Self Employed or Bust

A Relaxing Self-Employment Thought

January 5, 2009 – 4:39 pm

I recently had an epiphany. As usual, what serves as an epiphany for me tends to be common sense for the rest of you, but here it is anyway; when it comes to being self-employed, your options are practically limitless. There you have it. I anxiously await my Genius of the Year award. Please send it post-haste. You may stop applauding when your arms get tired.

Ok, as epiphanies go, that one was pretty weak but I’m sincere when I say that the realization of just how limitless our options are had been lost on me recently thanks largely to the single-minded focus I’ve been applying to make-money-online and work-from-home efforts. It’s been nothing but niches and blogs and websites and affiliates lately and I’ve, perhaps, done you an injustice by having so narrowed my scope. In my defense, I’ve never suggested that this blog or the lessons I learn would move at anything other than a snail’s pace. Before I can review or even intelligently analyze any self-employment solution, I have to really dig in and try it out, after all.

It was an email exchange with a reader which brought the light shining down and I thought I’d share a little bit of that enlightenment with you. The reader was Kris Stecker, President of Spa Tech Institute. Kris was just asking general questions but the exchange reminded me of a colleague many years ago whose wife had taken massage courses and, over the course of a couple years, turned her hobby into a thriving business. Though I haven’t been in touch with this former colleague in years, when last we spoke his wife had opened the doors on her own spa and he, the colleague, was planning on resigning from the company for which we worked to join her in running their business.

What I learned, or more accurately, was reminded of as a result of my exchange with Kris, is not to let myself become too narrowly focused in my quest. In your pursuit of self-employment, don’t limit yourself exclusively to a work-from-home option. Self-employment isn’t just about where you work but also about for whom you work. It’s about independence and freedom. It’s about being your own boss, owning your own company and answering only to your own clients or schedule. If you are a talented baker, consider opening a bakery. If you aren’t but still dream of being one, you owe it to yourself to enroll in a program which will teach you what you need to know to be successful. By the same token, if you want to open a spa or become a massage therapist, get the education you need in massage therapy and cosmetology at a place like Spa Tech.

I’m a huge proponent of continuing education both through formal institutions and by actively paying attention to the world around me and taking the extra step of analysis required to turn a simple experience into a lesson. Your goal should be the same. Learn from everything around you. There’s a lesson in just about everything. And when simply observing and analyzing your world isn’t enough, take classes. Whatever path you choose in your hunt for a life without a boss, it’s up to you to ensure you have the tools to succeed. Never stop learning.

Oh, and if any of you are wondering, no I’m not being paid anything for mentioning Spa Tech. I considered trying to squeeze Kris for free massages for life but assumed the request would be politely declined. However, should any of you enroll, I’ll gladly volunteer if you need a back on which to practice your newly-learned massage skills.

Posted in Training and Education | No Comments »

Don’t Try to Make Money Online Through Social Blogging.

January 2, 2009 – 7:00 am

Back in my last post on keywords - Where Can I Find Good Keywords, I mentioned I’d be discussing a great free keyword analysis tool in my next post. Since then I’ve interjected with three posts on an unsavory make-money-online scheme I encountered and I’m about to further fall short on the promise of that tool post by writing this post as well. But, I promise, this is an important post. If your self-employment objective will center around blogging, it’s simply a must-read and might spare you the headache of my own trial and error approach. I’ll also be introducing a real talent in the make money online world and it would be a horrible loss to you if you didn’t visit his blog.

This post was inspired by a question posed by a friend. We were enjoying lunch together and discussing blogging to earn money. The conversation was casual and I didn’t go into much detail on the concepts at the time. Before we finished our meals, my friend announced he’d give blogging a try and would setup a blog focusing on his conservative political opinions and earn a few bucks in the process. I hated to do it because I’m a fan of anybody who takes the time to expand their minds through writing, but I had to warn him not to expect much if anything in the way of earnings.

“You don’t think there’s any money in that?” My friend asked.

“Well, no, but there’s more to it than just the subject matter. It’s not what I’d recommend if you want to become self-employed through blogging for several reasons.”

I went on to explain that, while I thought of the guy as a brother and valued his opinion, why would a complete stranger in some far-flung state or country care what he had to say? What clout, reputation or particular value did he bring to the equation that would make somebody else care what he thought? It is true that money can sometimes be made in a social niche market but it’s rare and there are other factors that make any potential earnings possible.

A particularly talented writer, for example, might do well blogging well-researched satirical commentary. Even as a relative unknown, his particular writing style, in time and coupled with aggressive marketing to get his blog “out there” could translate into legitimate traffic which, in turn, could translate into legitimate earnings. But, by his own admission, my friend isn’t a talented writer. In fact, he loathes writing. “So you’re talking about doing something you already hate with no raw talent in an effort to break into an extremely competitive market with already limited earning potential,” I went on, “all the chips are stacked against you.”

“I thought you said earnings were potentially unlimited on the internet,” My friend countered. Recognizing the conversation was going to require more time, I ordered another beer and settled in. I’ll try to keep this short for your benefit, though.

I explained to my friend that, yes, earnings (in general) are potentially limitless providing you’re moving a product people have an interest in buying. If you want to make money online and be self-employed doing so, the first questions you have to ask before you do anything else are 1) what is my product? And 2) will it attract customers? I asked my friend to think for a moment about this before expanding on it. Do you think there’s anybody out there shopping for opinions on conservative politics? Maybe some newspapers or periodicals, but how many are looking to buy your opinion? Assume there are potential customers. Is there anything about you or the information you’d be providing that will set you apart so dramatically that you’d attract enough customers to even buy your product? Last, but not least, assume you actually were so well known that people cared what you thought. What are they buying when they come to your blog? You’ve already given your opinion away free of charge. At best, somebody might want to hire you as a writer but now you’re right back at square one. You’re a slave to an employer and locked into somebody else’s schedule. That’s what you want to get away from, isn’t it?

My friend’s idea came with major hurdles - a limited interest and talent in the medium in which he’d be working (the written word), nothing else such as fame, infamy or celebrity status to attract readers and potential customers and, finally, not much in the way of consumers and no real salable product when all is said and done. It’s for these reasons that so many bloggers fail to make any real money online. They want to blog, to journal, to opine. Not to be rude but, really, who cares what you think? Does that mean it’s impossible to make money online as a social blogger? No. Think Perez Hilton. He’s rolling in internet money and he got there through social blogging. But he’s the exception, not the rule.

To do well in social blogging you need one key element and that’s the ability to attract traffic to your ads. A lot of traffic. TONS of traffic. Enough traffic that advertisers are willing to pay you just to host ads on your site. Whether or not your visitors click or purchase is not relevant here. You get paid simply because you bring so many eyes to the ads you display that it is worth advertiser’s money to pay you to host their ads. In the make money online world, this is known as CPM or Cost per Mille - payout based on how many thousand visitors you bring to the page on which the ad is placed. Advertisers are pretty stingy here, too. We’re not talking a thousand or so visitors a month. They want you to bring in thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands visitors per day before they’ll pay you any real money! For the overwhelming majority of us, those numbers aren’t just unrealistic, they’re a virtual pipe-dream.

The secrets to success here are fairly simple - Be famous, be infamous, know something nobody else does or be exceedingly talented. Perez Hilton, for example, first banked on the fame of the name he butchered. By associating himself with Paris Hilton, he drew an audience. By getting his name, face and opinions out there, he then banked on infamy and expanded that audience. Finally, by scooping gossip (true or not) he subsequently solidified his position as a legitimate internet earner. As for talent - well, other than knowing what vapid, useless, celebrity garbage people will be interested in dining on, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not Perez is talented. But nobody can question his success and, therefore, you have to give some credit where it’s due. Can you do the same? Can you offer something which will propel you to the rarified air in which a few people like Perez dwell?

I’m first going to paraphrase and then introduce you to one of the real make money online geniuses out there. He goes by the name Grizzly (we all call him Grizz) and he’s one of those select few I’m always talking about who, to my way of thinking, is deserving of sainthood simply because he’s making an honest effort to help others realize financial success on the internet.

Grizz has pointed out, again and again, that there are bloggers and there are internet marketers. Both can use the exact same medium (blogs) in hopes of making money online. The vast, nearly overwhelming, number of bloggers out there will rarely make any real money online. They’ll bring in some spare change, but they’ll almost never strike it rich or even earn a living. Bloggers write social blogs. They express their feelings, their opinions, their moods and they almost all do it free of charge and often at a loss in the form of hosting fees with no revenue to counteract those fees. Some cover their costs and even earn a bit of money. Their lunch is paid for now and again. Even fewer (a precious few) actually earn a legitimate living at it. Every once in a blue moon, hell freezes over and a blogger makes it big. Now contrast that with internet marketers.

Most internet marketers can easily make money online well in excess of what they pay out in the form of hosting fees and domain-name purchases. A dedicated internet marketer can earn a comfortable living through the internet. Though the super wealthy are still comparatively rare, there are far more internet marketers making big money out there than there are bloggers. If you want to make money online, be an internet marketer, not a blogger. The odds are MUCH better.

Grizz offers a wealth of information on how to make money online and it is, without question, in your interest to get a cup of coffee and, starting with his archives, read his entire blog from beginning to end. When you’ve finished reading this post I strongly recommend visiting Grizzly’s How to Make Money Online for Beginners. Trust his wisdom. Don’t question, just do. If you are serious about making money online, you’ll thank me for having sent you to his site. Oh, and if you think his blog is ugly, that’s just fine. It is, in fact, part of his strategy. Trust me. Ugly works. And, by the way, look at the anchor text there I’ve used to link to his site. It’s a perfect example of the long-tail keyword Grizz is targeting which I’ve talked about in other posts.

My friend took my advice and abandoned his plans to start a political blog in the hopes of making money online. Unfortunately, he abandoned any blogging or internet marketing plans all together because…, well, he’s a lazy bastard, honestly. He’s a great friend, but not all that motivated (I love the guy, but we all have our short-comings and lack of motivation is his). For the rest of you, by all means BLOG! Blog to your heart’s content. Write down your whacky gripes, feelings and opinions. If nothing else, it’ll be cathartic. But unless you are extraordinary, nefarious, infamous, famous, brilliant, exceedingly knowledgeable or well informed, don’t expect to earn a living doing it. If you want to be self-employed and attain that goal through the internet, internet marketing is the horse you bet on hands down, every time.

Posted in Blogs and Websites | No Comments »

Scams? Thrive Learning Institute Called! They Want Me to Make THEM Rich!

December 30, 2008 – 5:50 pm

In this, our final installment on the Thrive Learning Institute and their less-than-upfront approach to client solicitation, we’ll wrap up what our research found, how we ended our relationship with Jeremy and then elaborate on lessons learned to help you avoid ever falling victim to an organization like this. If you haven’t read the previous two parts of our little adventure, please do so. I know they are needlessly long but without the context, what comes next won’t make a lot of sense. The first post is - Google Called! They Want to Make Me Rich! The second post can be found under Thrive Learning Institute Called! THEY Want to Make Me Rich!

No sooner did we hang up the phone with Jeremy than we began our investigation. Ok, that’s not true. We ran out for some carry-out food first. Once that was devoured, though, we started doing our own due-diligence. A Google search of Thrive Learning Institute was far more successful than our unproductive search for Google Success Team had been. The first listing was a forum and, had I done nothing but read the first page on that forum, I would have been left with a fairly positive impression. But I didn’t stop there and my wife certainly didn’t stop there. She went after this like a Terrier on the scent of a rat. What we found is absolutely shocking. While I’m hesitant, strictly for legal reasons, to use the word scam, I have no hesitation, based on my research, in using the term fraud which is defined as deceit, trickery, sharp practice or breach of confidence perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage. So there you have it. I am of the opinion that Thrive Learning Institute is engaged in fraudulent business practices. Let’s discuss why I feel that way.

The amount of evidence I’ve gathered against these people is staggering. There’s so much information available that I’m struggling with how best to present it here. I guess we’ll just start with the lies and go from there.

Despite their claims of integrity, Thrive Learning Institute is prohibited from operating in Illinois. They have a Summary Cease and Desist order against them signed by the Secretary of State in September 2008. That ain’t good, folks. It isn’t a smoking gun, but it’s definitely the first echo of a gunshot in the distance. You can read the cease and desist by going to the sources at the end of this.

Jeremy presented himself as “Jeremy with Google.” When anybody says they are with Google, 99% of the world will immediately assume they mean Google Inc, the world’s leading search engine headquartered in Mountain View, California. Through my research, I have discovered that Jeremy is probably affiliated with Google. Just not THAT Google. His association is probably with Google Pro - a band of work-at-home scambags based out of Las Vegas, Nevada and operating under other business names including, you guessed it, Thrive Learning, LLC. Any way you want to look at it, you and I both know that Jeremy was being intentionally deceptive in all but perhaps the strictest legal sense of the term. People hear “Google” and they make an immediate assumption. In this case, that assumption is wrong. See for yourself at this link to the BBB about Google Pro - http://www.vegasbbb.org/rptrel.asp?bbbid=77913

Thrive Learning, LLC operates under a staggering number of names or through aliases, intermediaries and affiliates in an effort to stay ahead of the Better Business Bureau and other entities with missions to keep businesses honest. This approach allows them to do their little “due-diligence” trick. Hey, check us out at the BBB. We’ve got a great record. Crap, bunk and an utter load, folks. What you’re checking when you perform this guided “due-diligence” is just the most recent incarnation of their company with the lowest number of complaints against it. Look these jokers up under some of their other cover names and you begin to see a continuing trend of revoked BBB accreditation, no licensing and accusations of schemes, scams and frauds. Just some of the names, associates, operating affiliates, cohorts and aliases I’ve found for these frauds are:

• Summit Group of Utah
• Momentum Marketing Inc
• Business Development Systems (possibly)
• Thrive Learning Institute
• Online Data Institute
• Google Pro
• Concepts Execution
• Bright Builders
• Internet Ultra Solutions
• Omni Business Solutions
• The Sellers Lounge
• Diverse Marketing
• Infusion Media

But the best news, as of this writing, is that even the name - Thrive Learning Institute - now no longer carries weight with the BBB. According to them, “This company’s BBB accreditation was revoked by BBB Board of Director’s on December 17, 2008.” Just 2 days after I spoke with Jeremy. “The reason for this is due to an officer of Thrive Learning, Colton Moody, also being an officer of two other companies that had unsatisfactory ratings with BBB.”

Thrive Learning Institute also operates under multiple URLs pointing to the same Domain or different versions of their home page. Now, that’s fine when you’re trying to corner any potential misspellings. For example, I might buy the domain name redrabbit.com and create a website around it. I might then also buy the domain names redrabit.com, redrabitt.com and redrabbitt.com and point them all at my website redrabbit.com to ensure that anybody misspelling the URL still winds up at my site. That’s not what Thrive is doing. They use multiple domain names under multiple company names to mask their identity as frauds. Just some of the domains names I’ve found are:

• www.thrivelearninginstitute.com
• www.thriveli.com
• www.easytothrive.com
• www.whythrivenow.com
• www.teamthrive.com

Note: I have not made those URLs linkable because I don’t want to contribute to their page rank. Copy and paste if you want to check them out.

Though Jeremy initially stated to me that the only thing “Google” gets out of our business arrangement is the right to market our success story, he subsequently steered things to tuition. Bait and switch, anyone? I’m of the opinion that Thrive Learning Institute misleads people in several ways here. First, the initial lie Jeremy told me. Second, they charge their clients based on available credit. You might pay more or less than I do for the exact same service depending on how much credit you have available. Finally, if you don’t have enough available credit to pay (I’ve seen prices range from $1900 to $15,000) they will coax you to borrow through one of their financial institutions or connect you with a credit card (again, through an affiliate) and pull the balance from there. They sell this to you as using OPM (Other People’s Money) rather than your own. Technically true. You’re using a bank’s money. But that doesn’t change the fact that you are fully indebted to that bank for the money you’ve borrowed and will have to pay it back with interest.

Of course, paying it back shouldn’t be a problem given the astounding success you’ll realize using their super-secret, make-money-online, work-from-home methods, right? Wrong. The horror stories out there are truly painful to read. I’ve had to force myself to stop soaking up the financial train-wreck-tales out there; nearly destitute individuals conned into sinking themselves into inescapable debt for a product that didn’t deliver, Families with new babies barely able to keep their utilities running goaded into burying themselves under $10,000 in high-interest debt for “mentoring” the equivalent of being guided by a computer illiterate, script-reading high school student; Unsuccessful fights for refunds, horrible support, piss-poor guidance and materials. The list is staggering, the stories downright wrist-slashing depressing.

Now, the internet being what it is, you have to take all of those complaints with a grain of salt. People get upset at even the best companies and the internet is an easy medium on which to vent. Worse, folks rarely go back and retract what they’ve written when a legitimate company corrects its mistake. But the sheer volume of complaints is very telling and wholly contradicts Jeremy’s claims of legitimacy when he guided our due-diligence. I leave it to you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions and will provide a list of sources at the end of this so you can do your own research.

What I find most notable is that even those stories which praise Thrive for providing a viable product fail to report a notable return on their investment. One positive reviewer proclaimed enthusiastically that he makes $50 a month on Ebay thanks to Thrive. Given the lowest price of admission I’ve seen listed is $1900, this silly zealot is looking at 38 months before he’s even paid off his initial investment, never mind the nearly $40/month Thrive charges him to host his website! Add that in and you’re looking at about 190 months or just shy of 16 years before this guy will be in the black. But when you factor in the initial purchase and yearly renewal cost of a domain name plus time invested in setting up his site and maintaining it, it’s a lock that he’ll NEVER realize a profit with those numbers. Are there a select few who actually see a return on their profit? I don’t doubt it. But I suspect the ONLY reasons are that they lucked into a good niche or had the good fortune of finding a real mentor somewhere else. I’ve yet to see anything other than the garbage on Thrive’s site which speaks to fantastic profits and a wonderful return on investment.

Now I could go on and on here but we’re already three pages in so let me summarize, make a few closing comments and wrap up. Following are my grievances against Thrive Learning Institute (under any of its names) and what you should look out for from this or any other company trying to sell you into something.

Too Good to be True - Folks, that’s always your first sign. I don’t want to promote cynicism but, let’s face it, people are almost always in it for themselves. There are some exceptions. For example, I run another blog based on good deeds and charity. I don’t have any ads on it. I don’t make a dime from it. In fact, it costs me money. I do it because there’s so much bad news out there I thought it’d be nice to promote goodness and positive behavior. But if you get a cold call in which somebody is promising you wealth and independence, ask yourself what’s in it for them? Why do they give a damn if you, a complete stranger, are wealthy and happy? The minute it sounds too good to be true, all your defenses should go up and you should start asking tough questions. Maybe it’s a legit offer, maybe it isn’t. But if you just ride that euphoric wave without doing REAL research and conducting REAL due-diligence, you will find yourself disappointed, hurt or even financially damaged 98% of the time.

Lies - If ANY potential business partner or business opportunity opens the relationship with lies up front, politely wish them death and hang up. Jeremy 1) Tried to mislead me into thinking he was with Google Inc. 2) Lied to me about the only thing in it for them being the rights to market my success. 3) Lied to me with his little due-diligence scam by not fully disclosing the TRUE ratings of his company (under ALL of its various names). 4) His company lies about the charges (charging different amounts to different people for the same services depending on their available credit.

Evasiveness - Jeremy wasn’t “allowed” to talk about the program. He was only allowed to screen me and recommend me. He couldn’t tell me a damn thing about what Thrive “teaches” its clients. I’d have to get that from the Vice President, Nick. Any legitimate business opportunity will be able to tell you upfront what they do, what they teach, what their business model is. They won’t give you all details, obviously, but if they refuse to give you a fundamental understanding of what they’re about, they’re hiding something or trying to bait you in. Not illegal, but definitely a common scam tactic. Furthermore, if they are operating under multiple business names (and MAN, these guys are doing that) then they are most likely a scam. Your opinion may vary. If they are hiding behind multiple URLs they are most likely hiding something.

You’re an Ideal Candidate! - Perhaps this should go under Too Good to be True, but we’ll give it its own category. My wife and I passed with flying colors and were “recommended” to the company VP (yeah right) despite having no existing products or ideas for sale and (we claimed) limited internet skills and no HTML skills. In reviewing all the questions Jeremy asked during our “interview,” I can point to only one thing that really qualified us in Jeremy’s mind - lots of available credit. Face it, folks, if somebody told you today you were ideally suited to run the country and they’d like to hire you, would you believe it? You’re excused from the question if you’re reading, Mr. Obama. For the rest of us, of course we wouldn’t buy that pitch. So ask yourself why this stranger in a foreign state is so all fired up about your qualifications to be a “success story.” A little bit of self-confidence is a good thing, but let’s not got overboard.

Time Bandits - A classic tactic for scammers, schemers and frauds is to cause you to invest so much time early on that you find yourself inclined to see things through. My 1^st chat with Jeremy lasted almost 30 minutes. Our “interview” lasted an hour and 30 minutes. Had I elected to continue on with Nick, I would have easily invested another hour for a total of 3 hours of my life devoted to these people. Other scams will drag you out to a conference center in a hotel 40-50 miles from your home and spend hours talking up their successes stories before they get to the pyramid scheme they’re trying to lure you into. The product might change but the tactic is the same; cause you to invest so much of your time that the little voice inside your head starts saying “well, I’m in it this deep, might as well see where it goes.” Worn down, fatigued and already deeply committed, you are prone to make bad decisions and commit to something you would never have agreed to had the facts just been presented up front.

The Come-Along - Now having told Thrive to stick it where the Sun doesn’t shine, I’ve been spared this, but countless others have lamented this experience under Thrive Learning Institute’s “mentoring.” If you’ve found yourself in bed with a company like Thrive Learning Institute practicing immoral (if not definitively illegal) tactics, this is something you should look for. You pay the required entry fee and begin receiving lessons. After a while the mentoring begins to trickle down or your terms “expire.” Want to learn more? Is your website almost ready to go but you just need to know how to do a few more things before you can go live? That’ll be another $2,500, please. The come-along, the carrot-on-a-stick, baiting, call it what you will, those who practice this kind of deception should be strapped to ant mounds and left to God’s mercy or wrath. You’re almost there. You’re so close. How can you NOT pay? Those are the thoughts these frauds are counting on and if you fall to the temptation to just shell out the additional coin…, well, there’s a sucker born every minute.

Criticism on Exit - Several who have posted their experiences with Thrive Learning Institute’s sales pitch report that, when they begin to balk and resist the sales pitch they were confronted with a dramatic change in tone. The salesman turned from a nice guy to a hyper critical jerk “I knew from the start you weren’t committed to being financially independent.” Or “I don’t appreciate you wasting my time. I thought you were serious about making a difference in your life.” Any time you are confronted with that kind of sales pitch, tell the jerk off and hang up the phone.

And here we are, five pages into it, and I still haven’t wrapped up. Ok, so let’s do that now.

Though Jeremy wasn’t “allowed” to tell me what it is that the Thrive Learning Institute actually teaches, I’ve learned the details through my research. They will “mentor” you (to the tune of plus or minus $450.00/hour by one victim’s estimates) on 3 different Make-Money-Online techniques. 1) Selling your own property or buying things cheap and then selling through Ebay. 2) Affiliate Marketing. 3) Drop-shipping. They provide an online library and videos to watch. The live, over-the-phone “mentoring” sessions last, according to those who’ve commented, about 15 minutes each and are conducted by script-reading monkeys who, if pressed, seem to personally know next to nothing about Internet Marketing. On-the-phone mentoring will eventually vanish but you can still get chat support. They provide easy to use web-building software “Lightwave Builder”. They require you to pay $39.00/ month to host the website. After hours of reading and research I’ve only found mention of two successful attempts for refunds and one of those was only a partial refund.

At the end of the day, everything Thrive Learning Institute professes to teach you is available free of charge online. Legitimate mentoring programs also exist and, while expensive, are run by professionals who do this stuff for a living and know what they are talking about rather than reading from a script. I’d wager, in fact, that you can learn far more about building a successful online business through free or cheap sources than you’ll ever learn through Thrive. If you want to pay for some legitimate and quality training, resources and advice, consider www.seobook.com as a good starting point. No, I am not in any way affiliated with them, nor do I earn anything for mentioning them or for you clicking on that link. But I have reviewed their materials and tools and found them highly valuable.

I will continue to update this blog with free information to help you make money online and start your own home business. I want you to have success in your dreams of being self-employed and I won’t charge you a red cent for what I write about here. I’ll also continue to reference true talents in the industry whose integrity I trust and who already provide mountains of free or honest-low-cost information. As for Thrive Learning Institute or the Google Success Team or Summit or whatever the hell they want to call themselves, I leave the decision up to you. I wouldn’t invest a dime in them if my life depended on it and if I found one of their hucksters on fire in the street I’d, at best, roast marshmallows over them. But that’s just me. You will have to make your own choice. Don’t take my word for it. Visit the sources below or conduct a thorough search of your own and make your own decision. You are ultimately responsible for your own fate.

Oh, and when Nick called back on Friday, the conversation was short. I had what I needed. It went like this.

Nick: Hi, Dave! It’s Nick with Google. How are you?

Me: Fine, thanks.

Nick: Well let’s see about making you more than fine.

Me: Let’s not, Nick.

Nick: I’m sorry?

Me: I did my research, Nick. Thanks, but no thanks. And remove me from your calling list, please.

Nick: Well I’m sorry to hear that and of course we’ll remove you but may I ask why?

Me: I did my homework.

Nick: *click*

Clean and simple breaks are always the best for everybody.

Sources:

1. The Better Business Bureau - http://welcome.bbb.org/
2. The Utah Better Business Bureau - http://utah.bbb.org/
3. The Canadian Better Business Bureau - http://www.ccbbb.ca/
4. Work at Home Forum - http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/14_8845_0.html (read all pages. 1st page alone is misleading)
5. Scam.com - http://www.scam.com
6. Rip Off Report - http://www.ripoffreport.com
7. Complaints Board - http://www.complaintsboard.com
8. State of Illinois Cease and Desist order against Thrive Learning Institute (opens a pdf) - http://www.sos.state.il.us/departments/securities/administrative_actions/2008/september/onlinedata_so2cd.pdf

Posted in Blogs and Websites, Scams | 2 Comments »

Scams? Thrive Learning Institute Called! THEY Want to Make Me Rich!

December 30, 2008 – 7:00 am

In my previous post - Google Called! They Want to Make Me Rich! - I introduced you to my initial experience with Jeremy of the “Google Success Team.” If you haven’t read it, I suggest you start there as this is a continuation of that experience. We left off with my wife and I being a little bit skeptical but interested and awaiting our Monday appointment for our real “interview.” Always in the market for new and innovative self-employment opportunities, particularly those that focus on helping people make money online, I had a bit more interest than my wife, but she’d concede to being at least optimistically hopeful at the time but with a healthier dose of skepticism.

Monday went as most Mondays do. My wife and I made the hideous commute to the office. We trudged through our day with varying degrees of enthusiasm. We performed our individual corporate heroics and did our part to make our shareholders and executives a bit richer. We then made the equally hideous commute home, walked the pups and settled in to await our 6:30 call with Jeremy of the “Google Success Team.” Giving credit where it’s due, the phone rang at 6:30 on the nose.

We exchanged a few pleasantries with our new pal, Jeremy, and then got down to business. While I took notes, my wife took off her shoes and set one of them conspicuously aside. I arched an eyebrow at her but didn’t ask what the shoe thing was all about. I was too busy listening to Jeremy. We did interrupt him briefly to ask him about why we couldn’t seem to find anything in Google’s own search engine under Google Success Team and he responded that we’d be covering that in a later section when he’d have us perform due-diligence but, for now, we should just know that the Team markets itself as the Thrive Learning Institute.

Let’s pause here for a moment and point out that, yes, at this point the alarm bells sounded. My wife and I exchanged an “oh crap” look but we’d freed out schedule and weren’t hungry enough to bail for dinner yet so we thought we’d let Jeremy continue. If things didn’t improve from there, we’d give him the thanks-but-no-thanks response and get on with our lives. Then the interview began in earnest.

The questions Jeremy asked weren’t what I expected out of this interview. They focused on our current web experience (we pointed Jeremy to a couple websites my wife and I manage), our current income (we gave a vague ball-park figure), our current credit card debt (we’re very smart in this regard, in good shape and proud of the fact) and why we’d like to start an online business (financial independence and be our own boss). There were more questions about what we knew about business protection (incorporation and the like) and the tax benefits of “sheltering” your income through various corporate vehicles. In fact, Jeremy asked what we currently paid in taxes and then pointed out that the average Thrive Institute client paid about 9-12% on their income. Wow!

Jeremy (now of Thrive Learning Institute rather than the Google Success Team) began probing our level of commitment. Knowing that we’d like to work from home and be our own boss, what would we need to earn to accomplish that goal? How much time would we be willing to put in to accomplish that goal? Would 10 hours be reasonable? Would 20 hours between the two of us be doable? Would we be able to invest in our business? How much?

I think my wife really pissed Jeremy off here because she began repeating a variation on the same response again and again; “that depends on what it is we’d be doing.” We informed Jeremy that there weren’t many limitations on time or investment assuming a legitimate business opportunity but that we wouldn’t make a statement to either until we knew more about that business opportunity. This wasn’t the first time that Jeremy advised us he was only authorized to screen for the position and that, providing we passed the interview, the Thrive team would give us all the details. We responded, not for the first time, that we wouldn’t make any commitments or statements of potential commitments until we knew more about the actual business. For all we knew he wanted us to import and distribute Russian brides for a living. Jeremy was very understanding about our caution and we moved on.

The questions continued and I had a distinct feeling of disintegration. The “interview” felt something akin to watching a building crumble. First there are tell-tale cracks. Next, bits of mortar begin to flake off. Before long, individual bricks break off and, soon, the entire building simply falls apart. That’s a bit of a dramatization. The feel of the call was actually more subtle, more sinister, more nefarious in its gradual evolution from what might have been a legitimate business opportunity into what I now comfortably describe as corrupt, if not entirely a scam. If you’re wondering why I’m not coming out and calling them a scam outright it’s because I’m just reporting the facts and my own impressions and will leave it to you to decide if you’d be willing to do business with this company in the future. I’m not inclined to give their lawyers much to bite on. Regardless, though there were some telling signs that this was less than legit, at no point did Jeremy ask for any truly confidential information such as credit card numbers, who we banked with or our social security numbers. Anything of that nature would have had us off the phone in a heartbeat.

The building finally crumbled about an hour into the call. I didn’t let the landlord know, though. Having already invested 60 minutes of my evening, I wanted to bleed them of some final information specifically with the intent of posting it here. But the moment the house came down was about 10 minutes after Jeremy, formerly of the Google Success Team, now a member of the Thrive Learning Institute, asked me to get a pen and paper to write down 5 commitments. In order they were -

Time - If my wife and I were willing to put in 10 hours a week, we could probably realize $3000-$5000 per month in about 6-12 months. At 20 hours a week, we’d be able to achieve it within Thrive’s 45-90 day guarantee and would receive a written commitment from the Thrive Learning Institute. Could we commit to 20 hours? Yes we could, depending on what we’d be doing, of course.

Open-minded and teachable - The Success Team… er… Thrive Team would mentor us through-out but we would have to keep an open mind and be willing to apply the innovative techniques they’d be teaching. Could we do that? Yes we could, assuming the innovative techniques they’d be teaching didn’t require selling endangered animals or engaging in slave trading or anything else elicit. Again, without knowing what they’d be teaching us, we weren’t going to just play dumb and enthusiastic for their amusement.

Decision Makers - We would have to be confidant and be able to make decisions about our future. Were we capable of making the decision to become financially independent. Wait… are you f-ing kidding me? What the hell is this? Ok, we’ll say yes even though we think asking a couple career professionals in their 40s if they’re capable of making the decision to become financially independent is about the dumbest thing we’ve ever heard.

Tuition - Do we recognize that it takes money to make money and investing in the information Google…, I mean, Thrive Learning Institute would be sharing with us would be an investment in ourselves and our dream of financial independence? CRASH. The building came down. With the phone muted, my wife turned to me, picked up that shoe she’d set aside earlier and dropped it. I got the implied message. Yep. That was the other shoe dropping. This was probably a scam. A lot of expletives were expressed to the muted phone but I wanted to hear more. “Let’s see where this goes,” I said. “Sure, Jeremy, depending on what you profess you’d be teaching, I’d agree. But only if there were real value in it.”

Aggressive - How aggressive would we be in pursuing our success? Once again we told him that wasn’t an answerable question until we knew what we’d be doing. If he wanted to know if we’d be willing to go out and hunt baby spotted owls ourselves rather than outsourcing the work, the answer would be a click followed by a dial tone. Until we knew more, we advised, we really couldn’t answer how aggressive we’d be willing to be. Jeremy went on to inform that passive practitioners of the Thrive Learning Institute’s methods could expect earnings of about $50,000/year after investing $5000 - $7000. Aggressive “investors” could expect about $100,000/year after paying about $12,000-$15,000. I didn’t even bother to write down what moderate investors could make.

As tolerant as I can be, even I would ordinarily have hung up long ago. As stated, though, having invested an hour of my time in what I now definitively knew to be a waste of said time, I figured I’d go the distance, get the last bit of information I needed to launch an investigation and then rid myself of these jerks.

I pretended to still be interested. In a reversal, in fact, I was now the one with the baited hook in the water and Jeremy with Thrive Learning Institute was now the nibbling fish. He, of course, assumed it was still the other way around and continued with his pitch. The next step in this “interview,” he advised, was for us to do our due-diligence. Said due-diligence involved going to the Better Business Bureau website and looking up the Thrive Learning Institute under his guidance, of course.

Under Jeremy’s guidance I found Thrive in the BBB website and, surprisingly, there were precious few complaints lodged against them in a 36 month period. Just 16, in fact, and all of them closed. Jeremy directed me to another company which had hundreds of complaints against them in the same period. See, Jeremy seemed to be saying, even the BBB loves us. And who could argue with him. It was right there in black and white on a trusted website.

Very impressive, said I while not meaning it. My wife and I had already made our minds up but I let him do one more thing which was to direct me to Thrive’s website. It looked nice and I said as much but didn’t venture anything further and he didn’t ask anything further. Instead, he gave me the good news. My wife and I were excellent candidates. So well suited for the program, in fact, that he would be writing up our letter of recommendation that very night and directing it to the VP for review. Though he is a very important and busy man we could expect to hear from the VP, one Nicholas Johnson (”but you can call him Nick”) as soon as that evening if we’d like. No, we wouldn’t like, we advised Jeremy. We had obligations but he could call us on Friday if he wanted. And so the date was set. Why, you ask, did I arrange another call if I was already convinced this whole thing was bogus? Because I wanted to waste their time and, if nothing else, at least I’d cost them the expense of another phone call. Also, though I hadn’t decided for certain I’d do so or not, I thought it would be nice to call these pricks out on their scheme and I wanted time to do some more research. Mostly, I wanted as much material as I could get so I could write this post.

Want to know what I discovered? Want to read the moral to the story? Want to know what I told ol’ Nick Johnson, the VP for Thrive Learning Institute when he called that next Friday? Check back for the answers to those and more questions in tomorrow’s episode of - As the World (wide web) Turns; your guide to sparing yourselves the hassle of scams on your way to self-employed freedom.

Update: You can read our 3rd and final installment at by visiting Scams? Thrive Learning Institute Called! They Want Me to make THEM Rich!

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