Ok, not really (not even close lol.) But, I have managed to grab some negative press lately, which is because of the days crazy events.
Here’s the link => http://www.johnchow.com/always-make-sure-your-links-work-before-doing-a-mail-out/
There was also an email sent out by Shoemoney referring to me as a tricky email harvester.
Here’s how it all went down. (I want to point out first that I take full responsibility for hiring this douche-waffle.)
I just recently hired a new project manager (Mike) to deal with arranging Ad Swaps amongst some other traffic related responsibility.
Mike got an email this morning from Shoemoney which contained a broken bit.ly link.
His 6th day on the job he went on over to bit.ly and placed a redirect to List Playbook from that broken Shoemoney newsletter link.
20 minutes later, I have 20 emails in my inbox from the likes of Zac Johnson and others who are not too thrilled about this. Although, Zac was cool and knows that I have several people working for me who could have easily been responsible.
None the less, I take full blame on that one. And I don’t want to redirect blame. I hired the guy, it’s my fault.
Needless to say, always check your redirect links as you never know when some tool is going to grab it on you if you are using a redirect service.
At the end of the day everything is still cool. If I were John or Shoe I’d have posted the same thing to show how you have to be really careful when dealing with 3rd party redirect services. Same with Zac. All is still good, they are all still good guys in my book 
P.S. We did actually try to send the link back to Zac after I got ahold of Mike’s bit.ly account. The problem is, you can’t change links on bit.ly once they are created. We also tried to do a php referrer redirect, but that was a fail too because bit.ly doesn’t pass a referrer.
Hey Brian,
It’s been a crazy day. I appreciate that you tried to fix this as soon as I got in touch with you. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, bit.ly doesn’t allow changes to their active links.
As easy as it could have been for you to say “screw you”, you tried to help, and I appreciate that.
Good reputation management on your part!!!
I have been careful with bit.ly ever since this post: http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com/2010/04/bitly-is-harmful-to-your-reputation.html
I saw the emails as well but had already checked out the guide.
Well at least you found out the guy’s true colors in 6 days right rather than 60 days down the line when something more shady could have happened?
Side note: Can you not just simply deactivate a link entirely from bit.ly?
Dude that was an epic snag from that guy. I wouldn’t worry about firing him, I would focus on using his keen eye to snag traffic mwuaha. Who gives a crap if people got mad, it was a spam email to generate some quick cash, screw anyone that wants to bitch at someone for trying to get something for free. Better question, did you get any List Playbook leads?!?
Thanks for the support everyone.
bit.ly links can’t be changed or deleted. Heck, I even tried setting up a PHP referral redirect to send bit.ly referrers to the right place, however they pass the original referrers and not bit.ly as the referral. Also tried bit.ly support but they refused to change or delete it.
All in all, that’s not a way to build a list and get customers. It doesn’t work because people are expecting one thing and seeing something totally different. So, no, I doubt any leads will come of it. I’ll probably go through and try to scrub out some opt-ins for today and tomorrow using some guesstimation and referral data as well do a good deed email blast for Zac this week.
It is surely a big lesson from every one.
Unfortunately this shows that Shoemoney doesn’t read his emails (what he’s sending or what he’s receiving – even from his paying customers)… a big thing to realize if you are thinking about joining his system. It all comes down to ethics, and I think you did the right thing Brian – the guy who got fired deserved it for being shady. On the other hand, when big shoe’s member site breaks/hiccups, there is no accountability there. I joined on day1 (110+ days a member) and have yet another occurrence of an entire week without new videos. After multiple emails, even phone calls, and my access to content is still broken. *sigh*
Bad break, but I think you handled it the best way you could have under the circumstance.
Concerning that employee Mike, what he did was obviously unethical. Quick thinking, but too bad he couldn’t use his creative skills in a more ethical manner (like using an affiliate link to Zac’s guide like John Chow wanted to do).
The funny thing is, I saw the email with the mistake he dropped almost instantly. I went to Bit.ly to grab his type, but then was too lazy to create an account.
I could’ve dickrolled thousands of people.