Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Midway Battle - SBI! vs GRWeB 3.0

I just reached midway in both SiteBuildIt! and Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0. I have promised you a review, so..  Let's make them battle!

Yes, I know this is not an even fight. SiteBuildIt! is an all-inclusive passive income business building program, while Getting Rich With eBooks is a course for making best-selling ebooks. But, for a newbie they stand almost on the same line.

"I want to start earning passive income online - tell me what to do!" - They both promise to deliver that.

Also, SiteBuildIt! costs $299 per year and Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0 costs $400. So why not compare them?


Time required - Winner: Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0

I used about 40 hours to reach the midway in SiteBuildIt!

Reaching midway in Getting Rich With eBooks took me 8-10 hours.


Getting things done - Winner: SiteBuildIt!

After SiteBuildIt! day 5 I have:

  • Preliminary site map for my future site. That is, plans for 57 pages with SEO-friendly keywords
  • Draft for my site's home page. It is not search engine optimized yet, but otherwise ready
  • A domain. Included in the price, it is registered and ready for me
  • Learned a lot on copy writing and search engine optimization
  • Learned how to evaluate my ideas
  • Knowledge that my site has commercial potential
  • Monetization plan for my site



After video 4 of Getting Rich With eBooks I have:

  • Homework to write the whole book
  • Homework to invent a top-selling book title
  • Homework to buy a domain
  • Homework to design graphics for my book and web site OR to hire a designer to do that
  • Homework to check legalities around my subject OR to hire a lawyer to do that
  • Learned how to evaluate my ideas
  • Learned some valuable tips and tricks about eBook writing and publishing 
  • Knowledge that my idea has commercial potential


In SiteBuildIt! you'll do the work during the course, not as an extra homework. It is like a parent holding your hand when you have to face something scary. Whenever it is time to do something, it says: "Do it now and then come back to me".

In Getting Rich With eBooks you'll watch the video first and then you get an assignment for the next week. After the first 3 videos I felt that the homework was reasonable. The video went through the information needed to do the tasks. But the fourth video was different. It skimmed through an awfully large topic - writing a book, and then gave an assignment to write it. Now I have a horrible list of homework to do.


Extra costs - Winner: SiteBuildIt!

When I joined these courses, I did expect to have some extra costs. I expected that I need to buy a domain and get some graphics for my site/book.

SiteBuildIt! gave me a nice surprise gift - the domain is included in the price. Not only that, also the WordTracker credits needed for keyword research were included. So I now have this impression that with SiteBuildIt! there might not be any extra costs for me at all. We'll see.

Getting Rich With eBooks gave me a disappointment - it suggests that I should hire several experts to help me with different issues. Well, it does say that I can do them myself too, but that it is not worth it. I assume Vic is right here. It may not be worth it to do everything yourself. But it sure would have been nice to know there are so many extra costs *before* I joined the course.


Simplicity - Winner: Getting Rich With eBooks

SiteBuildIt! will overwhelm you at the start. You'll get this feeling that it pours so much information to you that you'll choke. It has its own concepts, abbreviations and tools. And you'll lose some precious time learning them. But on the other hand, the tools save you a lot of time.

Getting Rich With eBooks is not complex. It tells you the minimum what you'll need to do and then asks you to do that. Simple tasks after another. The downside is that you'll start to wonder if the course really told you everything that is important. If it does, he offers nice counterbalance to SBI! Maybe all those well planned steps are not required to succeed. If it doesn't... well, then your chances of succeeding may be smaller.


Worth per penny - Winner: Who knows?

Worth is very hard to evaluate. It might have been either of these two courses that gave me the critical piece of information. If you take the opportunity, I think one can succeed with either of these programs.

However, I do think Getting Rich With eBooks costs too much compared to what I have got from it this far. Especially taken into account that it contains very little information that SiteBuildIt! wouldn't have.

I bought SiteBuildIt! with the monthly subscription option. It costs me $30 per month and I think it is reasonable priced. However, if you don't know how to transfer domains and web pages away from SiteBuildIt! system, they will charge you the monthly subscription price for as long as your site is up.



Worst this far

In SiteBuildIt! the worst is definitely "The Way of The Tortoise". Everything proceeds so slowly!

Another thing that I have grown a bit annoyed is the repetition and constant material over-delivery. They want to make sure that everybody surely get the main points. I feel that is a bit outdated thinking and would prefer more condensed course, implemented in a way that I would not feel that I'd miss something important if I took the shorter route. But both of my problems here are just minor annoyances.

In Getting Rich With eBooks the worst for me is the lack of trust. It feels like I would be dealing with a car salesman. Can I trust what he says?

Also, the videos are of poor quality. They are not cut in any way, even to hide the technical problems they had in the live courses where the recording was made. I'm not really interested in waiting 15 minutes if someone raises her hand or not. While in SiteBuildIt! the slowness comes from the huge amount of study material, in Getting Rich With eBooks the slowness comes from laziness. This man supposedly sold eBooks for million dollars, yet he cannot afford to get his videos properly edited.



Best this far

SBI! has removed the pressure from my project. I don't need to hassle around, worry and get everything ready today. With this program, it is easy to believe that I will succeed. But it may take a bit longer than I expected. Fortunately, there is still plenty of time before my goal deadline.

That is my best benefit, but then, I am a programmer with over 10 years of experience. I'd bet that most people would say that the best thing in SiteBuildIt! is that it frees you to concentrate on the business. It handles all the technicalities for you so you can focus on the issues where the money is.

Getting Rich With eBooks has taught me an effective way to do simple keyword research. Even though I now have all the nice tools that SiteBuildIt! offers, I still do quick sanity checks for the main keywords using Vic's method. Simple, fast and easy.

Another great thing in Getting Rich With eBooks is the Affirmations Audio. That 20-minute recording is a work of art. It has perfect affirmations needed to succeed in a passive income project. I do have my own affirmations, but I really like these. I still listen to this audio almost every day.


Conclusion

I think SiteBuildIt! is the winner for me, no doubt there. I feel that it will teach me everything I need to know about passive income web business. If something, it may teach me too much!

I also like that in SiteBuildIt! I can access all the information there is after the initial $30 payment. You cannot access all the tools right away, but that is not needed. Right now I feel that the biggest reason for Getting Rich With eBooks to hide parts of the course is that if people would be able to see everything right away, they might turn back and never return.

At the end of my first review I thought that Getting Rich With eBook did offer value for a newbie. But then I found SiteBuildIt! Of course, they work on a bit different subjects, but this far Getting Rich With eBooks has contained very little information that is not available in SiteBuildIt!

If after all this you are still interested in Getting Rich With eBooks, here is my advice:
Pay the initial $12, watch the available two videos and download Vic's keyword research excel. Also get the affirmations audio. After that, evaluate the situation again! Do you really want to continue? If not, just remember to cancel your subscription so that they don't continue charging you. 

Right now I'm really exited about SiteBuildIt! It is a solid program. It is so good that I am thinking whether or not I should buy a one year subscription for my sister as her birthday gift.

My second advice to you is:
Visit SBI! Order Page right away and take their monthly subscription option. That will give you access to a goldmine of passive income study material and still leaves you a nice way out if you find out that the program is not for you. They do have 90 day money back guarantee too, so there really is no risk seeing the course material.

Even though I no longer recommend Getting Rich With eBooks, I'm not resigning either. There are 4 videos more even though the eBook is (or should be) ready already. Vic has several times mentioned how important the steps after the book creation are, so I am really eager to hear what he has to offer. But you'll have to wait some time for the next review... it will take me some time to write the book!

Overall, I'm glad that I have two programs instead of just one. It gives me some perspective on what things are really important to earn passive income online.




13 comments:

  1. Thanks Jaana! Great summary so far.
    I COMPLETELY agree with the terrible quality of Vic Johnson's videos - even though it is good information it is annoying that he didn't outsource some better recordings!
    I am coming up on the month 2 payment and seriously reconsidering and canceling. I know he has said the real value is the marketing at the end though.
    Steve wrote a strong article about branding yesterday! Any thoughts on this from SBI!? Also, if he says to start a website later that annoys me. And hidden costs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Kelly, nice to hear from you again!

    Oh, I wish I could give you some advice, but I have no idea if the end of the course is worth it. I have not watched the 5th video yet and even if I had, most of what I know about marketing is learned from SBI. So I wouldn't know how good that material is. I could just compare it to what SBI provides.

    Whatever you do, just keep on trying some way!

    I really liked Steve's post on branding. I believe it pays off to be honest and present oneself as an individual instead of building a brand. I've heard the same advice from several successful web business people and I think it is also given in SBI. In SBI there is this concept of "Brand of one", meaning that you should find your personal voice (in writing) and then stick to it and build a personal relationship to your reader. Write to her like you would to your friend. Individual to individual.

    I've been practicing that here lately and I do think it makes my writing better.

    I do think web sites are needed to effectively earn passive income online. Unless you stick to the other means of earning passive income, like investing or getting famous. Maybe even with the latter a web site would be a good idea.

    I did not understand that when I joined Getting Rich With eBooks. I thought it would be about eBook only.

    But it came obvious in 4th video that Vic does want us to build a web site to market the book. So as I see it, that is something you just cannot get around... at least I don't see a way. But maybe that is just restriction in my thinking and there is some way that I just cannot see...

    Anyway, I wish you all the best and I hope to hear from you again. I know we can do this! In a way or another.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Kelly. I would suggest don't bother waiting till the end of the program. It's a huge let down. I knew marketing would be the toughest part of this project. So I was curious to see what marketing insights I could get from Vic that would be worth the high cost. Here is a quick summary

    Create a Press Release
    Create an effective title for ebook. Use swipe files with winning headlines (such as "How to.." or "The Secret to")
    Research on ezinearticle to find topics
    Write a sales letter
    Create a website with wordpress
    Some SEO optimization
    Build backlinks with yahoo answers and other blogs
    Check out amazon ebook program

    That's it. All of this information is available online. This is not earth shattering. If you are somewhat familiar with online business, these are very obvious things.

    I agree with you that the quality of the videos is horrible. I honestly didn't even watch to complete the modules because they were so poorly done. The only reason I did because I kept thinking, "There must have been something in this program that would make Steve recommend this". So I moved on. Such a waste of my time.

    I use SBI (based on Steve's recommendation) and have been really happy with it. All of the key parts of building an online business are explained very thoroughly there. You don't feel like you are wasting your time and money with SBI.

    The part most people forget to making money online is that you need more than a course to succeed. You need the right environment as well. SBI provides this with tons of content and a community that cares about helping others succeed too. You can always find someone else who has "made it" after years of struggling. You can read about people making $X/month and how they did it. This is very encouraging and helps you when you feel like giving up. It helps break the limited mindset of "maybe I can't do this, maybe it's all fake, I can only make money with a job etc". To me that is the main reason why I have been successful creating passive income with SBI and why other programs such as Vic's will always fail.

    The fundamentals are always the same. Find a niche you care about, find quality keywords, learn basic SEO, build backlinks, learn from your mistakes, then repeat.

    Vic makes it seem like he has some great insight that he can charge for but honestly this just feels like a cheap product being sold by an old cars salesman. Definitely not worth the cost. Hope that helps. Best of luck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks again mat, for your insights! What you just wrote will be valuable information to many people.

      If I recall correctly, Kelly has tried SBI already.

      Delete
  4. Hi Janna,
    I found your site from your recent comment on Pat Flynn's latest income report. (I love Pat too!). I am a current SBI owner so I found this post particularly interesting. My site www.medical-marijuana-mentor.com has been around about 2 years. Last year I made about $1200. This year I'm WAY off. MAYBE $200 since Jan. I haven't really tracked it closely. I was primarily interested in covering my $300 subscription costs. Definitely my fault as I went about 3 months not adding any content and was a bit burned out at that point. I had actually considered selling the site.

    That said, I'm dusting it off again and adding content. I just tried eLance for the first time and got mixed results. I absolutely recommend SBI for beginners and a niche site. It gives a great foundation of SEO, I'm able to use my limited HTML skills (although less so in the new version). But I recently started Corbett Barr's Blog That Matters program as I find the self-branding blog idea very interesting. I'm hoping I can combine some of the SEO/keyword knowledge from SBI with the branding and promotion ideas of Corbett.

    Best of luck to you and your readers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Mrs. X!

      I love to get comments from people earning with SBI! That Blog That Matters program sounds interesting too, thanks for the tip.

      Delete
  5. Jaana,
    Where is the link for the $12 GRWeB 3.0 trial you mentioned?
    Thanks,
    Rob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Rob, You'll get there after you watch the Getting Rich With eBooks video. I don't know why they don't have a clear order page. The process is hideous too, you'll have to go through several pages to get to the place where you can order and they'll try to sell you all kinds of extras. I don't recommend any of those, especially those ready-made book materials, as Amazon don't easily take in that kind of books anymore.

      Delete
  6. Hi, Jaana...

    Do you use DIFM (Do It For Me) Coaching Programme in SBI! I'm thinking about it now, but I want to listen to your comment first about DIFM. And... I really wonder if most of successful SBIers used DIFM.

    Thanks,

    Aryojati Ardipandanto

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      I didn't use DIFM. You'll probably will get best information about that in the SBI forums.

      Cheers,
      Jaana

      Delete
  7. Hi jaana, reading your review helped me solve certain doubts, but i have to ask: did you complete SBIs program? Are you making any money? The templates or page design seems old. Also, because of the recent Penguin and Panda Google operations i read that all the SBI pages have been affected and they are having less traffic now, meaning less $$. Is it really worth it? I wonder the same about vics program.

    Thanks in advance!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Eduardo,

      I did complete my SBI site, but I didn't do everything that the course said I should do. I lost interest to the site and haven't updated it for a long time. I still earn $50-$150 per month with it.

      I didn't suffer from Panda or Penguin much. I did see a traffic decrease of 100 people or so, but that's peanuts and it's too early to say if it was just because of summer holiday or because of Google updates.

      In fact, one of the reasons I haven't moved my site away from SBI are their excellent reports whenever new Google updates come out. They give out complete lists of things that need to be changed, if needed. But in general, both SBI and Vic's program are based on building quality content so Google updates don't really ruin your business if you have followed up their advice.

      I build my sites with WordPress nowadays, but I still keep my SBI account for keyword research.

      I do think these programs are still worth it - even though I do think Vic's is a bit overpriced.

      Delete
  8. Hi Jana,
    I appreciate your post it is helpful and in many respect confirmed what I sensed from GRWeB. I found many similar conversations about it on the Internet, but no one actually mentions if the program helped them producing e-books that generated meaningful income by writing and selling eBooks. Thanks, Andrea Magdalena

    ReplyDelete