My relationship with members of Solo-E relies on trust. As does any solo business with it’s customers. And so I was dismayed last week to find that I had inadvertently done something that could betray that trust.

You see, at Solo-E I only recommend services and products and people I trust. I, or someone on Team Solo-E or occasionally a trusted colleague, reviews every article, ebook, and program. And we attend at least one teleclass from all of our teleclass leaders.

One of our criteria for approving teleclass leaders is that if they offer a “free” teleclass, that they deliver true valuable information during the class. It’s ok to promote their paid offerings briefly (after all, that’s why they offer free teleclasses), but it shouldn’t take up more than, say, 10 minutes max at the end of the class. Unless they’ve made clear that the purpose of the class is mostly promotion, offering some value but equally focused on explaining what will be covered in the paid class. So that when members sign up, they know what to expect. These type of “promotional” free classes are rarer, imho, because they aren’t as effective as the “lots of value” free classes.

And so I was disturbed to find that a free teleclass that I promoted last week (offered by a talented professional whom I’m an affiliate of) ended up being a “promotional” class. And I had promoted it as a “lots of value” class.

Ugh. Pit of the stomach, “will they ever trust me again”, ugh. Worst part: I’d started assuming that everyone who had started on the “lots of value” page, would stay there.

Now I know to be more careful. I’ll be reading the class descriptions more carefully, and asking questions if I’m not sure. Because I want Solo-E to be a trusted resource for solo entrepreneurs. And I know I need to earn it.

My humble apologies.

Last 5 posts by Terri Zwierzynski

• The Grateful Life of a Solo Entrepreneur - November 17th, 2008
• Can a Lifestyle be a Niche? - November 4th, 2008
• Social Networking: Top 10 Tips for Twitter Success - November 3rd, 2008
• Virtual Book Tour: Becoming an Online Business Manager - October 20th, 2008
• Link correction: Viral Twitter Tactics - October 13th, 2008

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.