Here’s a confession from a once-broke, today-very-rich Internet marketer:
I was living in an apartment that cost $250 a month.
And I had about a month’s worth of living expenses left.
So I couldn’t afford to shell out the $2k it cost to buy any of Dan’s courses.
So I did something I’m not very proud of these days – I went to the dark parts of the web and torrented his stuff.
I found his advanced sales letter course…
His Wealth Attraction course…
Lastly I downloaded his holy grail – Influential Writing – which in my mind is the greatest information marketing course ever made.
I went through all of these on repeat for months.
Anytime I was working, I’d be listening to a Dan Kennedy course.
Maybe you know who wrote this. It’s Justin Goff.
Justin wrote that email a couple years ago, the day the whole direct response world thought that Dan Kennedy had died.
Justin also thought Dan was dead. So he wrote an ode to Dan, and said Dan was his “greatest mentor.”
And I can believe it.
I can also believe that it was Dan’s stuff that helped Justin get successful. That without it, Justin might not have made it, at least not as quickly and as richly.
In the marketing world, it’s popular to say, “If they pay, they pay attention.”
It’s also popular to mock those who pirate, steal, and share paid content. Here’s a recent bit from Ben Settle on the matter:
These criminals all end up fetching peoples’ coffee or begging for change for a living eventually. Bums to the end. Irony is, if they spent half as much time working on themselves & a legit business as they do pirating products, they’d be multi-millionaires many times over.
Writing this makes good business sense for Ben.
But obviously, not everybody who pirates stuff winds up begging for change (see Justin above). And vice versa.
Many people who honestly pay for stuff get nothing from their purchase except the rush of handing over their money.
And in case you’re wondering what I’m getting at, let me tell you a personal story:
A few days ago, while surfin’ the Internet, I surfed upon a membership site that claims to have the recordings of the Influential Emails training I held last November.
I don’t know whether this site actually has a copy of the recordings and resources I shared with people after the training ended… or whether they just copied my sales page and are baiting people into handing over their credit cards.
And I don’t really care much to find out.
Because I feel I’ve done right by the people who paid to join me for Influential Emails. Those who joined me, who paid attention, and who end up implementing the ideas I revealed… will profit much more than what they paid me.
At the same time, I respect the fact that they gave me their money. That’s why I don’t entertain requests for free copies of my paid stuff… or even offer discounts on the current price.
But on the other hand, if there is somebody out there who does pirate my stuff… and ends up profiting from it also… well, I won’t set my hair on fire about it.
In fact, I imagine I will still somehow benefit from it, in some unseen or indirect way, somewhere down the line.
So my point for you is:
Pirate all you want.
No, wait, that’s not actually my point. My point is:
Pay attention to the good information out there, whether it’s available to you for free or whether you have to pay for it. And then — key point — put that information to work.
Or don’t. Because maybe you’re ok with fetching other people’s coffee. Of course, maybe that won’t happen to you.
In any case, let me make you a free offer right now:
My Copy Riddles program will be re-launching later this month. I’m trying to get a few more people to find out about it before it gets pirated and shared into oblivion.
And if you help me get the word out, I’ll give you something in return.
This free thing will only benefit you if you consume it… and then put it to work.
But if you do that, it could lead you to self-respect, ongoing client work, and thousands of dollars in your pocket. For the full details: