Global Domains International – GDI
This is perhaps the most well known of all online marketing business opportunities. In fact, this is what started my online experiment thing in the first place.
My first encounter with GDI came when I was browsing an online job website just to see what was out there at this time. I was intrigued by an ad claiming I could make $200-$400 per week working part time placing ads in free classifieds site online. It sounded great so I sent an email to inquire more about the "position".
Of course this ended up being a GDI member looking for recruits. I thought the marketing method was quite good, however his execution of it was very poor. ie he has absolutely ZERO selling and closing skills. After I inquired he merely sent me an email saying :
"Im glad that you are interested. This just job just contains placing ads on the sites i will provide for you, and you will make tons of money. All you have to do is sign up first. Copy and paste this link http://website.ws/kvmlm2/wrong_sponsor.dhtml?sponsor=. My sponsor id is (name removed to protect identity). Please email me back so i can provide you with the training packet."
I thought "how ridiculous" or I even thought "scam". The first thing you want me to do is sign up and pay you money BEFORE explaining to me what this is all about ? However my curiousity was piqued. I clicked on the above link and watched the famous video promising me endless riches. Afterwhich I discovered the company's name ie "GDI" - I have never heard of it before in my life.
So I decided to investigate further and I searched in Google for "GDI Scam" to see if anyone had complained about GDI being a scam, as the concept to me seemed very reasonable. Even more interesting was how many hits "GDI Scam" brought up, especially in Youtube, so I quickly went there to see how people were "scammed" by GDI. However what I found was something very different. ie these videos with "GDI" and "scam" in the titles were actually people trying to sell GDI !!! This is another interesting marketing method they use to get people to watch their videos. They merely tell you "why people think GDI is a scam" and then go on to persuade you to join THEM and/or their team.
That kinda put me off those people, so I continued to search youtube and as a result I came into contact with the plethora of other "GDI like" programs that are out there. The first one I stumbled upon was Revolutionary Matrix. That led to my discovery of Lightning Speed Matrix and then finally Teamwork Revolution (all reviewed by me on this site asI tried them ALL !!!).
I eventually found a GDI sponsor whom I thought was pretty good and she was very persuasive so I decided to give it a go. However I had already decided that the other programs mentioned above were ALL better than GDI (mainly because of their forced matrix structure which provides spillover - you can read about it in the review). However, I liked the multilingual features that GDI had so I decided to solely market this to non-English speaking people. I didn't have much success in doing that so I have cancelled my GDI membership HOWEVER I WILL continue to market it to the foreign markets until I get some interest at which time I will re-sign up and see how it goes. However I feel its pointless paying $10 per month when I can market the program without being a member. YOU can also do the same if you like. Just learn everything you can about GDI and market it until you get someone who says "I'm sold ! How do I join ?" then quickly join and then give them your link. You can join and be up and running within 10-20 minutes. So that's my recommendation to anyone considering this program.
ADVANTAGES of GDI
Let me now talk about the advantages GDI has over the other programs mentioned above and reviewed here. Firstly GDI have Paypal as a payment processor. Actually Revolutionary Matrix and Lightning Speed Matrix ALSO had Paypal in the beginning of April 09 but then they all lost it around the same time. I'm still not sure why, but it certainly caused a major blow to these programs. Perhaps it caused users to doubt these programs, I'm not sure. However I DID have one Revolutionary Matrix member tell me she lost almost half of her recruits because of this. Therefore GDI has an advantage over the other programs as I believe they are the only one at this time that can use Paypal as a payment processor. The others now use Alertpay and other less known processors.
Secondly GDI has been around for about 10 years now, so it has the stablility factor. These other programs all started this year so people are likely to be weary about a new program and whether or not they are gonna pack up and run away with the money.
GDI do offer a 7 day trial period, but in my personal opinion 7 days is nowhere near enough to "try" it out. A month would be much better. So the trial period could be seen as an advantage to some, but to me it was pointless.
Finally, I must admit, that GDI by far have the best bonus scheme of all of them. If you get 5 signups within 1 week (after buying one of their $2.95 DVDs) you get a $100 bonus. As far as I know you only need to buy 1 DVD once. When I first read the bonus scheme, I thought you had to buy them everyweek to be considered for bonus which really annoyed me as that equates to at least another $12 per month, buy my sponsor told me "no".
This bonus scheme is in fact somewhat risky for GDI as they are paying out more than they are getting back. ie 5 people equate to $50 revenue for the first month, but they actually pay out $100 ! So GDI actually take a $50 loss on those 5 signups. In reality however they perhaps break even as there are many people who don't make the 5 and if 1000s of people only get 4 signups then bonuses aren't paid to them. This bonus system works in multiples of 5, so if you get 10 people within 1 week you get $200, 15 people $300, 20 people $400 and so on.
Therefore, GDI is an excellent program for anyone who is highly skilled at getting mass signups. In fact, I know people who actually pay the $10 fee for people because in effect they get $20 per signup and therefore make a net profit of $10 per signup even if they pay the fee for the person.
The drawback of this excellent bonus scheme, however, is many GDI members focus PURELY on signups and will do and or say ANYTHING to get people in ! This is what can give a bad name to GDI, not GDI themselves but the members and how they choose to market. Of course, with any program the same principle applies. You can easily get lied to or scammed by a member of GDI, Revolutionary Matrix, Lighting Speed Matrix or Teamwork Revolution etc. But who will you blame ? What name will you remember when telling about your bad experience ? The company's !!! So unfortunately, the companies are unable to "police" the marketing methods of all their members and as a result may suffer reputation problems. I encourage you readers not to allow a lying/scamming/decieving MEMBER cause you to have a bad opinion of the program. The program and the members are 2 entirely separate entities.
Although I am not a member of GDI now, I can confidently say they are a good company. They offer an excellent bonus scheme, have Paypal as a payment processor, and have been around for a long time and aren't likely going anywhere anytime soon.
DISADVANTAGES of GDI
However, for the following reasons I am not a member anymore. When you remove the GDI bonus scheme, as monthly residual income goes, they are the worst. They offer $1 per person per month down to 5 levels, therefore you need to recruit 11 people before you are making a profit (with Teamwork Revolution you are in proft at 6 people). This of course equates to a potentially unlimited income with GDI, however I believe people will shop around before joining any scheme (as I did) and they will find the other schemes as a result of their shopping and decide against GDI. I have been in sales most of my life and I can never successfully sell a product that I myself wouldn't buy or didn't believe in. If I know something else is better, then I want to sell THAT. People aren't stupid, so I haven't gone with GDI because I believe the other Matrixes are all better in the long run when it comes to retaining signups over the long haul.
So although it IS possible to make millions of dollars per month with GDI, in reality I believe people will opt for one of the other matrixes because of their forced matrix style (ie it's possible to get people under you from spillover from above - highly appealing to everyone - read the reviews for a further explanation).
Further, GDIs "product" is the worst of them all. They offer 100MB of webspace or 10 pages which ever comes first. The other programs offer 700MB with no limit on the pages. Granted, GDI DO provide a free domain name with ".ws" extenstion, but I also believe most people (me included) have been somewhat brainwashed into thinking anything other than ".com" is second rate. In reality (technically speaking) it makes little difference (it doesn't matter what your website's extension is, people will still find it if you advertise it), but when it comes to sales, they way people view things is VERY important, even if the views are incorrect.
SUMMARY
In summary, GDI is a company that you CAN make money with. It is best suited (in my opinion) for people who have excellent sales and recruiting abilities, who can take advantage of the 5 per week bonus scheme. However, be very careful when selecting a sponsor. You want someone who is supportive and provides a lot of training and advice. It's possible you will get someone who just wants you for the bonus and will completely ignore you afterwards.
