Week 3 of the Mass Control course is called “The Mass Control Formula Revealed.”

This is where all the elements discussed in earlier weeks come together. The crux of this module is the entire Process Map which diagrams the Mass Control process. It is, essentially, a sales process, beginning with the Howitzer method and “united front” approach, up to the downsells and upsells.

Now this is where my mind just tuned out.

The material is too advanced for a beginner infoproduct marketer like me. And I can imagine that the entire process requires the hiring of a programmer who can put the various elements in place. I definitely couldn’t do it. Another requirement to implement the entire process is a feature-rich e-commerce service. I’m sure One Shopping Cart could do it, but not the $5-a-month service I get from e-junkie.

So as with everything else in the Mass Control course so far, I pick and choose which parts I can apply – not only in launching and promoting my own infoproduct – but in my work as a freelance copywriter.

Frankly, I was surprised that a number of clients were impressed by the fact that I was going through the Mass Control course. Well, Frank Kern is a heck of a copywriter after all. So at the very least, the Mass Control course is teaching me some incredible copywriting strategies. If only for that, the course has been worthwhile.

There is something in Week 3 that I appreciated very much. It’s an exercise, which helps you get to the heart of your target market. It’s very simple – just a set of questions – plus an interesting exercise that I haven’t come across in any of the copywriting courses I’ve seen.

But I find these assignments to be as precious as diamonds. Every time I write anything for my market, whether it’s an email, a squeeze page or an entire sales letter, all I have to do is go back to my Week 3 assignments and the words just flow. It’s a very important process for truly bonding with your target market.

I won’t go into any more detail than this. You’ll have to buy Mass Control next time Frank Kern makes it available. And don’t worry, I am not an affiliate so I won’t make or lose money with my reviews. I’m just telling you how it’s been for me, so you can decide for yourself if Mass Control is for you. It’s a significant investment, so you really have to give it a lot of thought. I hope my posts will help you make the right decision for you.

photo credit: tm-tm

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Here’s the second entry in my Mass Control diary. I posted my first entry on March 6th, so you can see that I am far behind on this course! (But I have a good reason: I have been inundated by some very good clients – to the extent that I have been turning away clients. I’ve had to say no to 3 clients, in fact. This is the first time ever that I’ve had to do this.)

Back to Mass Control. I decided to test the 4-Day Cash Machine with a joint venture partner who has a list of over 6,000 members. Wow, I thought, even with a conversion rate of 1% we would do very well. But guess what? Our 4-Day Cash Machine experiment was a major FAIL! From that list, we got an incredible result of seven sales. You read that right – only seven people from that list of more than 6,000 responded positively to the “irresistible offer” and grabbed my partner’s product. My earnings from this little experiment: $116.68. That is not a typo, there isn’t a 0 or a comma missing. That’s really my half of the “profits”.

I don’t know what went wrong. It feels like I am the only one on the planet to fail with this magical 4-Day Cash Machine formula. And it really WAS easy, cut-and-paste easy. The hardest part for me was finding a JV partner and producing the bonuses.

Looking back, any number of things could have gone wrong:

• It’s possible that my partner’s list was of very low quality. That is, they are mostly freebie seekers who never ever want to pay for anything.
• We didn’t make the right offer. Perhaps the products we used for the campaign were not the ones the list wanted.
• The product was too expensive for the list. To increase the final value of the product, my partner and I bundled a number of her products to come up with a higher-priced product. As a result, the final product may have been beyond their reach.

I thought of trying it again with another JV partner but, finally, I got too busy and I just wanted to get on with the course.

The end of week 1 involved something called the Howitzer Method. I will not get into any details here, but I will say that I am not comfortable with this method since it borders on the unethical. As a workaround, I let my VA do the work for me. Not only does this arrangement save me hours of work, but it also keeps me honest.

I asked some fellow MCers on Twitter about this and finally, we came to the conclusion that you just have to take those parts of Mass Control that you believe in and modify the other parts. This became even clearer after listening to Clement Yeung’s interview of somebody who did make money from Mass Control, Mike Stelzner of whitepapersource.com.

Other than this, all the other parts of Week 1 were truly eye-opening for me, a newbie at information marketing. Week 1 is aptly called “Planting The Seeds of Domination”. The techniques Kern teaches make a lot of sense. His approach is similar to other product launch plans I have seen elsewhere, except that Kern’s MC is more intentional and comprehensive.

The second week is all about developing your story so that it creates liking and trust among your market. The exercises here are very interesting as you are forced to really dig deep into your life, your personality and experiences, to come up with a public persona that is still truthfully you, but who will resonate more with your market. Frank Kern emphasizes that you must never ever lie about yourself. This part of the course is about learning to highlight those parts of yourself that will make you more credible, more likable and more trustworthy to your market.

I should mention that aside from the print booklets and the DVD, the course includes CDs of Kern’s audio recordings for the Mass Control monthly members. Apparently these are from monthly teleseminars where Kern responds to questions and feedback from the monthly members. Listening to these CDs almost makes me regret not joining the MC membership. It would be nice to send Frank my questions about the actual implementation of MC. At least I get to hear other people’s questions and Kern’s responses to them. And their questions turn out to be very similar to mine anyway.

I am now rushing to get through Week 3. I was supposed to launch my product next week, but it looks like that will be postponed. I had planned to make the launch of my very first infoproduct to be simple. Really, for a product of this price, an elaborate launch is unnecessary. But I will apply Mass Control to the extent that I feel is appropriate and relevant to my market – and consistent with my personal values as an entrepreneur. We’ll see what happens.

photo credit: hans.gerwitz

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I did something unusual and courageous. I signed up for a darn expensive Internet marketing course!

If you know me at all, you know that I am averse to spending money on Internet marketing materials. I guess this just goes to show how amazing Frank Kern is in selling stuff to the Internet marketing crowd!

After a lot of prayer, considering the opinions of my mentors, and getting my husband’s agreement, I bought Mass Control 2.0. DH had a clear condition though: if the stuff doesn’t make us any money, we’re getting our money back! So this diary will document my Mass Control adventure and let everyone know whether or not Mass Control will work for me.

I felt Mass Control was right for me at this time for two reasons: (1) it would give me an edge over other copywriters. In fact, one of my mentors and clients said I could charge higher fees by offering Mass Control-type marketing services; and, (2) I was in the process of writing my very first infoproduct and I could use Mass Control to launch it. So I was fully convinced to make this biggest investment so far in my home business.

Unlike others, I didn’t have to stand by my computer at launch time and beat thousands of others to get my hands at a limited copy of the course. For some reason, I ended up on Frank’s mailing list and actually got a link to a live sales page two days before the official launch.

I got the package a little over a week later, which is fast considering that I’m in Canada. The box is huge! My husband was unimpressed – in fact disappointed – when he saw that the very first thing to read was a bunch of papers that were photocopied. The original was handwritten by Frank on lined paper. But knowing Frank, I know that this had a reason too.

There’s a bunch of stuff to get through before starting the actual Mass Control course. There’s a DVD of Frank’s presentation in an Internet marketing conference entitled, “Core Influence”. I suppose – and I can only suppose because I do not yet have a big picture of the entire course – that the principle of core influence is the underlying principle to the entire Mass Control approach. Core Influence is a deepening of what other copywriting courses teach. Core Influence goes much deeper, which is probably why it works better too.

After Core Influence, I got to open the 4 Day Cash Machine. This is a quick campaign that’s designed to help Mass Control users recoup their investment. There’s just one problem: the campaign requires that you have a list, which I don’t have yet. Oh and a product, which I am still developing. But here Frank offers a simple solution for people like me: partner with somebody who has a list and a product and split the profits.

Now I can imagine how this would be daunting to a complete newbie. Mass Control is definitely NOT for new Internet marketers! Before you get this course, you should know about autoresponders, creating simple infoproducts (such as short reports and audio recordings and even organizing teleseminars), putting up a sales page, and other skills related to selling a product online. So if you’ve never put up a website, managed an Email newsletter, and at the very least done some affiliate marketing then you’ll be lost in this course.

Fortunately, I’ve been doing a lot of networking since I went online last year. I found a joint venture partner within one day of asking around. The first person I approached offered me a writing project instead (!). And the second one said “Yes”.

The 4 Day Cash Machine is really easy. I have almost completed all the work that it requires. It’s really easy because Frank provides the templates so all you have to do is, really, cut and paste. I’m just waiting for my partner to decide on a specific date for the campaign and answer some questions and we’re all set!

While that’s in the back burner, I’ve gone ahead and started the lessons from Week 1 (Mass Control is a 4-week course). It takes real discipline to only do one or two lessons a day, which is what Frank recommends. I understand that going too fast will keep me from really absorbing and internalizing the lessons, so I’m exerting a lot of willpower to stick to the recommended pace. (And besides, I have clients to attend to and other work to do – I reward myself with a Mass Control lesson when my to-do list is done)

Today, I finished Part 4 of Week 1. So far, I have set a date for my launch and made a list of “money magnets” I need to produce and my target dates for completing them. I am super excited! I see how many Internet marketers do similar things to launch their products, but probably without really knowing what for. Mass Control’s approach is more comprehensive and purposeful than other launch plans I have seen. However, I have not seen that many launch plans and in fact I don’t even know what approach is taught by Jeff Walker of “Product Launch Formula” fame. So keep that in mind as you read my opinions about product launches.

While I am very excited so far, the final reckoning will be the “success” of my product launch. That is, whether I succeed in building my list, recruiting affiliates and selling my special report. Watch out to see how the rest of this story unfolds….

photo credit: heyjoewhereyougoinwiththatguninyourhand

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