StomperNet – So Good I Had to Cancel

It was good while it lasted.

I was a STOMPER damn it!

If you follow Internet marketing at all, if you are on practically anyone’s mailing list, you know that StomperNet recently opened up for new enrollments.

After what seemed like months of releasing free videos, and near daily emails, the doors were opened up.

I signed up to plunk down my $800 per month. Yep.. I said $800 monthly (well, I think it was only $797, but I love to exagerate).

So what does $800/month get you?

Well, first you get to call yourself a STOMPER! You have arrived – you’re a member of the inner circle. Be proud.

Doesn’t anyone read anymore?

Then you get videos… and videos… and videos. Tons of videos. And after your eyes are burning out from being glued to the computer screen, you’ll get a big box full of more videos on DVD.

This presented my first problem with being a Stomper. I have a dailup connection. Correction, I have the world’s slowest dailup connection.

There is just no way I can watch streaming video. Won’t happen.

So I use a download manager program. This way I can set the program to download the video during the night (sometimes more than one night depending on file size) and watch the video off line.

Well, the download manager didn’t seem to like StomperNet much. Most of the videos wouldn’t download in the program.

This leaves me with the option of going to a coffee shop in town for hours to view the content that I’m paying basically what I bring home in one week of my “real” job to see.

Don’t have the time for that one.

Credits? What Credits?

And another thing about many of those videos. They are premium content and cost you credits. Now it doesn’t bother me near as much as Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz, but I don’t recall any mention of “premium content” on the sales page.

With my glacial Internet connection there’s no way I could use even half the credits they give you each month, but still, I was under the impression that I would have complete total access to ALL the content ALL the time.

This wasn’t a deal killer for me, but it was disappointing.

Isn’t $800 a Lot For Some Videos? Even Good Ones?

There is video based training on just about any online business topic you can think of. But even with this vast resource, the video library isn’t why StomperNet is valuable.

The real reason that I was willing to plunk down 800 smackers for a month of Stomper membership is the access to some of the best in the online business world.

This access comes via the forums, faculty office hours and several members only conferences each year.

There are just too many forums to explore in a few weeks. The ones I did spend some time on seemed to get regular attention and contribution from the faculty. There is a lot of really good stuff here.

I spent most of my time in the affiliate marketing forums. Jerry West was very active in these and gave some great advice.

I was really hoping to find some tactic that would let me quickly make enough to pay for StomperNet. I knew this was not likely. It takes a lot of time and effort to make money anywhere – maybe even more so online.

I didn’t see any get rich quick nonsense on display there. I didn’t find any fast way to recover my tuition.

How To Build a Real Store

One place StomperNet shines above almost all other guru training sites I’ve tried is the vast amount of lessons on selling real physical products online – ecommerce stores.

This is something I am going to try – I have a few areas of interest and I’m working through which to go after first.

This is what I joined StomperNet to learn about. Most of the DVD’s shipped to my house where about this.

This was another problem. On about the second DVD of the set, our DVD player rolled over and died. The one on the computer gave up the ghost several weeks ago.

I had to go out and buy a new DVD drive for the computer and install it (some of the disks only work on a computer DVDrom).

I never did get to watch all the DVD’s.

What i saw was great, but a little dated. For instance, they had a lesson about placing articles on your site to get some Google love. One example shown was an article on gun safes that Brad Fallon put on his Wedding Favor site. Maybe you need those for your shotgun weddings.

Anyway, if you go the the Wedding Favor site now, you won’t find a gun safe article. All articles must related to the wedding/wedding favor topic now.

There are several examples like this. You can learn by seeing the example and then going to the 2008 version of the site and comparing it to the old version.

There are forums for these videos, and they probably address these changes there, but I never had time to go check them out.

Is It Worth the Price?

There was a fairly heated discussion about this question in the comments at the IttyBiz blog.

My answer is yes, IF…

• You are damned serious beginner and in a hurry to learn. It’s all here if you can pay the price.
• You have an online business and you need to take it to the next level. Access to experts will help you a lot. There are so many details and tricks to learn from these folks.
• You’re an Internet Marketing Junkie with money to burn. You can stay blissfully learning IM for months on StomperNet. If you just can’t get enough of it, StomperNet will be your one-stop headquarters for all things Internet Marketing. You’ll love it.

I’m currently working on a website for a friend. He has invented a very unusual device that makes your wheelbarrow more user friendly. I asked for some marketing ideas in one of the forums. I had replies within minutes of posting. Most of their suggestions are already on my master plan mindmap for this project. It was nice to get quick responses though.

If Its So Good, Why Did You Quit?

In the end, I decided to cancel my membership and get a refund.

Why?

At this time I just can’t make use of most of the training opportunities available. I need high speed Internet and can’t get it. I may have to finally break down and go for the satelite option.

I also need to move from making very little online to making enough to cover most of the price.

I plan to join again when those two issue are resolved.

It was nice being a Stomper.

Tagged as: ecommerce, internet marketing, making money online, membership sites, StomperNet