1st Product Name: Circle of Profits
2nd Product Name: Profit Academy
Product Owner: Anik Singal
Book Price: $1.99 (digital) $4.75 (paperback)
Membership Price: $2997 (one time fee) or $3188 (4 Payments of $797)
Book Rating: 65/100
Membership Rating: Too Expensive!
What Is It?
Circle of profits is a book that explains the basics of how to make money with affiliate marketing and email marketing. Profit Academy is a membership website and training course to teach you the steps to profit from these two things.
Short Review
Surprisingly, the book was pretty good, and worth more than $2 in my opinion. However, it’s clearly a lead-in to the membership website which is astronomically overpriced for what they provide.
Before You Buy
Circle of profits was recommend to me by a friend of mine for something to review. When I heard who it was written by, I couldn’t resist. Ever since my review of Future of Wealth and the junky products I’d seen before from Anik Singal, I was prepared to rip apart the book..even more so after reading all the negative reviews on Amazon.
Singal has a very negative reputation in some internet marketing circles. He also has a long history of creating products that fizzle out, including
- Inbox Blueprints
- Future of Wealth
- Income Kickstart
- Lethal Commission
- IMTarget
- …more?
It seems to be, he's taking the same core concept and re-selling it over and over again. Anyway, I was ready to dislike it with all my heart, but it’s a good thing I actually read the damn thing. Don’t judge a book by its writer?
What I Liked About Circle of Profits
The book was just well written, and very basic. I think it could be a great introduction to internet marketing for someone that’s never heard of a “funnel” or “autoresponder”, and doesn’t know how email marketing works.
There are some nice infographics in there, it’s well organized by chapters, and the information flows well (not very confusing).
He’s currently giving the book away for free, but if that event ever stops, you can get it on Amazon Kindle for $2. Even if you kind of understand what “building a list” means, but want to refresh your memory, this book isn’t a bad buy.
If you are clear about how an email marketing funnel is created, then you probably won’t learn much new.
- Build a landing/squeeze page
- Offer an incentive to opt-in
- Send some affiliate offers to earn commissions
- end of story
What I Didn’t Like About Circle of Profits
There are some negatives to mention about Singal’s book.
For one, it’s very basic. If you understand how email marketing works but just haven’t made any money in it yet, you don’t need to read this.
There’s also plenty of hype in the book, like when he promises that you'll start generating income immediately, and then says that you'll be making $10k a month in just a few weeks. All you have to do is follow his system! Anyone that actually does make $10k a month, knows that it doesn't happen in 2 weeks.
It’s also a blatant recruitment tool for his new membership website Profit Academy, which I’ll discuss below. The book is basically a new twist on an old method: Give away something free (or cheap), and include something more expensive as an upsell.
It’s a smart move, for sure, but it will turn some people off.
I think this is in part because the information in the pages doesn’t contain any real actionable steps. It explains what you should be doing in broad terms, but it’s not really a roadmap to success.
It’s like reading a business book on how to make a million dollars and chapter 1 is called, “Think of your million dollar idea”.
Despite this, Singal does actually provide some good examples of niches, landing pages, and some other examples throughout the book. So I guess I can’t knock him too hard for this point.
More Hype (book images)
My Thoughts on Profit Academy
I’ve got to preface this part by saying that I haven’t joined the Profit Academy, so my impressions are based on what I personally know about internet marketing, and what I can see on their main sales page.
Unproven Community
A brand new community is a shot in the dark – you don’t know how many other members there are, or if they are going to be friendly and helpful. Without access, you can’t really tell if this is just another Facebook group with people posting useless SEO articles, or a place where people share practical business tactics and help each other out.
Many communities offer a freemium version, or a $1 trial access to help you decide if it’s worth the cost. Not here!
Silly Guarantees
The “instant profit system” is supposed to guarantee us profit in 14 days or less. With promises like this, there’s usually a catch
Limited Support
If you are paying $2k-$3k for training, it’s shocking that they would limit your support to 90 days! Are you going to have a full blown business in 90 days? No way.
Are you still doing to need help? Probably so. This is where they pitch you the private coaching course for $XX,XXX.
Vegas…Kind of
Ok, so two tickets to Vegas sounded pretty sweet, and are probably worth a couple hundred bucks depending on where you live. But if you read the details carefully, you get tickets to the “event”, which means you’re still going to have to pay for your plane tickets, hotel, etc.
Not exactly a free trip, now is it.
But what are the tickets to? A conference. I have seen these live event conferences, and they normally run just for trying to sell you junk. They may include some good powerpoint presentations or motivational speeches, but are NOT going to ‘move the needle’ for your business.
Just Plain Stupid Valuation
I rarely use the word “stupid” on my blog, but it’s hard to use any other word when Singal has valued his course at $55,000+. This is exactly what I dislike so much about this guy’s marketing style.
Can you please please please just tell us what we’re getting, and how much it’s going to cost?
There is absolutely no way that this number is even close to what the actual value is of this course, when you can get very similar courses for under $1k, even less than $500.
Shockingly Expensive
There's just no reason to pay $3k for a course that will cost you $300 at other places. There's nothing revolutionary about teaching people how to create a landing page, collect emails, and send affiliate offers. If you want me to spend that much money bro, I need more than a few cooked-up testimonials and empty promises.
A Comment from one of Anik's Students
Recently, I've been talking to one of Anik's former students, and his review of how he felt inside the community was much different from the testimonials that you see on YouTube and on the sales page for whatever Singal is selling. Here was what he had to say:
I know that he has only webinars which he uses to get clients to buy into his schemes. But just as he teaches in his webinars, you become client today and the following week he “upsells” you to a different scheme and if you can't buy the upsell, he proceeds ahead leaving you stranded if you did not follow him to the upsell program.
If you follow him to the upsell program their again he takes you to the “backend” program. If you don't pay for that again, he disapears. Meanwhile he has take a ton of your money. I stopped following him in 2013 when I realized he was not being straightforward. He is the one who instructed Hostzillar to give us five websites each as part of the deal we had bought into when I was following his webinar business.
Singal recommended this person sign up for 2 years of hosting from the get-go, before he even understood what hosting was and how to use it. It sounds a lot like the typical hosting scam that I feature reviews of on my site. This is just one review, but it's the silent voice you don't hear about 2 years after figuring out that making money isn't as easy as promised.
Circle of Profits Final Review
Profit Academy Final Review
What Now?
If you would like to learn how to build your own digital product and sell it online, I recommend Clickbank University as a much cheaper alternative to this product. ($297/year for unlimited training and support)
If you would like to build squeeze pages and learn about affiliate marketing, I don’t have a very good recommendation at this point. Personally, I think this kind of marketing is a little annoying, and I don’t do it.
If you would like to learn about building websites and selling affiliate products through search engine traffic (what I do), I recommend Wealthy Affiliate. ($359/year for unlimited training and support)
___
What do you think about paying $2997 for something you’ve never seen, tried, or fully understand?
Nathaniell
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Gracias and what about Fred’s Lam and his Zero Up course???
And yes he is endorse by Robert too
Thanks in advance
I haven’t heard of that one!
Anil signal is a big time scammer, all the time he releases courses the same shit over and over again, the same garbage targeting poor newbies and overcharging them unnecessarily.
With this money he funds his dreams, drives flashy cars and uses it to trap more newbies to his crap courses not even with 7 bucks. He is not a marketer as he has zero technical knowledge or any knowledge of marketing, all he is good is in showing off and going out of the way to lick the ass of his partners to mail for his crappy courses.
And here he doesnt even refund when it clearly says refund guarantee.
Stay away from his mails and courses, you are not going to go anywhere and if you must, download free videos of whatever you want to learn but don’t make these scammers more wealthy
Thanks a million for the review man.
It saved me a lot of time. I just couldn’t understand why Kiyosaki is supporting Anik’s method in earning money. 🙁
I assume it was a paid sponsorship.
Wow I was all geared up then bango!!
‘It’ll only cost you,today…’ that’s ehen my heart sank and balloon popped! I had high hopes of leveraging my last $24.99. Th wolves have kicked down the front door! So I’m breakfast !! The old saying,’ if it sounds too good to be true, it usually a crock of shite!’a Twice now I have watched different entrepreneurs gab in about sitting down in a cafe, use a so called strangers lap too only to return click refresh and look he’s made $5,900 in a half hour!! I’ll stick to selling houses
Hi Nathaniell,
Thank you for your honest review. I am glad that you gave me the other side of the story before I dived in. I really was trying to save up enough cash to buy Profit Academy’s membership before this.
I am curious, in this case, since you have mentioned that Robet Kiyosaki had endorsed very poor quality people like Singal, what about Fred Lam? It would be great if you can give us all a review about his Zero Up as well.
Please save us Internet Newbies… T___T
I haven’t heard of Fred Lam, but was he also endorsed by Kiyosaki?
Guttered Bro. Was amping Hard bout the book. gave me some knowledge about the internet thou. Nathaniell Bro. you think you could steer a brother in the right direction on how to make a dollar on the internet. not asking for much info. just some bait please. I am dialysis patient its had to land physical work from being judged about my disease. Would love the help please Brother
Thanks a mill Champ
Yeah, lots of products don’t deliver on their promises…especially when they promise easy money! My links are in the article – check them out and they can get you started!
Hey nathaniell,
Thank you so much for the review, its pretty disheartening as i was into the hype after reading the book and attending webinar and came close to paying for the full course…man i cant thank you enough! i hope there is a way everyone could see this
hey there nice review
what are your thoughts about Robert Kyosaki fully endorsing the profit circle thats where i first heard about it. Anik mabe dodgy but Robert has released qaulity material over the years with his Rich Dad Poor Dad series
interested in your thoughts
Robert Kiyosaki’s RDPD was awesome. I bought all his books after that. They decreased in quality with each one. After attending three webinars he endorsed through Tiger Learning (or something like that), I became disillusioned with him. The quality of his message has been diluted by outsourcing to shady companies. The main thing these shysters do is get you in a $100 webinar, then ask you to upgrade to a $2,000 private webinar, then get you on for a $10,000 private mentorship. It’s just a sales funnel, not an attempt to help you. That was my experience with Kiyosaki. I’m sure he got a good kickback for endorsing Singal. The Kiyosaki brand means very little to me now.
I still love RDPD and there are good lessons in it though!
As soon as I saw the price on their community membership, I figured that it was overvalued. Yet I am so glad you confirmed this, since your head is in this stuff on a daily basis. Thanks, man. Also appreciate the other information on internet marketing that you gave. I do not want to invest in processes that end up just being schemes take your money and time, rather than real strategies.
Thanks alot for the review you really saved me from wasting efforts and time on a deadend venture. I really like guys who can give us reviews like this befor we waste resources online
Thanks for the review i bought the book for $7 and i’m reading it. I just wanted to have some extra $ to pay a loan as soon as posible and to help other people. Want to get out of debs and not to get more. I appreciate your review, blessings.
Yeah, the stuff you read in the book won’t help you pay of loans any time soon. Any type of business, if you’re starting as a total newbie, is going to take time to grow.
I ordered it, could not comprehend it and Anik and his team refuses to give me a refund 1497.00 is nothing to give up when you are living beneath the poverty line. I have asked them over and over and they refuse to entitle me with what is mine. Should I go to my attorney general office to fight them?
The attorney general won’t do anything. You can try a chargeback on your credit card or talk to the bank about if you feel they didn’t deliver the product that was promised.
Haha.. thanks for the review! You saved me a bunch of time and money brother.
i thought it was a good stepping stone. thanx for the review tho
Glad you liked my review Ben, and I received your message already inside the community.
Thanks for keeping it honest
Best review in the universe ever about internet money making and aniks lame ass product
Thanks man! Glad you agree with me.