Those of you that have followed by blog for some time will remember me getting involved with a program called QYAO, and while it has not gone under like so many other programs on the internet, it has suffered from some problems that led to a lot of member distrust and changes in the structure of QYAO that caused disinterest.
So for this post I just want to take a retrospective look at the course of QYAO to try to see some of the things that caused it's changes so that I can be more aware next time and hopefully not fall prey to the same pitfalls if and when I do decide to create a membership site of my own. Here are some of the problems that plagued QYAO.
1. Premature Launch
There are many programs out there that have membership open for a while before the program or website launches and while this is a great way to create interest and to allow the initial life blood of your site to enter, there are problems that arise when the site is not actually ready. QYAO suffered from problems of this nature. While there was a large member base, there was not a lot of leadership in the form of an administrator that knew all the intricate ins and outs of the site and could provide answers to any and all questions. Instead everyone had questions and it seemed as if no one had the answers.
2. If it's too good to true, IT DEFINITELY IS!!
No ifs, ands, or buts on this one. I was one of the members with rose colored glasses on. I had doubts but convinced myself that it couldn't be all bad if all of these people were investing money. QYAO made a lot of big promise. It seemed as though month after month there was a special on top of a special on top of a special and more and more they demanded money from their members for upgrades, or site creation and various other things. And while I lost less than $50 on the entire process, my stupidity in believing some of the crazy promises that QYAO made was not worth the money.
3. Middle Management
Not only an offline problem, QYAO was bogged down with all of this middle management. There was a different person to pay to upgrade membership. Someone else to teach recruitment, someone else for site development and so on to the point where I would be trying to keep track of 5 different people for 5 different things, who in turn had absolutely no communication with each other or upper management. More than that questions had to be asked in a chain of command so that 3 people stood between you and your answer, greatly increasing the time it took for my questions to be answered and often times because of problem 1, they were not answered satisfactorily.
4. No Transparency
I think this is the most damning problem that QYAO had. There was an illusive Jane that was the seeming owner and moderator of QYAO, but half-way through, her name and profile changed. Questions could not be asked directly to her and had to go through other appointed people and information was often given in bits and pieces. This is the most important thing to look for. If there the administrator is not available for questions, or cannot explain areas of the site of quell your concerns then run in the other direction as fast as you can. Make sure that all of your questions are answered by the information on the site or by the admin before you get deeply involved in anything on the internet.
On the upside QYAO continues to be a community of people that is willing to help each other. There are other structures set up that allow members to earn within the community that can be helpful for people who want to earn some extra money. If you are looking for something new, you can check out the new QYAO and see if it is something that you will be interested in.
So if you are thinking about joining a site, or shelling out some money keep these things in the back of your mind and make sure that you are completely comfortable with your decision. Remember that there are a lot of people that want to take your money and make you promises, but you cannot be taken advantage of unless you allow yourself to be. There's no rush to spend your money jumping from program to program.
BE INFORMED CONSUMERS!
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