From: [email protected] (Club Midas)
Date: Fri, Sep 14, 2001, 5:31pm (EDT-1)
To: [email protected] (Rod Siders)
Subject: Answers to your questions
Hello Rod,
Hello From Thomas!
"Another advertising axiom is, if human beings to, do not understand what they are doing they will not attempt to do it."
My mailbox was filled with questions this morning. All of which ended with something like, "If I understood what you are saying I would do it." Most were from free members.
I also received a few that talked about my "heavy handed language" and being pestered to upgrade by paid affiliates. In all cases you have my apology. I will rectify the first problem with your help. I am an Email away: I am going to try and address these issues in this E-Mail.
[email protected].
For the record let me state that people who have been around for a while all hate long E-mails.
It doesn't seem to dawn on them that the seeds of wealth are stored in words. Words they can use to further their own frustrated goals. THIS IS A COMMON PROBLEM WITH ALL INTERNET PROGRAMS.
With the caliber of Entrepreneurs, which are at our base we made the mistake of assuming all of them would work hard and KNOW what they are doing.
This is not directed at those paid affiliates who do and are. It is also not meant to be an expression of anger or disrespect for you. It is us that have failed you.
In one of our letters we said there are only one of 3 possibilities in business:
(1)It can't be done.
(2)You don't know how.
(3)You don't want to.
We know it can be done because we have done it.
So that one is out.
The second, "You don't know how is an inditement of our ASSUMING many of you knew more than you actually do.
Please accept my deepest apologies to all of you.
I believe you know we are decent, honest, hard working, and committed people.
But, we are human, subject to making mistakes, and shaped to a great degree by our past.
So let me begin this E-mail by sharing our past with you.
Club Midas is a subsidiary of Sandyco Advertising, Inc established in 1970. The company is a multi conglomerate consisting of advertising, marketing research and analysis, and sales consultation divisions.
Our specialty area is working with banks and / or investment groups to take companies out of bankruptcy. Our success rate of recovery over 30 years is 100% on over 30 companies, and all of these companies are still in business to this day.
We work one project at a time devoting all of our resources to that company. We receive residual income from all of our past endeavors.
This is the source of our cash flow between assignments.
Our policy is that our chief executives go in and learn the problems and come up with the solutions.
Once we have an operations manual for a business we usually pick the president and staff to continue the growth of the company.
I can tell you that Mr. Bram Smith is and will continue to be the President of Club Midas.
Ms. Sandra J Pruett the founder of Sandyco Advertising, Inc decided to shift some of our resources to the Internet.
We have been on the net for over 4 years as an E-Commerce developer for existing clients.
Ms. Pruett immediately recognized that most Ebiz was either illegal in the real world, home grown, or lacked sophisticated marketing technology.
We began our research for our proposed affiliate program 2 years ago.
During that time we have signed up as free members in over 1000 programs, as paid affiliates in 400, and ultimately reduced this list to about 50 of the best of the net. The purpose of the program was to have a self-sustaining viral engine at its center.
It's viral nature would insure the continued growth of the company FOREVER baring acts of God or war.
This is not a bad computer virus but it spreads like one and so the name.
So I can say to you in all honesty that Club Midas will never fail and never stop growing.
Ms. Pruett managed all of this with her personal staff until February 14th of this year when she retired.
Ms. Pruett is still the principle stockholder in all of our companies and the Chairperson of the Board.
She resides in Belieze Central America and returns for directors meeting at least once every 3 months.
In this process we came to know many of the people who are the foundation of Club Midas.
Club Midas is a direct descendent of three forces.
Our Combined Corporate Effort.
The advice of over 750 other highly qualified full time Entrepreneurs.
The feed back from all the members we have worked with like you.
What this means is that we are winding our way through a maze to fix what is wrong with the net.
This will take time, patients, co-operation and hard work.
Before we proceed to the present, I would like to take you on a trip to our future, direct form the minutes of one of our Board of directors meetings.
"Our purpose is nothing less than to change the Internet forever.
I believe we can address this problem as we would any other. We know over 95% of the small operators are failing not just by those who exploit the net for their own personal gain with no intention of ever doing anything that does not benefit anyone other than themselves.
This is at the expense of anyone foolish enough to believe them. More importantly, traditional marketing that has been time tested and proven time and again is completely lacking, even with those who are legitimately trying to make a living for all concerned.
This will be the greatest challenge in our collective lives.
We lack the luxury of being able to call them employees because each is a separate individual with a separate agenda. This will be your greatest challenge.
The diversity of the people you will be working with will be another challenge.
What is boring and old to one is, completely not understood by another.
Some crave knowledge like a sponge while others are like large immovable rocks.
What they are thinking no one knows.
Most are trying to create a new life for themselves.
They all have the tendency to rebel against the very things that will help them not only to survive, but also to quit the regular jobs and be full time on the net. This is their goal. That is our goal.
The affiliate company must able to withstand the "test of time" and grow continually (Viral Program).
The company must always support its members with advertising.
With the understanding that all advertising benefits will go to those who become paid affiliates.
The process must be governed by programming that automatically rewards affiliates based on performance (The Omega Engine).
Education and training must be among the highest priorities and generic so that our members may use what they learn anywhere they choose to use it.
Their training will encompass every aspect of the net and how to build traffic, the life's blood of the Internet. (AdtrackZ, World Submitter etc. see Club Midas letters).
The program's shell must support everything it takes to be self-contained and flexible enough to absorb whatever members bring to the program with them.
It must be able to function flawlessly with dependence on no one or any outside source (Accomplished).
You are instructed to do whatever it takes to achieve 100% paid participation based solely on the merits of the program.
If this is not feasible you have my authority to take whatever steps are required to achieve this goal…"
"Your target for the year 2001 is 20,000 meeting these criteria…"
Ms Sandra J. Pruett
December 31, 2000
We have achieved every goal set by Ms Pruett except the last 2. But we do have two and a half months to do it in.
WE WILL!
With that stated it should be obvious that we share a common purpose.
At the very least to escape what ever it is in your life that has drawn you to the net and whatever your dreams for the future are.
We share these goals with you.
Different people form different countries think differently.
In many cases the language they speak shapes them. I am a World War II history buff. American tactics would go something like this, "We need to take that town, how are we going to do it'?
German thinking would be, we have already taken the town, what did we do to take it. The difference is called perception.
What some perceive as heavy handed is usually exactly what the person needs.
Although there are some who take everything you say personally even if you are not addressing them.
We are all working 12-hour days 6 days a week to achieve these objectives.
Let's stay with the 100% paid. We will hit our 20,000 target so that is not a factor.
Several of the letters coming to me were complaints that your upline was only interested in getting you to upgrade.
If we were any other company I could understand the complaint.
What do you get for your upgrade?
1) If all of you were upgraded the complex letter that confused so many of you would have been completely unnecessary.
Why? Because Group Mail is a paid member site benefit as is the mailing list.
The mailing list worth about $100 I might add. I was in effect breaking the rules and granting you access to two of the many benefits you receive when you upgrade.
Those who are paid affiliates cannot comprehend why you are not upgrading because they know what you get when you do.
So they cannot understand your reluctance on that point even after we did this to show you what we are capable of.
2) We are the only Affiliate program with a money back guarantee and we are CHARTER MEMBERS OF ICOP!
3) We have made it possible to pay monthly dues of $15. That is enough for lunch for 2 at MacDonald's.
This is very hard for paid affiliates to comprehend.
You want to make money but will not spend $15 with the premier company on the Internet?
4) Yesterday, I informed you that your main page would be changing.
Why? Because we all need to get the largest number of hits at the least possible cost with the greatest percentage of sign ups.
It has changed three times in 2 days. Have you looked at it today?
Well let me tell you what it says, "join free as an affiliate for one month"
I have even given blood in your name.
WHY IS 100% PAID AFFILIATES SO IMPORTANT?
The average for all Small Biz upgrades is 9.73%.
All the others program owners on the Internet say, "It is a number game and you can't change the numbers.
It is impossible."
All of you want traffic.
All of you want sign ups.
All of you want upgrades.
But, you are still playing by the rules governing the Internet - NOT THE CLUB MIDAS RULES!
This is our target ad., Ms. Pruett wrote it the day she retired:
CLUB MIDAS THE BEST AFFILATE PROGRAM IN THE WORLD!
We have highest upgrade percentage for paid members in the world.
It is 98% and we have the tools to make it 100%.
Why waste time beating your head against the wall trying to get people to upgrade when you have a ready made family waiting for you?
Everything you are now doing can seamlessly fit into our marketing program.
THIS IS OUR GOAL AND NOTHING WILL STOP US FROM REACHING IT.
I DO NOT CARE IF YOU HATE ME FOR THIS E-MAIL AS LONG AS YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF LIFE. THAT'S MY JOB!
God be with all of you,
T.Thomas