You’ve come to realize you’re needing some online training to start your business as an affiliate marketer. That’s great! You’ve taken the first very important step. But there are so many options!
You’re doing the right thing by reviewing all your options. Many platforms are all hype and no action. That’s why I want to write reviews for you, so you can be well informed before making any financial decisions.
I’m sure you’ve come across, and are wondering, what is the Chris Farrell Membership. Is he legit? Does he deliver what he promises? Keep reading and I’ll show you what it’s all about.
My name is Suzanne, and I’d like to help you narrow down your choices. Firstly, do you have a good definition of what affiliate marketing is?
This is where I learned all about creating my own successful business.
Contents
Who is Chris Farrell?
This platform was created by Chris Farrell who started his marketing career as a “newbie” in 2008. After 2 years, he claims to have made over $1 million dollars, in 24 hours, with Affiliate Dot Com.
But his biggest accomplishment is the Chris Farrell Membership.
Now, a well known and successful internet marketer, Chris has created this platform to help others make money online.
Chris seems likable and genuine in his introductory video and is upfront about your needing to put in the work and not promising you overnight millions.
Though it is very rare for many to see this kind of financial success, I believe it was his success that drove him to this path. But let’s see if his desire to help others actually delivers…
What Is The Chris Farrell Membership About?
Chris Farrell promotes his platform as a make money online program. What he doesn’t tell you is that his training is only focused on one method, email marketing. It’s important you know that in advance!
Chris talks about the three main steps to email marketing:
What’s Inside
#1. Five training sections – $4.95 for 7 days, then $37/month or $297/year
- Getting Started – Introduction to the three basic steps of email marketing and promotion of annual membership.
- 10 Minutes To Success (Core Training) – 31 videos over 31 days (each less than 10 minutes) with actionable steps. When finished, you’ll have a website landing page and email campaign set up.
- Money Making Labs (Specific Skills) – These lessons cover creating ebooks, webinar hosting, video marketing, and Facebook ads. It also provides training on LeadPages and ClickFunnels.
- I Love Traffic – 15 videos covering paid advertising (Facebook), forum marketing, guest blogging, and video marketing.
- Webinars (Goodies) – 7 webinar recordings only. No updated material.
#2. Tools and Resources – nothing is provided, but recommended 3rd party tools through his own affiliate links. A few of the 10 recommended resources are:
- Aweber (Email Autoresponder)
- LeadPages (Landing Page Builder)
- Optimize Press (Several services in one)
- Camtasia (Screencast Video Creator)
- HostGator (Website Hosting Service)
#3. Support – Chris offers three types of support:
- Knowledge Base – a list of facts.
- Forum Support – forum style of seeking answers to previously asked questions, or posting your own question and waiting for a reply.
- Ticket Support – Submit a ticket for help and wait for a reply.
#4. Upsells
- Chris Farrell’s Personal Email Swipe File – $47
- The 4 Week Fast Track Program – This program is currently closed. The previous price was $497
Additional Costs
These costs are for the minimal services you will need for any email marketing campaign.
- Aweber – $19/month
- LeadPages – $37/month
- Domain name – $15./year ($12.95 first year), additional $14.95/yr for privacy protection
- HostGator – $10.95/month ($3.49 first month), or $83.88 for 12 months and so on.
Your initial expense will be approximately $68/month for the basic services and the program fees.
Who Is This Program For?
This program is designed for beginners or unsuccessful email marketers only. The training is a step by step video series made easy for beginners to understand. But that’s where it ends. There is no advanced training.
His training covers all the basics needed to start an email marketing campaign. Like any new business, it will be up to you and the consistent effort you put in to create any kind of income. This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, nor does he promise you that.
Though the course named “10 Minutes To Success” can be misleading, it only means that the training videos are shorter than 10 minutes each.
You will not be successful in 10 minutes, lol.
Because of the brief training in each module, you might find the terminology difficult to understand. He doesn’t explain what each term means and expects you to know what each is.
You may need to pause your training to research a thorough explanation of the terms, and why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Sure, it’s easy to blindly follow steps to get something set up, but as an online marketer myself, I truly believe you need to understand the reasons behind each action.
You’ll only be as successful as the solid foundation you’ve built on.
How Does Chris Farrell Membership Work?
Starting Out
Once you have created your account and paid the initial $4.95 (with your first $37 to be deducted in 7 days), you’ll be taken inside to your dashboard, as pictured above.
This is when you’ll be presented with a pop up for a $47 upsell for Chris’s swipe files.
It’s too bad it’s so soon. Most beginners don’t even know what a swipe file is! So how do you know if you want to buy it, lol?
Whenever you are on your member page, you’re also presented with the “4 Week Fast Track” upsell. Even though it is currently closed.
He tells you it’s opening soon, but it’s been showing the same status for quite some time now. Previously it was offered at $497.
The Training
Your core training is the 10 Minutes To Success portion of the program. You need to watch these in order. Chris recommends one per day for 31 days.
Each video is under 10 minutes. This training is a very basic, step by step, do-as-I-do type of training.
It’s good that’s it’s beginner-friendly, but my concern here is the lack of foundational training you’re getting.
I can understand his wanting to help you set up fast, so you can start earning money sooner (no guarantee here), but if this platform were ever to come down, would you know how to start again on your own?
This program provided training only. It does not provide you with any of the necessary tools to actually start an email campaign.
The Resources
Chris recommends certain products for you to sign up with. These may be the services he actually uses, not that it matters. There are many great services out there to buy.
I would suggest doing some research before automatically signing on to what he recommends.
His platform is somewhat outdated, so you might find better and cheaper products that have come onto the market since he created this platform.
The Money Making Labs, or Specific Skills as stated on your dashboard, are extra training resources to help you with specific needs. I
t’s not required to take each course. In fact, I would recommend you start with one strategy to make money and learn it well.
When it’s working for you, then choose another.
The worst mistake a beginner can make is to try to start with too many things at once. You’ll end up getting nowhere.
You know what they say about “too many cooks in the kitchen”, or “too many sticks in the fire”, lol. It’s better to learn one thing well, than do several poorly.
The Support
The support offered here comes in three forms.
As a beginner learning something new, support is very important. You need timely answers to your questions in order to progress in your training.
Though Chris Farrell provides different methods for you to get help, I find the type of help frustrating.
- The Knowlege Support area is a long list of questions and answers. You need to do a lot of scrolling through a ton of comments, in order to find something helpful.
- The Forum Support is especially frustrating because again, there’s no organization. This requires a lot of looking to see if anyone has asked the same question you have.
As you can see in my screenshot below, this forum is not busy at all. In the “Introduce Yourself” section, there is no engagement from other members.
You see only 1 reply each, which may very well be an automatic response from the system, lol. And very few views!
This type of “community support” just isn’t helpful. You could start your video training, excited to get going, but when you get stuck on something, you’re most likely having to wait days or more to get the help you need.
This stalls your training and gets you very frustrated.
- The third method of support is to submit a ticket. This is where you formally describe your problem, and their support staff will get back to you. I have no idea how long this might take…
The Platform
This platform has not been updated since 2012. All of his disclosure statements are dated 2012, and when he discusses things like WordPress, it still talks about the 2012 released version.
These two specific points may not affect anything in itself. For instance, when you download a current WordPress website, you’ll be receiving the most updated version.
What sends up red flags is his NOT updating little things like this. If he can’t be bothered to update his material, then how involved is he?
When it comes to training in email marketing, the basics stay relatively the same. But the strategies change with what’s currently working and what’s not.
Facebook, for instance, changes very often. What worked last year may not work today.
And anything taught in 2012 will certainly not work today.
Another reason why I believe this platform to be outdated is his blog. There isn’t a lot on it, but when he posted his first blog on July 24, 2014, he seemed somewhat active until May 18, 2015.
Then nothing until the final article, posted Dec. 2, 2017. Again, my red flags are waving!
Chris just doesn’t seem to be overly involved with this program anymore. I’m sure it’s providing him with a passive income for now, but without updating his material, members will start quitting and no new signups will be had.
The Affiliate Program
Their affiliate program has been with Deal Guardian Affiliate Marketplace. This affiliate program is scheduled to close down sometime in the latter 2018, and are not accepting new applicants.
Chris is currently searching for a new network provider but doesn’t know when or if he will reactivate his affiliate program.
Pros
- Reasonably priced
- Beginner-friendly
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Easy cancellation policy
- Provides several landing page templates
Cons
- No free trial (but $4.95 for 7 days isn’t too bad)
- Upsells not mentioned in the promotional video
- Outdated platform
- 3rd party tools at an additional monthly cost
- Inactive support forum
- You will quickly outgrow this program
Thoughts And Recommendations
As I mentioned earlier, this program is strictly about email marketing. This can be a very profitable method of earning money online if done correctly.
The training provided here is very basic, which is great for beginners, but I don’t believe it’s thorough enough.
How can a 10 minute (or less) video possibly cover everything you should be learning?
Unfortunately, this is only one way to earn money through affiliate sales. There are many other methods available to you but are not taught in this program.
It’s important to realize that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket.
If you depend on only one basket, and something happens to it, then you’re left with nothing.
I truly feel you should be looking for training that covers all the ways to market online so that you can build a solid foundation for your business.
My other issue with this platform is its quiet community. The promotional video claims it’s an active community, and maybe it was if the video was recorded in 2012. But for today, it not!
I can’t stress enough how important a like-minded community is, both for support and encouragement.
Is this program a scam? No.
Would I recommend it? Only for complete beginners.
And even then, I’m not so sure. I believe you can find a better platform for your needs.
I’d like you to consider the platform I use. It’s also beginner-friendly but has additional, more advanced training for years to come.
I’ve been a member since 2011 and I’m still learning new updated techniques.
It has training in every aspect of online marketing, not just email marketing. They teach you a solid foundation for your business that will help you become successful.
Here’s an awesome new video to give you an idea of what’s all included.
The great thing about Wealthy Affiliate, besides starting for free that is, is that they provide you with everything you need under one roof.
- Training for every type of online marketing
- A keyword research tool that is vital to any proper SEO strategy.
- Their own website builder
- Their own in-house domain name registration
- Website hosting
You can start for free, get a free website and access to the entire platform for 7 days. After 7 days, you may remain free with limited access, or you can upgrade to Premium for $49/month or $359/year (40% savings).
And no upsell!
You get everything for one low price. Oh, and did I mention the community. It’s live, 7/24/365. Your help comes within minutes.
No other platform online has anything like this.
I sincerely recommend Wealthy Affiliate. You have nothing to lose. You can start for free, and I assure you, you’ll love it.
Please click on the picture for your free test drive. And I’ll be there to meet you and help you as long as you need me to.
Are you new to online marketing? I’d love to hear your experiences.
If you’d like to leave me any questions or comments, I’d be happy to get back to you.
And if you know of anyone who would benefit from this review, please share!
Your friend,
Suzanne
Never heard of CFM until now, and I am glad I found it here first.
Great review with useful information for us to make an informed decision. I would run for the hills if I came across a program that hasn’t been updated for six years.
I think I will look into Wealthy Affiliate instead. Thank you for this helpful information.
Hi Curtis,
I’m not surprised. It’s an older program that doesn’t seem to have as much promotion as it used to.
I believe it’s legitimate, but as you said, it hasn’t been updated in a long time. With the changes in this industry happening at lightning speed, you can’t afford to have an outdated platform.
Wealthy Affiliate updates their training and tools frequently, and are always abreast of any and all changes in online marketing. You can completely trust them to offer you the best and newest information.
If you need any more help, please let me know.
Cheers,
Suzanne
I have never heard of the Chris Farrell program and I thank you for this very informative and important review…
As a relative newbie to the online world (of social media), I appreciate this comprehensive and very nicely written review. You do an excellent job in pointing out the critical flaws in the program, and in the process, you have managed to save a lot of people looking to join the world of e-commerce lots of $$ and perhaps even a big disappointment.
The big plus is that you not only provide your review, but you also offer an alternative.
Thank you!
Hi Christie, and thanks for commenting.
That’s why I like writing reviews. I honestly want people to be well informed before making a decision to buy something or not. It’s the same with my recommendation to Wealthy Affiliate. I provide a review there also, but have the pleasure of being a member, and can offer an insider view of everything they offer.
The Chris Farrell Membership is a legitimate program, it’s just limited in areas. And for the money you’ll have to spend later on for advanced training, you might want to think about starting with someone else.
If you have any questions about Wealthy Affiliate, please let me know.
Cheers,
Suzanne
I joined Chris Farrell membership years ago. I thought it was great at first anyway. I like his attitude and how he explained everything. I stuck with it for a while but then like everything else I ever joined and was not successful at, I wound up quitting.
There is nothing like Wealthy Affiliate. This is the program that is successful.
Hi Rob, and thanks for commenting.
I know a few people now, who started with Chris’s platform. I believe it was really good years back, but you still outgrew it fairly quickly. What troubles me now is his lack of involvement and lack of updated material. I think maybe he’s moved on to bigger and better things, yet keeps this going if it still makes money for him.
Wealthy Affiliate has been around for a dozen years and they are continually updating, adding, creating, etc. And the community is bigger than ever. This program will be successful for many years to come.
Cheers,
Suzanne
I love your post. It is very well put together. There is a lot of valuable information.
Thank you Darryl. I’m glad you found it useful.
Cheers,
Suzanne
Thanks for a thorough review and I love the format, easy to follow and understand. I am so thankful I did not choose the Chris Farrell Membership, as it’s clear after reading your review that it would not have been a good fit for me. Much success in your online endeavors,
riley roman
Hi Riley,
I’m so happy I could be of help to you. It can be difficult to find that proper fit, that’s for sure. Hopefully you will find yours. Let me know if I can be any more help.
Cheers,
Suzanne
I love the way you have done this review and making me see how expensive this is even for a newbie, I think Wealthy Affiliate is a better choice for me.
Thank you for opening my eyes and for see the difference. Wishing you success.
Hi Cindy,
Thanks for commenting. The research I’ve done with various training programs can be very surprising. It’s amazing how many of them don’t tell you about all the upsets and inside costs. I have found Wealthy Affiliate to be honest and upfront about their costs and the best training I’ve found online.
Blessings,
Suzanne