The Secret Pyramid Scheme
You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, my dogs have seen it a few times. The Secret movie rocked the world and became uber popular in a very short period of time.
If you don’t know about The Secret, well, Google it or something. I’m not here to sell stuff, I’ve come to rant. Ranting hard will commence in 3….2….1….
As far as I can tell, in my opinion, allegedly. Whatever I have to say to not get sued by a bunch of really rich folks and get out that I think they’ve created a total pyramid scheme.
http://theofficialsecretseminar.com <– NOT AN AFFILIATE LINK (just want to be clear on this)
You buy what sounds like entrance to a seminar. But it’s not. It’s a Secret Seminar that in reality is a bunch of videos so it’s a seminar-at-home. Get it? Like an at home study course! But it’s not being sold as an at home study course, it’s being sold as an "affiliate toolkit" that will powerhouse your affiliate sales of….The Secret Seminar.
The above is someone’s affiliate pitch, so please be wary.
Let me break this down – just to see if I’m understanding correctly:
1) You buy the $1995 Super Affiliate Kit
2) You sell admittance to The Secret Seminar
3) The Secret Seminar is an at-home-study-course
4) The at-home-study course is also (ta-dum!) a super affiliate kit
5) You sell this for $1995 and you get 1st Tier $500 and 2nd Tier $250
The website claims that you are going to get this for free when you sell to just four people for the affiliate program. Well…no…you’ll have spent $1995 and then made $2000. Coming out ahead is NOT getting something for free, because there is a risk you won’t sell four. Of course, if you’re a true believer in the Law of Attraction, that shouldn’t be an issue for you because you believe you’re going to sell more than four don’t you….DON’T YOU??
Twisting it to say you’re getting it for free is just twisting reality into a smoke and mirrors game. Which is what pyramid scheme people do. Setting it up so that if you don’t sell enough you weren’t using the program right? That’s evil-genius right there.
Now, I understand there is the Science of Getting Rich book included, and you get audio CDs and an MP3 player and a briefcase (it didn’t say if it was leather, so I can’t assess value on that) and some paper. I’m sure the paper has very deep and meaningful stuff on it. Mentioning that is so you know they aren’t selling you an invisible seminar. Stuff does come with it. You will get a box, with your name on it, in the mail, with stuff in it. So it’s not like you’re handing over almost two grand for absolutely nothing.
But.
- You can buy your own briefcase for $60 (I’m assuming low grade leather for this assumptive comparison)
- You can get a copy of The Science of Getting Rich for FREE (library or otherwise, this is not a difficult book to find)
- You can buy an MP3 player for $15
- And then buy some stock or something with the other $1920 – or pay a ghostwriter to write you a book you think will sell. Or pay someone to market your product. Or pay someone to write or submit articles. Or hire someone to make you a great webpage to sell FREE affiliate products.
Reading over this, I worry that I may sound a tad bitter. Well, I kinda am. I was okay with The Secret. $4.95 for a single viewing or $30 for a DVD was fine. I get it. I believe people should profit from good things. I think telling people that being happy brings them more happiness is a good thing. The masses NEED someone to give them this information (preferably the someone should be Oprah for maximum benefit of the masses. Luckily, she was kind enough to oblige and do a couple shows on The Secret.)
But this? People are going to buy and sell it without even knowing what it is. How many people are going to see this as an investment to sell to folks? The book, The Science of Getting Rich has become so much common sense among anyone that knows business and the book itself is from, what 1890…1920…somewhere around there.
Turning something that was a worldwide phenominon into a pyramid scheme sideshow is sad.
It’s not as sad as the people who think they’re getting:
a) Permission to sell The Secret as an affiliate
b) Information that cannot be easily acquired for a fraction of the cost
Oh, and I get to be innundated by emails from internet marketers and comments on blogs that promote this. It’s already being cannibalized.
I don’t even want to know what the AdWords campaigns are going to cost.
Please, if I’m wrong…let me know…the only way I will not approve your comment is if it has (duh!) an affiliate link for this program in it. Other than that, flame away or explain away or agree away…I’m not going to stop it!
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Jennifer was a
Virtual Assistant for over four years. Now? She has been interviewed by the LA Times, ABC News and worked on campaigns for Frito Lay, Hanes, Walmart, and At-A-Glance to name a few. She's been paying her mortgage and bills from home for almost seven years now.
There is a lot of discussion on the MLM course offered by the teachers featured on “The Secret” I have been in financial services for over 25 years. Due diligence is a big part of financial services. The Secret is brilliant marketing and I give them a lot of credit for their marketing skills. The problem with the MLM plan is in the marketing plan. See info below. It is easy to find info by googling mlm pyramid. The marketing plan focuses on recruiting and not product sales. That is where the problem lies. Over the years I have seen many good people arrested, fined and even jailed due to ignorance, not malice.
You can find this plan at – EDITED TO REMOVE AFFILIATE LINK
Here is my reasoning
Legitimate multi-level-marketing plans are a way to sell real goods or services through distributors. These plans usually show that if you sign up to be a distributor, you will receive commissions – not only on your sales of the plan’s goods or services, but also on the sales of the people you recruit to join the distributors. One of the keys is that there are actually tangible products and services moving through the network, rather than just the building of the network or “building mailing lists” or “sending recipes” or “sending jokes,” etc., such as chain letters usually have you do.
Pyramid schemes have a similar structure, but a completely different focus. They concentrate on the commissions you could earn just for recruiting new distributors, and generally ignore the marketing and selling of products or services. The Federal Trade Commission requires a minimum of 10 non-distributor customers per month to be serviced by each distributor after a certain period – without these customers, it is an illegal pyramid.
John
I meant to comment on this 2 months ago… but as usual life got in the way and I never got around to it… until today.
Thank you for putting my thoughts in to words… when I first heard about the “Official Secret Seminar” package, I about had it. The first time I saw the movie The Secret, I loved it. I even bought it. I was impressed with their marketing technique. I still think it is a great movie and am thrilled that the masses agree. But things have gotten out of control… like when you think you are adding a like minded individual to one of your social networking sites and all they do is inundate you with Secret propaganda spam… I feel like everyone is jumpimg on The Secret bandwagon and trying to sell me something. I would rather see everyone taking the message of the Law Of Attraction and applying it toward their own lives in creative and useful ways.