I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Teaching Sells myself over the last few months and what Brian and Tony have put together is an amazing resource. This ‘relaunch’ is just that – they’ve actually reconfigured things considerably and now are offering a complete package rather than a course under development which is how it was previously sold. If you don’t like it or want to participate then that’s your choice – however I don’t see how being rude to others who have found it helpful to them is that constructive.

On the other hand, depending on the subject, lessons learned are often best when learned through trial and error. I think this is where the free online info comes in handy. You try what you learn right then on your blog… And then you can learn by seeing if it works. It is hard to want to fork out money to pay someone something you feel you can learn on your own. I guess it is all about what you are blogging for.

Note the ending of the post: the primary objective of the post is to promote teachingsells.com

That is totally fine per se, but you don’t cast it that way. Not cool. Erodes trust.

David Harper

I would have to disagree with you here that there is a real need for paid content vs. the traditional free content that is out there. And trust me…as an internet marketer myself, I hate admitting it.

The first thing to consider is that anyone can find literally anything that they want on the internet about virtually any subject. The key is hunting it down.

Most of the information you find on membership sites and video tutorials are no more than well put together thoughts and musings that come from varying sites. In other words, typically what someone pays for instant access to new and scarce information BUT the convenience of having something all put together for you in one central place. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is really the case for beginner and intermediate works…it starts to get more scarce the more scholarly you go but even then it can be found in white papers and what not.

Case in point, I recently was poking around looking for information on qualifiable link analysis, in particular how search engines define inbound links and nepostistic links. In layman’s terms, that is pretty advanced SEO theory. I found PDF’s and white papers in abundance.

Now, if I wanted to, as a marketer, I could probably build a kick butt book on advanced SEO methods and theories using nothing but white papers that I find here and there (which is what most of the membership sites do but they usually lower the bar and deal with beginners). The result? It would basically help the advanced SEO marketer understand SEO better. Could they find it somewhere else? Sure. But they would have to discover several different sources and then put it all together in a way or fashion in which they could easily understand it.

My point is…..paid memberships are good IF you don’t want to spend your time hunting for the same information. But make no bones about it…it is out there.

Great post

I don’t think that Brian either needed or wanted his JV partners and affiliates to do much to promote Teaching Sells. He had over 15,000 prospects on his waiting list.

For the record, let me be clear that I’ve been raving about this training program since November, 2007, beginning the week after I enrolled. I haven’t made a dollar of affiliate commissions from it and it doesn’t matter if I ever do.

I realize that not everyone can afford Teaching Sells. But I think everyone needs to understand the reasons for paid training programs and the immense benefits available from them.

I’m grateful to Darren for starting this conversation.

And I’ll continue to produce and consume free AND paid content as appropriate for my personal development and business growth. I hope you’ll do the same.

Yes, you can learn everything you need to know for just about anything with free online content. However, you will not always find everything you need all in once place.

First, you will have to scour the web and find all the bits and pieces of info that will successfully and fully answer your question, but even after you find all this stuff, you then have to filter out fact from fiction – believe it or not, not everything you read is correct! Many people get their facts wrong, so you need to double check many things.

If you pay for content, you may be more likely to get all the info in one place, and depending on the source, the info may be more likely to be correct, but you probably should still double check your facts, cause even the best paid researchers make mistakes.

Thanks’ for the read

Paid-for content is not just about the content. It is the experience that excellerates the learning. I was a member of Teaching Sells in the beginning. I found that it made it so much faster to learn how to build a membership / education / training site. It gave me access to forums, to others that wre doing it, and to content that was not easy to find in a single location.

I left Teaching Sells when I needed to focus on some other parts of my business – but it was not because TS was a bad investment. I would be much further behind in my training if I hadn’t taken the time and spent the money to invest in my own education.

Purchasing/renting books has been my next least expensive course of action,but I know that where it counts I will need formal training.

I agree that you spend a lot of time, money and effort on your training and you should be allowed to monetize it. I think that is why people in general push themselves so hard in the first place. They want a better life for themselves or their kids. There is no shame in monetizing on your education or in your blog post on occasion.

We all use cpa’s for our taxes and go to Doctors who themselves have spents hundreds of thousands of $$$ for information (its called a medical degree).. SO why don’t some people spend on information when some one else has the experience.

You can’d do it all and knoe it all. In my company . I know I can’t learn all there is about links andseo so I hire smarter people than me .. its basic to business.

Some people do respond only to something they’ve paid for, so that’s also an important point to consider.