My thoughts on the new Local Profits 360 system:

 

I want to make it clear right from the start that this is not my typical review. While I was asked to review this new system I did not get review access to it. Instead this is my thoughts on it based on the demos that I have watched. It is important to note though, that in my thinking I am going to assume that everything works as described and that the software has no bugs. Really making that assumption does not matter much because the issue I have with it is fundamental in its design and use. This is an issue that I feel so strongly about that I chose to not only promote this product but to also use it as an example to once again try to teach my followers a super important lesson.

In order to explain the problem I have with Local Profits 360 I first have to explain what it is and how it works. Ill keep it short. Basically this is a cloud based software that is designed for people who provide online services to local businesses. The way it works is you start off by searching for a keyword and a location. For example you might search for “Lawyers” in “Harrisburg Pa”. The system then finds local businesses based on that criteria and returns information it was able to gather about them. This information often includes things like the business name, address, a link to its website and some social sites (if applicable), its email address and its phone number. Next the system allows you to provide various checks on the local business, its website, and its social accounts to see what kind of online services they might be in need of.

At this point Local Profits 360 seems great: like it would be a good tool for people who have online services that they can provide to local businesses. However from this point on, in my opinion things quickly cross the line. You see the next step is that once you identify the services that these businesses need, and assuming you have the ability to provide these services, you can then group them together and send them an email proposal (using the provided templates) offering them your services from the system (using your gMail account or your own SMTP).

Sounds great right? Except one thing. You are sending emails, likely bulk emails, to people who did not agree to get your emails. In fact you are sending emails to email addresses that you scraped off the internet.  In short you are a spammer and this has just become a spamming tool. Darn! 🙁

Now right from the bat I am going to get one thing out of the way, a justification that many people are going to make. In some countries, the United Kingdom for example (I believe) it is not illegal to send commercial emails to businesses that have not opted in to get your emails. In many countries, such as the United States and several others, its illegal to scrape email addresses and send them commercial emails, in some its not.  However if you are thinking, ok, well I am in a country where its not illegal to scrape business emails so none of this applies to me, I want you to do yourself a big favor and continue reading.

Regardless of if scraping business addresses and sending them commercial emails is illegal in your area or not there is still an issue. The issue is that you are still a spammer no matter what. The thing is, being a spammer is not just about following the law. Being a spammer is about being a decent marketer. Its about respecting the people who you are emailing. Its about only sending emails to people who actually want to get your emails. Think about it. Almost every email client / inbox has a button right inside of it to report an email as spam. When someone clicks that button and reports the sender as a spammer does the email client then have a pop up message that asks “Wait, are you a business in the United Kingdom?” .. nope .. that’s because being a spammer is not just about following the law. Its about not being an asshole.

Be assured that bulk emailing people, even businesses, who did not ask to get your emails, who never heard of you, who did not give you their email address, is being an asshole. Its not marketing its spamming, and anyone who wants to argue with me about that can post in the comments telling me how much they love getting calls from telemarketers, or how much they love getting emails about FOREX offers, or about lowering their credit card bills, or increasing their penis size. Do you love getting unsolicited phone calls? Do you love getting unsolicited emails? Probably not. Well guess what, neither do businesses, because regardless of its legal or not to send unsolicited emails to a business in your area, there is still a person behind that email address who probably just wants to  … oh I don’t know, run their business without being messaged over and over from companies that they never gave their email address to and who are offering them services that they never asked for.

I wanted to love Local Profits 360 and when I first started watched the demo my initial thought was that this might be a great tool for people who provide online services to local businesses. But the spamming aspect really turned me off and was something that I just could not get past. Spamming is not good marketing, its very bad marketing, and this tool, making the assumption that everything works as described, is a tools which is designed, at its core, to be a spamming tool. It does have what appears good functionality and use beyond the spamming aspect that will likely be very helpful for people providing online services to local businesses , but the spamming aspect just spoiled it for me.

You might be wondering why vendors would create tools that are no good? Now I am speaking in general, not specifically about the vendors of Local Profits 360 (because I cant possibly know what goes in in their heads) but I do have a theory. In this space many vendors realize that people are often looking for ‘quick money’ and ‘the easy way out’. Also in this space many vendors sell their products for a one time price, also they tend to get the bulk, if not all of their sales from the initial launch period. What this can result in is vendors who create product’s that have ‘features’ that seem like the quick way to make easy money without regard to if they are moral, legal, ethical, or even effective. Basically, sometimes vendors create products that they can hype, without concern as to if its a effective, legal, or moral tool because frankly they do not care if the customer really gets results or builds a long  term business with it since its a one time fee and all they really want to do is make some quick money selling the tool during the launch. Sure they know that someone people will refund, but they also know that the majority of people wont actually take action and will go past the refund period. So what we sometimes end up with is immoral, illegal, or poor practice tools that are really designed to do nothing but be easy to hype up and make quick cash for the vendor.

Now I am not making a judgement of this vendors intentions in my last paragraph because I cant possibly know their intentions (my mind reading powers don’t work over the internet). However I do know that sometimes vendors do things like that. I also know that emailing anyone who has not specifically provided you with their email address is spamming, regardless of if it is technically legal or not. Its poor marketing, its often annoying to the people you are messaging, is not good business, and its quite frankly being kind of an asshole.

So I guess the question is should you buy Local Profits 360? Well I cant tell you that. As I said this is not an actual review. This is just my thoughts on the system. If you provide online services to local businesses and want to use its extensive search / testing functionality to look for potential customers that you will contact in some way other than spamming them then it might be good for you. If you’re thinking that you are going to use this to scrape a bunch of business emails and spam the shit out of them hoping to get some quick cash .. well then … not to cool.

 

 A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.