Is This The Best Online Business Start? Doubtful!

“Is this the best online business start?” is a review of a course from Max Barra, purportedly from Max Academy. It is described as a copywriting course.

Name: Build Your Successful Online Business From Scratch
Website: https://www.udemy.com/course/start-your-online-business-marketing-secrets-work-at-home/learn/lecture/22657243#overview
Price: I bought it for $9.99 ($11.36 with tax). Usually $89.99.
Owners:  Max Barra, Max Academy.
Overall Rank: 50 out of 100.

Is This The Best Online Business Start?

We are actually quite doubtful that it is. The course has been developed by someone called Max Barra of Max Academy and focuses on copywriting skills. Is it the best online business start? We don’t think so. One of the most worrying aspects for me was that I could not find any images or information about Max Barra anywhere, following an extensive internet search. In addition, the Max Academy does not seem to exist anywhere other than the one we found in Singapore (see below).

In fact, interestingly, the only reference I could find to Max Academy was information about a lady called Maxine Teo, who is a very successful business trainer in Singapore! Her business is called Max Academy.

So, the image below describes the said Max Barra on the Udemy website, where this course is promoted.

Is It The Best Online Business Start? What’s Good?

Despite my misgivings about this product, I tried hard to find some good points.

The developer often takes a “big picture” view rather than providing detailed training. Nevertheless, here’s what I found:

• The basics of online marketing are explained.
• There are sections on Headlines, Keywords and Call to Action.
• Some reasonable information is included on Finding Your Niche.
• A high focus is placed upon building and maintaining customer relationships. (More on this later).
• Email marketing is given a high precedence with examples of supposedly good email marketing campaigns.

What’s Not So Good?

When we come to what we didn’t like about this product, there are quite a few issues.

• First and foremost, we could find no information on Max Barra or Max Academy, so it is difficult to assess his expertise.
• The whole course is delivered by automated voice which sounds very robotic and monotonous – quite disconcerting.
• The whole program seems fragmented and not well put together, probably because of the voice automation.
• As mentioned above, a lot of the information provided is “big picture” about how to manage different aspects of copywriting, rather than teaching about copywriting itself.
• We found a Free version of this course, with a different title, at Lob Academy – “Copywriting Master Course – Work From Home 3 Hours A Week! By Max Barra.”
• There was very little in this course that could not be found elsewhere in a better and more understandable format.

Who Would Benefit From Max Barra’s Course?

On the Udemy website, Max Barra gives this information as follows: People who wish to stop being an employee and start working for themselves.

If you are wanting to learn how to start a business online from home.

Maybe you are unemployed and need to earn some money working from home.

You’ve always wanted to learn copywriting and marketing so that you can work online.

Want to learn all the basics of marketing and the strategies for being successful in business.

Although, we are not sure whether these types of people would benefit greatly from studying this course.

Tools and Training Available In This Course.

As we have indicated in the discussion above, this course does not contain detailed training modules. Nevertheless, we will try to give you an outline of what it does contain. 

If you’re looking for some detailed training, go here.

The course is divided into nine sections, each containing a number of video explanations, all with automated voice presentation. There are no textual training modules included.

Section 1 is about Sales Copy Structure.

There are four videos in this section, the first dealing with marketing itself.

The information contained in the video is quite basic and most people would understand the basic principles of marketing.

However, the below image from the course illustrates the type of content you will receive with an automated voice-over.

The focus is placed upon email marketing in this section.

Max Barra promotes AWeber to automate your email marketing. There is more detailed information on getting started with AWeber later in the course.

Up until now, we have not been given any guidance about how to actually start a copywriting business, where to find client companies and how to learn the actual process of writing good copy.

He does give his 10 Rules of Thumb that he uses to increase Response Rate by 1000%. 

The next short video is on Headline Structure and a formula for good headlines is given.

Video 3 deals with keywords. There is an overview of the importance of keywords to search engines.

The final video in Section 1 is about being sure to apply a Call to Action to your copy.

A Call to Action can be text or buttons containing such wording as Buy Now, Click Here, Sign Up.

The message here is try to develop a sense of urgency with your customer.

Section 2 is about choosing a Niche.

There are five short videos in this section of the course. The first is entitled “Finding Your Niche Market”. 

This is where I got a little confused. This section seems to be about affiliate marketing and not necessarily about copywriting.

I was not sure whether the customers referred to were the businesses for which you were copywriting ads and blogs, or your own customers as an affiliate marketer.

Nevertheless, he does provide his list of the most profitable niches.

Even though email marketing was discussed in the previous section, a demonstration of a successful email marketing letter appears right here. This seemed an odd place to put it.

Next comes a brief discussion of duplicate content and whether it is detrimental to SEO or not.

Grammarly is promoted in this section to assist with good letter construction..

The third video here discusses how you can “stand out from the crowd” as a copywriter so that clients and businesses will want to work with you. 

I was once again confused. Because, he talks about creating a stunning website, keeping the content fresh and appealing. This is generally associated with affiliate marketing.

In the fourth video, examples are used for how to talk to your customers through letter writing and the fact that the principles of marketing have not changed over many years. Here is a quote from that section.

In the final video in this section, the Niche Market Approach is discussed.

Then there is a switch to recommend two online tools called Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator and the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.

Section 3 tells how to speak to prospect clients.

The first video is about Measurable Results and goes immediately into a presentation for SEnukeTNG software with no other introduction or comment.

Set yourself apart is the topic of the next video. It tells you to identify your unique value proposition.

The lesson deals with data analysis and results to incorporate into your copywriting, as well as managing social media and refers back to the SEnukeTNG software. 

The advice given here is to make sure that you automate your business model as much as possible, so that you can scale and grow.

Then the course goes into understanding your customer’s mind so that you can customize your content. 

This again is confusing. Is the customer the one who will buy the product or the client for whom you are copywriting? I’m sure you might be confused, too.

Section 4 goes once more into Niche Markets.

Except that it doesn’t. The first video introduces an online Goal Setting tool.

Next comes the Power of Free. Understanding how marketers promote free stuff. Such as free shipping, free trial, free samples, etc.

The next video talks about how diversification of markets leads to growth.

First we are told to choose a niche market, now to diversify into mass markets. This guy needs to make up his mind!

Moving right along, we get to discussing the importance of blogs to attract customers. Now we are back to affiliate marketing rather than client copywriting.

Section 5 is supposedly about how to profit from social networks.

The first video, however, goes straight into the benefits of flash sale sites for copywriters and how to approach prospective clients.

Next we come back again to Newsletters and and encouraging customers to sign up with the promise of a free gift.

Finally we actually get to social networks and how to manage your involvement with seven rules of engagement. Share your ideas with like-minded people in social groups.

The final video talks about measuring your readability score for any content you write. A tool to do this is discussed and you are encouraged to sign up for it, but there is no link to do so.

Section 6 is about building your brand.

And the first video gets right into this with the importance of Mission and Uniqueness.

Then next there is more discussion on knowing your customers and communicatons with them. This is accomplished by uilizing automated personalization.

The final part of this section is a list of 25 tips and tricks to fine tune your copy. These are definitely the same sorts of things applied by affiliate marketers.

Section 7 is about building rapport with customers.

Getting back to the personalization of commnications with customers through automation.

Then there is a topic that is titled “Reinvent Yourself”, that talks about economic downturns. Be prepared for the worst.

However, there is nothing in this lesson to teach you how to actually reinvent yourself. Rather, it gives options for growing your business in a number of ways.

Building rapport with customers incorporates five strategies. Once again this is all big picture stuff and not detailed training, and is also applicable to affiliate marketing.

Section 8 – How to be a unique and valuable asset to clients.

Ah! It looks like we are back to copywriting for clients rather than affiliate marketing. 

The first video is about skyrocketing your sales with services.

It probably should have been called how to skyrocket your sales with Surveys, because that is the focus of this video.

You are then encouraged to think like a marketer. Oh-oh! Here we go again back to affliate marketing. It discusses the differences between mass markets and, guess what – niche markets!

Dropshipping and affiliate marketing with Amazon.

Back to automation and the benefits of having an online tool to automate your tasks. The recommended tool is AWeber.

The final presentation in this section is actually an AWeber Onboarding presentation and takes the viewer through how to set up an AWeber account and get started with email autoresponders.

Section 9 talks about choosing the right domain name.

This is listed as a BONUS VIDEO, and, frankly, it is a waste of time.

Pricing.

We have explained above that we paid $9.99 plus tax for our copy of this course. The Udemy website suggests that the normal price is $89.99. I would be extremely wary of purchasing this course at the inflated price.

Definitely Not The Best Online Business Start!

Do I think this is a scam? Probably not since there is a large body of information delivered, and some of it could be useful to a newcomer.

However, as you can see if you’ve been able to read this far, the whole course is jumbled.

Max Barra doesn’t seem to know whether he is talking about copywriting for clients or affiliate marketing for yourself.

So, without further ado, you be the judge!

We did review another Udemy course which was FREE. It is a great course for beginners offered by Tyler Stokes and called Affiliate Marketing That Works. Go here to check out our review.