I recently posted a Third Tribe Review and I’ve made no secret that I am a fan and a member of The Keyword Academy – both are membership sites which cost less than $50/month and claim to help you make money online – one I thoroughly recommend – one I don’t why?
First off lets be clear: do you want a work at home job or a business built on passive income? Personally I have no more desire to be at the beck and call of clients than I liked answering to a boss. In fact I could see it could conceivably worse. I am looking to make income online which keeps happening even while I am not there.
Third Tribe Marketing
Hmmm guys you might want to take a second look at your copy – and fix up some of the missing elements such as Privacy Policy, contact details etc, etc Andy Beard has pointed them out here : Agressive Hype and Obnoxious Tactics. According to Chris Brogan they are about Internet marketing not making money online – that’s pretty confusing cause I thought the whole point of marketing was to make sales and sales are supposed to make your money surely?
Cost: Currently $27 a month- but the price will be rising next week to $47/month. No free or reduced cost first month – but you cancel at any time via Paypal. Apparently you can get a refund of the first month – but you have to request it – I’d suggest using the forums if you can’t find the contact form …
Core Content:. Doesn’t seem to be a defined core course – maybe that will evolve…From what I can gather the theory is that you if you hang with enough like-minded people money will evolve itself into your bank account – call me anal but I’d rather have a business plan. Obviously this is a membership on the Teaching Sells model – so you may well learn something on WHAT they do not what they SAY they are doing. If I am spending money for a forum I want to know what the defined benefits are from it.
Questions and Answers Sessions: Twice a month is planned
Forum: Nothing that special that I can see – could easily become a wonderful hand holding environment – which is unlikely to be of any use except for networking. One of the longest threads at the moment is about what it is to be a “cool blogger” …
Who Would I recommend the Third Tribe to
- Its extremely hard to recommend a product which has no clear definition of what it is they are selling and whom they are selling it to…
- Seriously if you want to watch WHAT they do not what they SAY they do – this is a very interesting in offering not very much and making people happy to pay for it – the bit that is missing is whether people will stay subscribed – or whether they will have to keep on getting new fodder into the pipeline.
Update on Thrid Tribe Affiliate Program
Along with the price rise there is now the expected announcement of an affiliate program. Of coure Brian Clark is doing it because everyone insisted on it – yeah right – so reluctantly he’s offering 33% of sale price – recurring – so that’s $15.50/month per a sign-up. Expect to see a flood of “second tribe” type gushing reviews of Third Tribe coming to a blog near you.
The Keyword Academy:
The concept is so simple it fits on a one page diagram:
Cost: $33 /month(premium) $29/month $29 (basic). First month $1 – you can cancel at any time via Paypal and that’s the most you will pay. (In fact if you sign up through my link and decide not to continue after the first month drop me a message via the contact form and I will refund your $1 to your paypal account). The price has been the same since the launched in April 09 – there is no threat that it will go up soon as far as I know. Other costs involved will including domains and hosting.
Core Content:10 videos with transcripts describing in detail how to make money using the above model. Plus at least previous 6 monthly webinars are available.
Question and Answer Sessions – 3 times a month including one for European time zone members and one for advanced members. All Q&A’s are recorded and available for download.(premium only)
Content Webinar. There is a content webinar each month – topics include everything from new developments with the Google algorithm to new developments at The Keyword Academy site itself. Available for download (premium only).
Forum (premium only) a forum with a twist. No sigs allowed and mamembers can only sell to other members in one specific area. However members can apply for badges which reflect their online earnings (as verified by management) – which gives an idea to newcomer as to who is walking the talk and who is not.
Who Would I recommend the Keyword Academy to
- Anyone who wants to develop a passive online business where they get paid for work they did years or months ago;
- Anyone who wants more traffic to their site – maybe you are tired of the social blogging “write great content and they will come” – its not an either or, I think I write competently here – but the site gets most of its visitors from search engines and that’s all about keywords and backlinks and TKA will teach you both.
- If you are more experienced and are looking for cost effective access to some useful link building resources – sign up and check it out. You may be pleasently surprised. As an affiliate I’ve been surprised just how “sticky” this membership is – people stay long after they’ve learnt the basics – because of the value add.
- If you want to develop a work at home job – be it a freelance writer or something else – check out the TKA anyways – first off there are always members looking for writers and second you will understand how to really write SEO copy- and no its not necessary to go to the dark side (hint this site is fairly well optimised SEO copy).
Who Would I NOT recommend the Keyword Academy to:
- Anyone who thinks they will be making thousands or even hundreds in their first month without doing much work – get a job – its one of the easiest ways to make fast reliable cash 🙂 ;
- Anyone who is dreaming about starting a business – this is about WORKING;
- Anyone who can genuinely not afford the cash – there is enough free information here and over at Grizz’s free blog to get you earning.
Look I’ve been called cynical and rude (and that’s my friends) – but I really, really don’t like people getting ripped off – and just because they may feel good about being ripped off doesn’t mean that they aren’t being so. Even if the people who are running the rip-off scheme (and sorry, bottom-line that’s my opinion of Third Tribe Marketing) – there an awful lot of ernst, good people out there under the illusion that they can make money about blogging about their passions. The bottom line is that most of them won’t make a cent profit.
Membership sites are a fantastic way to make money online – if people keep renewing you make great cash and its an ongoing fairly stable income – that’s the holy grail online I can assure you. But it has to be providing excellent value to the customer as well in my view.
From what I have seen so far from Third Tribe Marketing -this site is an online cocktail hour for the cool dudes – after all business people having been paying through the nose for networking events off-line for years – so why not online? Doesn’t make it any more likely that joiningill make a beginner money though.
If you are a beginner and you are trying to make money online, you have no special skills, no cool tribe to hang out with but you aren’t afraid of a bit of hard work then, I believe that the Keyword Academy should more than pay for its self within several months. Maybe it will 3 months or, 6 months – but from the details provided in the program and the details provided by members in the forum most who stick around seem to hit at least $200/month within 6 months. That’s not a fortune – but it seems a typical result – that’s called no bullshite marketing as far as I am concerned.