Four Minute Money - Review
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Last week we had the plan for setting up an online business in just 48 hours.
This week, it’s only going to take you four minutes!
Can you see a trend developing here? Perhaps next week we’ll have a training course that teaches how you to get your online business up and running yesterday.
Now THAT would be a neat trick.
Nevertheless with an immense effort I reeled my cynicism back in and sat down to study the Four Minute Money course by Harris Fellman and Brian Kosobucki.
Four Minute Money (4MM) consists of six PDFs, with an average of approximately 33 pages each. The members area contains a dozen scripts (seven of which come with instructional videos) that are designed to be used in tandem with the strategies discussed in the 4MM guides.
The scripts, videos and members area lack flair, but are functional and easy to use. The core question, and what ultimately decides if 4MM is worthy of your time and money, boils down to whether the information contained in the guides can REALLY show you how to make money online in only four minutes.
Let’s take a closer look.
Four Minute Money
(Introduction)
This sets the scene for the following five books and outlines the philosophy behind the strategies and the concept of making money in four minutes.
As is also outlined on the sales page, the 4MM Intro explains that the concept of four minute money-making is not about starting your stopwatch and putting cash in your hand before 240 seconds have elapsed - rather this is about carrying out simple tasks that can be completed within four minutes (or something close) that have the POTENTIAL to make your money in the future.
It might happen today, tomorrow, next week, or next month, and the amount of money you make may be a ten cents, ten dollars, or ten thousand dollars. It’s also possible that any individual four minute task could fail and you make nothing - but since it only took your four minutes…
The idea is to keep creating more and more of these systems, many of which only need to be carried out once, but have the potential to continue making money for years to come. And while nothing is guaranteed, all of the ideas are tried, tested and have been successful for others.
Considering the bombastic nature of a product that claims to show you how to make money in just four minutes, I found it hugely encouraging to see emphasis being placed on the connection between work and profit.
The introduction makes it clear that online success takes time to achieve and that, while many of these tasks only take approximately four minutes to complete, it still requires persistent effort if you want to generate a significant income.
A promising start then, but what about the strategies themselves?
Four Minute Money - Guide 1
(Give People Money & Get Paid to Do It)
The first guide outlines a very specific strategy based on affiliate marketing, and then goes on to describe lots of different ways that the strategy can be expanded and modified.
Some of these ideas WILL only take you four minutes and others will require a certain amount of preparation before you begin. This is not as restrictive as it might sound as the vast majority of this course relentlessly focuses on methods that are simple and quick to accomplish (even the ones that take more than four minutes).
For example, the core strategy in this book is best suited for use with a blog. The chances are, you already have one and you can start your four minute tasks straight away. But if not, setting up a free blog via Blogger or Wordpress is very quick and easy to do.
Personally, I found it difficult to get excited by the subject of this first idea. There are some useful tips in here that I can use in other aspects of my business, but I didn’t feel compelled to jump on this.
This is partly due to my own prejudice towards online income generation. I tend to be dismissive of any online strategies that don’t involve unique content or product creation, as being undeserving of the label of “Business“.
Really, this is unfair as they are a vast number of businesses that sit in between vendor and consumer, and work hard to connect the two. My local convenience store sells me beer (for which I’m very grateful) and it doesn’t bother me one iota that they didn’t personally make the stuff. They get the brewer’s product into my hands and the arrangement works out well for everyone.
If you want to create your own products and original online works then good for you. But, if you want to make your online living via affiliate marketing, brokering services, or anything else that sits inside an already existing profit channel, then you should tell me to stop being a snob and get on with it.
4MM’s first strategy is a sound concept that can be applied to many, many different niches and is an excellent start to the course.
Four Minute Money - Book 2
(Total Reciprocity - Get Paid to Ask for Nothing)
Book number two is also based on a method of affiliate marketing and, if anything, is an even simpler approach than that in the preceding book. If you’re a service-oriented person who gets a kick out of helping people out, then this will be right up your street.
Building, as it does, on the principles described in the first guide, book 2 is more condensed (it’s about half the size of the previous book). It does, however, go into significant detail on the parts that matter the most.
All of the books are written in a very conversational tone that make it easy to read. It’s not always as clear as it could be and there are very few images or screen-shots to break up the text but, on the whole, the guides do a nice job of covering all the steps required.
If you have even a moderate amount of online experience, you won’t find anything that is technically beyond your skills and the accompanying scripts will simplify a lot of the tasks even further.
Four Minute Money - Book 3
(The Automaton System - Robots Making You Money)
The shortest book in the set - most likely because the core strategy is ridiculously simple - contains a myriad of different ways to use just one idea in lots of different areas.
The fits in well with the strategies from the first two books, but it’s likely that you will also be able to apply this to some of your existing projects. The chances are, you’re already using this technique, but never considered using it like this before.
Four Minute Money - Book 4
(The Insider’s Guide to Instantly Getting - Your Own Free Labor, Products, and Money)
This is my personal highlight of 4MM and is one of the best “rough” guides to outsourcing online that I’ve read.
It focuses primarily on the main reason most people dismiss outsourcing - that of insufficient funds - and jumps all over this sorry excuse by explaining how to get work done for little or no money. Some of the ideas in here I’ve personally used and although some may sound far-fetched, I can assure you that you’ll feel very differently once you’ve tried this out for yourself.
As a crash-course in outsourcing alone, this would be a worthwhile read. But it adds additional value by covering various ways of using outsourcing to create new profit streams, some of which could be expanded into individual businesses of their own.
Four Minute Money - Book 5
(4 Minute Traffic Tactics)
Although some new profit generating ideas are covered, this book mainly focuses on various methods of generating traffic. I didn’t find anything in here that blew me away, but the methods that I’m familiar with are sound.
One idea in particular is one I’ve used in the past to outrank major news websites and is the subject of this month’s new Lucid SEO module.
The section on search engine optimisation isn’t going to make me fear for the future of Lucid SEO, but it manages to cover a couple of the on-site fundamentals and at least doesn’t make any glaring errors. I do feel, however, that more space should have been devoted to the subject of link building which is crucial to SEO success.
My biggest disappointment with this book is the section that describes the 4MM Blog Co-Op. It sounds like an excellent feature, but I was unable to find any links to this in the members area. I checked the sales page and the co-op is also mentioned there as a feature, but I’ve yet to locate it.
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UPDATE: 8th Oct 2008
The Blog Co-Op is only temporarily unavailable while it is being updated and should return to the members area within the next few days.
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Re-examining the sales page, I noticed a couple more features that were lacking.
1) The “members-only Support area” is merely three different support email addresses. Hopefully this is a feature that is intended to be expanded in the near future,
2) “Endless access to freelancers” describes a system whereby you post a project you need completing, and 4MM will help you find a suitable person, but I was unable to locate this feature in the members area. The information on outsourcing in Book 4 should be sufficient to allow you to locate quality personnel for yourself, but it’s still a shame that these are unavailable at present.
It’s a shame that a course of such high quality is tarnished by these omissions but, hopefully, it’s something will soon be rectified.
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UPDATE: 10th Oct 2008
Brian Koz has confirmed that the contact emails in the Members Area can be used to ask questions or request help on matters relating to the contents of the 4MM course, and NOT just for technical support.
The contact emails are also intended to be used for assistance in locating freelance workers. Brian said “we allow them to e-mail support directly if they have a project and we can either quote them a price with our freelancers or put them in touch with some good ones.“
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If we restrict our focus on what IS available (the six PDF guides, the training videos, and the scripts), then Four Minute Money is an excellent piece of work that will best suit new to intermediate internet marketers who are looking for a system they can learn and adapt to suit their preferred niches.
As with most courses of this kind, you will need to put some time aside to apply the ideas if you really want to get the most out of this. I would suggest something along the lines of blocking out half an hour per day so you can setup several new 4MM ideas at a time.
Do this for a few weeks and those productive four minute spells should add up to something very worthwhile indeed.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
If it is anything like Harris’s last product I bought, this too will be worthless! And support, there was none. The sad thing is that people will believe that they can make money in only 4 minutes and buy this product. And then Harris will be the one making the money. But I’ll bet it took him longer than 4 minutes to come up with this product!
October 9th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I was glad to read that they place a lot of emphasis on the connection between work and perseverance on one hand, and profits on the other.
Unfortunately, though, I agree with Bob that many people will take the title literally and then become disillusioned - leading to yet more people who think that all online businesses are scams.
Cheers,
Martin.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Hi,
I think most people miss the point with these IM launches. If you think of them as ‘thought starters’ then you are on the right track. They also cut out a lot of time on wasted research. No, of course, they don’t contain the ‘recipe for gold’, but they can point you in the right direction of where the hills are (that might contain the gold). Good luck on your journey!
Regards, Allen
October 10th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Bob - sorry to hear you’re not a fan of Harris Fellman’s work. Although I’ve not sampled everything, what I have tried has always been pretty good, and 4MM certainly isn’t worthless. It’s worth bearing in mind that Brian Koz is also involved in this product and appears to have created much of the content.
Martin - To be fair - the 4MM sales page, and the introductory guide, makes it quite clear that this is about working smarter, and not harder - but still working nonetheless.
It is something of a paradox though. There have been a few occasions recently when I’ve been provided with a review copy of a product and found it to be of good quality, and yet would probably not have personally bought otherwise because the sales copy sounds too hyped up.
Nevertheless, if this kind of sales copy outsells the more conservative variety, it’s hard to criticise those who use it. What’s the point of having a great product and using sales copy that doesn’t result in sales?
October 12th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Dave, is that your picture above? I thought you were much older. Anyways, I wanted to tell you that your review above is the absolute best I’ve come across in my 19 months of failing miserably in IM. (LOL) Extremely easy on the eyes, no confusing or wishy-washyness. I actually understood every word. And the honesty just seemed to radiate out. Thanks.
As for 4MM, yeah it was hyped a little but not as much as most and anyways for a lousy $5 you’re bound to learn something that will make it worthwhile. I’ve come across $50 products that didn’t though. I for one, am going to check it out and will report back if there is anything to report back about. -Pat
October 15th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I have found that JD Swanson’s Five Minute money makers a much better product and he offers a free video *broken down into three parts* to illustrate making money with small niche websites
The videos alone are worth 97.00 bucks easy and as JD has always done
under promised and over delivered
Here’s the url for the videos & no it’s not an affiliate link!
==> http://www.fiveminutemoneymakers.com/90days
October 16th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Thank you for the very helpful review. The 4 Minute Money presentation is a good one and the product offered seems worth investing in BUT, the monthly membership came as a surprise at the end of the presentation and there seems to be no explanation as to what the membership offers.
4 Minute Money seems comprehensive with no further training needed except for occasional support. So why the on-going membership? Obviously, there must be a good reason considerting the cost.
Thank You
December 7th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Nice review, feel free to visit my lense about 4 minute money at http://www.squidoo.com/4minutemoneyreview
Peter