My first impression of SFI was pretty positive. I read the come-on headline that said SFI was getting 4,000 prospects into the program every week (not every month, but every week).
Man, I figured, this is it, they are in more countries around the world than you can shake a stick at, and this thing is growing like mushrooms on lawns in the Pacific Northwest (we get a lot of rain in the winter). And trust me when I say they had some products and services, more than 600 of them. What’s not to like?
SFI immediately threw out a Smart Start Training Program for newcomers like me, and I went though that baby like a hot knife through butter.
Upon completion of my Smart Start Training, I received notification from SFI that I had qualified for my free shares of Eagle Co-Op. This led me to personally sponsor in two prospects, and at that time I had done nothing to promote my business other than complete the Smart Start Training and become a paying Affiliate. My $29.95 purchase every month qualified me as an Affiliate to earn commissions on my production.
The Eagle Co-Op Program got my attention because I like eagles. Essentially, you buy into the Eagle Co-Op and the company recruits prospects for you, then you try to get the prospects to upgrade and become a paying member of SFI. That’s when the money starts flowing in.
So I bought into the Eagle Co-Op program and dumped some bucks into paid advertising and before two months were up I had 48 prospects (11 of which, or 23%, came from the Eagle Co-Op and 37 of which, the remaining 77%, came from my paid advertising driving prospects to SFI’s sign-up page).
Thirteen of the 48 prospects became Affiliates as I had done, and I received a couple of really minuscule checks. Then the Affiliates did something I was not expecting, after upgrading they quit. Even with all of the support from auto-responders and online training guides and forums, they quit anyway.
The prospects got in and got out so fast I thought an IRS agent was knocking on their door.
It was then that I began to realize that recruiting prospects was one thing and keeping them was another. Now I would not want to beat myself up too much for the effort and investment I put in SFI. I really expected that the mighty SFI, with all of its self-proclaimed beneficence and clout, would have helped to keep them and grow them, but it was not to be.
I would bet that the founder of SFI would have been almost indignant to learn that someone (like me) would had even suggested that the Empowerism training system was more intense, massive and focused than his SFI training system.
SFI also had a free package which included "eight exciting home-business training products and tools valued at over $585" that you could give away to prospects. This was called its Secrets of Internet Millionaires (SIM) package.
I never received one myself because I came in through the PIP opportunity (mentioned in Part 1), but I knew I could drive traffic to the SFI site on the Internet, and my prospects could check it out big time. Apparently the Secrets of Internet Millionaires package got SFI more excited about its program than it did a lot of prospects.
When I finally slowed down enough to look for some evidence to convict me of being successful at SFI, I could find none. It was not long after that I took a closer look at the vaunted Eagle Co-Op Program that touted its ability to separate the wheat from the chaff when it came to prospects.
When I looked at my scorecard more closely and focused on who had produced, this is what I saw: Ed recruited 77% of the prospects through paid advertising, and SFI recruited 23% through its Eagle Co-Op Program.
Every prospect that I recruited and every prospect I sent to SFI’s sign-up page (a ton more) became part of the SFI master mailing list. I had no mailing list because I was not set up to build one. Then I began to wonder if the names SFI was selling me were the recycled rejects of potential prospects another Affiliate drove to SFI’s sign-up page.
Shoot, I had apparently been snookered into another opportunity, and, gosh darn it, had actually enjoyed myself in the beginning of this unfruitful venture. My few measly checks were dwarfed by the time and money investment I had put into SFI.
I began to wonder just how long it was going to take me to realize that affiliate marketing was not for me, and that I was playing to someone else’s strength with my weakness.
Some time later I got the announcement that the same SFI founder had made some sweeping changes to his opportunity because it apparently was not working according to script.
I did not consider this any big news flash because I understand that if a business does not continually re-market itself over time it will cease to exist. Just as the market SFI competes in changes over time so do the buying habits of its consumers.
The final straw came when I attempted to totally opt out of SFI, and much to my chagrin learned that you do not, repeat, do not, just opt out of SFI. No sir, you get their permission to opt out. You cannot opt out unless and until you select a reason for opting out.
If you refuse to give a reason, you cannot leave. While staring at the box at the top of the page that said "Reason is required" I felt like I was being scolded for being a difficult child.
Then I thought, "What is reasonable about this?" I know companies like to survey, but I always considered it a voluntary exercise, not a mandatory sentence for being involved in and helping subsidize SFI’s business. Talk about ingrates.
It all seemed just a tad too controlling, like both the Empowerism and SFI opportunities, overblown and annoying from my prospective.
This article mercifully completes the three-part series about my experience with Empowerism and SFI. I can move on now and become successful as an Internet Marketer.
Copyright © 2006 Ed Bagley
Ed Bagley is the author of Ed Bagley’s Blog, which he publishes daily with fresh, original writing intended to delight, inform, educate and motivate readers. Visit Ed at . . . http://www.edbagleyblog.com
