find that Big Dogs has ALSO received that coveted "five star" rating! AND!... our site is ranked...
10,992
That's 10,992 out of MILLIONS of ranked website! Now unless my math is way off, I'd say that a ranking of 10,992 is "slightly" better than 26,154 or 38,696 wouldn't you!?
To reiterate: My desire is certainly not to criticize either John Doe OR Joe Smith, REGARDLESS of what is said about the Big Dogs. Rather, my point is two-fold. First of all you are BOUND to get criticisms of Big Dogs. Remember - "you don't get tackled unless you're carryin' the ball." But such comments should not concern you. Shucks, if I had any doubts about the effectiveness of the Big Dogs program, I wouldn't have even DARED to re-print John Doe's sales message, would I!?
Secondly, and more importantly, however, is the simple fact that people come away from Big Dogs as better, more effective marketers - WHETHER THEY KNOW IT OR NOT! Quite often they find that using the Big Dogs tools and techniques and programs become second nature to them, and they don't even realize they are using them...
...or where they got them in the first place!
"Critcism!? Heck, I LOVE it! It gives me a chance to
brag about Big Dogs!"Click Here to Return to Contents