Name: 5k Formula
Website: http://www.5kformula.com/
Owners: Matthew Neer
Price: $19.97
5k Formula, by Matthew Neer, is a “make money online” product that was launched in November of 2015. Being as it is still fairly new, I feel it is only fair of me to mention that as this product ages it will (hopefully) continue to improve. New programs generally suffer through growing pains before they establish themselves within the industry. Having said that, I set out to investigate the product as it stands NOW. The following 5k Formula Review is the result of my findings. Read on!
To Begin With…
This product was better than I expected it to be. You see, after taking one look at the sales-page, I assumed this one was going to be yet another scam. I’ve been reviewing these products for quite some time now, and scams have become easy enough to spot.
Why did I assume this was a scam before I ever even bought it?
There were a couple of indications, but what really caught my eye were the….
Marketing Tactics
The sales-page for 5k Formula is filled with what appears to be sleazy marketing techniques. A common tactic of gurus is to pull on your heart strings. They attempt to sell you on the dream of making money online, without explaining the work that is involved. 5k formula makes claims like:
Note: It’s only free for the owner. For consumers, it starts at $19.97.
Claiming that you can make $5,000 on complete autopilot is absurd. I’m not suggesting that this program can’t make you that much money, but it certainly won’t be overnight (and it probably won’t for at least a few months. Unless of course, you already have marketing channels set-up). The people that are making that much money online are the people who are working HARD, day in and day out.
The term “autopilot” is generally used to entice lazy people with (nearly) empty wallets into buying. Real money is made through work, not hand-outs.
Has anyone ever handed you $5,000 without establishing some form of return in advance?
The rest of the sales-page continues in this vein (marketing to lazy people who want money without the usual work that would be required). In the sales video, Matthew Neer withdraws $5,000 (I suppose to prove that he is rich). It was too cheesy not to mention.
I hate marketing tactics like this. They take advantage of people that may be on hard times by promising them a quick and easy return for a small investment. Usually, a sales-page like this leaves the actual work involved off the table. People are sold on the dream and buy into the product without knowing what it actually entails.
Matthew makes the work involved clear before you buy the product. I really appreciate that. Once I learned what the product was and what it would require to generate income; I realized that it is actually INTENDED for lazy people and not falsely promoted as being easy.
Whether or not it works, only time will tell.
Program Overview
When it comes to making money online, whether it be with affiliate marketing or other means, a sales funnel is very important.
Think about a funnel, picture it in your head. It has a wide upper rim and the circumference shrinks to 
nearly nothing near the bottom.
Now think about marketing/making sales. You want to have the biggest audience possible to market products to, so you build yourself a big rim to accommodate more traffic. You send this traffic down the funnel and slowly convert them from casual browsers into customers. By the time they reach the bottom of the funnel, they are ready to buy what you are selling.
Funnels work.
5k Formula is essentially just a prebuilt funnel. You can buy the funnel, plug your offer in, connect your auto responder, send traffic to the funnel and collect commission on any sales that it generates for you.
Again, it is still too early for me to tell if this program will work. I’ve seen similar systems that haven’t faired so well, but if Matthew sticks to his ethics claims, this system may in fact surprise me again.
The biggest problem that I see, is the fact that you will not own the domain where your funnel is hosted. If 5k formula is discontinued, so is your business. It is much better to build your own funnel on a domain that you OWN (a domain will cost you about $10/year and it will run around $10/month for hosting).
The Upsells
This product does have some upsells. They involve buying traffic, additional squeeze pages, email swipes etc.
Avoid the upsells for the time being (you may need to purchase traffic as you’ll find it difficult to generate traffic by organic means with this platform). Test out the system, research the upsells, if you feel they are fair and justified then go ahead and purchase them!
Pre-made email swipes are generally a bad idea. If you have a preexisting email list, than chances are you have been sending out your own emails/offers to your subscribers. Your subscribers have built a relationship with YOU and they trust YOUR UNIQUE VOICE. When you use pre-made emails, you risk losing the trust of your subscribers.
The money is in the list, so don’t get your list peeved.
The Training
Most programs I review, that claim you just have to add traffic, end up being complete scams. There is really no indication that this program will be any different, other than the training.
The training is great! It’s in the form of videos. Matthew does these videos himself (a lot of times product owners outsource this job). The information presented is very clear and Matthew speaks in a beginner friendly manner.
He teaches the fundamentals of building funnels, generating traffic, and picking offers. Personally, I think the training alone makes this product worth it’s price tag. Even if you never make a dime with it, the training you receive is valuable and can be applied somewhere else in the future, should this program fail you.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- The training is very well done.
- It’s worth the price (excluding upsells).
- Matthew Neer appears to be genuine (although time will tell if he is really only in it for your money).
Cons:
- You do not own the space where your squeeze page is hosted. This means if 5k formula is discontinued, your business will be gone.
- The marketing tactics imply overnight success for very little work. The truth is you can make money with almost any product, but to make a lot of money you are going to have to put in A LOT of work.
- The email swipes are made for you. This sounds nice, and can result in sales, but you will generate more sales by crafting your own emails for your list. Your list trusts YOU and YOUR UNIQUE VOICE. You risk losing subscribers by sending out spam.
- This training focuses on marketing “make money online” program/products as opposed to teaching you how to market for ANY niche.
The Final Word…
It’s too soon to say whether 5k Formula is a scam or not. There are certainly some things that appear “scammy” but the training alone is worth the $20 price tag. Be careful with this one (avoid the upsells until you’ve researched them thoroughly), and don’t limit yourself to just THIS product.
You do not own the space where your squeeze page is hosted. This means if 5k Formula should vanish, so will your business. It’s much better to build a business with your OWN domain. This will allow you total control, security, and the opportunity to truly connect with your traffic (which can lead to even more sales later on). 5k Formula handles everything for you (well the gist of it) and this is nice, but by giving up control you risk losing everything should the product be discontinued (as is often the case in this space).
My second biggest gripe about this product is the fact that it will only allow you to market within the “make money online” niche. You will only learn how to promote 5k Formula and products like it. The joy of working online, for most people, is the fact that they can learn to market within any niche they desire. Say you’re really interested in 3d printers. You can build a website around this interest, monetize it, and make money by helping people regarding a subject that you genuinely enjoy. This makes work fun and increases your productivity which leads to more money.
You can learn how to build your own business, with your own domain, within any niche you desire, and it will cost you NOTHING. Check out my #1 recommendation to learn more.
Have you tried 5k Formula for yourself? I want to know what YOU think of the product. I’m going to let some time pass before I evaluate my results. Until then, let’s start a discussion in the comments below!
Hello Derek my name is Patsy Emig, I’ve been receiving emails from this Matthew Neer, I don’t recall requesting any sort of info. I can tell you that the offer does look inviting, but I wouldn’t want to get scammed. There’s another one that I’ve been receiving, It’s called the Push Money App, by Mike Callahan. It’s some sort of binary trading that claims if you deposit $250.00 to the binary account, and put it on auto pilot, then anyone should be rich easily without doing all the hard work. Do you think that they are scamming people?
Hello Patsy,
I haven’t heard of Push Money App, but I will add it to my list of programs to review. Be very careful when it comes to “auto pilot binary systems.” Chances are this is a scam, but you should search for other people’s reviews of the program before you make your final decision.
Derek
The free version of Wealthy affiliates is not available in my country, so quite lost here, but love your reviews. Keep it up!
Hello Ann,
It’s unfortunate that WA isn’t available for free EVERYWHERE but in order to keep it a spam free environment, some countries were added to an exclusion list after referrals from those parts began generating spam within the community. It’s a classic example of a bad banana spoiling the bunch. However, there are still ways that you can build your own website for free. Most companies that offer free web space will retain ownership of any content that you provide for your blog, so be on the look out for companies that do NOT do that. I wish you luck and come back here if you have any questions!
Derek