A Review of “Bring The Fresh”

September 2, 2012

Bring The Fresh isn’t a very good name for a product as it doesn’t convey anything about what the product is. It’s closed now anyway. You could be forgiven for thinking it had something to do with fruit given the “Fresh” reference. In fact it has nothing to do with food, freshly washed clothes or anything like that. In fact it’s a course on how to build successful, profitable blogs for those who want want to earn money in the Internet Marketing arena.

Despite it’s lousy name, you can’t judge a book by its cover, so what does BTF (as I’ll now refer to it) have to offer?

Who’s Behind “Bring The Fresh”?

First off, BTF is run by Kelly Felix and Mike Long. You may have come across Kelly Felix before – he was “The Rich Jerk”, an obnoxious IM personality who provided a course on how to get rich online. But it was just a character he created and he’s back now minus the obnoxious persona (he’s just a regular, and very accessible guy to BTF members). Mike Long is another veteran marketer (co-founder of Stompernet) and a former professional Magic: The Gathering card game player. He’s also involved in the “The Pickup Artist” show hosted by MTV. Between them, they have around 150 websites and they’ve survived the latest Google Panda and Penguin algorithm updates which goes to show that what they teach actually works. The guys know their stuff and they share that knowledge in BTF.

BTF Basic

BTF is an online course comprised mostly of video training though there are some PDF materials as well. It’s a blueprint for how to build and promote websites (mainly WordPress sites). To start with, you get the Fast Start Guide which is a PDF document that is frequently updated and contains the basic method of Bring The Fresh for 2012 written in a step-by-step blueprint. This is the core of the course and members are encouraged to refer back to it often.

BTF is closed. Join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE instead

Once you’ve read through the Fast Start Guide so you have an overview of the course and what you’ll be doing, you can head over to the Fast Start Videos that take you through all aspects of:

Market Research
Keyword Research
Building a list
Making money with videos
There’s a look at Launch Jacking – a separate course created by a BTF member to cash in on the numerous product launches that take place
They build a new site before your eyes (which is now making a few hundred dollars each month!)
How to create backlinks
And they take a look at the Penguin update and what it means

These aren’t scripted videos, but recorded off-the-cuff so they’re more like watching a video call from a friend. They are long and detailed. I prefer to read info rather than watch video tutorials so I found the videos a bit too long but those who learn visually will love the videos and get a lot out of them.

One of the most important videos is about how to use just one article for all your article marketing. While creating an article like this does take a fair amount of time, once it’s done you only need to plug it into whatever article marketing service or software you use.

You also get a “behind the scenes” interview series about 7-figure businesses the guys have created in the past, and many other interviews about general marketing techniques and actual case studies that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. There is a lot of material (like I said some of the videos are long) so you need some time to get through it but it’s well worth it. This isn’t a course you’ll go through in an evening.

Active Community of Members

One of the things I really like about Bring The Fresh is it’s active forum and community of members. These are incredibly helpful folks who will go out of their way to answer any questions you may have. This includes both Kelly and Mike who will chip in answers – they’re very hands-on and active in the forum.

BTF is closed. Join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE instead

The members are an honest bunch of people and if you submit a site for review by your peers, you’ll get an honest assessment from them on what’s right and what’s not with your site. And there’s no need to worry about your site getting ripped off; everybody gains from being above-board in their dealings with other members. In fact, I’ve used the forum more than the course materials because I keep going back to it day after day, either to provide whatever answers I can to other members’ questions or to get questions of my own answered. The BTF forum is full of knowledgeable people of all levels willing to help a fellow member out.

Beyond BTF Basic

There is an optional higher priced part of Bring The Fresh called Full Disclosure which I signed up for. This costs $66 per month for 6 months. After that there’s nohting else to pay and you still get all the new updates released for Full Disclosure members. Here”s what’s there currently (at time of writing):

Reverse engineering Mark Ling’s (he created Affilorama) site
Follow along as Kelly tries to get a site back up after a Penguin penalty
Kelly reveals one of his websites that got over 175,000 visitors in one month, and explains how you can make a similar site in many other niches.
The latest Market Research video
A sneaky technique for getting backlinks
Market research done for you – Kelly goes inside of several markets that are ripe for the pluckin!
More advanced backlink videos
Local SEO videos
Mike shows you several sites that now rank in the top 10 and top 20 on Google after only a few days using Kelly’s SEO strategies.
Private client case studies
How to use expired domains for SEO purposes
Member success stories and case studies and much more

So is this advanced section worth the extra price?

If you can afford it, then yes I think the advanced videos are worth the price. The cost is spread out over 6 months rather than being a lump-sum up-front fee because the guys know people don’t have money to throw around in these financially constrained times. This isn’t a one-time offer either where pressure is put on you to buy because you’ll save money if you buy now or you only have a short amount of time to avail of the offer. You can become a Full Disclosure member whenever you want and the cost is always the same.

The advanced SEO videos are pretty informative and there are some great ideas here. Kelly once told us members about a technique that we could use and after he applied it himself, his own site was making $2000 per month without much extra work for him. He actually has some really smart ideas and talks openly about them. Content is updated about once a month so you always get new ideas and info.

If you’re a newbie to blog-building and internet marketing, then to be honest, the Basic course is all you need. If you apply its techniques, then you can use any profits from your sites to jump into Full Disclosure if you want.

So Anything Negative About BTF?

Ok, I’ve been singing BTF’s praises so far, so are there any negative things about it? Well, this is a personal thing, but there are a lot of long videos and it takes a fair amount of time to go through them all. You certainly get value for money there. But like I said above, I prefer to read info rather than watch it. I can read at my own pace whereas with videos, you have to watch at the pace of the presenter. There are no PDF transcripts of the videos (something I’d like to see added) and there are no bullet-point PDFs either. It’s all fine and well watching a 50 minute video to get an in-depth understanding of why something works and why you should do it. But if all you want is a few bullet points to follow later, you’ll have to take notes yourself and create your own bullet list. Also, because the videos are so long, finding a particular point in them is difficult if not time-consuming.

But I’m really nitpicking here and most video-based courses suffer from the same issues. If you like looking over someone’s shoulder as they do something or simply enjoy learning through a video medium, then you’ll enjoy the video presentations in “Bring The Fresh”.

Next, the price of the Full Disclosure membership is a bit steep – it’s $396 all in. You do get some excellent information from it and it’s updated regularly so you can’t really complain about the price. But it is at a level that will make a lot of people think twice about joining Full Disclosure.

BTF is closed. Join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE instead

Bring The Fresh also provides “Done For You” (DFY) sites for members where the BTF team will build sites for you. There are a couple of options – one where you do the keyword research and they’ll build a site around that keyword, or they’ll do the all the market research, pick a keyword and build a site. There are also options to have them build links to DFY sites and they guarantee the site will go to page 1 of Google for the site keyword. All these options cost money (they’re all optional) and they are expensive. And the prices went up last month as well.

A basic DFY site with no backlnks and keyword provided by the member costs $197 (it now costs $297). It does include some premium plugins and a Pro WordPress theme, 3 articles and a money page, so all the site building and configuration is done for you. But you have to promote it yourself.

For a deluxe DFY site, you provide a target niche and the BTF team will do all the keyword research, will build the site as per the basic DFY site, do all the SEO, do all the backlinks and guarantee a page 1 listing on Google for your site. This option costs $997 though you can commission a second such site for an extra $500 if you order it within 60 days.

I had toyed with the idea of buying a $197 site but that was before the price went up. I’d love to try out a deluxe site because, if they’re as good as they say, it should recoup its costs pretty quickly. But $997 is just too much of a gamble for me at the moment and I suspect it’s the same for most BTF members. That said, getting any website built by a professional will cost big bucks.

Final Thoughts

Despite my misgivings about the price of “Done For You” site packages, Bring The Fresh is not about getting sites built for you. The principles it teaches are designed to get the site you build yourself to get ranked and become profitable. BTF doesn’t teach a “get-rich-quick” scheme; rather it’s a “slow-and-steady” approach to building sites. The techniques do work but they will take time to kick in. So don’t expect to have a site pulling in hundreds of dollars after a month.

Building a business takes time and commitment. You’re being provided with a blueprint here and a tried-and-tested formula that’s survived the onslaughts of Google’s various algorithm updates. All you have to do is focus on and apply the techniques.

You will need to build several websites as there’s always a possibility that any one site just won’t be successful. That’s just the way it is. Some flounder and some hit a home run. And, with multiple websites, you’ll get multiple revenue streams and if one should go belly-up, the revenue loss will be buffered by the income from your other sites. So all your eggs aren’t in one basket.

Bring The Fresh is constantly updated to keep information “Fresh” so you’ll know how to cope with any changes wrought by Google as well as keep abreast of the best marketing strategies to use with your own sites. It’s also here to stay and has been around since 2010, so there’s no danger of it disappearing overnight (as happens with some of Mike Filsaime’s membership sites for example).

Bring The Fresh normally costs $97 but as a thank you for taking the time to read my review, you can join BTF Basic here for just $7. That’s a $90 saving.