30DC vs crowd mountain

[cyberking]

Hi,

Was just wondering if any one had any experience with crowd mountian and how it compared to the 30dc. i was watching the latest video that michelle put out after the rank decoding engine in which she gives a lay out of the basic process of getting started, in which she states, 30,000 monthly searches and fewer than 100,000 competing web pages. These numbers aren't what is taught in 30dc, but the process to me sounds very similar. You do have to do certain basic steps to get started. Like i said i was just wondering if any one had any experience, or what the difference was other than hers is a paid membership, was just curious, i do think 30dc is the best.

Thanks,
Cyberking.

[lisahartwell]

I joined Crowd Mountain to see what it offered and because I have so much respect for Michelle MacPhearson. I would say it is complementary to the 30DC and not to jump ship until you have the core concepts under your belt from here (although, Michelle does a good job of talking to all levels of experience in the Internet Marketing sphere).

A few points to bear in mind:

1. In 30DC we are doing market research and we are doing it in the shortest time we can (30 days). In Crowd Mountain Michelle is showing a blueprint for getting started right through to creating a list, monetizing, imporiving your SEO etc. It is more comprehensive because it has a different focus.

2. Based on the above and the fact that different people will have different search criteria anyway, the number of SEOT/SEOC etc. are different. These are the ones that Michelle has discovered work for her based on the full process she is teaching. If you were a member of the Immediate Edge, for example, you would see suggestions that you compete against much higher competition (once you have tested that a market is profitable). Different processes have different criteria.

3. I love Crowd Mountain - more than I ever expected. Most of her concepts are not new to me but the simplicity of the blueprint and the way she lays it out is fantastic. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so I'm happy to take someone else's processes and follow them (having said that, I may deviate slightly depending on the focus of the site).

4. Can you afford it? An obvious question, but if the price seems too much initially then do the 30DC until you are able to pay for CM or 30DC PLus or Immediate Edge (depending on what you want to do next). If you have the money to re-invest then this might be the program for you.

5. If you join then take immediate action. This is definitely a practical course and is similar to the 30DC in that it is laid out from start to finish (or at least the initial bootcamp is). Don't spend money unless you are ready to put the time in.

6. Michelle definitely knows her stuff and is the real deal.

Hope that helps,

Lisa

P.S. I have moved this to the General Internet Marketing Chat forum which seems more appropriate.

[cyberking]

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for the info, i appreciate it very much. Perhaps in the future it might be something to try but not yet, i am a 30dc plus member, i am using traffic bug and wpd, then to add CM on that would be a bit much for me cost wise i mean. I was wondering, in CM does Michelle make use of WPD or traffic bug?.

Again thanks,
Cyberking.

[lisahartwell]

In the bootcamp she tries not to use things that are going to cost extra money on top of her subscription (except Market Samurai) but I remember her saying she uses WPD occasionally but because she likes to set blogs up in a certain way that isn't possible with WPD she doesn't recommend it as part of her CM process. I believe she also uses Traffic Bug (I remember her mentioning it, but I haven't reached any part of her process that uses it....yet).

Lisa

[cyberking]

Well, CM is now open for business but it's going to cost $127 a month. I wouldn't mind taking the course but for right now that's a bit more than can deal with.


Cyberking.

[Hollywood John]

I actually joined Crowd Mountain when it relaunched for 2010, and I joined at the basic $127 membership fee. According to Michelle's pitch, this $127/mo give you access to the Crowd Mountain website, live weekly Q&A webinars with Michelle during the 6 week boot camp and monthly Q&A sessions after boot camp is over, and various monthly goodies (SEO'd Wordpress themes, niche keyword suggestions based on Michelle's research, links to places where you can build good backlinks, etc). Sounds awesome, right? Well, read on...

BOOT CAMP
The Boot Camp was indeed pretty good (as many people will tell you). The videos featured the straight forward, no fluff, succinct style of teaching that Michelle is known for. Lots of info about finding niches, setting up niche sites, SEO-ing them, and promoting them. Not super different from what you find in the free 30dc, but a few interesting twists on the standard techniques.

BUT the videos had been recorded 6 months to a year before the relaunch of Crowd Mountain, and much of the information was out of date. Not only did we -- Michelle's paying customers -- have to find workarounds for suggested plug-ins that no longer existed or had changed, but we had to find them without her assistance as those questions were routinely ignored. Also, her videos and techniques did not take into account any of the major changes that Google was making with Caffeine.

One bit of marketing genius that you all should learn from, though: When signing up for Crowd Mountain, you are offered several upsells. One of them gives you access to all 6 weeks' worth of bootcamp videos immediately. If you don't purchase that upsell though, you get one bootcamp moduel a week for 6 weeks... which, of course, guarantees Michelle 2 months' worth of membership fees before you're done with the basic bootcamp.

BEYOND THE BOOTCAMP
Well, beyond the bootcamp there is nothing. After the bootcamp ended, she kept up the monthly goodies for a month or two. After that, they stopped completely. More importantly, Michelle stopped showing up for the Q&A sessions (without telling anyone, btw). This was especially bad for the people who bought the "Mastermind" upsell, because they were guaranteed monthly (or was it weekly?) Q&A and brainstorming sessions with Michelle, but she stopped showing up for those too. In short, after the outdated bootcamp was over, the content petered out and Michelle went AWOL.

At first, we were told she was going to a weekend seminar with Ed and the 30dc gang and would be back at the beginning of the following week. She had scheduled a week-long live webinar series on Outsourcing, followed by two more on other IM topics. All of us showed up on Crowd Mountain for the webinar, but Michelle didn't. No announcement, no postponement, nothing. She just didn't show up.

The following day, we all showed up again, but Michelle did not. In fact, for the next month, we were left in silence on the site. When we started asking the CM manager what was happening, she first hid and ignored our questions, then began threatening to ban us from the message boards if we kept asking "negative" questions.

After well over a month of absolutely no contact from Michelle (and no updates to the site, and no product or service provided), the site manager finally came out of hiding and started telling us that Michelle had the flu and would "be back soon." The "flu" lasted another 2-3 months apparently, because we didn't hear from Michelle at all during that time, and received none of the monthly goodies, teaching, or Q&A sessions which we were promised and for which we were paying.

At various times, we were told that Michelle (1) was out of town, (2) moving to a new house (and so was too busy to provide the service for which we were paying), (3) sick with the flu, (4) still sick with the flu, (5) *still* sick with the flu, and (6) one of her fillipino outsourcers died in a car accident, so she was unable to do any work on the Crowd Mountain site. We were also told that (7) one of the site manager's close friends had died (and so neither her nor Michelle were able to work on the site), and (8) her site was down for maintenance -- for a few weeks. This was all over the course of about 6 months of membership, btw.

Of course, during this time she was still tweeting and we were still receiving affiliate offers from her in email (which angered a lot of CM-ers).

At one point, Michelle came back to Crowd Mountain briefly, but she still had no new content. Instead, she set up "webinars" with guest expert speakers. These webinars turned out to be sales pitches from Michelle's JV partners, period. Basically, she was out of content and so instead started spamming us with JV offers (for which we were paying a minimum of $127/mo). After a few of those, Michelle disappeard again and has not come back.

Now, of course, we're being told that (9) she's having surgery (which has apparently been going on for about 3 months). Forgive me if, at this point, I'm a bit skeptical about *any* excuse we're given, because it's become officially ridiculous.

As of today, the Crowd Mountain website is gone. It's been down since at least September. It definitely has not been up at all during October or November. BUT -- and here's the fun part that tells you a lot about Michelle and the way she does business -- my credit card has been charged for both October and November membership fees.

At this point, you may be asking why I haven't cancelled. The truth is: I have. I sent a support ticket to Michelle's support desk (at Revolution Tilt, the only place she accepts support questions) and requested a cancellation of my membership. It was ignored and I was charged for October (when there was no Crowd Mountain on the web anymore and after Michelle being AWOL for most of the past 6+ months). I attempted to send another ticket requesting cancellation and a refund of the month I was charged without any product or service in return, but found that her support site had been taken down.

I then sent a support email to the Revolution Tilt email address, requesting cancellation and a refund for October. After a week, the email bonced back. The support email address no longer works.

I then tried every Crowd Mountain link and address I could find; all sites and related addresses were completely gone from the web. I tried all Revolution Tilt site links and addresses I could find; all were (and are) completely gone from the web. I tried every address and phone number on my Crowd Mountain membership invoices; all gone and/or disconnected. Finally, out of desperation, I went to Michelle's Facebook page, Twitter, etc. They've all been abandoned, with her last tweets and updates in August or early September. Basically, Michelle has taken down all her sites -- including customer support sites -- gotten rid of all her email addresses, and disconnected all but one of her phone numbers. The only phone number that still works is a recording that directs you to the Revolution Tilt support site that no longer exists.

HERE'S THE FINAL KICKER: I just received an invoice in my email saying that she's charged my credit card for November's Crowd Mountain membership. Thats right; the site hasn't existed since at least late September/early October, she's removed every way of contacting her or cancelling my membership, and yet she keeps charging me every month. $127 a month, stolen from my credit card.

I'm now left with no recourse but to try to get my bank to either cancel the payments or cancel my credit card, and *hopefully* reverse the charges for the past 2 months. Fingers crossed...

LAST THING YOU SHOULD KNOW: Being a compassionate guy, there was a moment when I thought maybe she was just having a rough year. That's still no excuse for the way she's run her business, but I really didn't believe that it was some sort of scam or something. THEN I went to places like the Warrior Forum and a few other IM communities and looked up Crowd Mountain; Turns out the EXACT SAME THINGS happened the last time she launched Crowd Mountain. People liked the bootcamp, but then the content immediately petered out, Michelle completely disappeared in a cloud of ever-changing excuses, but she kept charging the CM members until they finally called their banks and cancelled their credit cards in disgust. So, yeah, this is a pattern with her.

I like to think she's just flaky rather than shady. Maybe she's just not cut out to run a membership site and should just stick to selling the bootcamp as a stand-alone product (after updating it, of course). I thought there was no way someone with her cache in IM would jeopardize their hard-built reputation (and the revenue stream that comes with it) by screwing over their customers so handily. But that's a hard attitude to maintain in the face of her continuing to milk my credit card and removing all ability to contact her or cancel my membership. And, of course, in the face of the pattern of doing this repeatedly.

I know Ed and the 30dc gang continue to talk her up in response to questions about her, and I'm sorry to see and/or hear it when it happens. I know there's no reason for them to badmouth her outright, but for them to continue to support her as a guru with a good product is simply untrue and causes me to wonder about their ultimate intentions as well.

So, in response to your question, I say stick with the 30dc. You learn basically the same thing for free (minus a few very tiny differences, many of which no longer work), and you are far less likely to find yourself out thousands of dollars and having to cancel your credit card.