Crowd Mountain Bootcamp by Michelle MacPhearson (Review)

Have you participated in the Thirty Day Challenge? Does Crowd Mountain provide information that the Thirty Day Challenge does not?

Yes, I have participated in the 30DC twice and am involved in 30DC+ via the Immediate Edge program. Crowd Mountain is completely different and hits a bunch of other topics. Take another read of the post to get a better idea of what is involved. You should take the $1 trial to have a look around. MM has included some new packages for members too.

Thanks for the good overview, I see they have the $1 trial still. My concern is affording the $47 per month afterwards. How long did you stay enrolled for? If the modules come weekly I guess you would only need two months.

When you applied Michelles techniques did you make money from your blogs?

Have you ever looked into using the DOE?

Sue, thanks for stopping by.

You’d benefit from the course and it is a bargain at $47 after the trial. I stayed a couple of months after the dollar trial and would have stayed longer if Michelle had been active. I am still not sure what happened but it is going like gangbusters again.

BTW: The dollar trial ends this week and people who join will be grandfathered in. I may rejoin again if only to see what is new and on the horizon.

I am still applying those techniques I learned and am actually using the techniques to help my clients rank and get traffic and business. They are ranting about it and I am having a good time seeing the results but still have to convert many of my blogs over.

My blog income has consistently been rising but it is hard to pinpoint just one program or technique since I’ve been studying with various successful Internet business people.

I am not certain what you mean by DOE as the acronym is used for many different businesses. Please define, if it is a marketing program, no I have not heard of it.

The DOE is the Directory of Ezines by Charlie Page, any thoughts on it?
Thanks

Like I mentioned, I am not familiar with it or with Charlie Page. You can get some of the same info from other programs. I’d encourage you to check for reviews and there is a good resource here: http://www.imreportcard.com/services/directory-of-ezines

[...] wrote about her Crowd Mountain program a little while ago but you can get this rank decoding engine software [...]

I am still trying to earn online, after several years and lots of $$$ spent. Hope this could be the answer……

Hi Paul, the key to success, I believe, is not only taking courses and learning but also implementing the techniques. I just keep plodding and the income rises slowly but surely.

As with any business (or career) you need to invest time and money.

Wow. Consider yourself lucky to have gotten in when you did. Michelle has now raised the price to $127 a month for the BASIC level – no old content or anything. Of course, you have the option to upgrade for $70 some (or was it $97) to get all the bootcamp at once, otherwise you’ll actually be paying $254 for the bootcamp material. You could gain access to the archives for $200+ and another $100 or so if you want to be a “mastermind”, which is basically the only place she shares real information other than bootcamp.

Here’s my question – what are her success stories like? Are there any in crowd mountain that are actually doing well with her techniques. She teaches a couple of things I have not heard before and I’m wondering if it’s a fresh approach, or if it will decrease my earnings. She seems to know her stuff, but I haven’t seen her on IM Report Card or many other reviews on whether she is indeed an “expert”.

You must be new to the Internet marketing world. Michelle is well respected in various circles. She doesn’t really give away anything and makes no bones about it–she is a business person but also very good at giving information.

Her training is solid and I learned new things from her that nobody else had taught me–and that have been very valuable.

The program was pretty closed mouthed and monitored when I was involved so I can’t tell you who is and who isn’t making any money.

I can tell you that it is not a get-rich-quick type of program–it takes work and diligence.

It doesn’t sound like you are really interested or convinced about her program. Don’t understand how it would “decrease” your earnings but I can say that if you are concerned with these things then it obviously isn’t for you.

[...] Therefore NPC 2.0 is a solid program for niche businesse novices but I’d also suggest you look for other alternatives based on my end experience mentioned earlier and do recommend Crowd Mountain by Michelle MacPhearson. [...]

I have been a Crowd Mountain member for two months, and I can say that I agree with nearly all comments placed above.

I say nearly because as good as the info might be there is no point paying a monthly membership if your mentor is constantly disappearing without any notice or explanation.

In the two months I have been a member Michelle has disappeared twice, the first time was when she was at the Coming Home seminar with Ed Dale, she could not communicate with her paying subscribers because the hotel’s internet connection was poor… for over a week!!! I was receiving tweets from Ed Dale whilst he was on stage waiting to speak!

The second time prompted me to cancel my membership last night, Michelle has been away from Crowd Mountain for nearly two weeks because of flu, we didn’t know she was ill for quite few days.

You would imagine that if you have been away ill for that long the first thing you might consider doing when you do finally get online is send a message over to your paying subscribers apologising for your absence and maybe even giving some indication as to when you might be back, Michelle thought she would just send out a few tweets and not say a single word to those that are paying $127 or more per month to be ignored.

My advice, the info is good, but she may not always be around to give you that info.

Steve,

Thanks for sharing your experience with Crowd Mountain.

One of the things I look for in a program is the involvement of the coach/mentor/guru because that is what I prefer.

From what I understand, Michelle’s business model is to automate as much as possible.

If she would get a better support team or moderator–it would do wonders to help. I agree with your statement about at least communicating with paying clients because I had the same experience and knowing what was happening would have alleviated a lot of aggro voiced in the CMConnect/ShoutEm.

Personally I was spoiled by the business model of Yaro Starak (who was the first person I studied with).

He always gave of himself and gave great content and coaching while also making sure he had a good support team/moderators in place.

Having said that, I really got some gems from Crowd Mountain that nobody else was teaching.

I am a self-motivated person and crawled through the archives of CM during and after my modules but was really disappointed with the silence and failure to direct me to the next phase–which I would have probably invested in.

Today, I am enrolled in two programs–Immediate Edge, which gives a lot of value but there isn’t much personal interaction (Dan Raines & Ed Dale) and the other is the Third Tribe which I have mixed feelings about.

Anytime you invest money in something that takes you forward–it is a good thing.

Getting clear about what you need and want will help direct you to the next phase.

Two resources I like are IMReportCard & the Warrior Forum because people leave frank and extensive feedback there.

Hope you move forward and find what you need.

Crowd Mountain is atrocious– the content is great in the beginning, but then Michelle MacPhearson disappears and expects you to just keep paying for nothing. She is ridiculous, the site itself is a mess, and she doesn’t want any kind of feedback whatsoever. Run away!

Thanks for chiming in.

Unfortunately, I am actually going in to change my original recommendation about Crowd Mountain based on what I experienced and the latest round of disappointed students.

Also, I have to say that as an affiliate of her program, I was alerted that I was to be paid early June.

Now in October, I still have not seen any commission payments nor have I had a response from tech support in over despite going in to update my ticket and starting a new one.

I can only imagine that something terrible has happened in her life that she has not disclosed.

However, I am a bit disturbed at how many people have been silenced in the Crowd Mountain Shout application when they were asking for answers and calling them out for lack of response.

Labeling your people “negative” and banning them to silence them only indicates a problem.

I had a lot of respect for Michelle MacPhearson but she is going to have to do a lot to revamp her image and credibility from those who have participated and had a negative experience.

I’m a member of crowd mountain who is trying to get out. I haven’t been able to get onto the site for a month, and Michelle hasn’t responded to my requests to cancel or my requests for a refund for lack of service. Has anyone else experienced this? Or had success canceling membership?

Clearly there are some very serious issues at play here. Michelle’s content was great, the service has been non-existent. Very, very sad watching a business implode like this.

Hey Karen, sorry to hear that.

I got out right away without a problem and so have a lot of other people.

I tend to use my Paypal CC for online stuff since they have a good dispute process. You might be able to cancel your subscription via your paypal panel depending on how you paid.

Unfortunately, I’ve tried getting support to respond with no luck over the page three months. Michelle does not answer her email. You might try to get her privately on the Twitter stream with a DM.

I had a problem with another Program (NPC) and was able to track down the owner via the Warrior Forum. I always try to do things privately first.

The other thing you can do is contact your bank or CC company and explain the situation. Mine blocks access to charges immediately and refunds the money.

I am not sure what is going on but I do know something happened that made her move and suddenly become unavailable.

Michelle has apparently disappeared off the face of the earth and has walked away from her business. I’ve tried a few back doors to see if anybody knows anything to no avail. I’m owed aff commissions but I feel much worse for people that are getting money deducted still or super affiliates owed MUCH more.

I hope something horrible hasn’t happened, I really do. To think one of the cornerstones of her CM training was outsourcing, having a business that can’t be run without you is just saying and doing two different things.

Hey Jeff, it took months for me (about five) to get an answer from support.

Like you, I am owed affiliate commissions also and quit promoting the program when there was no responses to students or to affiliates (back in June).

The support guy who responded said Michelle is going in for surgery.

The problem is that people were left hanging with little explanation and excuses.

I have to agree that outsourcing and other efforts should have taken care of the problem.

Having been inside the program I can say that there have been glitches since the inception and I am sad to see the destruction by failure to provide accurate support or information to the paying customers and sales affiliates.

Well as of today I just saw michelle’s primary site is officially down.

This is terrible. I have been a member of CM since the beginning. I’ve also done one on one coaching with her before that. I know she truly cares about her followers and seriously doubt she would pick up and leave everyone without good reason.

I do know that she has had some health challenges over the years and I hope she is alright. My prayers go out to her.

Not only can I not get on the apparently defunct Crowd Mountain website anymore (despite the fact that I keep being charged $137/mo), all the emails I’ve sent to Michelle’s support site have bounced back, saying there’s no site or email address there to receive them. In fact, every Michelle MacPhearson site I’ve tried going to seems to be completely wiped off the face of the internet. That certainly doesn’t stop her from charging my credit card, though.

While I agree with the reviewer’s opinion that the initial Bootcamp modules are full of info and seem to be really great, I would add several caveats:

(1) The material is severely outdated. She made the videos well over a year ago, and much of the information in them was already outdated when I joined last Spring. To a complete n00b, the information would seem great. If you’ve been around the block at all AND keep up with the constant changes in IM and Google, however, you quickly begin to see that many of her techniques no longer have much effect (*especially* in light of Google’s caffeine changes). Basically — other than the very basic info that *every* guru gives you, much of what she offers is the stuff that *used to work.*

(2) A number of the plug-ins she tells you to use either no longer exist or have been subsequently updated to the point that the instructions in her videos no longer apply. She instructs you to set settings that no longer exist on pages and tabs that have disappeared.

(3) To suggest that she disappears for a month and then comes back full of cool new info is not true. Not even slightly. Sorry. The truth is that she disappears quite often. And she’s gone for months at a time. No contact. No updates. No note to say “hang in there, Michelle will be back.” Instead, customers paying $137/mo (or more, if you upgraded during sign-up) are left in complete radio silence, milling aimlessly about the Mountain, asking each other what’s going on, and waiting for *something* to happen.

The first time this happened during my membership, I thought it was just a momentary glitch. We’d been told she was going to a weekend conference (with Ed and many other big name IM-ers). After the weekend, we were scheduled to have our monthly Q&A session with her. The day came and went, and she never showed up. Many of us logged in for the scheduled Q&A webinar, and… nothing. She just never showed up. No email, no postponement, nothing.

“She must be having connection problems today or something.” Then that day turned into weeks. And those weeks turned into months.

For the first month of her absence — during which we received NONE of the monthly materials or Q&A sessions we were promised during sign-up — there was no word from her or her staff whatsoever. The Crowd Mountain site was just a bunch of paying customers, asking each other what was going on (and, of course, nobody knew). Michelle’s site manager, who had previously been on every day answering questions, suddenly started showing up only in the middle of the night, ignoring all the questions about Michelle’s absence and instead answering only the occasional question about which browser might be better to use or something equally innocuous. As others have mentioned, when some of the customers began to complain that they were paying $137+/mo and not receiving any product or service for their money, Michelle’s manager began deleting their comments and threatening to ban them from the chat system if they kept making “negative comments.” (I read the comments, btw, and they weren’t negative. Her idea of “negative,” apparently, was people asking where Michelle was and when they would receive what they’d paid for. Even the extremely polite queries from people who were concerned about Michelle’s wellbeing were threatened with being banned for their “negative” comments).

After several more Q&A sessions were missed — which was a HUGE feature of her initial pitch, btw — and no more services or products were provided, many customers gave up, cancelled their memberships, and asked for refunds for the month(s) they’d paid for but during which they’d received no products or services for their money. They were told that no refunds are provided after the first 30 days (the CM bootcamp, btw, is designed to take you 6 weeks, thereby guaranteeing Michelle at least 2 months of income from you before you bail out).

(4) The excuses just keep coming. Despite the fact that some of the current CM users are buying into this story that Michelle’s having surgery right now, I don’t buy it. How can I be so sure? Because when she disappeared the first time, we were (eventually) told that she’d been moving and so there was necessarily a delay in how long it would take her to get back online (nevermind that her manager could have told us that instead of avoiding the question of where Michelle is for over a month). Then, when Michelle STILL didn’t come back and we were left sitting in expensive silence again, we were told that she had a flu and would “be back soon.’ 2 months later, still no Michelle. When we asked, we were told that she still had a flu and would “be back soon.” Another month later, still no Michelle. And no new material, products or info.

I should mention here that we each received an email pitch from her during this time about one of her JV partners, and several of us discovered that — during this horrible, 2-3 month long flu that kept her from the CM website or even shooting us a quick email keeping us abreast of what was going on with our paid service, she continued tweeting to her list. And pitching JV products.

Anyway, once the length of her “flu” became too ridiculous to continue, then the excuse became that one of her outsourcers had died, and so, of course, there was no way Michelle could be expected to work during this tragic time.

Then somebody’s relative died (or something; this excuse was never fully clear).

And now Michelle’s “going into surgery.” Yeah. Right.

(5) There IS no new info when she comes back. When Michelle finally came back to the Mountain — which has only happened once, btw, since last Spring (and this is Winter as I write this) — she was there for about a month, maybe two. And during that time, what was all the great, new info she brought to make up for all the time she’d flaked out? She held several “webinars” in which she allowed her JV partners to pitch their latest product to us. That’s it. We were paying $137+/mo to let her spam us with affiliate offers. Period.

It’s sad. I really liked and respected Michelle early on. Because of her association with the 30DC guys and the fact that she’d been around so long, I thought there was no way she’d jeopardize the career and reputation she’d built by being shady. Boy, was I wrong. She is one of THE most mercenary and shameless con artists I’ve run into in my IM adventures.

If you DO decide to join CM anyway, please take this advice to heart. Sign up for the bare minimum, pay with PayPal or some other method that you can cancel without having to go through Michelle’s support system (because they will leave you hanging for as long as possible while they milk your CC, and have a “no refunds after the first 30 days policy” that they slavishly stick to regardless of the fact that they provide you with no product or service for your money). And quit immediately after the 6 Bootcamp modules. Why? Because there’s no further info or teaching that happens after that point. I honestly think that’s all the info she herself has. And I don’t believe that she actually uses it herself anymore (because it’s so outdated, it only SORT OF works).

Better advice? Stay away from CM. While you might get a few things out of the bootcamp, it’s not enough to make up for the huge and continuous rip-off that follows.

Looks like you took a lot of time preparing your comment which might be longer than the post!

I see you are addressing many of the concerns posted by others here. My review was done in the Beta program before it was live and has been updated several times which should have been clear.

Like you, I’ve discovered in October that her InfusionSoft affiliate program was inaccessible. I know as an affiliate, I was never paid for any of the sales made and that many people are still paying on the course.

Although I am not an attorney, there are some different recourses you can take as outlined in the comments to get the word out–for instance, you can post in the Warriors Forum, Rip Off Report, and talk with your bank or credit card company. There are other resources for recourse and you might explore them if the money was over a certain amount.

Good luck.

Hi Martin,

I used to have respect for her but no longer. I’ve faced some health challenges myself and am hoping all is well but there isn’t an excuse for not answering people or not correcting problems when you are outsourcing and have people on a support team to handle things.

Her main site is not the only one that is down but also the affiliate site at Infusion Soft is down but a few of her others are operating.

I am just wondering what actually is happening these days.

Anyone know what happened to this scammer? Michelle hasn’t paid her affiliates in over 4 months and has removed all support help. I would remove her from your page… check for yourself and see if you can contact her.

Totally disgusted with her…

BTW, even her personal website has disappeared.

Hi there… This is John again (from the loooong comment). :>)

A quick update from me too. Starting in mid-late September, ALL of Michelle’s sites have disappeared. Specifically:

- Crowd Mountain is gone
- Revolution Tilt (along with her customer support) is gone
- Michelle’s IM blog is gone
- Michelle’s Twitter and Facebook accounts have been abandoned, with the most recent tweets being in August or September.
- Her email addresses no longer work.
- The phone numbers on the Infusionsoft invoice for Crowd mountain have been disconnected.

Of all the places to contact Michelle, I’ve only found one that still works. It’s a phone number that was on an Infusionsoft invoice, but calling it only gets you a recording of Michelle referring you to the Revolution Tilt support site that no longer exists. Period.

Here’s the real kicker though: Not only was I charged the monthly Crowd Mountain membership fee for October (during which Crowd Mountain was not up for even one day!), but I just received a new invoice showing that she’s charged my credit card for November as well.

That’s right: She’s removed all ability to contact her or cancel my membership, is providing no product or service, but continues to charge my credit card every month. My only recourse now is to talk to my bank about cancelling and reversing the charges, and begin looking into a class action lawsuit (‘cos there are A LOT of disgruntled former CM-ers out there). It’s sad, because I really liked and respected her in the beginning, but this is no way to run a railroad.

The reason for this update, though, is to clarify that although the Infusionsoft affiliate site may be down, Infusionsoft continues to invoice and charge CM members.

Hi John,

Sad to hear about the charges. Actually, Infusionsoft is the software used to bill CM members it isn’t the company. Goes back to Michelle MacPhearson’s account.

I did call InfusionSoft and her account was still active and live. They told me to inquire with Michelle directly and since I had not had a response for several months, I changed my program recommendation.

Hey, you guys are absolutely correct. There is no excuse for what she is doing now. I was holding out judgment but it is unavoidable at this point.

Two things I want to know:

I think bootcamp offered some pretty impressive skills although they did not change over the year or so she me made them available. Who else do you recommend that has quality no BS internet marketing skills to offer? I’m not a fan of John Reese or Frank Kern’s material.

Secondly, someone needs to create a website to avert future newbies from ever tangling with her without at least knowing her history and what they can expect. She may pop up again someday. It’s very likely. The money is too good. People need to know the type of person they are getting in bed with.

If you read my review, you will find my recommendation listed with a link and if you read the comments you will find the sites where you can report such things.