Hey guys,
So the site has turned 4 years old as of last week. In that four years, I've become somewhat of an expert on all things related to trading communities.
I have been called all kinds of names and accused of all kinds of things. The people screaming the loudest are the vendors. In particular, the ones that have been either banned from nexusfi.com (formerly
BMT), or that have negative reviews written by customers who have shared experiences on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT).
So why does Big Mike hate vendors?
Well, speaking as an authority on myself, I can tell you that I do not.
Am I being compensated by vendors? Do I align myself with the vendors that pay me the most money?
No, I do not. Let's take a look at the last three weeks of my inbox when it comes to new advertising leads. These advertising leads are companies that came to nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) and filled out the Contact page, and selected Advertising for their reason to contact me.
And this is a very SLOW period, probably the slowest period of the entire year in fact.
So what do all these companies want? They want to give me money in order to either run webinars or run banner campaigns or run email campaigns on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT).
What is my response? "Not interested". In fact, probably 99% of my replies are "not interested", the end, and press the send button.
Why am I not interested in these companies? Because most of them have terrible reputations. I want NOTHING to do with them. It isn't about money, it is about reputation.
If you look at the nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) site sponsors, it has been more or less the same people for four years! And it's only about 10 companies in total. If I get contacted by hundreds of companies per year, and yet over 4 years have only done business with around 10 of them, then you do the math.
So has Big Mike sold out to vendors? No. If it were about money, then you would see the same kinds of ads on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) that you see on other sites.
What about webinars? I get approached constantly from vendors who want to give webinars. My answer is "not interested" because most of these vendors have business practices that I want nothing to do with. Some of you know that I have been working on a new initiative called "Certified Trustworthy Vendor". It is on-going and although delayed, I am still planning on launching it soon. More on that here:
When it comes to trading educators, most of them are trying to sell you systems, indicators or methodologies. I don't have a problem with that. The problem is HOW they do it. They show graphs of how much money it makes, in hindsight or on a
backtest, or worse - some of them just
flat out lie and tell show you "live trading results" which are completely false.
How is it they are allowed to get away with doing this? Because there are so many uneducated people, potential customers, that simply fork over the money out of desperation in an attempt to be a better trader.
It is that act, the act of taking advantage of someone, that I fight with all my strength on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT).
Do you guys have any idea how hard it is to find good quality educators to come and lecture on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) webinars? Almost EVERYONE has something to sell, and I have strict rules about "no selling", "no secret sauce", "no special offers or promotions or act now deals". That eliminates just about everyone. Even the BIG names in the industry.
The ones that are left are not wanting to come and pay me for webinars, I assure you. It's the opposite. This month alone I have spent around $5,000 of my own money to line up educators to come speak on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT), in combination with giving away some books during those webinars. The other stuff that has been given away this month as part of our 4-year anniversary was donated by site sponsors.
OK, so we've established that I often have to PAY for educators to come do webinars on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT). That would seem to also put me squarely in the "not" column for hating vendors.
Last we have email campaigns. I am approached all the time to run email blasts and often times it is top dollar. You guys should see the stuff they want to sell. Get rich quick crap. And they are willing to pay a
premium to target the 40,000 users on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT), because they know from experience they will sell their product. I do not allow ANY form of advertising in emails, even from site sponsors. I do not sell or rent the email list in any way.
So let's talk about the vendors who become site sponsors. Why are they so special? Well, first I do as much due diligence as I possibly can -- and I've got pretty good at it over the years. Then I talk with the owners or management of the company and see if their goals and mine are aligned. Then I look at what product or service they are offering, and see if I agree with their business practices. I have a list of requirements they must meet before they are allowed to be a sponsor, assuming everything else checks out. On top of that, these days I am only interested in 1-year ad deals because I simply do not have the time to micro manage the accounting side with quarterly or six month payments and renewals. If a business does not want to agree to a 1 year deal, then I just turn them away.
Let's also talk about referrals. Many, many vendors work on referral or affiliate
basis. A lot of the emails above will show how I could make $10,000 a month or more from one single vendor, by simply doing a referral deal with them. Referral or affiliate deals means that if you open an account with a vendor (broker), I get paid something like $100. I refuse to have anything to do with it. nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) has never, and will never, do ANY kind of business on a referral basis.
If it were only about the money, then none of these things would be true. So hopefully I have established it is not about the money.
So what about the vendors that get banned on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT)? This happens when they break site rules, most commonly is advertising their product in posts. Let's be clear, vendors are allowed to engage users and answer questions, but they are not allowed to make any post which is self promotion (ie: advertising). When a vendor signs up on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) they are explained this very clearly.
How about other reasons vendors get banned? It's almost always for lying or deception. Pretending to be a "normal user" raving about how fantastic their product is, when in fact, it's the vendor themselves. I am a tech guy, some would say a geek. I've been an expert with pretty much all-things computer related since I was 9. I've picked up some skills in the last 25 years to help me expose these lying bastards, and when I land on one of them, I ban them.
You would be amazed at some of the very high profile vendors who have been banned after I caught them doing this. Yet you don't see me going around bashing them at every opportunity, and believe me, there are plenty of opportunities. So do I have an agenda? Am I out to get them? No. If I was, then I would certainly use all the opportunities made available to me to educate all of you about these vendors. Instead, I simply ban them and move on.
OK, so that's a pretty good start about vendors. Now let's talk about the other side of the thread title.
Why is nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) not free?
Why is Big Mike allowed to make money from site sponsors, AND also charges an Elite Membership fee from users?
Let's back up and ask why I created the forum. It's because as a trader, I couldn't stand the other forums out there. They were full of rude comments, childish behavior, name calling, and just completely worthless junk posts. For every thread I wanted to read to find something useful, I had to dig thru dozens of junk posts. I knew I could do better, and I knew I had the technical experience to help.
So I created nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) with the goal of being a different kind of community. One where members cared about each other and tried to help one another be better traders. I knew I needed to build a sense of equity if you will, some sort of investment, that people had to make so that they would respect other members more almost by default. And that was the Elite Membership.
The words "Elite Circle" came from the name of my old BBS which I ran when I was about 13-14 years old, one of the largest in the world in fact (this is pre-internet days). I liked the name so kept it, and eventually it got shortened to just "Elite".
A separate section of the forum was created so that members that paid the Elite Membership fee had a place of their own, away from the public section. Initially it was $20 for lifetime access. Then $25, then $50 (current as of this post), and as of July 1 2013 the price will be $100 lifetime. I gave notice about that in a separate thread a couple months ago along with the reasons for the increase, which I will just briefly summarize here -- price goes up to keep quality up. Quality is both in terms of members (users) as well as in terms of my work on the site.
By having this paid section of the site, people respected the other members who also paid to support the efforts of nexusfi.com (formerly BMT). nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) is not just about me, it's a community. So when people ask:
"Why is Big Mike allowed to make money on the site, is it because he can't trade"
The answer should be clear to everyone who has actually spent time on the site. Anyone who is not just passing thru knows how much time and effort I have put into the site, and like most people in our society, I do not donate all of my time and energy for free - I do expect some sort of monetary compensation. That is just the world we live in folks.
The fact is, the site has dramatically cut into my own trading and it's something I wrestle with all the time. There are so many things I want to work on for my own benefit as a trader, but don't have time because of the site. I am re-adjusting some of those priorities as some of you know who I've PM'd and talked to about it. It just means I am going to be taking some more time for myself. I am a trader, not a site admin. My passion is trading, and running the site is great fun. To a certain point. Past that point it is a huge job and challenge and constant headache. So why put myself thru it? I am just trying to do my part to fill a need in the world of trading as I see it.
OK, so how does Big Mike make money on the site? It's simple. I make money from advertising banners as mentioned above. And if you didn't read the first part of this long post, you need to, before rushing to any conclusions. And then the second part is on Elite fees.
It's interesting that some people focus so much on me making money on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) as a business. If you look at some other trading forums, it is obvious they are run as a business. Based on some knowledge I have about certain situations, I know that two of the other sites are worth multi-millions and they generate far, far, far more in advertising revenue than nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) does. I don't want to get back into the whole advertising thing, but suffice it to say I am sure I could quadruple my revenue from nexusfi.com (formerly BMT)
overnight if I allowed anyone who wanted to pay me to do so.
So getting back to Elite... is Elite worth it? There are several threads on this already started by users and you can go do your own research and draw your own conclusions. But for anyone who thinks the answer is no, I will admit that I don't understand.
Don't get me wrong. Some people won't sign up or pay for anything. It has nothing to do with value, it's just because they don't want to pay. But if someone thinks you could spend a better $50 (or soon $100) as a trader, I'd love to hear how
I know that some vendors out there have made it a priority to 'bash' the name of nexusfi.com (formerly BMT). Some have created websites devoted to spreading lies about the site. Some tell their subscribers I have an agenda, hate vendors, only allow people who pay me to talk, etc etc. So I hope that with this post, you have learned enough that you can do your own research and draw your own conclusions.
Mike
