I’m on vacation this week in the Norfolk Broads, I think it’s important to get away from the computer once in a while so I prepared this post before I left, this is one cool feature of wordpress, I actually wrote this post before I left and scheduled it to appear while I was away, I also scheduled aweber to mail out while I’m away, pretty cool I think

Before I came away I had a play around with a new software tool I got from Randy Smith (Randy works for me part time helping with my Partnership Program, and as he credits me with his own success over the last 6 years – he always gives me access to his latest products)

I have to say that this latest product is pretty amazing, and I’m sure Randy wont mind me saying it’s beyond his technical ability to write the software! What he did was team up with a coding expert he actually met at my office.

Simon Phillips came up for the day as part of a bonus package for something I promoted,  Randy was there that day for our monthly meet up, and the rest as they say is history!

That in itself shows how taking action and putting all those bonuses to use can have a serious impact on your business. By making the trip to my office to claim his bonus, Simon met Randy, Dave Nicholson my Son Alex and myself.

That lead to Randy & Simon beginning a project together which has resulted in an amazing tool that I’m now using myself!

It’s essentially a Link Cloaking & Redirection software, but what makes it stand apart from all the others I’ve used over the years are a few special extras that they gave serious thought to when coding it.

You see Randy always claims to be non-techy, and even though he seems to cope well these days, he’s managed to keep hold of the ability to break most things by treating them as a newbie would, whereas Simon is so tech savvy, Dave and I had him recode parts of our own software to improve it for our last wso.

Between them they have both played to their strengths and developed the EASIEST to install software I’ve ever seen. It really is SIMPLE with just ONE file to upload.

No cPanel, No Databases, Usernames, passwords etc. to mess about with, and yet so powerful and with so many added extras – I couldn’t resist using it myself!

They also added a feature to make ‘Social Sharing’ a one click function to help promote all our links and hot pages, and all this as well as having the option to create cloaked or uncloaked link redirects. Add to those the hit tracking feature, SEO friendly editable links & pages and the simplicity of how it all works, and you end up with Professional Looking, Click Friendly links that will undoubtedly maximize your commissions, get you more traffic and brand your domain!

As I wanted to make sure you had the chance to check out Randy & Simon’s product while I was on vacation, I also wanted to make sure you got a great deal on the software!

So I spoke to Randy about putting together some special bonuses. Before we cover those, I want to take a moment to explain why I’m promoting a product in
this post:

At the end of the day, I always try to encourage all my subscribers & students to make sure their products offer great value, and by doing so – they become honest ethical and professional marketers!

So when I ask which looks more professional:

Links from an online URL shortener like -

http://bit.ly/5y6dfh3 — http://budurl.com/RandysBlog — http://tinyurl.com/7s9pdsk

Or raw affiliate links like -

http://a9fda24k-8ggj07mws3jg74o2t.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SSLC

Or the ones I prefer to use with my own domain and a recommends link attached at the end, and I’m sure you’ll agree branding your own domain always wins!

What has always stopped a lot of my readers from using their own domain was the tech side of setting these folder and redirects up in the first place, well with Randy & Simon’s software and the ease of install and use, there is no reason for all my readers not to start reaping the benefits today!

http://linksupercharger.com/johnspecial

When the guys launched this last week, I knew it would do well but I already had emails I’d promised to send out, hence Randy & Simon launched it without my help whatsoever and their results were ‘Smokin Hot’ (that covered my title now – the weather here, my Hot Page, and their results )

They had other big name affiliates jump on it due to how well the software does what it’s supposed to do, and how simple they made everything to install and use. Along with a complete set of videos explaining all the functions so even a green behind the ears newbie can follow along easily.

So much so that on top of the sales they were already getting – they achieved “Product Of The Day” on JVZoo for the 28th March and have been featured in the top ten products for the week and in the daily stats!

With quite literally several hundreds of buyers grabbing a copy at the discounted price!

So if you’ve been struggling with the technical aspects of link cloaking and redirection and you’d like to take advantage, here’s the special Randy has agreed to allow me to offer you.

1. He’s kept the 70% discount open for a massive saving.
2. He’s added an extra hundred places to an exclusive training webinar he will be holding (see page below for details)
3. He’s authorized me exclusively to give access to his ‘VideoSalesLettersABC’ course as an extra bonus for my subscribers only!
4. He even twisted my arm to add my Affiliate Promo Formula AND the Affiliate Alliance Upsell (Over $200 Value)

I highly recommend you jump on the page below and follow the link to watch the demo videos of just how SIMPLE it is to both install and use the software!

http://linksupercharger.com/johnspecial

And if nothing else – take on board the lessons here:-

• You don’t have to do it all alone
• You do need to take action
• You should always create products you can be proud of

Basically, what I always say about keeping things honest & ethical!

Now if I have timed this email right and weather permitting I’d better go check that BBQ before it turns everything into black crispy lumps, and maybe get another beer out of the cooler

As Always feel free to leave your comments

You may recall this post I made on the 19th of March explaining I had been trying to set up an affiliate program to take recurring billing payments. All I was trying to do was set up Infusionsoft with PayPal to accept recurring payments. Not hard to do you would think wouldn’t you? I mean PayPal must be one of the largest payment processors in the world.

Well as hard as I find it to write this blog post I feel I must share my experiences to save you from going down the same road I did as I have had nothing but frustrations for the last 10 weeks trying to set this up.

I had heard many great things about Infusionsoft and decided to check them out. You can see what they offer here, Initially all I wanted to do was use their affiliate program and possibly use their autoresponder service at a later date. The plan was to put all of my products under one roof using one system. Now at $299 per month this was no cheap affiliate program but I decided to contact someone at Infusionsoft to ask about their service. This is where the problems started.

I asked if I would be able to use PayPal to accept recurring billing payments, I was told I would be able to do this no problem and was then told about the wonderful things Infusionsoft would do for my business. (If anyone from Infusionsoft reads this I still have the email from Scott Morrision telling me the setup with PayPal was possible)

So I decided to sign up and get things moving. Now remember I had done some research and while I consider myself to be quite technically experienced I knew this wasn’t going to be easy to set up so I had to get the help of a programmer to set things up.

Without boring you with the details I have now gone through 3 programmers and none of them can set this up for me, the reason they can’t set this up is it can’t be done and Infusionsoft have acknowledged it but that’s not where my problem lies.

You see, during all of this time I have had to contact Infusionsoft support numerous times and I must say their support is non existent.

• They will tell you anything to get you off the phone.
• They don’t reply to support tickets.
• They pass you to another department which sends you to an answerphone.
• They promise to ring you back but never do (this has happened numerous times)
• The guy you need to speak to is always ‘in a meeting’ or ‘away from his desk’.
• ETC, ETC.

They simply don’t seem to care about their customers, now remember this is a $299 per month service we are talking about here. Not some $10 product.

Anyway, to cut a long story short last week I decided to go with a different company and got set up in 3 days, if only I had done this in the first place. So I contacted Infusionsoft to cancel my account and request a refund of the $900 they have as they mis-sold me their product.

After submitting a support ticket last week and making 3 phone calls yesterday and being ‘promised a reply by close of business today’ guess what!

I’m still waiting!

Now get this, I can’t cancel my account unless I talk to someone at billing. When you contact billing you get an answerphone, but what’s the point of leaving a message as they don’t respond.

My next payment of $299 is due on the 23rd of May and I have given up trying to cancel my account. I am simply going to do a chargeback.

How a company that is supposed to help the Internet Marketer can treat a customer like this is beyond me. I may receive some flack for this post but as one of my blog readers I must warn you, if you value your business stay well away from Infusionsoft.

This whole experience has probably cost me in the region of $30,000 as I am now 10 weeks late with an evergreen product launch. Let’s just hope this blog post prevents a few people going through the same experience I have.

They will tell you what you want to hear to make a sale but that’s where the communication ends.

If anyone from Infusionsoft reads this please cancel my account so I don’t have to perform a chargeback. My username is ‘planetsms’

Rant over!

[Update] A lot of people are asking what service I have switched to. At the moment I just put the product in question on ClickBank. That’s one company who value their customers who I’ve never had an issue with in 5 years. If i do go with an all in one system I can recommend I will let you guys know.

[Update 2] I’ve just received this email from Infusionsoft:

Hi John, I tried to call you but there was no answering service. So am emailing you this response. My name is Clay Jeppsen. I am an Account Manager here at Infusionsoft, yesterday I received an email from my boss to contact you regarding your request to cancel. By the time I opened the email it was already late in the evening there in the UK. We are in Arizona, 9 hours difference. It proved to be a poor choice of me to wait and call you today. For that I apologize. And I am sincerely sorry for the fact that Infusionsoft was not able to get your project off the ground. I believe it is still a bug that our tech support is trying to fix, but that is not your problem. And, Infusionsoft is not in the business of taking peoples money. We are in the business of growing businesses; this is what we pride ourselves on. For that reason I have refunded 897.00 American dollars back to your Visa and canceled your account. I hope this helps towards your future endeavors and time lost with Infusionsoft. Like I said, we would have preferred a more prolific outcome. If we are going to part, I hope we can at least agree on one thing – that we wanted you to be successful with our product. Your success brings us success. That is healthy for the both of us. I wish you the best in the future. If you have any questions for me please call or email me.

It’s a shame it took this blog post to get action but there you have it. You have to love the power of the Internet and social media, thanks everyone for your support, I truly appreciate it.

[Update 3] Yet another response from Infusion, it’s strange how they suddenly want to communicate with me now.

John,

I have to say when I woke up this morning, checked Twitter and saw a handful of mentions to your blog post, I was disappointed to say the least. I was disappointed because I know great lengths Infusionsoft has made (and continues to make) to deliver exceptional service to all users. I am glad we’ve taken steps to resolve this as quickly as we have.

I hope you understand that we earnestly worked hard to earn your business and legitimately wanted to help you and your business grow. Our app had all the functions you desired, but it seems the point of failure was on the merchant processing needs. We have hundreds and possibly thousands of users who successfully use our app with PayPal Payflow Pro for recurring billing. I know this wasn’t what you expected and I totally understand why it was frustrating.

I would like to point out that we have been on top of the support cases you submitted. I wouldn’t exactly say we were “non-existent” nor have we pushed you off the phone. We take sincere pride in our 92% customer satisfaction and work hard to push that even higher. We will made necessary accommodations to keep our users happy and their businesses growing. We’ve listened to our customer feedback on help and have made numerous improvements to our Help Center — clearing away the unnecessary and providing more detailed articles, tutorials and helpful videos for users. To date, our support team’s support case ratings have averaged at 4.54 out of 5.0 which leads us to believe most users receive timely, satisfactory service.
We accept and apologize for the difficulty in reaching our account management team. We have sent an internal communication to advise all employees on how to properly handle such concerns. While this does not ameliorate your concerns directly, it will help us improve and provide even better service for all our users.

And one last point — and I want your readers to hold us to this – we commit to following up with every customer concern within one business day. We know it’s unacceptable to wait for a response from a modern, upstanding company and we’re stepping up to the plate to provide excellent service to everyone. We’ve grown quite a bit and that’s no excuse to accept inferior service. Conversely, we will take all the steps to hold our customers accountable once they use our app to use it successfully and accept our guidance in making the most from the app. After all, we’re both in this game and want to keep our customers happy.

I hope you understand we meant this response with the best of intentions. As I mentioned to you on Twitter, any person who endured such a bumpy experience would have been met with such compassionate and rapid service from us. We’re a different company than we were before (Google us and see what mistakes we’ve made in the past) and would like to let you know that we welcome any feedback, suggestions and improvements to make our app and service better.

Thanks for the feedback the opportunity to serve you better. Let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

Warm Regards,

Joseph Manna
Community Manager, Infusionsoft
Email: joseph.manna@infusionsoft.com
Twitter: @joemanna | @infusionsoft
Ph: (480) 289-6814

Reply from John

My only response to that is if you ‘take sincere pride’ in 92% customer satisfaction that’s actually quite shocking as that means 8% of your customers are not satisfied with your service and you seem happy with that. If you were trading on eBay with 92% satisfaction nobody would buy from you and eBay would probably close you down.