When Your Competitors Don’t Play Fair

Rule #1 of online marketing… there aren’t nearly as many rules as you might think.

Rule #2 of online marketing… some people will do things that really should be against the rules. And sometimes these things will really make you mad.

Rule #3 of online marketing… you can’t change what they do and getting mad won’t help. But what you can do is sleep well at night.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Within the ‘make money online’ niche, as well as most likely every other niche, there are people who don’t play fair.

I’ll give you a few examples:

• They sell live coaching for big fees, boasting about how customers will have direct access to them. Then they outsource those calls to staff or virtual assistants.
• They offer upsells at one price, then offer the same upsells at lower prices when people don’t buy. Those who bought the first time paid more for the exact same product other customers paid less for.
• They offer products that aren’t created yet. Then say they have ‘technical difficulties’ as they rush to outsource the creation of the product.
• They sell software that does not work.

You get the idea.

I’ve bent the rules myself, but in ways that never disrespected my customers. My own rule is that customers come first and it lets me sleep well at night.

The other day I was promoting an affiliate product when one of my customers sent me an email. He was livid. Seems he bought the product at one price, and then later discovered that had he left the page and waited for a follow up email from the seller, he could have saved $100.

Whoops.

This is a good customer of mine. He’s been with me for years. I apologized for his experience and sent him the $100.

What I didn’t do was complain to the product seller. I let it go. While I play fair, I realize I can’t always expect everyone else to do the same. This seller has quality products I totally believe in, and I’ll probably continue to promote them.

But in the future, I will look at the funnels I promote more carefully. And if there is a way to get a better deal, I’ll let my readers know about it.