Just got an email from Willie Crawford about it, but I deleted it too soon.

Fortunately google was helpful:

You Can Be A Millionaire In One-Year Or Less!

Any takers?

One of the rare times when the stated value of the bonuses ($259.85) is less than the price of the product!

Cool -- you could sell the bonuses on ebay and make a down payment on a house!

Dave,
Thanks for the link. Not because I'm gonna buy this program, but because I found this guy very interesting.

Did you know J.F. Straw has sold over $400,000,000.00 in products via mail order over his life? Not too shabby!

He comes from the old school of marketing and is considered a very successful entreprenuer. I say this guy learned early on in his life that hard work and determination is what makes one successful... for this I have to say, "I've got a lot of respect for this guy".

I actually emailed him and asked for an interview, but he told me he was hard of hearing and doesn't do telephone interviews anymore.

Anyone who does "written" interviews would be crazy not to get his interview (if Jim is willing).

I did manage to find a fairly new report he created concerning "The Death Of Internet Marketing"... found it to be pretty interesting (don't forget to read his bio at the bottom of this report).

By the way... I love his nostalgic picture.

From a copywriting perspective, I don't think there is near enough copy to justify the price and there are some key things missing.

He doesn't establish any credibility outside of his bio. Not a single testimonial.

He actually negates the sense of urgency by saying take your time, the offer will be there.

He doesn't prepare you for the price. You have no idea until you click and get slapped in the face with it.

I'm surprised none of the "gurus" emailing this haven't rewritten the sales letter to make it stronger. I think they're all relying on their reputations. That's not enough to make me spend a grand.

Besides, he gives away what he's doing in the letter and its a long way from IM.

Nebulousx,

What got me (right before subscribing to his autoresponder series) was the lack of a guarantee or refund statement.

$997 for a 'blind' ad is incredible. Will he get any takers? Probably. His appeal to greed and easy money is extremely high, i.e. 'all you have to do is put your offer in front of these blood-hungry willing buyers and they give you their money. There's no selling involved and they are right in your own back yard'.

I suspect he's reselling rights to all the generic info stuff he created for direct mail in the past (or worse, selling the idea that you can buy the rights to his stuff... for an upgrade price. Ouch!).

I can't wait to find who's the first person with huevos to accept that $997 offer.

Won't be me. I no longer buy anything from blind ads. Been burned too many times over the years growing up to now know better.

Oh, my favorite blind ad was around the late 70's early 80's. Ad said you could easily make $50,000 a year "sitting around" and not doing much work. So as a money hungry teenager I bought the product. I just knew I was gonna make a quick and easy 50k.

Turned out the plan said to buy a conversion van, convert it into a multi-passenger commercial van, then get licensed by some agency to shuttle people to and from airports.

I think that was the last blind ad I ever responded with cash to...

Andre

Andre,

Good catch. I forgot about the lack of guarantee. That is another huge nail in the coffin of this thing.

The reasonable question to ask, in my opinion and after reading the link to his letter that Stephen posted is, "Why is he now doing affiliate marketing if this is so good?"

He's selling his old left overs after he moved on to something else. Gee, where have we seen that before? LOL

On the other hand, he doesn't have to sell very many. He doesn't appear to care very much whether he sells or not; if someone buys one, that's an extra grand in his pocket for very little effort. He probably just leaves it sitting there as a bit of extra passive income.

Ken,

He obviously doesn't "leave it sitting there" because its plastered all over the net and I've received 3 emails from "gurus" promoting it.

I do think he'll sell a few. If he did address the copywriting flaws Andre and I have pointed out he would sell a lot more.