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Review Crusher
So Mike Filsaime's Review Crusher came out today, or, more accurately, was to come out today but was pre-released 4 days ago. (I'm not sure what kind of strategy Mike had in mind there or how successful it was.) The offer is now on hold. Several (okay, 87) refunded copies are still available; he says he won't be selling any more. Update: as of July 29, the offer is again active.
The video promoting Review Crusher was a bit long-winded, at times aggravatingly so. After approximately 50 minutes—much longer than it would have taken me to read even the longest sales letter I've seen—Mike gave the price and the page to buy the product. I did stay the course to the end and I have to say that I was impressed with the feature set. However, I won't be buying the product. Read on to find out why...
What is Review Crusher, anyway? Well, in a nutshell, Review Crusher is a custom CMS (Content Management System) that makes it easy to setup and maintain a review website. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that in addition to commenting on reviews, visitors to your site will be able to submit initial reviews of their own. Also, a voting system is in place to allow visitors to rate reviews on the site.
Reviews can be listed in any category you choose: not just IM products, but restaraunts, household goods, coffee,... —anything you want. Mike and his team even start you out with a package of reviews you can import into the site.
Obviously you need to monetize the site, and Review Crusher makes it easy to add advertising. As I understand it, you can create one or more ads that will show up for a specific review or category of reviews, then show those ads in several areas of the page. I imagine you can also rotate different ads in each review, category, and position.
Mike promises phenomenal support and hinted at additional review packs, plug-ins and themes (the software comes with one) to come in the future, although there will be an additional cost for those. Sounds like a great product.
So why am I not buying? Well, there are two reasons.
First is price on the back end. Although it's no longer available, one option was for a flat $1997. The other option was for $497, with an additional $67 per month for the next 11 months. While the total of $1234 for Option B sounds much better, it's really a thinly-disguised move to get you into Mike's Job Crusher continuity (membership) program. Your payments don't stop after 12 months unless you cancel your Job Crusher membership—and Mike's betting that you won't do that.
However, Mike didn't sell me on the value of Job Crusher. And I'm not sold on Review Crusher at $1234 or even $497.
With just a little more effort, one could set up a WordPress blog with all the same features as Review Crusher and the net cost, exclusive of time, could be as low as $0. Zero! That's my second reason, again coming down to price, but this time on the front end. Yes, not everyone has the technical know-how to do all the setup, but there are a lot of video tutorials to step you through it (Expert WordPress, for example) and written instructions to install various plug-ins.
For those of you with a Review Crusher-like blog, what CMS are you using and what plug-ins have you added to give you the functionality you need? I've long advocated a review marketing strategy and our readers would like to know how you're doing it.
Review Crusher - Why all the bashing?
Hi Everyone,
Why is everyone bashing Review Crusher? Look, maybe you "savy" IMer's can crank out these review sites in Wordpress or whatever but there is a market for this.
There are people out there LIKE ME that don't want to dick around getting a Wordpress site up and look for plugins, etc. Some people just want to hit the "easy" button.
You're paying for the convenience! Look, there's low end and high end in every vertical market. Take a look at Toyota, they have the Lexus. The joke is a Lexus is a Toyota with leather but hey, there's a market for it. Same thing with Nissan (Infiniti), GM has Cadillac which you get the idea I'm sure.
For me, time is money. OK, so someone drops the $1,500. If your time is "worth" $50 an hour (which is not out of line considering that's what it costs on avg to mow my lawn!) that comes out to 30 hours of labor so to speak.
I'd rather focus on driving traffic to my site(s) then getting frustrated on the tech stuff.
Kudos to Filsaime and his marketing team. They found a market that wanted "leather" to the tune of $100K plus I'm sure.
Thanks for reading.
Don's reaction to "Review Crusher"
This is the first e-mail I have gotten from Don of this kind. Verrrry interesting!
His reasons for not buying are righteous indeed. I have not read or seen the video, but I am very familiar with the style. Yeech!
Whenever I encounter a sales pitch more than one or two standard page lengths long, including content, squeeze and relevant links, I scroll to the bottom and back track to the price. My decision is straightforward; if the price is outside of my pathetic budget and the offer is from a non productive (to Me) source, I delete the whole thing and move on.
That being said, I would like to concur with all the other replies to Don's post. Somewhere Dorothy, over the rainbow, there is truth and integrity to be found in the W4 (Wonderful World Wide Web) I believe that there are a few (too dam few)stand-up IM sources. I think after my own three year Odessy trying to build a profitable website, that I have located a few in the general fellowship of Bottom Feeders and Bum Marketers.
Thank's Don, for the heads up. I for one would have terminated the video after five minutes, but I have come to expect genuine relevant content within the first ten or fifteen seconds. Thanks again.
I've got to go now, but I'll be around, still looking for someone who can help me set up a new site on VodaHost. Yup, I bought into that. They did send me a box full of parts but no meaningful assembly manual; just a bunch of truncated videos. I whined and complained a little and they locked me out. For how long I don't know. This has become a sort of a saga. To quote Winston Churchill; "...Never, Never, Ever Give Up! There, I feel better now.
Sam shpathfinder@gmail.com Y'all come now, Y'hear?
Review Crusher - A CMS All Dressed Up...No Place to Go
It becomes weary after a while...separating real marketing of real products with real value from the blatant marketing of c***. Hey, let's call a souped up Joomla CMS a "Review Crusher". If we can do that, why not call a souped up Wordpress review blog a "Review Mini-Crusher"? or maybe a "Review WanaPress-Crusher"?
I am tired of seeing continuity programs that provide content of little real value, the upsells upon upsells that sell content of little value, and emails from gurus who tell me "just got off the phone with [insert other guru name here] and he has a special deal"...No wonder the IM community and industry is starting to have serious credibility issues.
I am currently working with off-line brick and mortar businesses, and it is refreshing to look someone in the eye and do business with them, and working with them to really help them with their business. Thank God I don't have to lie through my teeth and tell them I got a special deal because I just got off the phone with [insert guru name here]...
Ok, got that off my chest...I think I'll go back to helping my Chinese restaurant owner fill a few more seats on Thursday nights...
-Mike Darling
www.smarterwebsolutions.com
Review crusher, my foot
Don,
I totally respect your decision not to get involved in this, and Mike Darling's post hits the nail on the head. These guys are such sleaze bags. A newbie can outsource a Joomla or Drupal site (both open source) and make an outstanding site for little money; or, as you say, with a little effort, a perfectly good Wordpress site. The rest is good marketing and the ability to provide value and good user experience. Guys like Mike may be "great marketers," but to me they are just great hucksters. The IM world would be a lot cleaner place without them.
Good review
Apart from the outrageous price, the one thing that sticks in my mind is the "get other people to write reviews for you".
In other words your visitors can write a review for your site. To COMPLETE noobies this probably sounds like a great idea. Anyone with a bare minimum of experience knows that no-one is going to take the time and effort to write a review for your site without having their affiliate link in the review.
So, noob builds site. Others write reviews for noob's site. Others get commissions from noob's site. Noob wonders why he's getting tons(?) of traffic and no commissions. Noob goes bust.
WordPress rules, Review Crusher drools.
Very good point, Steve!
Very good point, Steve! There is a class of people that will write reviews for a site with no compensation (see the Google Local listings), but most people -- particularly on a new site -- will need compensation for writing a review.
So you can write your own reviews and spend your time doing that. Some people (like Karen in an earlier comment) are successful at that. Or you can buy pre-written reviews from Mike Filsaime.
Or you can come up with a model to entice your readers to write reviews that still makes you money. Anybody doing that?
Review Crusher video
Greetings Don,
Thank you for your announcement. I also don't like long video/audio, my patience is not simply to wait its end out when the essence would turn out if it is in altogether. I like the 5-8 minutes short, vital videos, like tutorials. It makes sense, but to sit through a hour and watch how the guru polishes himself, is not for it. Not to mention the slow adsl, I have to wait 2 minutes to watch 1 minute content. Bahh. What you say about prices, I agree with you.
-Sandor
Mike Filsaime - Job Crusher
It would be nice to see how others are doing with blog. I once signed up for Job Crusher however everytime I tried to get support it took days to get a response. Mike has great sales content however I find the follow up and support is weak. I cancelled long ago and have never returned.
You are right Don, the cost is what matters - it would be interesting to know more on how to get involved in this type of market. Look forward to hearing from others - thanks.
Carl Tambeau
http://twitter.com/carlt
Review Crusher
Don, you are absolutely right. Mike is probably counting on newbies buying into this. Certainly anyone who's been around the block knows that price is outrageous.
I do product reviews on my WordPress blogs. It costs me nothing but my hosting fee (less than $10 per month) and my time posting the reviews. With the right plugins and tweaking, WordPress is all one needs to set up a profitable Product Review site. And if done right, it is really easy to get one's blog posts listed in the top 10 spots in Google for the specific keywords of the product or service reviewed.
Thanks for your post and for continually helping people to find inexpensive ways to profit.
Plugins and Tweaks?
Karen, what plugins do you find most useful? And do you do product reviews all over the map or do you stick with a specific narrow category (a niche, if you will) for each blog?