Full Stack Coaching method Review (ex: Freedom Business Mentoring Review)
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Freedom Business Mentoring Review
The expected amount of money you’ll be expected to pay for Freedom Business Mentoring is between $2,500 – $3,500 with an upsell of upwards of $5000+ after the course is finished.
For my #1 recommendation for starting a freelancing/coaching business, Click here (https://selfmadenewbie.com/hu-2)
This Full stack Coaching method review (formally Freedom Business Mentoring review) aims to shed some light for those of you thinking of getting into the coaching, consulting, and service-providing course created by Max Tornow aka RSD Max.
I’ll highlight the Good and the Bad regarding the program, so you’re able to make an informed decision on whether the program is right for you. I do not work for the Freedom Business Mentoring group, as you will no doubt discover. As someone who got the program, I’ll give my views and be completely transparent.
Update (10/2022): This program has been rebranded to the Full-Stack Coaching Method, undoubtedly due to not delivering for so many students. Max’s Instagram also seems to have vanished.
The Full Stack Coaching Method Review
The Full Stack Coaching Method or Freedom Business Mentoring is a course created by former PUA and dating coach, Max Tornow or RSD Max and his team who reside out of Kyiv, Ukraine.
The program promises to help entrepreneurs discover and monetize their strengths into creating a freedom coaching business.
The program is broken down into 12 Stages, the final stage being obvious upsell to more coaching.
This is the dashboard and as far as the structure goes, it teaches you the correct process to go through when creating any online business, which is to identify your audience first and their pain points prior to creating an offer or PFMO (Perfect fit market offer), which Max calls a USP (Unique selling point).
Most people actually get this backward, so the initial modules of the training will set you up well if you are a complete newbie to starting a business.
After committing yourself to a niche based on your strengths, you learn how to conduct an actual coaching session, and then you learn sales. On top of that, there are about 4 live calls every week with Max and his team that you can jump on and ask questions.
The Sales Funnel
Before I get into looking at the Pros and Cons, you should know what to expect as far as their own sales funnel goes.
The Top of the Funnel
At the top, Max is clearly utilizing Instagram and YouTube in order to get leads through to their website, which is ironic because in the course he says don’t do this. Most of Max’s content is heavily biased towards coaching, consulting, and service providing being the only decent way to make a living online.
This is absolutely not true, and you shouldn’t hold Max as an authority on this because he simply isn’t an authority. Max was a dating coach until 2018 as far as I can tell. He has always made money via coaching, so his opinion on dropshipping, blogging, digital media agencies or anything else shouldn’t be paid attention to.
As he says himself, only listen to people who have done it. Has he done anything outside of coaching? No, no he hasn’t.
The Landing Page
If you are pulled in via the Social Media channels, you’ll be presented with a hard-selling sales page, which uses every psychological trick in the book, especially scarcity and flipping the script on you to make it feel like there are limited spots available and that it’s them who may or may not accept you.
If you have the money they will accept you, and anyone who says their spots are limited is lying. Why would they limit spots and deny themselves more income? It’s an obvious scarcity tactic to anyone who knows anything about marketing.
After you answer a couple of questions, which is really to screen for how much money you make, you book a call with them.
The Setting Call and Consultation Call
It’s interesting to go through this process as someone who wants to learn about sales. In fact, on my calls I was taking a bunch of notes on questions they asked as well as how they dealt with difficult objections I was putting up on purpose.
The setting call was with a kid called Nico, who was very enthusiastic and, again, trying to gauge my savings per month. I pushed him about how much the course was and he was reluctant to tell me, but I eventually got it out of him.
For those of you wanting to know the price, depending on your answers, they will pitch you between $2,500 – $3,500
I said to call me back in a week and I’ll tell him if I’m ready to start or not. When the week rolled around I canceled the call because I was at a wedding, but he called me anyway.
He wouldn’t let me hang up even though I’d expressed that I would be unavailable for the call. He then got very pushy over the phone on whether I was committed or not and how they don’t just take anybody. That gave me a chuckle. I said call me tomorrow.
The next day he called and I went through the motions with him and he set me up with the real consultation call where he said I’d get so much value from a guy called Josef.
A few days later Josef called me and wasn’t really pushy. They gave an outline of what was involved and hit me with a $3,000 Price tag, which was fine. I was actually keen to sign up from the get-go as I like to buy courses I think look good once in a while to keep the axe sharp.
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
So I figured I’d just bullet point what I like and dislike about the program and then give my concluded advice to anyone on the fence about joining.
The Good
Course Content
The Program itself has a lot of value in it and is structured well and teaches you all you need to know about setting up an online coaching business. The fundamentals are sound and the content is thorough, especially at the beginning. Is it $2,500 – $3,000 thorough? Well, I’ll get to that a bit later
The Consultation Calls
The consultation calls are there 3-4 days a week and are on time and you have time to have a question answered along with a bunch of other people you have to wait for. These aren’t all done by Max, however, but in way, the other coaches have a better manner about them than Max who often belittles people’s questions and seems easily frustrated.
The Coaching and Consultation Lesson Structure
The scripts for holding coaching sessions are good. The structure is sound and it’s easy to follow, despite the odd bit of broken English
The Bad
“Always side with the sharks”
Commonly used quote By Max & his team
The Misleading Sales Process
You will get a bitter taste in your mouth from the hard-selling style of the team overall from the landing page to the calls. I was trolling a little during the calls slightly and it was interesting to see the guy on the first call get triggered fairly easily.
If you do still want to get involved after this Freedom Business Mentoring review, note that there are no limited places. If you have the cash, they will let you in.
Another thing is that when you ask the price via Instagram or somewhere you will be given the response, “It completely depends on where you want to go and what your goals are.”
It doesn’t. There is one course and it’ll be $2,500 – $3,500+ depending on how much money they can gauge you can afford. In essence, by not telling you the price, they can milk you for as much as you can pay.
Sharks.
It’s Way too Expensive For What You Get
Don’t be under the impression that you’re going to be, “coached by Max and his team.” No matter how you look at it, this is an online program like any other you’d get from Tai Lopez or someone for usually $297-$997.
The fact that they have weekly calls doesn’t make it coaching, and the message is very clear that the calls are for any “burning questions” you need answers to. Also, since the weekly calls are filled with 50-100 people, it is not personalized coaching in the slightest. Also, if you are a total beginner and ask a question they deem to be dumb, prepare to be told your question is dumb. Max in particular has no qualms about making you feel humiliated in front of a bunch of other people who will also be watching on the call.
I’d go as far as to say that the other coaches, who don’t have big personal brands are much easier to deal with and actually appear to know more than Max.
It follows a ZERO Accountability Model
What do I mean by this? Like a lot of not-so-great programs out there, the accountability is thrusted on YOU. Think of a mother bird pushing her young off a tree branch in order to teach it how to fly, but then picture the bird only having one wing and then hurtling to the ground below and splatting on the bottom.
That’s 95% of online courses today. They start off good, tell you to get out there and get sales, and then if you have any problems? Oh sorry, it’s your fault! You aren’t trying hard enough, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with their methods.
Smart business, but total horseshit. Some people were busting their asses and getting nowhere. There is no evidence to support that it’s the fault of the individual from what I’ve seen, but there is evidence that it is the fault of the material as it only advocates manual lead gathering.
Should you be accountable for how you apply to the program? Yes. If the program really gives solid advice, and isn’t just sending you out like a single-winged bird and told to “Test more!” and “Try harder!” while withholding other information.
In Freedom Business mentoring, the advice is that you must go and gather sales manually via Facebook groups, Reddit, Instagram, etc.
Is that good for learning? Sure, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of getting leads. Search lead generation for coaching on YouTube and you’ll see many respectable and more experienced coaches saying that running ads gets them the most leads.
Max himself isn’t even in line with what he’s teaching either since he is generating leads via his content creation and previous following to boost his reach. Has he ever scoured Facebook groups and Reddit getting leads manually like he teaches clients to? I doubt it. So, then one must ask: Why be hellbent on teaching it?
The answer is no doubt because they had to save some content for their upsell for those who manage to generate leads manually up to the tune of 10k a month.
They also tell you to only do coaching without running an online program, yet they are being contradictory again by running an online Program with coaching calls secondary.
Reminds me of a GaryVee quote, “Don’t copy what I say, watch what I do.” – And I’d advise you to do the same.
The People Making the Most Money Seem to be Private Students
One thing you’ll notice in the group is that there are clearly people in there who have paid more than the $2,500 – $3,500 fee and are getting extra material. There is a guy who hit 100k, which seemed legit. However, when he announced it and the coaches were replying they were referencing things not taught in the main course, like “setting calls” and other stuff. After I prompted one of the coaches with, “I missed the part in the course about doing ‘Setting Calls’,” I was informed that the guy who made the $100k was a private client.
For the main $2,500 – $3,500 course, it means that there is clearly information behind held back for private clients and/or within the upsell. From a business perspective, this makes sense as they need to retain clients and get as much money as they can, but for that price, it should all be included.
One example is that in the main course, people are taught to do free consultations and try to sell at the end of the call. However, some people have been taught another process, which obviously is more effective, including Setting calls, which is also what you get when signing up for Freedom Business Mentoring.
There are actually quite a lot of contradictions. Max will insist that nobody create content on their social media profiles or use paid advertising, YouTube channels, or Podcasts, yet it is clear that these are his own primary means of getting attention and leads.
While I can’t speak on it explicitly, I’m willing to bet that in the upsell, this is all taught. I also bet the upsell is $5,000+. I mean, they know you’ve already made 10K in order to be eligible for the upsell.
Max’s Instagram Testimonials Paint a Misleading Picture (Not That Many People are Getting Success)
The mark of a good course; online, college, or otherwise is predicated on one major KPI (key performance indicator). What is the pass rate?
I will say this, a lot of people landed clients. Even people you’d never imagine could have landed a client, but the amount of time and energy put into landing that one client? It seems as though you may as well keep your day job.
One guy who had been struggling and on many of the live calls landed a client and everyone was pleased. He was pleased, everyone was giving him props and he was in this mindset of, “I did it! I made it!”
Not really. He’d gotten one random person to buy coaching after MONTHS of trying, which he now needed to go and do again and again and again.
I jumped on one of the group calls last week and the same guy was there talking about how he had to get a new job. He looked dejected as Max yelled at him.
Zero accountability model. When was the last time Max went and got manual leads of Facebook and Reddit? hmmm. Never?
Conclusion
Thanks for reading this Full stack Coaching method review, or freedom business mentoring review (same thing). I know it’s quite long.
So what is my consensus?
Well for the price, it is not worth it. They are not teaching anything new under the sun. All that information is available on YouTube for free, so like many online courses, you’re not paying for the content itself as much as the fact they have packaged it all together for you.
The weekly coaching calls aren’t worth it either, so really you’re paying $2.5-$3.5k for a course that should be $297 – $597.
They employ gaslighting tactics like, “This course is set out in such a way that you need to follow it to a T and don’t run paid ads or do this or that.”
Um, except it isn’t though.
They clearly want you to follow their exact method because they fear that if you branch out or seek advice from others you might actually make money despite them. It’s also apparent by the way they put down other methods of making money online, which they have no experience with.
Even their method for generating leads manually was lacking (unless there is more in the upsell). There is much better lead generation training out there.
I actually ran ads straight away after the course and got solid leads.
Not saying you need to run ads, but the clients I’ve gotten have been mostly from a combination of better manual strategies than what they teach, as well as ads, which I learned to do from Social Media Marketing training.
Landing clients manually using the methods in Freedom Business Mentoring isn’t yielding high enough results for people in my opinion.
To call back to what I said at the beginning of this review, there are also other effective ways to monetize your passions and make money online. I’ve been making money online since 2015 in affiliate marketing, drop shipping, SMMA, and Consulting.
Is coaching a viable way to do it though? Yes, sure it is.
It’s also one of the most fulfilling ways especially if you like being client focused. But, can you make money in other ways also? Yes, of course! But, would I recommend paying $3,000 to learn how to do ANY of those things? No, I most definitely wouldn’t.
And, if you would be struggling to scrape together $2.5k-$3.5k, my final recommendation would be to not bend over backward to pay that exorbitant price tag.
If you do want to get into coaching or monetizing your passion in a way that suits YOU and learns a systemized and scalable client acquisition strategy, I’d recommend another program that will teach you this and more, with a very active and supportive community of people succeeding every single day.
And at 1.6% of the price of Freedom Business Mentoring.
Hate the idea of getting on the phone with people every week? You can still make good money and have freedom.
For some it’ll be affiliate marketing, for some it’s product creation, for some it’s freelancing and selling skills, and for others, it’s E-Commerce, which is still a strategy that works, despite the claims.
Click the button below and get started with The Real World and I’ll also throw in a free bonus bundle (details when you click the button), one of which is a coaching and consulting book that teaches you everything in Freedom Business Mentoring and more…
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Hey,
Thanks a ton for this review as i was planning to join the programm. Can you provide with the sales script they use in Freed on business mentoring program?
Hi there. Unfortunately, I’m not in the business of distributing pirated content. The scripts are not great anyway and actually contain a fair amount of unnatural, and even broken English. This book has better point A to point B scripts for opening on social and closing on phone.
Are you the author of this book?
The book is something I threw together throwing as much info about making money online as I could think of including MORE information on the coaching angle that FBM has in their course, and that’s simply because I dont do what FBM does, and charge an outrageous $3000 sum for a product that is incomplete just so I can take more of your money later with an upsell.
Hey , man . Thanks for this information . But wanted to know about the manual lead gen thing . Is it really worth it ? or how can I find those information in other program or online?
No. Not worth it. It’s a course of curated YouTube content packaged together. And not even the best info. EG: Winning International is a much better YouTube channel for coaching. Manual lead gen in the ways sugggested in the course (Sliding into DM’s of Facebook group members, reddit, etc) while possible, is a huge time sink. I actually signed up not for coaching but for the lead gen methods, so when I found out THAT was IT?!?! – I honestly laughed I was so annoyed and flabbergasted. Considering the course promises you a freedom lifestyle and freedom from a 9-5, it’s actually not even as good as a 9-5 for 99% of students in the course because even if you do get a lead, the time put into finding it, and then repeating that again and again, is how most of your waking hours will need to be spent.
Some students get 1 client here and there, but honestly, there is a lot of DM’ing going on amongst students complaining that it’s TOUGH and many dropping out while being blamed, even though it’s not their fault. This is another interesting fact about the FBM team. If they catch you communicating or making other groups/chats with other students, they ban you. Isn’t that ironic?
The excuse is that their system is so tailor made, and customized perfectly that by talking and getting advice from anywhere else will make it not work… More bullshit basically, which is how i’d sum up the entire FBM business, from the fake, non-transparent, “Limited spots” sales copy on the landing page, all the way through the final product.
As I said, this product plays on Goldrush theory, and is what I also call a “Theoretically sound, non accountability product.” Meaning theoretically the information makes sense, but in practise it doesn’t deliver to the degree it promises. This saves the creators ass because they can always focus on the theoretics and blame you for not trying hard while completely ignoring the only KPI worth mentioning. PASS RATE, which is probably in the 0.01% of students. The numbers prove this, like numbers prove everything.
Nobody is succeeding to the point of the promises. The course UNDER delivers and exaggerates wins with aggressive, non-transparent sales copy & tactics, which is the true sign of a turd.
As I said, they also take zero accountability for this as since the theory is technically sound, since SOMEONE has made money from it, they can just compare you to them, and say you’re not working hard enough. Playing on logical fallacies, knowingly. Not surprising from an Ex-PUA. Most of em Socipaths with good psychological know-how, but ultimately, if you know a little yourself, you see it for what it is. Cow dung. I can actually see Max has something wrong with him purely from his darting, side glancing eye contact, fake laugh and suppressed anger that shows itself on the live calls.
Get a second opinion on FBM and focus on non-biased reviews on reddit, not on Max’s own review YouTube or FBM’s private trustpilot site where they can actually moderate and delete bad reviews.
Well there goes that idea…
I was looking to check out this program (let’s just day it sparked my interest, and it was giving me an itch) but after what I’ve read here…it really doesn’t sound very appealing.
The team telling members not to run ads or create content, to “possibly upsell that info later”, is a real low-blow if you think about it.
Awesome review. Greatly appreciated
It’s dodgy. This review also used to rank number one on Google for their program, and I got a lot of messages, questions, and emails, obviously cost them a lot of money, and shortly after, they started fabricating their own reviews and my site was nuked or Ddos’d. One of the coaches on the program is a hacker/security guy, so… makes sense…
Low value company of scammers, “pick up artists,” and a hacker thrown in for good measure. All positions for sociopaths.
Thank you so much for this review. I was also considering this but this sounds very much like I was afraid it might be like. Too bad Max has turned into this greedy, unethical person while thinking “making money is a good thing”. He seems a little lost these days.
Yep greedy, unethical. Even nuked my site. Was never a good PUA, only ever a good scammer. Like most scammers, he will make money but that will be his ceiling. He will leave no lasting legacy on this earth. He’s not man enough.
Hey Chris,
Damn, he nuked your site? We’re you able to un-nuke it (if that’s even possible)? I guess that’s the standard RSD Style – anything that mentions them, let alone criticizes them silence and false copyright them – the good ‘ole Stalin way…
It makes me mad on this particular platform because it’s not one guy, it’s DOZENS of guys who BOUGHT the program and were dissatisfied, revealing their opinion.
Thank you for your review! I still think the course can be a good fit when somebody just want to get the first clients as soon as possible. The problem is that I don’t see any other options that offer such outcome in a confident way. Can you recommend an alternative for a fair price (on how to start getting first clients from scracth)? I need it for myself, I want to start an nutritional coach bussiness. And I mean I dont want to know just the theory, I want a program which explain step by step the process
I’ve been in the program for a little under a year now. No prior business experience, I got results, but I’m definitely not going to continue with it. They DO hold back information from you. Max, in his pickup artist days, always stressed the importance of “cold-aproach” which is comparable to “manual-lead gen”. Oohh booyy.
I was lured in from the get-go, and I shouldn’t have joined the program, I will say that, yes, it’s a program, not business coaching.
The one thing that I can take away from the course, however, is sales. Except their form of sales is over-aggressive and high pressure. That’s what they teach. If you follow the program, and actually get to know people and try to sell them, you will find out how to sell in your own style. No, you will not be able to close every “free-consulting call” you make with a lead. Yes, people will want to cancel their contracts after they have signed.
The program is not worth the $3000 I paid for it. I wish Max and his whole crew the best, but I wish they would just stop.
Great review! Cold approach you’re trying to get a number, it’s fairly effective. But approaching to get a few grand out of someone. An ineffective and time consuming strategy, one that they themselves do not, and have not ever used. I actually really only joined because I was curious about new lead-gen tactics, and when I found out what it was, it was mind-blown. Ridiculous.
You have any recommendations where to find relieves on good lead gen and sales? Thanks
I joined the program in 2019 – Here are some of my thoughts:
-Scarcity tactic BS “We only have a few spots left” LOL! They added over a hundred members just a month after I joined, and many more hundred in the months after that
-His team of ‘experts’… LOL! Does he mean his team of the guys who barely seem like they’ve come out of puberty? And the guy I had my main sales call with, I’m fairly sure the guy referring me to him blatantly lied that he has ‘ran many businesses’… it was a mere authority/value strategy to make me feel ‘privileged’ to be on a call… where I lose $3k and they gain it XD
-The program is like a factory – they shuffle as many people in as they can, and you’re assigned coaches who answer your questions in the facebook group. It is not a very individualized group, like a mastermind.
-IMO they are not qualified to also put in ‘service providing’ (they also teach that) – the program is focused on creating coaches/consultants, and they threw that in there figuring service providers get on sales calls too, so we’ll get a bigger demographic in also
-Few people get results. The ones who get results are exalted, highlighted, and cheered on. The ones who don’t (most people), are muffled under the surface and kept silent in the ever-increasing 1000+ crowd of the group.
-Another that I just had to get out is, he is basically teaching people with zero experience to be coaches – that is to get other people to pay them thousands of dollars to someone who really doesn’t know that the fuck they are talking about. They’re just falling for an authoritative frame that promises hope and change in their life.
-Here is the program, I’ll summarize it very briefly, and you can just look up on the internet how to do it.
1. You choose an online service (or a topic of coaching/consulting)
2. You choose a specific target audiance/demographic
3. You cold DM a sh*t ton of people online (Linkedin, Insta, Facebook, reddit), ask them their struggle in their businesses
4. You create a pitch that promises to solve it
5. You again cold DM a shit ton of people
6. You book sales calls with them
7. You close them with sales techniques (You can find ANYWHERE on the internet)
8. You made your sale – now repeat from step 1
Pretty much summed it up perfectly. Thanks for sharing!
you said that there are people getting results on the program. So I want to ask you this…
why are they getting results and you aren’t? what’s holding you back from getting results?
plus on the phone calls, I never saw an overcrowded session with 100 people.
there is no logic to withhold information from you because if you are getting the results that you want, you will be glad to continue being in their program, so why would they do that, it doesn’t make sense. they want you to have great results because you will be happy to be their long term client.
In the FB group, there are a lot of closes and they are happy, I don’t see any complaints about something. there is struggle nothing GOOD in life is easy. if you were getting your questions answered why wore you not getting results. What have you learned from your mistakes? it easy to blame someone else. instead of blaming someone else, focus on how to actually do it, and grow your business. you are saying about accountability? if you want it you would take action and not look around and be discouraged about the other people in the program. you said that the content is good that you were getting your questions answered I don’t see any problem here.
A few students not getting results is arguably evidence that it is the problem with the student. The vast majority of people not getting results is evidence of a problem with the material. This is how every other institute in the education market is reviewed. It is the ONLY KPI worth looking at. FBM UNDER delivers. The VAST majority of students don’t succeed in a way that is marketed.
With regards to the logic of withholding information. This is prevalent in 99% of info products. The logic is so more information can be sold in an up-sell, which does exist in FBM in the very last module for after you’ve made 10k They attempt to take 8k of that back off you. I’ve had emails sent from those who did the advanced training and said it wasn’t worth it as well.
Of course they WANT you to have good results, but the fact is they just haven’t put together a good enough program which is getting good results. So the owness is on them to make it better (If they actually care). The truth is, they haven’t. I was in close contact with many people on the course. Despite FBM not allowing people to communicate in seperate groups etc, there still is a lot of communication going on, naturally. While some people close, they close after WEEKS of effort. This is not the freedom business that is promised. WEEKS of effort to make a 2k close, isn’t freedom. You can work less hours in McDonalds and make that money.
If you don’t see any problem, you may not have read the posts or comments. Maybe i can upload emails and messages i constantly get, basically saying, “You’re right.”
There are problems all the way from the top of the funnel shady marketing tactics, hard selling calls, all the way down to the bottom end product…. and again, the most important factor, “Pass Rate.”
In a course called Freedom Business, I conclude the Pass rate to be, MOST students have quit their job, are location independant and have a FREEDOM Business. The fact is, barely anyone has that.
These are the facts.
Thanks a lot Chris, i was going to join the program, thanks for your honesty.
Hi Chris, I’m just wondering if you requested for a refund? And if you did how did you do it?
No. Like most scammy, non-transparent companies, they do not offer refunds.
Is there a way to get your money back somehow, even if you signed the contract? Do you think there’s a chance the bank will help me, or if it’s worthwhile pursuing this legally? I had 9k in savings, they got 7490 out of me, I’ve asked for a refund and I only got anger and blaming as a response…
Hey there. Sorry to hear about your experience. The reason they respond that way is because it’s a scam and they don’t care about you at all. A viable company would just pay you back. Their contracts do not override law, but having said that I’m unsure of a the process of getting an international refund from the Ukraine. I do remember they used copecart.com to process payments, so maybe you could contact them or your credit card company.
Well, if you take a careful look at the website, you will notice, that his company The GG Influencing Central Ltd. is not located in the Ukraine, but Cyprus based… can it get any scammier…?
Hey Chris,
really appreciate your stuff! Keep up the good and honest work.
Still I got some questions you hopefully can answer
1.) Where are all the “failed clients”?
If there are so many clients that aren’t making money, wasted months of work and paid 3k for nothing, some of then would cerainly spread hate on his IG, YouTube, on Reddit or somewhere else and they surely would destroy the Rating portals. Some guys would maybe try to sue him etc.
2.) If it’s just a really good scam, why aren’t the some fooled ones trying to personally insult him or his family, as he leaked his real Name, his fathers IG- Account, shows vidoes of his Location in Kiev etc.
Considering that his programm doesn’t work for 90%, he at least crushed the dreams of hundreds of people. (900+ at least, I estimate).
Imagine the rage of losing most of your spendings ( like 1-2months worth of honest 9-5 work), the several months put in the programm and on top of that having all your dreams of money and freedom being crushed.
Sooner or later some fooled soul would show up in person, threaten his family, etc.
How can it be, that his business is existing for about 2 years now, if its not doing what it promises?
These are my last bricks left for solving the FBM- Riddle.
Maybe you know the answers to these questions Chris! Gave up the virginity of my email adress for this post 😉
1) There are two main reasons Most people don’t get on YouTube or IG face to camera and start launching their opinions. Most people are simply too embarrassed to do this. Most people just aren’t comfortable talking on camera and putting it out on the Internet, especially on their Social Media. Who is going to jump on their IG (which their family likely follows) and start ranting about some course they bought that failed. It makes them look bad, because they know most peoples preconceived notions about buying into “make money” training.
The second reason is that it’s pointless for the most part. Because FBM is garbage, and they take no responsibility for the weak program they’ve built with low pass-rate, they have a no-refund policy, which has to be digitally signed. People who have confidence in their product offer refunds. Even most Gurus, Tai Lopez etc offer refunds. As far as suing someone in the Ukraine goes, it would be too expensive and drawn out to even bother with.
As for the “Rating portals,” the only rating portals I see are Max’s Review channel. No bias there, I’m sure {/endsarcasm}, and TrustPilot, which is controlled by FBM. I left a review on trust pilot, and had it rejected. On Reddit, there are people giving the exact same review as I am. So, they’re definitely out there.
2. Why would someone who knowingly signed a contract and paid money go after someones family or place of work? That takes a certain type of psychopath, not to mention again, most students (if any) aren’t living in the Ukraine. What do you expect to happen? Someone to book a flight over to Ukraine, run into the office and knee-cap everyone like some Guy Ritchie movie? Nobody is going to do that. People who sign up for this kind of shit aren’t gangsters. They’re people who have been ‘gamed’, and pulled into a Frame of “Succeed or you’re a loser, and it’s all on you.” and they’ve bought into it hook, line, and sinker.
Why is it the students fault? Just because Max says it is? My argument of “The program sucks,” is equally, actually more valid than that argument. It’s just some guy saying something, and others buying into that frame. This doesn’t correlate to truth. I never said the FBM team wasn’t good at sales and persuasion.
His business has existed for 2 years due to to a basic sales truancy, “There’s a new one born every minute.” There will always be people to sell to, no matter what you do. I still have people on my FB that I talk to once in a while from FBM, most have simply moved on, a few are still busting their ass with 1-2 sales in 6 months. That’s not a freedom business.
Thats what I call a fast deliverd, sound and extensive answer!
Again thanks a lot Chris.
The truth kinda hurts.
Only good and honest products that really help people should be long term successful -instead of overpriced and empty products selled by clever marketing and hardcore sale tactics!
People like you are important, regaining the trust into online products, thus there are good and helpful products out there.
I remember you, I think you did coaching for women in relationships. I don’t think you made a sale. Yes, it’s a unique process but what’s the alternative?
Personally, I think it’s a poor mans Sam Ovens course, but I’ve found the course to be helpful and the FB group alone is worth a lot of money. Considering I’m still it after 9 months, I think it’s good value. I take responsibility for my growth and what I’ve done so far hasn’t been good enough to yield the higher returns, but the coaches have been patient with me. I don’t think it’s a scam but there’s definitely upsell and glamorisation of the process.
Appreciate the low-key dig there. Gave me a chuckle. Didn’t make a sale? I make multiple sales every single day. If it’s coaching you’re referring to, I’ve coached exactly 44 people, between 10/2019 and 4/2020. Entirely from ads. I remember the YouTube channel Winning International helped a lot. No association, just much better content than FBM. As I stated earlier, I got into FBM for the lead-generation strategies, not the skill of coaching or choosing a niche etc. Those are all business basics.
This review has actually also yielded a fair few emails of people asking me if I do coaching, which I decline. Truth is I don’t really like coaching. It’s still leaning too much towards exchanging time for money, and I’ve made more off literally anything else I’ve tried with way less effort, including e-commerce, which Max says sucks, even though he’s never done it lol
I’m playing chess, not checkers.
I’m glad you find value in paying a few grand to be in a Facebook group. But, I’m curious, how do you derive value? From how good you feel when you read a good tip or how many closes you make? How many have you closed in 9 months? An fun exercise would be figure out how much money you make and devide it by the hours you spend in FB groups etc doing manual lead generation. If you’re using manual lead generation, the problem is not you, it’s the material. Max never did it and you shouldn’t either.
“Don’t watch watch what they say, watch what they do.”
– “Get manual leads” – Gets leads off of personal brand & advertising
– “Don’t focus on brand” – Focuses on heavily on content creation and brand
– “Don’t use ads” _ They use ads.
– “Don’t get into podcasting” – They make a podcast
It takes me back to the first call I had with Nico and I asked him the very simple question, “Do you do the program?” He was like, “What do you mean?” I said, “It sounds like a such a great program, why aren’t you doing it?” …”err ugh errr erumm umm umm well cos I work here.”
Funny, hey?
The coaches are patient with you? That’s nice of them. But, ever thought you might just be in a hamster wheel?
Your book caught my attention. Explain a little more about it please. Will I learn to generate leads for my coaching business through a blog? What specific topics do you address?
That’s in there, yes.
As an experienced salesman, I did go through their selling process. Their free calls gave me a direct overview of their professionalism. In my opinion the guys on the phone was far from being a good salesman. As I was not convinced by the first impression, I didn’t pay for the program. The guys insulted me at the end because he was disappointed to not close the sales.
Common occurrence. A lot of the team there seem like little Gremlin versions of Max, trying to mimic his mannerisms and “pretend-alpha” attitude because they lack any of their own actual identity.
That is great!! In the book’s specifications on Amazon, it says it’s only 37 pages long, is that correct? I’m inclined to buy, but a 37-page book gives me the impression that everything will be very superficial.
go and buy it.
it s only 25$
see my other comment 🙂
CHRIS I LOVE YOU !! :D:D:D
What do i mean :))
Well, i bought your book after a couple of days of deciding of doing it or not. I kept telling to myself that it is just another book from amazon. But you convinced me with this review and the description from the amazon.. big thumbs up ????????????
but, i have a question
I want to do coaching, this is why i was interested in FBM, cause i like communication, and people, and talking and so on…
you mentioned earlier that you made clients from ads for coaching. could you elaborate a bit? i did not see that in the book, or was i blind? 😀
(btw, for those who are writing these comments, go and buy the book – it IS worth it, trust me )
and is your fb group still active? my request is still pending..
anyways,
thank you for your help!!!!
cs
Hey man, thanks for the shoutout. Appreciate it. You should check out the channel Winning International (no association) – He talks about coaching and has a lot of good info that’ll tie in with my book well. Here is one video on leads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akagtO3ezpE
Chris, thanks for all the information, really mind blowing.
And pretty obvious when you think about it to…. How can they teach manual lead gen if they don´t do it.
Gonna check your book and the so called “Winning International”.
Truth is, most information is free on the internet.
The only motive for me buying FBMP was if it was extremely tailored for me and with 1o1 calls every week ans looks like it isnst the case.
Thank you again
Excellent, excellent article!
I am certain there are more good people like you out there than unethical scammers. You are a testament to the ones who raised you.
I’ve seen their articles like yours and warnings everywhere.
You’re not alone—and I believe you and so many others, have started an ethical movement so large that will put scammers out of business.
There’s a YouTube video of scam artist Max Trubitski of Max Course being interviewed with numerous comments by many below the interview URGING others NOT to invest $$ in his program.
You can also tell by the depressing background interior of his room and home that he is not living the “dream.”
Here is the link of the interview which could also be a set up to make him look good.
https://youtu.be/Ij0krW1mj6w
People need to do research and background checks before signing up. For every unethical program there is at least one article warning against it.
Again—GREAT ARTICLE! Keep up the insightful reporting and exposing!
Please create a Youtube video highlighting your experiences with Max Tornow’s scam. Thousands, if not millions of people would benefit from it
First of all I want to say I didn’t get to the point of buying any of his products. I was very interested though, because I’ve been following him since the RSD days, where he seemed to know what he’s talking about.
Anyways…
The thing that changed my mind was the TWO consulting calls I had with one of his employees in 2019.
The first call I had (which was scheduled and expected to happen) was very AGGRESSIVE and very intrusive from their side, with questions of how much I earn and how much I’m willing to invest in myself, with carefully constructed phrases to guilt-trip me into buying. I mean, it was just awful. I’m not delusional; I know that EVERY salesman operates from a script. But this was next-level BAD and unrefined. The entire script he was using was so obviously manipulative, which rang the alarms inside me. I just had this bad gut feeling and I told him I don’t have the money right now, in order to make him stop the conversation and leave me alone.
NOTE: In the meantime, I checked out this review and other reviews online, and my concerns were confirmed. So thank you for sharing your experience!
A month and a half later, a Las Vegas number starts calling me, and I rejected it because I was working. The number called again immediately and I rejected it again. The number calls AGAIN and I got pissed off, so I answered. It was another guy from Max’s company. Again, same aggressive selling, same script, same guilt tripping (“Oh, you see? You have to work that lousy 9-5 job for the rest of your fuckin’ life. When are you going to do yourself a favour?”)
I tried to be as polite as I could, explaining that I want to opt out of further calls and emails because I found my dream mentorship, and the guy simply did not let go — like a pit bull — and continued to try to guilt-trip me. Dude, what the fuck! Leave me alone. So yeah, I kindly asked them to remove me from everything.
NOTE: They are based in Ukraine. And the very fact that they have a number calling from LAS VEGAS, is a HUGE HUGE HUGE red flag to begin with.
…
The story doesn’t end here.
Fast forward a year and a half later (early September 2020), the same Las Vegas number calls me AGAIN! I knew who it was, so I quickly googled the time in Las Vegas, and it said around 04am!!! This time I was pissed off so I didn’t hold back in telling the guy that I opted out and to stop harrassing me. And he kept on talking over me, reading from his script, again guilt-tripping me. It was so bizarre and infuriating.
I repeated the “dream mentorship” thing, and he told me I was still working for a boss, and that I’m probably not cut out to be an entrepeneuer and have my own business. He even cut me short when I told him he’s not listening to what I’m saying because he’s too focused on his script. So the call ended prematurely from his side. I called him on his bullshit, and he lost the frame. Shitty salesman.
So, yeah… RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE. Fraudsters 100% who don’t give a shit whether you make it or not. They just want your money.
In conclusion: I blocked their number. If they try to harrass me again, I’ll try and sue them.
…
PS: To Max, or to whoever from the company reading this: Just fuck off. You’re probably the worst of the worst.
Thanks for sharing that. Coaching isn’t even a good thing to get into for a lot of people. At the end of the day, it’s still trading time for money – and FBM in and of itself is not a coaching program, its’ a digital product with a live-call add-on, posing as personal coaching. It’s worth 200 bucks maybe, a going rate for digital products. Not 3 grand. Thanks again, and best of luck with your mentorship!
Haha, thank you so much for creating this and confirming my beliefs!
I’ll go out there and find some better coaching programs.
I do think getting mentors and coaches is super important if you want to grow fast, but it’s tough that so many people and companies are underdelivering like this.
Again, thanks!
Mentors are important. My advice is if you want to find a way to make money and be location independent, online etc, choose any one of the staples. Affiliate marketing, Ecom, Consulting, Agencies. They all work if you keep pushing with one and don’t get side-tracked, and there are many good mentors for each. It’s a pitty you found a bad program that just wants your money.
Best of luck going forward.
Pretty! This has been an extremely wonderful post.
Many thanks for providing these details.
Hey man, I appreciate the content. I’ve enjoyed my time on FBM but it’s largely been frustrating and stressful. In over a year I’ve only managed a few closes and I’m now in a much worse position financially since joining the program last year. They’ve also got really aggressive with upselling recently and have thrown myself and 300 others out of group and want us to pay a subscription to stay in for help. I’m a little bit at a loss, and really worried now as I feel they’ve left me out to dry. Do you recommend doing ads based on the language and pain points exercises they got us to do and testing the responses?
I get so many emails like this man. Sorry to hear about your experience. More blog posts are actually popping up all over the place, so it’s good to know they’re losing money due to these honest reviews.
Ads are an experiment in and of themselves – This holds true with ecommerce and anything else. I would start experimenting with them however and testing with low budget and maturing your pixel (if you go with facebook)
I’d browse youtube for running ads to find clients. I like this guys videos (No affiliation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tclc9Zg7kJA – But, there’s lots of good info out there.
Max and his team are liars at the end of the day. The biggest scam they teach is: “Our program is so customized that by straying from the exact model will mean it wont work at all” – Bullshit. They’re not teaching anything high level, and no business in their right mind would stop themselves from paying for traffic “Just because.” You as a coach are a business after all. You should market in a way that works, like any business.
Sorry you had a bad experience. But it’s an ex-Pickup artist, right? That has sociopath written all over it. Remember, those that can’t do, teach. He’s coaching coaching, just like his german mentor did. If you want to make money, maybe do the same. Coach coaches to be coaches.
I’ve read that there is a lawsuit coming up against this guy by some ex-clients who were duped in the dream of becoming financially free, living the lavish lifestyle, and getting rid of the 9 to 5. I have the programme, and it amazes me how Max claims that you should not enter FBM when you are just intending on earning a quick buck, while most of the assignments in the course are related to the lavish lifestyle. For example, there is one assignment in which you have to contrast the ‘winner’ you versus the ‘loser’ you. Another assignment requires you to portray your ideal day routine. The example just included self-help stuff, such as meditating, cold showers, gym, et cetera. It even said have sex with your beautiful girlfriend before dinner. What does having sex with a beautiful girl have to do with becoming a successful online coach? The answer is that they are selling you a dream they cannot deliver unless you are skilled and intelligent enough to figure it out on your own.
I almost fell for Max his operation back in January, when I found out that Max “Berger” reappeared on YouTube under the name of Max Tornow. After that, I discovered that this new channel was entirely dedicated to business. Went to his website, thought to give it a chance after seeing many videos on this channel. Lucky for me, the “”consultation”” (LMAO) call completely woke me up. The guy, whose name was John Fisher, who was calling from Las Vegas, NV (thought Max and his team were in Kyiv, Ukraine), asked some very generic questions such as: “where do you know Max from” (RSD ofcourse), and “what niche are you thinking about”. The biggest leap of phone call was him trying to figure out how much money I had. When I told him I did not want to invest €3.000 in the programme, he went on an entire rampage calling me out for being lazy, for not willing to invest in “myself”, for being a sheep, basically. He told me to get a job, work hard and pay him €3.000 as soon as I got the money. At that moment I realized they were not interested in me, my future coaching businesss or in helping people to overcome their problems. It was a sales call masked as a consultation call.
Fortunately, I managed to download the entire course for free thanks to an anonymous person from Azerbaijan who just wanted me to watch two advertisements, so he earns a little money. Went through it and realized what garbage it was for the price of €3.000. Basically, anyone without business knowledge, skills or experience could set up such a course. I felt so much shame that I was almost duped by these people, that I just ignored the entire thing until July, when I found Reddit posts about his scam operation. Learned some very interesting stuff about Max and his course, and ofcourse from your review, so my gratitude for that.
Used to be a fan of RSD, watched content of coaches like Max, Julien, Tyler, Luke. To be honest, Max and Julien are probably the least worst of them all, the latter now posing as the holy Messiah who is saving young, gullible boys and girls from their childhood traumas. Well, two thousand years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, these youngsters are now screaming “FATHER J, FATHER J, FATHER J” as the one and holy Julien Christ enters the stage.
Furthermore, I did not see anything written about the many reviews Max posts on YouTube and Trustpilot of ‘satisfied’ clients of his who are earning thousands of dollars through their coaching business. However, recently I learned that Derek Moneyberg, formerly known as RSDDerek, whose real name is Dale Buczkowski, forces clients of his in his business mentorship course, as one of the assignments, to write a review, even though they did not even complete the course or make any money yet. I suspect Max of doing the same thing, as Derek Moneyberg seems to have copied from Dan Peña, Sam Ovens and Max Tornow.
Lastly, it bothers me that some of the famous guru busters out there, like Coffeezilla and especially Spencer Cornelia do not want to expose this scam. In fact, Spencer Cornelia did a review, basically sucking Max his dick and saying “well, some people claim they have success from the programme, so it is not a scam!” Like yeah, there are clients from Dan Lok and Kevin David who earn money, yet they are scammers. Hopefully they will realize that they should not limit themselves to the obvious scams out there, but also well-liked people like Max.
This former client also did a review on FBM, basically saying it is a scam.
https://freedombusinessmentoringreview.com/
Thanks for taking the time to write that out man. It’s going to help a lot of people out – Agree 100% with the entire thing. All of the trustpilot reviews are owned by FBM, and they are allowed to approve review, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. All of the YouTube videos are also from FBM, and came out about a month after this blog post no doubt in attempt to outrank me. Safe to say they failed at that. I also saw https://freedombusinessmentoringreview.com – and it was spot on.
Hey Chris ! Such a great book you published on amazon ! Highly recommended! Im a 35yrs old french guy that was interested into joining the FBM program just as I was super curious about what they called the “manual lead generation”. And as I got into the “Free consultation call” with a guy/robot Nico, I was already having an example of pushy manual lead gen. The guy was reading a script, period. 3 times he asked me “so how exactly do you earn per month”? I told him “listen Nico, I do have my own company for 10 years so there is a lot of my earnings that are company expenses like flight tickets, restaurants etc…So I can’t tell you exactly how much I got every month but I’m doing very well” His answer : “Euhhh ok but how much exactly ?” What a teenager reaction seriously.
They are good at one specific thing: making sure they pivot the power from you to them (sorry for my broken English) in other words YOU MUST BE HAPPY TO BE SELECTED FROM THEM and not the other way around. It’s like going into a fitness shop and being rejected by the sales manager because you may not physically fit for the dumbells you wish to buy!
No one rejects 3k income, No one. Everyone is accepted in their program that is all. I live in eastern Europe for 10 years and I have been to Ukraine a dozen times, there, the average salary is around 250 euros a month, so the reason they are in Kyiev is definitely because NO ONE CAN SUE an Ukrainian company from Europe or america. If you know how Ukrainian courts work you will probably rethink USA is paradise on earth. Be aware and get legit Infos/reviews like Chris gave here and think twice before buying any program online. Have a great day !
Thank you man. I appreciate the positive feedback. My book includes everything in FBM, and more to be honest.
Nico is who I spoke with and was definitely socially deficient. He was the guy I asked “If it’s so good, why aren’t you on the course and quitting your job?” – No answer. It’s all just amateur cognitive bias tripping and reframing. Not even done well actually, which makes the call even that more annoying because you can smell the BS a mile off.
Yes – Nobody is turning any money down. Their business model operates on a funnel of leads and buyers. They all need to be paid, so theres no way they are cutting off sales. That lie is laughable at best.
Dear Chris, first of all thank you for your honest opinion on this course. Secondly, it is very astonishing to see it actually worked out for you by running ads instead. I would love to be an active service/coaching provider in the language field (german coaching). Do you have any tips/hints regarding the ads I should run and how? I really would love to coach people in learning conversational german online, as this is/was my passion offline till Covid19. Is there a way to get in contact with you, I would like to have a “free consultation call” with you 😀 Jokes aside, it would be totally awesome to chat with you for even 2 minutes about this!
Thanks for stopping by man – I got your email too but hadn’t go around to responding, so ill just respond here, so maybe others can get something from it.
Ads are about testing, but off the top of my head, if I were you, I would go into Facebook ads dashboard and Google adwords dashboard and look at audience insights and play around with how to set ads up. See what audiences are out there. Spend a good hour or so seeing what you can do.
Then test ads with different targeting. You could do keyword ads: “best way to learn german” – “how to learn german fast” – “Best courses on learning german” – “german coaching” – “Private german lessons” – Test ads and review conversions. Target these keywords even IN Germany, maybe you’ll get people living there who want to learn, which maybe also = urgency (good for you).
You could also do placement ads: Find youtube videos about best ways to learn german and put instream ads over the top of about 50 of them
Don’t forget to enter Negative keywords like people searching “free german lessons” or anything with free. You don’t want to be targeting those people as its a waste of ad spend.
A good staple way to capture this audience is to send them to a squeeze page with a free product lead magnet and an email optin. Your free lead magnet product/vdeo/pdf etc should give some overarching advice, but lead them to booking a call. Most of it should be WHAT to do, not exactly HOW to do it. Warm them up and then using your autoresponder like Getresponse, setup an automated email sequence to send them to a call booking page.
What you have at play here is: trust, authority, reciprocity bias, commitment consistency bias at play in your audience providing you look professional throughout (your ads, landing pages etc)
You’ll still need to sell on the phone though, so the end goal is to capture the traffic to email, and funnel them to that free discovery call booking.
Why isn’t this taught on FBM? because then you’d figure things out for yourself and not need their upsell. 🙂
First of all, thank you man! These are some real valuable infos right there, I really appreciate it and hope that more and more people will find your page, you have a great mindest. It’s always good to know that there are some honest and helpful people out there. So, thanks again, you’re amazing! I already subscribed your yt channel and website too.
It’s funny to know that the info you wrote about ads here is an upsell in the course, like wtf? This should be included right away.
The only thing I am worried about is the pricing. What kind of pricing system should one implement for a coaching and btw what did you coach man?
Hey Chris, I can’t thank you enough for this review. I’m 18 and certainly don’t have 2.5k + in my bank. I was seriously considering FBM program.
Well not anymore.
I can’t believe I almost fell for what Max Tornow is selling.
So your book has the same material and more of than the program?
I’m a complete newbie to it all and would appreciate some feedback.
Also, are you teaching this online? Like a step by step program?
Thanks, Pat
Thanks for checking it out – happy to help!
I’d say per dollar value my book has about 2000% more value than the course, yes. At least.
Hahaha gotta say man, you’ve summed it up really well.
I’ve had an interesting experience, because I’ve been in the FBM program and actually had good results from it, and created a successful business using aspects of the program. But ironically I still agree and resonated with every line of your review lol
I couldn’t shake the feeling that the program was semi decent/semi bullshit throughout my learning experience.
I’d say, the Calls were good as long as i had a precise question ready every-time and posted it as soon as the call started, the course content was ok/good (though i laughed at how the BIG secret was Max just teaching you what he does haha) but the FB group was a waste of time, feedback always came 24 hours afters, if at all.
Also, i just felt uncomfortable being a “Shark” on the “free consultations” they get you doing. Now in my current business I still do the free consultation tactic, but I actually give a decent, value-giving, consultation before pitching, and i don’t go crazy on the objection handling. Maybe my close rate is 10-15% lower without getting random dudes to sell their car and dog, but I feel good about what I do =)
Anyway, nice job man, will probs check out your book to “keep the axe sharp” 😉
Hey Sam,
I agree with what you say. Even if someone gets results in the program, it still is only from like 5% of the program. Also, the results you (or someone) gets isn’t necessarily applicable to someone in a different niche yet they blow it up in their marketing.
The whole program is just Max and his sharks planning to milk you every step of the way (even after you make your first 10k). What pisses me off the most is the self justifications and rationalizations they have for being sharks and lying marketers and bullying sales guys, where they actually think they are good people, living in their little bubble, and silencing all the complaints/negative reviews about themselves attempting to shove it under the rug.
This is what I noticed as well from reading a ton of reviews. I was thinking at first to apply for a job at their company. But after reading all of this, I may need to reconsider that..
Really well written review. I have been following Max since he was a dating coach in RSD. I eventually wanted to become some kind of coach myself some day. However, I slowly realised that the PUA community was flawed and not really a way to live life. I looked up this Freedom business mentoring with max and it seemed to have the answer to how to become a coach and more knowledgable in marketing, coaching and sales. I also saw that they hire people, but after reading a ton of reviews that basically says the same thing, that his salesteam is pressuring people and that the culture seems to be negative. I presume that you would recommend people to stay away from working for him as well? It’s really easy to fall for the marketing while you visit his youtube page and his instagram.
Hi Chris
Firstly, this is a fair review of FBM given my first-hand experience. I’ve read every single comment underneath your post, and I am impressed by your writing. It’s very clear, incisive and in the case of FBM, spot-on.
Secondly, as a former mentee on the program, and having traipsed the darkest corners of the internet reading repeated, almost 1-2-1 identical testimony to this, I can add my voice to the chorus of disappointment and outrage over the shady, unscrupulous BS this course clearly is.
However, events are still evolving as to my own involvement with the program, even 10 months after I left. I’ll try to break down my story here as I think it really will add a postscript to the FBM story. Trust me, there is a plot twist at the end that I’m still trying to wrap my head around and it involves contact from Max himself (if you can forgive the clickbait. Stick around until the end folks. I’ll try to make this as short as possible).
I joined FBM a year ago (March 2020) and it’s been a year of trying to untangle the messy strands of it all, the fallout of which I’m still dealing with. Like I said above, I went through the same frustrations as everyone else. I tried my best to make FBM work but was treated poorly, ignored, fobbed-off and bullshitted. After 2-3 months of which I realised these people were basically running a pyramid scheme, and teaching people to be vampires like them. It was a scam. So, I decided to get the hell out of there quickly.
Anyway, after being threatened with legal action (by my sales rep guy) for cancelling my direct debit and leaving the course, I then blocked anyone and everyone involved with the course. I’d clearly gotten burned by my first foray into the world of business entrepreneurship but wanted nothing to do with these scammers ever again. I moved on having learned some valuable lessons the hard way.
Around 8 months went by and I started to notice videos in my feed by channels like Coffeezilla/Spencer Cornelia et al. I soon realised there was a wave of ‘fake guru’ content springing up all over the net. As it’s become clear there was a kind of #metoo backlash going on with hundreds of people putting their shame aside to ‘out’ these crooks. This prompted me to get on Trustpilot and leave a detailed, scathing review of my own FBM experience (I went through the verification process and my review is still there today btw).
(Sidebar: at that time there were other negative reviewers on Trustpilot who Max actually replied to. He would highlight how they failed to execute etc and how they did well in the beginning and got some results but gave up. One thing was nearly ubiquitous, he always emphasised concern for their mental health and asked them to seek ‘medical help’, and that “FBM’s door was always open” etc. This was obviously a tactic to undermine their testimony in the eyes of other potential customers and to gaslight the former-fanboys into doubting themselves. Remember this detail as it comes up later)
I’d also found numerous YT videos specifically on Max himself, under which I left my story in the comments, written up in detail for maximum effect, hoping to deter other potential victims from their shady practices. At this point, I felt so vindicated and assured on the one hand, but full of indignation and regret on the other. I had to do something. For a week or two, everywhere I found a reference to FBM or Max online I left a lengthy comment. As it turned out many people had the exact same treatment and had done the same, often accompanied by sock puppet comments running counter-signalling for FBM. “You clearly did not execute on the course. You’re just a bitter loser etc”.
After a while of me doing this, I slowly started to get messages from FBM reps trying to reach me on my email and my social media DM’s, saying that they had seen my posts and wanted to talk about my experience, feigning concern and an open willingness to listen etc. I ignored/blocked all of them knowing this was a rouse to get me back on-side and suppress my whistleblowing. Sometimes, I’d even get phone calls from strange numbers in mainland Europe. I ignored, blocked again. This happened a handful of times. These guys were clearly spooked.
But, the absolute strangest one was a voicemail using an automatic text-to-speech software, warning, in a male, robotic voice: “If in case you don’t press one and your call is not connected to us then the warrant will be issued under your name straight away and you will get arrested shortly”. Nothing else. Just that. I tried to trace the call. No joy. “Hmmm”, I thought. I wrote down the voicemail word-for-word (I couldn’t get it to record it on an app for some reason and voicemail expires so this is one you’ll have to take my word for, unfortunately)
Now, we are living in strange times, with all kinds of data scams going on. But, the timing of this message was too uncanny. If it was Max’s team trying to intimidate me as a last resort, it was laughable. But, it did fuck with my head, obviously. I was left wondering just how desperate and shady FBM was that such a lame, creepy tactic was needed in chasing down the poor saps it might work on. Who were they letting on the program that this would ever work? Clearly, it must have at some point.
Either way, this was getting stranger by the day.
At this point, after putting hard walls up at every turn I started to think they were finally giving up on chasing me down for the money. After all, I had signed a digital contract and at the time I thought this might hold some power. After reading this blog I’ve seen that is not the case. The money was not their target. They were likely simply trying to mitigate the negative backlash befalling their reputation. Either case being true, I kept that wall up and kept an eye on their Trustpilot page and any videos online that echoed the sentiments here and elsewhere.
Eventually, I stopped caring and went on with my life.
So, 2 months after this, around a week ago I started to get more calls from unknown numbers again, only this time it was two different UK numbers. I text back, “who is this?”. No reply. Weird. Then, two nights ago I got a call from Belfast, Ireland. I ignore it. It rings again and this time I say fuck it. I’m picking it up!
“…Hi, It’s Max from Freedom Business Mentoring. Is this James?”.
I paused. Took a breath and said, “Hi, Max. It is. We should talk”.
Now, at this juncture, it’s worth pointing out that I had NEVER spoken to Max before. Through all the years of watching his dating content, watching his business channel, taking his advice to heart, fanboying a bit, being on FBM, here I was getting a personal phone call from Max himself – only I’m no longer an uneasy target. I’ve read my Robert Cialdini, I’ve isolated every trick they pulled and I’m no longer impressed by senpai. If anything there’s a bit of pity from my end.
At that moment, I expected one of 3 things to happen. Either…
1) Max would say where is my money? We made a contract
2) Sorry you had a bad experience, yada yada let’s get you back in the programme/sales funnel
3) Let me charm you out of all the bad reviews you’ve been leaving everywhere by pretending to be best mates
The 20-minute conversation was more a mixture of 2 and 3.
Next, I asked Max why he called me. He said he “wanted to make things right”. I said, “Okay, let’s talk. You obviously have read my comments online”. He said, “Tell me what your concerns are”.
I calmly and respectfully took the liberty to call him out on everything shady, manipulative and dodgy his company does. I mentioned the pushy sales, rudeness, the palming-off and neglect, the saturated outmoded lead-gen, the unviable niche, my total disbelief in his methods, but most of all I told him at length that his attempts at gaslighting in the Trustpilot reviews were outright unethical at best, glaringly immoral at worst and he should stop doing it. I told him he was NOT a mental health professional and should NEVER divulge personal information in a public forum, least of all people’s emotional state. It just does not play well with people. I said, “mental health affects my family, friends, and myself. It affects everyone, even you” I said. “Everyone is trying to dig themselves out from under in some capacity. What you did was highly manipulative”
I really did take that stuff to heart having lost friends to suicide.
He tried to explain things by saying that he just wanted to help the clients, repeating the now cliche PUA mantra “I just want to leave people better than I found them”. Eventually, as I explained his moral failure to him on the mental health thing, he apologised, “You’re right. You’re right. I see how I’ve fucked up here. And, I’ll get everything changed on Trustpilot asap” He was very repentant. Weirdly so. But, right now mental health is such a high profile concern. How could the great Max RSD have such a gaping blind spot?
He denied any knowledge of that weird voicemail, as well btw.
At one point he even started a half-arsed sales pitch to get me back on the program…” You obviously still want to be your own boss and start your own busin…”.
“Max, I’ve already moved on and started my own business training people in Muay Thai”
Que a very forced conversation about Muay Thai.
“Look, I want to make things right. If there’s anything I can do, take my WhatsApp, if it’s business or dating I’m here to help you man. I want to help you”.
I said “Max, I appreciate your offer but right now I’ve had enough input from the world. I need to process everything that’s happened in the last 3 years. But, if there’s one thing you can do to help me it is to stop doing everything I mentioned. Take what I’ve said and change how you do things. Be more stringent in filtering out people, actually mentor people and listen to them. That’s all I want”.
To Max’s credit, he actually listened to me, seemed curious and sounded like he wanted to make things right. He did mention that the program does work for people in my niche (teaching languages) and that it is totally viable. He offered his WhatsApp again and I simply told him to send me a message and if I ever need him I’ll let him know. He said, “Yeah, man even if it’s in 5 years. Just reach out. Thank you for your feedback. It’s actually been really helpful”. I just wanted to never speak to him again.
As we both wished each other a great day and ended the call, I felt a great sense of relief come over me. I actually felt proud of the way I was able to handle the conversation. Maybe I wasn’t such a blithering idiot after all. Trust me, when you’ve gone through something like this it feels good to put it in the past and regain some confidence and pride.
So, I got a text message from Max. It just said, “hi it’s Max”. But, the most fucked up thing then happened. Something I’m still not 100% I understand why it did happen. Max sent me another message saying this “Btw I meant to ask you for your PayPal. I want to refund all your 800 Euros”.
Again, dear reader. Time out. Time out. Right? This reads like bullshit, even as I write it. I know. How can everything critical I’ve just said be true and this refund be true also?
The next day, to his word, Max did in fact refund my cash. He got my details and bosh…there it was. If only he was this awesome on the actual course, I thought. But, fuck me this is the weirdest fucking story of my life right now. I did not ask for the cash on the call. I said, “I paid 800 and used 8 weeks of the program. Way I see it, we are even”.
Anyway, I sent him a message “Max, thank you for making it right”. He said “GG, mate!”
And, we are up to the present day. That happened yesterday. So, last night I couldn’t sleep trying to figure out why Max would do that. Did I have this guy ALL wrong? Was the program actually alright? You know how your brain gets late at night. And so at 4 am I decided to get back online and dig for some answers, do some lurking and sleuthing, see what I could dig up. I ended up here. After reading all the comments the only thing I can pick out was mention of a possible court case FBM are facing from ex-clients. Now, did Max do it because he is actually a good dude after all? Possible. Or did he do it because the court case is about failed refund policies or something related?
I’m genuinely curious. And, I’m wondering how many other people Max has phoned up? Wtf is going on here? Is his reputation/empire crumbling around him? Did he have a dark night of the soul? Did that ayahuasca trip wake him up to his greasy dealings? Or, is he in damage limitation mode? I have no idea. Well, I have my ideas.
Chris, can you answer any of this? I hope you can as I think this is a highly anomalous occurrence that needs explaining? It’s also worth giving room to the idea that Max might just be reforming his practice and turning over a new leaf. Feel free to slap me if this is foolhardy.
Lastly, if you have read this far, thank you. I know it was a long one but I had to get it out there.
Yours respectfully
James
Thanks for sharing James. Who knows why you got a refund. Lucky you.
It’s definitely not the norm as it’s even in their initial contract that there are NO refunds. Their whole scam is to turn it around on their own students and say “You didn’t try hard enough.”
Bro. Try hard enough at manual leads on facebook and reddit? Absolutely asinine and ineffective solution that nobody on the team even has experience with.
It’s akin to giving someone a plastic spoon and telling them to chop down a tree and blaming them for not trying.
I don’t know whats up with him. I don’t follow him or keep up to date on FBM.
I only know that FBM is garbage, but there is a market out there for fomo buyers who want a get rich quick blueprint and there is a segment within that market who are willing to buy high-ticket.
That’s their customer base, which they exploit. Be glad you got away with $ intact.
Hello Chriss can I ask maybe you help me. I singed contract last year for 8000$ Shit man… I been there 3 months and i pay half of it after i know there is no value I didnt pay rest of it 4000$ .. Now after year they sent me email i need to pay the rest till summer this year .. Is there the chance I will no pay. Can they do something with that? Or what I need to do. Thank you
Helo Chris and friends. I have question on you because you will have some skills with FBM… My problem is i singed contract for 6 months with them for 8000$ last year. And problem is after 3 months i finish because it make no sense. I lost the job and right now I still trying to look for some. But at that time I just pay half of it.. 4000 but now after 8 months I have email from them to reminde my pending payment.. What can i do now? Can I write them what is my situation or just ignore it? I havent got 4000 $ for rest and My english is not good. I dont know what to do. If they will do it with Layer or what? Can you help me what do you think I need to do?
Lot’s of people emailed me who paid in installments then didn’t pay after the first one. Nothing happened except account deletion.
Make all the notes you need, then don’t pay. They can’t actually do anything about it despite scare tactics they may attempt. What are they really going to do? Expedite you from your country to do jail time in Ukraine? Ha – Don’t worry too much.
hey Chris, can you share more about what is being taught in the DM framework and analysis?
I was wondering if there are alternative, or even better sources for what Max taught in DM framework and analysis (e.g. other coaches, youtube, books). Its the key part of manual lead gen right? and how good is it taught by Max?
Just wondering if there are scripts that are similar or even better than what he has shared in the mods
Hi Chris, if you are still replying in 2021, first of all, thank you so much for sharing this information.
I wanted to find out more about the DM framework and analysis in Max’s program. I got to know about it during the calls.
I was just wondering if there are other sources of information (books, youtube, coaches) that teaches the DM openers/approaches/methods better than Max? if u could point me in the right direction.
Also, is there a way to find u on instagram for DMs?
Yes – This post is still recent and relevant.
My book has better DM Framework than FBM.