Brent Worley Blog

I just finished posting about Vista Print trying to rip off my wife, but feel one more is needed to add to the watch list: DirecTV.

Now, I will say that I LOVE my DirecTV service.  I don’t feel anything they have done is intentional, but their billing software lacks something to be desired.

Some history:

We moved last November to our new house.  When I scheduled the move, I was given the offer for 3 free months of their premium service and the rest of the NFL Sunday Ticket at no cost and could cancel at the end of the term.  I accepted, mainly to watch HBO and Starz over the holidays.

The nightmare begins

After cancelling the premium package without issue, I notice I have an extra $65 (roughly) on my bill.  I look it up and it is for the NFL Sunday Ticket.  I call, have a long round of discussions with the customer service, and they agree to remove it (after all, it was their boiler room that misrepresented the deal to me…had I known they would charge me for it, I would have canceled as I do not watch that much NFL football).

In May/June timeframe, I notice they have charged me again.  I get back on the phone with them, go through the same process, and they remove again and credit me what they had charged me.  They are being responsive (although it took an hour on the phone with them to get the problem fixed).

And here is where it gets really, really bizarre….

I look at my recent bills.  Not only am I getting charged for the NFL Sunday Ticket, but I am getting charged for two services:  the HD DVR and the HD DVR with no locals.

They started billing me this way in June.

The HD DVR with No Locals (I have locals, so not the one I use) is $69.99/month they were overcharging me, including a partial billing cycle.  The billing system had things so screwed up that the customer service rep said it would take them about an hour to get it straightened out.

Now, I do not think DirecTV is trying to scam me with their dual billing.  I believe that is a fault of the billing system and not something done intentional.  The NFL Sunday Ticket deal has been a pain and I believe that I personally was misrepresented on that offer.

But this entire ordeal has me thinking…How many people are paying their bills by autopay that might not immediately notice this issue?  I know I would not have noticed for a few weeks unless I was monitoring my bank account.  I don’t think DirecTV does this purposely, but I know that some other places might.

So buyer beware - monitor your bills to make sure something screwy doesn’t happen.

And DirecTV, if you are reading, please make sure I am not billed again for the NFL Sunday Ticket.  Thanks.

My wife had recently ordered business cards from Vista Print.  She paid for shipping only with their free offer.  All was fine and dandy until last week:

She had a $48 charge from them.

She threw up the red flag and called her bank.  The bank froze her account and began a fraud investigation.  They called Vista Print inquiring about the reason for the charge.

Here’s the scam, folks:

They try to secretly sign you up for other services (i.e. they cross sell you and your information and make it extremely difficult to know what happened).  My wife made sure to not accept any of the offers, and yet was still charged.

Many users on the Internet have reported similar problems (Rip-off Reports has several people complaining about it as well as many blogs detailing the issue).

Luckily for them, they willing gave back the money actually withdrawn….$19.95.

But wait…where did $48 come from?

When my wife talked with them they did not see any charges, much less $48.  Why did it show up as this and not $19.95?

The bank fears that someone at Vista Print might be scamming on top of the scam.  They could be (not confirmed, and just pure speculation) overcharging customers on top of the never-approved cross sold services and pocketing the rest.  Is this happening?  No one knows for sure, but the bank found it extremely odd that this was occurring.

Buyer, beware!  If you are using Vista Print, you may be getting charged more than shipping on your order.

As for us, we’ll pass on Vista for any future needs.

With everything I am learning about Internet Marketing, I figured it was time I was nice and helped the wife (April) out with her BeautiControl business.

So we did some keyword research, put together a sales page, and are in the beginning stages of getting a fully-functional Internet marketing system down for her.

Feel free to check out her site:

Spa Quality Products

Her goal is to find ladies who want to look good, feel good, and like spa products but don’t always have the time or money to go to the spa.

We worked on the sales copy together….not super-pro standards, but functional.

http://www.spaqualityproducts.com

Brent

When passion meets opportunity, you have a recipe for success.

So many people trade off one or the other.  They see a job as an opportunity to provide for their family or their needs, but it is simply not what they are passionate about.

Others find passion about something but there is not a market for it.

However, when the two collide, it creates something very exciting and often something very big.

I’ve learned that I really have very few passions in life, but there is one that I have routinely found the most gratifying:  Being a leader.

Now…being a leader, from my perspective, has nothing to do with power, authority, control, recognition, or any of the typical thoughts that come up with the word.  Instead, I believe the most important things that a leader does are empowerment and encouragement.

I have seen a lot of people want to be a “leader” for all of the wrong reasons.  When I was younger, I was the same way.  In fact, I remember in high school wanting to be the section leader in my band just so others would look up to me.  I see others want to be a leader so that they will be viewed better than others.

But as I have worked on leadership development, I have learned that the recognition is nice (in fact, I have dreams and goals about one aspect of recognition, probably my only selfish thought in this regard) and being respected is nice, but what makes me excited is the ability to see others grow, transform, and become something that they might not have been had someone not taken the time to pour into their lives.

For me personally, my business is exactly what I want to develop a leadership role in.

Why?

Again, I won’t deny the fact that I want one form of recognition from this company.  It has been a dream of mine for some time, but not for the “look at me” reason.

But I do want to be an inspiration to someone.

I want to be an inspiration not so others will talk highly of me, and not so that others will want to put me on a pedastal, but so that maybe my story would lift someone else up to become something more, to work harder, to achieve more, and to be on that stage with a similar goal.

My passion is to lead others.  It is to help others fulfill what they are capable of, to achieve a life-changing success in their own lives, and to have a positive impact in their lives.

I’m fortunate that my passion has found the opportunity to attach itself to.

This opportunity presents not only a chance for people to become financially independent, but also for them to develop themselves, their abilities, their personalities, and more.

To me, that makes my recipe for success that much stronger.

I must admit….

I am a little bit bored tonight so I thought I would find fun or useful apps for my iPhone that I could use while I attend Energize ‘08.

That’s when I found the Wordpress app.

So this is the first of many post coming from my phone as I cover the conference and some interviews with some top online and offline network marketers.

Scott, if you read this, don’t yell at me too much (just kidding for anyone who is not Scott, but you’ll understand as I write more of this post!).

I’ve written about this before, but feel like I should write about it again:  The Internet Marketing Home Study Course I acquired is one of the best things I have run across in learning how to market home based businesses online.  It is extremely in-depth.

Only today did I realize how in-depth it was.

Until now, I had only read the material.  I always flipped past the DVD’s and audio CD’s and went to the written material.  And while it is good, it is nothing compared to the DVD’s (and I have not even touched the internet marketing training CD’s that are there….going to load them to my iPhone before I leave for Houston next week).

I’ve been watching/listening to the DVD’s over the last little bit.  These things take the written material and make it TONS better.

Now…I work with Scott in our very successful home based business.  All of the information and knowledge Scott has and what I have learned we give to our team members, which is an INCREDIBLE deal!  His course alone cost more than the start-up cost with our business….and there is not a way to make money from it in the way you can with the business (so you tell me which makes more sense!).

Isn’t great knowing that you work with successful people with knowledge?

brent@brentworley.com

I’m very impressed.

In fact, I’m SHOCKED at what I managed to pull off today.

I have a website out there that was not indexed this afternoon.  I had not really tried to do a lot to get in indexed, but decided that tonight was the night.  Not a lot of competition for the keyword (only around 170k), but not a lot of content on my site.

So, I took a few steps tonight:

1.  Submitted it through SocialMarker.com.  Didn’t make it through all of the sites, as there is a bug about halfway through it that takes it off the submission sites.  But Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon all caught it.

2.  I also submitted a video for the site.  It hit around 30 video sites, blogs, Podcast directories, etc (I also expect some of the videos to hit the top 10 overnight).

And then I checked.

Not only did Google index it, but it appeared #7 for the keyword!

So now its time for Phase 2:  Break the top 5, and see if I can hit #1 or #2.

Stay tuned….

I’m breaking away from my traditional Internet marketing post to make a point about keeping focused on goals, dreams, and not being distracted by a long, difficult journey.

Over 6 years ago I met my mentor. I actually had responded to an ad he has running in a magazine.

His story was amazing. This man had faced so much in his life, had been through a lot of failure, but never gave up. He went through some of the worst times and problems a man (with a family) could face, but he believed that he could have success.

And he has had massive success since then.

When I talked to him 6 years ago, he told me that I could have success, too. I believed him.

When I began to work with him in our business, he reminded me often that I could have success. I always believed him.

When I was failing miserably, he constantly reminded me that I could have success. And I kept pushing.

But success never came.

6 years later, I understand now why it never came.

It could be that I never worked the business like I should have, or it could be that I was not in the right place at the right time. Whatever it was, it is water under the bridge now. Now I realize why I never had the success I dreamed of:

Because God wanted me where I am now.

I’m not 100% sure I would be able to do what my mentor and several other people did back in February. They all walked away from HUGE incomes (most of them 6-figure incomes). I don’t think I could have made that decision, knowing I would be jeapordizing my family, my lifestyle, etc, to do it, no matter what the reason.

God wanted me where I am now.

I never had the conviction, the belief, or the work mentality with the other company. I never knew why, as I knew a lot of people making fantastic incomes. They were humble yet energetic, and always willing to lend help, encouragement, etc. But I never could get over that hump. Pride, embarassment, whatever, kept me from promoting it like I should.

But because I know God has me where He wants me, I know that I cannot be like this anymore.

The philosophy is much different. The old philosophy focused on money. The new philosophy focuses on Him, being humble, and helping others obtain success no matter where they come from.

That is why God wants me here. He wants me to be involved with people that put Him first in business.

Now the point of this blog is not to be religious or for me to convince you that there is a higher power that ordains our moves (although that is what I believe). Regardless of whether you believe in God or not is your choice and not relevant to what I am saying (although, come talk to me sometime about that). But you have to realize that things happen for a reason, no matter whether it comes from.

And this has happened to me for a reason.

So now the gloves come off. I attend a convention on August 7-10, and then its about spreading the message.

Now realize, this journey took 6 years to get to this point. It has been long, often times painful, full of “failure” (or so I thought), and frustrating all 6 years.

But sometimes the journey takes a while…and that is where you find your purpose, your place, and your success.

brent@brentworley.com

Ok, I’m going to admit something here.

My first 10 or so attempts at video web marketing have been fairly brutal.

Its not that I consider myself a horrible person on camera or that I cannot handle putting together a video. What I do realize, however, is that my videos come across as too much of a pitch.

So I’m switching the strategy that I’m going to use. Provide information first, do little sales techniques, and focus on content and sincerity.

In fact, most of what I am going to try when recording myself is video blogging style videos. I plan on consulting with my mentor about it and see which works out best. His videos are attractive. They are done on a little more “professional” level (I’ve seen his equipment, he has me out-classed in this department).

Here is my first cut of it. I’m using my YouTube posting. For those who know anything about video marketing, you know that its about volume…not in the amount of videos you produce, but in the amount of videos that are out there on various sites. I mention this in the video: YouTube does not always return the highest ranking hits for a keyword.

A great tool for this is Traffic Geyser. Its costly, but easy to use and will get your video out across a LOT of websites in a short amount of time. From there, its up to Google/Yahoo/Live.com/etc to pick it up and your content to interest the viewer.

I love my iPhone.

I mean, I really love my my iPhone.

It allows me to keep up with my business at all times, surf the web for people or places (if I’m on the road), play some basic games, keep my calendar up to date and with me, and take the snapshots of my girls being, well, girls.

But as much as I love my iPhone, the two biggest wants I really would like to see on the iPhone are just not there, and still noticeably absent in the new iPhone due out later this week.

1. Multimedia messages.

We catch my girls doing funny stuff all the time and don’t always have our point-and-shoot with us, but we 99.9% of the time have our iPhone with us (wife has one too, so between the two of us, we’re covered). The problem is, I cannot send that candid moment to my parents without having to email it to them.

Most people keep a phone with them but are not always near a computer. It would make sense to be able to simply send a picture from phone-to-phone, but for some reason Apple doesn’t see this.

2. Video

Granted cell phone video is sub-par for anything other than those spur-of-the-moment events, it would be nice to be able to capture some of it. For instance, we’re out and about and my daughter (take your pick on which one) starts doing something funny, cute, whatever…without my video camera, all I’ll have is my memory. With a video phone I’d at least get to relive it, even if the quality is limited.

Of course, other features will be nice with the addition of 3G, such as streaming video (something else not included), streaming audio, etc…but hopefully Apple will eventually come through on these things.

Until then, I’ll stick with my first gen iPhone.