After read­ing and re-​​reading the lat­est FTC guide­lines, I’ve come to some impor­tant con­clu­sions that I want to share with you. Par­tic­u­larly as they relate to testimonials.

Last night, my good friend and top copy­writer John Carl­ton called me up, and we had an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion on this whole FTC thing and the hys­te­ria it has created.

I expressed to John my opin­ions about them, along with a very sim­ple solu­tion. And John agreed with me.

It’s a huge ben­e­fit to those who under­stand copy­writ­ing, because they can actu­ally turn around and use the FTC rul­ings to their advan­tage. Even make more sales as a result.

Part of the solu­tion is actu­ally sim­pler than you think. And it doesn’t involve tear­ing down all your tes­ti­mo­ni­als, plas­ter­ing a bazil­lion dis­claimers around them, or con­duct­ing painful, men­tal con­tor­tions to decide what is typ­i­cal or not.

You can start by doing this one sim­ple thing…

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A stu­dent, who is an upcom­ing copy­writer, recently asked where he could find clients will­ing to pay higher rates for his skills.

Hav­ing built a client base through net­work­ing on Inter­net forums geared towards start-​​up busi­ness own­ers, he now wanted to find oppor­tu­ni­ties that would allow for upward mobil­ity within his craft.

This is a com­mon sce­nario, because local and espe­cially start-​​up busi­nesses are easy to find, and pro­vide plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice your emerg­ing copy­writ­ing skills.

In a pre­vi­ous arti­cle, I talked about three tips for aspir­ing copy­writ­ers. I rec­om­mend any new copy­writer to fol­low these three tips to start build­ing a track record and get to a level that makes them appeal­ing to higher-​​paying clients.

But after your copy­writ­ing skills are devel­oped, how­ever, it becomes desir­able if not nec­es­sary to seek out clients — bet­ter, more lucra­tive clients — who are estab­lished enough to pay a fair wage for your skills and, above all, your results.

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Ryan Deiss, who is a friend and mar­keter I highly respect, didn’t see eye-​​to-​​eye with me on some issues. One of them is cer­tainly forced continuity.

How­ever, just this morn­ing he released a new report, enti­tled, “The Death of Forced Con­ti­nu­ity.” I’ve read it, and it’s a good report. I rec­om­mend it.

Granted, Ryan’s intent in releas­ing this report is not 100% altru­is­tic. After all, he is, like me, a diehard capitalist.

Ryan sells a course on how to cre­ate con­ti­nu­ity pro­grams, and he cer­tainly makes the case for his own prod­uct in this report. How­ever, noble or not, he did switch gears and noticed a dra­matic improve­ment in his over­all prof­its, which he shares in this report.

So read it because it con­tains a few very pow­er­ful lessons on the sub­ject of forced con­ti­nu­ity, and what you can do instead to make more money with con­ti­nu­ity programs.

Now, I won’t go into detail with regards to what I feel about forced con­ti­nu­ity (I have done so sev­eral times already on this blog). But let me add a few addi­tional comments.

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The long antic­i­pated third and final install­ment of my wife’s shock­ing and highly con­tro­ver­sial exposé, Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins cov­er­ing five more sins, is finally out.

It took a bit longer this time, and Sylvie explains why in the report. She also clears up a lot of mis­con­cep­tions about why she wrote this report. And in fact, this time she did it a lit­tle differently.

This time, she did it on video!

There are sev­eral reasons.

For one, she wanted to save time. Her recent surgery forced her to post­pone writ­ing this sec­tion, and peo­ple were clam­or­ing for it.

Sec­ond, it would also give you a chance to hear her pas­sion, and some­times, her anger. Plus, she ends with a heart­felt plea you def­i­nitely don’t want to miss!

Like parts one and two, she uses strong lan­guage and doesn’t hold back! Your dis­cre­tion is advised.

She exposes the final five sins, i.e., Tele­sem­i­nar Idiots, Brain­less Free­bie Seek­ers, Coach­ing Addicts, Time-​​Sucking Vam­pires, and Slave Own­ers. The video is on the same down­load page of the first two parts. If you haven’t signed up, do it now…

Go now and watch part #3 of Inter​net​Mar​ket​ingSins​.com.

Last week I told you about Robert Plank’s prod­uct, Speed​Copy​Se​crets​.com, which I highly recommend.

While noth­ing beats learn­ing great copy­writ­ing, this prod­uct is fan­tas­tic for any­one who wants to know how to come up with copy really fast that’s good enough to start sell­ing with.

It’s also really good for non-​​copywriters and mar­keters who don’t want to take the time to learn how to write copy or pay an expen­sive copy­writer to have it writ­ten for them.

So I’ve decided to record a quick review of Robert Plank’s Speed​Copy​Se​crets​.com. To watch, sim­ply click on “play” below. It’s very brief (just a few min­utes), but in it I go through the prod­uct and tell you what I like best about it…

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Part #2 of my wife’s shock­ing exposé, Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins cov­er­ing five more sins, is finally out.

It took a bit longer this time, and Sylvie explains why in the report.

Once you read this sec­ond install­ment and some of the shock­ing rev­e­la­tions it makes, you’ll soon under­stand why. Because in it, she exposes some of the more devi­ous, cun­ning, and toxic behav­iors and destruc­tive per­son­al­ity traits we see online today.

(The sec­tion on Cult Lead­ers is pretty fas­ci­nat­ing, too. There’s some pretty harsh stuff in there, and some of it might seem very famil­iar to you.)

But it’s not all doom and gloom. You’ll also be in for a good laugh, too.

Have you ever seen Jeff Fox­wor­thy do his “You might be a Red­neck” skit? Well, Sylvie did her own with lazy mar­keters. And they’re all 100% true. As the out­sourc­ing provider to many mar­keters, she’s seen her fair share of corner-​​cutting tactics.

The report is avail­able on the down­load page of the ini­tial report. If you haven’t signed up already, then I sug­gest that you do.

Go now and down­load part #2 of Inter​net​Mar​ket​ingSins​.com.

After typ­ing furi­ously for the last three days, my wife has finally put together the first part of a three-​​part man­i­festo, in which she finally exposes some of the griev­ous sins com­mit­ted by many mar­keters on the Internet.

It has shocked a great num­ber of peo­ple, and it will make a lot of peo­ple mad. She’s also tak­ing a mon­u­men­tal risk by speak­ing out like this. But she’s mad, too, and can’t take it anymore.

In it, she not only lashes out at Inter­net mar­keters who use stu­pid (and some­times ille­gal) mar­ket­ing tricks, but also con­sumers of Inter­net mar­ket­ing prod­ucts who per­pet­u­ate them — and what to do about it.

There are 15 sins in all. She will be cov­er­ing five sins in each install­ment, and she’s cur­rently work­ing on the sec­ond. The first five sins are avail­able right now.

This man­i­festo is free and there are no sales pitches.

There is an opt-​​in email form in order to notify you when each install­ment is avail­able. And in it, my wife does offer some links to a few resources, includ­ing some of our own. But they are not nec­es­sary for you to read and ben­e­fit from this report.

Now, an impor­tant warning…

She doesn’t hold any­thing back. If you are squea­mish or get offended eas­ily, then please don’t down­load it. My wife uses very strong lan­guage not intended for younger audi­ences. So reader dis­cre­tion is advised.

Click here to go down­load “Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins.”