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SNM235: Promoting a Travel Scam with Marco Torres

• Jonathan Green : Bestselling Author, Tropical Island Entrepreneur, 7-Figure Blogger • Season 1 • Episode 235

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Jonathan Green: Hello guys. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to give you a very special warning that the platform we're about to talk about and the man, I'm about to interview our scam. So after I recorded the interview a few weeks ago, I went and tested his platform, which is to give people vacation vouchers for free.

And so I tested the platform and it charged me for a vacation. The taxes and fees were $136. The exact same hotel for the exact same. For the exact same room, it's $135 on a go to.com, which is a platform owned by booking.com. So their claim that they're only charging for taxes and fees, when actually they're charging more than the hotel does directly.

If you buy publicly without a platform, well that's dishonest. I would feel very uncomfortable giving a voucher to one of my customers saying, oh, you just have to pay the taxes and fees, and the taxes and fees end up costing. Then the room would, if you just looked it directly. In addition, they show you four hotels at the location.

They say, oh, these are four of our partner hotels. And when I looked at the dates available, and I tried a lot of different dates, those four hotels were always listed as an additional price. And if I did the, when I did the math, I discovered that if I paid that additional price, again, goes back to being the public cost.

So the numbers I saw weren't an exception. Now I did find one room where for a four night say I could save a whopping 10. Now the way the platform works is that once you send a voucher to your customer for a free vacation, they're then sent to a pace to pay the taxes and fees. And once they do that fee is nonrefundable.

And I realize the reason it's nonrefundable is because people will immediately discover when they try to book a vacation that it's overpriced. So because of that discovery, I wanted to let you guys know exactly what happened. Now what you're gonna see is an inter, or here is an interview of me with Marco from Marketing Boost, talking about his platform before I know that it's.

And I want you to see how the interaction goes and to see the reality of an interview. I record before I'm able to test the platform. I tried to test it before our interview, but actually there were some technical issues and now that I have my proof, well, I'm very disappointed because I was about to start sharing the platform with a lot of my friends and other people I work with.

So I wanted to be very transparent with you guys and let you see a real interview, real interaction where someone is pitching something to my audience that's dishonest. Now if you go and click that link at the end of it, it does go through new fill link and all get paid. Do not click the link. Please do not use this service.

It will cause a lot of problems in the relationship between you and your customers because I know that if I gave a voucher to one of my customers, it costs more than the actual vacation that it claims. It was free. It would devastate that relationship and really hurt me. I just couldn't do that. It would violate my integrity.

So what you're gonna see is a real interaction. Me being totally transparent. I haven't edited or modified that interview at all, so you can see the real deal. I did reach out to Marco and send him email saying, Hey, here's what happened. Here's screenshots proving what your platform is, and of course, no reply.

So I gave him the chance to respond. That's very important to me. I didn't wanna just publish that without giving a chance to say maybe it was an aberration, but based on my experience of talking with two different support teams, uh, this was not an exception. This is something that clearly happens a lot and it's obviously built into their strategy and it makes me very uncomfortable.

So I wanted to share that with you guys so you kind of see what it's like when you encounter someone who is pitching something that knowingly doesn't work. Knowingly is false, and is actually a complete and total rip off, right? You can't tell someone you're giving them a vacation or a discount when it costs.

Then the actual vacation, that's not a discount on any level. And so that's a really big problem for me, so I want you to see that. Without further ado, let's get into my interview with Marco for Marketing Boost using add-on incentives instead of competing by dropping your prices on today's episode of the Serve No Master podcast.

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Are you tired of 

Marco Torres: dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now. Then you've come to the right. Welcome to Serve No Master Podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep.

Presented. Live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now, here's your host. 

Jonathan Green: Hello everyone. We have a very special episode today. We have Marco Torres Day who's an expert at increasing the value of your offers without increasing your costs, which is really the most important part.

What I found myself is that whenever I'm offering a bonus or an additional value, the less work it costs me, the more people want it. So I used to create bonuses that were like, I'll go through the entire program with you. I'll do 20 hours of extra work and be like, we don't want. But as soon as it's something easy, something my team can create, everyone wants it.

So I'm really excited by the idea of adding value to your offer without adding in a bunch of costs or a bunch of extra work. So thank you so much for being here today, Marco. Hey, 

Marco Torres: thank you for having me. Uh, look forward to this, Jonathan. 

Jonathan Green: So I'd love to know a little bit about how you got into this idea, cuz I'm very interested, I know that you help people give away vacations.

I've always been baffled by how this works. So maybe we could just start there and kind of how you got interested in this part of the market. 

Marco Torres: Yeah, great question. Well, when we started this, it was, it came about by accident for our own business. We were, uh, we've been in the travel space since the, uh, early two thousands.

And, um, we were building at the time, a very fast growing, uh, travel website, retail site to consumers. And we were really moving fast. I mean, we were one of the fastest growing north, uh, travel sites in North America, but we kept wondering, you know, what could we do to incentivize our, our clients to. To, uh, film a selfie testimonial from the resorts or hotels and beaches around the world.

We knew if we only had video testimonials from hundreds of clients, we'd be able to leverage those, the thousands of additional sales, but we couldn't get anybody to, you know, go, go make that extra mile. If we asked them to film a selfie video, very few would do it. So then we came up with an idea, well, what if we incentivize them with a bonus trip?

We offer them a three night bonus getaway to three in Orlando or Las Vegas. If they would film a selfie video from the hotel, the beaches, the resort, the pool, whatever they like the best, and brag about that hotel brand in ours, we would leverage that into more sales. So we did a, we came up with a survey.

Now, mind you, Jonathan, this is a great idea that any business owner out there can immediately implement. Because all of us need video. We all need reviews and testimonials. And the more you have and the more frequent they come in, and the more that you know, the better you look in in the eyes. You have that social proof your clients need.

So we did a survey, and here's the key you could take away. We did a survey when our clients, we expected them to be at their peak of. Which was in our case the day after they checked into the hotel. So we'd send 'em an email in the text message saying, Hey, how's the hotel living up to your expectations?

How are we doing so far? And what do you think of the hotel property? And if they replied, we'd ask them, you know, give us a score of one to five. How are we coming in? If they gave us back at four or five, Our automation would immediately kick back and send them another email and text message saying, would you do us a huge favor and help us spread the word?

We're thrilled. You're having a great time. You're enjoying the hotel. Would you help us spread the word about that brand and our brand and film a selfie video from the beaches, the pool, the resort, whatever. Brag about the hotel and us. We'll reward you with a complimentary hotel state. And they started coming in by the dozens, you know?

And then before you know, we had hundreds, today we have over 30,000 video testimonials from happy travelers, more than any other travel site in the world. But then a couple, few months later, they were raising their hands going, okay, how do we get that free trip you offered? So now we were having to pay out of our pocket.

For these free, these rooms that we had promised is, is bonus stay we had promised. And of course that was costing a a pretty penny. So then we were like, how could we reduce that cost? So we went back to our travel partners, being that we were a high volume travel company, and we went back to them and said, look, we know you've got a problem and we think we can fix it.

You know, your hotel is never full year round. I mean, yes, you're full on certain weekends, peak season, uh, holidays, special events, but the majority of the year, 70% of the year, 30% of your rooms, if not more, are going empty. Right. And they agreed. So he said we can put warm bodies, couples, families, individuals in those hotel rooms that are gonna spend money at the restaurant, the bar, the spa, the casino, the gift shop, the excursion desk.

They'll book extra nights, they'll tell their friends about it. They'll put selfie videos and so forth. And, um, So they agreed to give us a try. So we had a couple of hotels in Orlando and Las Vegas agreed to, to give us the, you know, what would otherwise been empty hotel rooms. So that means we were filling about 32 weeks out of 52 weeks a year of available inventory.

So they weren't gonna be able to get 4th of July, you know, Christmas week, new Year's Eve, and so on. And um, and now we were able to fulfill our own free trips and then we thought to. Can you imagine if we were to solicit, you know, dozens, if not then hundreds of destinations around the world and get hotel partners everywhere?

If we could do that, we'd have a new standalone business, which is eventually what we did. And we essentially what became marketing boost.com, where we create the wow factor, the delight factor, the uh, the wild surprise and delight factor that helps you stand out from the crowd and add value to your offer, whatever it.

Without costing you more money and without having to put your client, we revolutionize the travel incentive business. There's, there's no timeshare tour presentations involved. There's no hoops to jump through. They're easy to use. It's affordable for the Marketing Boost member, and it's a super deal for the end user who receives the complimentary hotel incentive.

So today we offer. 125 destinations around the world from three night stays to up to seven nights stays, uh, around the world. We can get into more of that along the way here. So 

the 

Jonathan Green: real value to the hotel comes from the guest spending additional money once they're there, cuz they're in that vacation mindset.

Marco Torres: Correct. So they're, they're getting some revenue versus no revenue for the hotel, and they're hoping that the client is going to the, there is, of course airfare is not included. Let's, you know, cover some of the basics here. Airfare is not included. Food and beverage is never included and neither are the hotel government taxes.

So, Uncle Sam or any government around the world, they all, when somebody checks into that hotel, they expect to get paid what would've been the government taxes and, and tourism fees and so forth. So that still do, and that can be paid by either the Marketing Boost member, uh, or the end user of the certificate, and in most cases, All of our, our clients that let the member, the, the clients pay that they just do a proper disclosure.

They'll tell 'em, look, I'm giving you the complimentary hotel stay. Airfare is not included. Food and bourbon's not included, nor the government taxes. So they pay an activation fee, which covers those government taxes and fees, which the, uh, hotel now has to pay the government. But as they check in, they're hoping they're gonna spend money again at excursion desk, the hotel, the restaurant, the bar root service.

And, uh, and they see enough of that revenue that they stay in the program. . Yeah. 

Jonathan Green: This is something that when my family, we rent a hotel for about two years and I used to say to my wife, I said, we're not a hotel. We're a surfboard rental agency that happens to have rooms because we made way more money renting surfboards, which are my favorite thing to rent because they last forever.

There's nothing to fix, like when you're trying to rent out motorcycles, which is a very common business here. I said, no, I'm not doing that cuz there's so many parts. There's only one part on the surfboard, the fin. It breaks you, screw a new one in that I can fix. So that's really important to understand is that a lot of times the main revenue for a hotel, it's not the room rentals.

That's kind of why rooms in Vegas are so cheap. The room is the least important part of the business. They want you in that casino. 

Marco Torres: Right, exactly. So that's why you'll see deals, you know, often in Vegas or you know, depending, especially if you, but yeah, Vegas is a perfect example. Yep. 

Jonathan Green: So one of the things that I sometimes wonder about with this particular thing is where you add a bonus to an offer that's not in the same market.

Like it makes sense to me if I'm on a trip, you offer a second trip. But if someone's selling a course, like how to get into cryptocurrency or how to get into real estate and then offering a trip, how does someone create congruence? Cuz sometimes I see that and go, it sounds too good to be true. I know that when I've seen that unapproached, I go, I don't know about that.

It sounds, it sounds too good to be true. So it makes me hesitant, like it's almost too much. 

Marco Torres: Well, that, that's true. That can be true in, in some cases. So we do caution our members to use them sparingly and create scarcity and urgency and not hand them out like candy. Even though as a Marketing Boost member, you can give them as many of you want, as many of them away as you want.

So there's no a membership that gives you the ability to give away an unlimited amount of these complimentary hotel stays. But we also have two other categories of incentives. One being hotel savings card. They come in increments of 100, 2, 3 and $500, and they work like a gift card, but they don't pay for the entire hotel stay.

They will end up discounting the room rate compared to the Expedias price line hotels.com of the world, you know, the retailers, and so, Uh, these hotel savings cards offer a discount at over a million hotels worldwide. And then we also have restaurant savings vouchers that are good at about 50, uh, nearly a hundred thousand restaurants throughout the USA and Canada.

So these are smaller, what I call micro incentives to go with a micro call to action. So depending upon what your call to action is, if you're asking somebody to book a Zoom call with you, no. You know, and this is very popular by the way, a lot of, of, of our. They, you know, we, today, we use the power of, of these zoom calls, which is amazing, right?

We don't have to drive all over town for every sales call that we used to have to do in the past. Now we can jump on a Zoom call and make it a sales presentation without having to go anywhere. But one of the challenges is, one, can you get people to actually book that appointment and more importantly, when they book the appointment, how many of them are no-shows?

So if, if you can get more people to show up for your sales calls or your sales staff calls, You know, you're gonna increase sales automatically. So we have a lot of our members using the micro incentive. As an add-on value just to, for example, book a no obligation Zoom call with us today and we're gonna give you a hundred dollars hotel savings card just for showing up on time for the appointment.

And then all of their email and text message reminders can be said. Look, we know your time is valuable, so is ours. So if you'll show up on time for the appointment you made, we will reward you with a hundred or $200 hotel savings card or a restaurant savings voucher. And these are huge in getting people to, you know, help remind them and encourage them to show up on time for the call.

And of course, boom, that means you're gonna make more appointments, make more sales, because there's more people that your staff or yourself are speaking 

Jonathan Green: to. It's really interesting cuz I get hit with really bad incentives all the time. Like some big companies like, oh, we notice you have a huge website, you have a big reputation, we leave us a review, we'll give you a $5 Amazon.

Nothing. Can Amazon cost $5? It's maybe a 50. When I was a kid, yeah, you could get a toy for five bucks, but not these days. Like everything is 20 bucks or more. My kids don't have a $5 toy I wish, or a $5, um, Starbucks gift card. I'm like, I don't think anything Starbucks costs $5 anymore. So I do, I do see that where people struggle, they have the idea of offering value.

Marco Torres: Well, it can get expensive. I mean, if even at $5, if you're giving, if you, if you're a high volume marketer, you're giving away $5 bills for everybody to do whatever it is you're asking them to. That can start adding up. And so with our, in our case, if you're a Marketing Boost member, there's a flat monthly fee and then it's, it gives you the ability to use as many of these as you want without having to pay for any, any of them individually.

So it can, uh, uh, yeah, it can save you a lot of money and add, add. Better yet, they're a higher, higher, much higher perceived value with the call to action. So, for example, I recommend, you know, the, the complimentary hotel stays be saved for. A higher, you know, a better call to action, like such as, you know, buy, there's really, really two ways to implement them.

Either buy and you get. Or inquire and you get, so you buy and you get one of our, you know, a bonus trip, yada, yada, yada. Or you inquire about such and such, get a free quote, book of Zoom, call, et cetera, and we will reward you with one of these incentives. And, uh, you know, one of the things a lot of people, like you were asking, how do I implement this with, with, uh, you know, when I, I'm not in the travel business and I wanna relate it to, you know, uh, first of all, two, two big, you know, incentive companies that, I mean two companies that have been using incentives that have made billions of dollars over this.

And that'll help people realize why they need an incentive in the first place. Would that make sense to do that, John? Yeah. I'm in. Sure. Okay, so let's talk about, for example, Jeff Bezos with Amazon. How did he end up winning all of us to become loyal clients on Amazon? Well, he created an incentive years ago now, and it was Amazon Prime.

And when he first launched this, most of us weren't even really into streaming video yet. Um, but we were buying, he created Amazon Prime with the whole idea that the incentive was free shipping. So you pay 99 bucks a year for Amazon Prime to get the free shipping. And eventually we found out, oh, well we can get some free, some video streaming as well.

But we were all interested in the incentive of what free shipping. And then after that, then he had us. Now, before we shopped on, you know, anywhere else online, we'd go see if Amazon. Because we would get it to free shipping more than likely. So, uh, that that's a huge, you know, and then he became, you know, one of the richest men in the world with that concept.

McDonald's is still using today, decades later, the Happy Meal. They, you know, they'll offer that toy. What does a toy have to do with a burger and a soda and whatever? Nothing but the packaging, the little, the meal with a hamburger and a soda and a, and a and a fruit, or whatever that comes in it. Plus the, the toy became the incentive that kids would say, Hey, I want a Happy Meal.

Or parents would be like, let's pull into McDonald's versus Burger King. Cuz the kid would give him a happy meal. He's gonna have a toy in the back seat. Keep him busy with that while we can talk down the road for the, you know, until we get there, or whatever it might be. And so that incentive is created about 3 billion a year of additional.

For McDonald's for decades now, and, and, and they continue to use 'em and people are choosing them versus Burger King or something else. So if they've got children, so what is your, your adult Happy Meal? And that is what we bring to the table. We help you have that surprise and, and, and wild package is that you can add to whatever, whatever you're called, action.

Whatever business. You're a business coach. Here's some ideas. You're a business coach and you're hoping your. Excuse me, would hire you for, you know, for, for six months or a year versus a month to month. . So maybe you come up with a, a carrot and you're saying, look, by the way, if you hire me as a business coach, it's gonna take us a, you know, a few months of working together for you to implement our strategies and implement all of these ideas and, and watch your business slowly grow and scale.

And so here's the, the, the reward. If you'll stick with us for six. To in make sure we can introduce all of the plans. I'm gonna be bringing you on your six month anniversary. I'm gonna reward you with a complimentary hotel. Stay six days and five nights in can co Mexico. So you're adding that as a carrot, which is creating.

Not only the incentive to do business with you, but the loyalty to stick with you for six months before they earn it, for example. Or you might say, look, I'll give you the seventh month free. And you can also add your own value add incentives. You might say, look, I'm gonna give you the seventh month free if you'll stick with me for a minimum of six months, or if you pay in advance.

So you pay the six months in advance. I'll give you the seventh month. And I'm gonna reward you with a six day, five night complimentary hotel. Stay in Cancun or K San Lucas. These trips are, I, I've, they don't include airfare, they don't include food and beverage. But I've got your luxury hotel. Stay on me.

So you're, you know, you're creating that and that's how, what does travel have to do with a business coach? Nothing. But it's an incentive that makes people like, whoa, that's pretty cool, and that makes you stand out from everything else. And it also makes me do something above and beyond, such as contracting with you for six months or what have you.

Let's say you're a multi-level marketer, you might wanna. Add the incentive based on a quick start program. Look, guys, you get started today. You know, in 90 days if you reach these goals, if you, if you bring on six people that I, I help you sign up and then they bring on one of those brings on two, I'm gonna reward you with.

Boom, you know, this complimentary hotel stake. So there's just a, uh, if you have a little bit of creativity, and that's part of what we're always teaching, by the way. We have a Facebook group with almost 29,000 entrepreneurs in that Facebook group, and we're always sharing ideas on how to, how to use these incentives.

And how to position them in your offer and the creatives and et cetera. We provide all kinds of, uh, free creatives and videos for almost every industry and samples, sales landing pages, and a whole lot more. Yeah. 

Jonathan Green: One of the challenges, at least when we were running a hotel, is that Edward around us started doing price competition where they were lowering and lowering them on the prices until they were taking a loss with every single guess.

And it just became a big problem in the market, which is why we ended up closing our business rather than entering that, I said, let's pivot cuz I don't wanna enter. And it was good time cuz a month later everything got shut down during the pandemic. So we sold off all of our. One month before everyone else who bought it goes, we can't use it.

And I was like, it's good timing. But the race to the bottom is something that a lot of people get pulled into when their sales are slagging off or slowed down. They go, oh, maybe the problem is my price is too high. And I can certainly say, I've had people reject me, go, oh, your price is too low. You must not be any good.

I've heard that more often than the price is too high. So how can people switch to this mindset of realizing that it's the price isn't the problem? 

Marco Torres: Yeah, no doubt. And, and price, uh, discounting, I mean, depending upon what your costs are. A lot of people don't necessarily realize this, but you gotta, you gotta know your math and your numbers, right?

But it, you know, if your, if your cost, I mean, if your net profit, for example, is 20% after expenses, let's take a look at the problem first. If your entire net profit is that, for example, say 20%. Then discounting 10% would mean you'd have to nearly double your sales to end up in the exact same spot you were the day before.

With with, with as far as net profits concerned. So that can obviously be difficult and not a sustainable practice to be discounting. So you wanna try to hold your price and. Uh, we have found many a Marketing Boost member, they're, they're using the, our incentives as their, what I call a mastermind secret, because they can add, you know, instead of discounting, they can come up with ways to add more value, which might mean, you know, uh, again, additional units, additional products of your own.

Maybe it's, uh, leveraging your relationships with others. If you're selling a course. Maybe you're selling, Hey, buy my course and get by, by having, by networking with others, you might be able to say, look, I'll provide you my course that you can include free with your product if you'll let me sell, you know, add your course with mine.

And now you might say, uh, I've got, you know, purchase our program here and you're gonna get as a bonus, A free course on the following topic from my associate over here, Joe Blow, and now you're bringing his course in as a bonus value add for you. And then to top it off, well, if you take action this week, You know, if you take action before Friday, 5:00 PM or you know, before today, or take action today, we have a limited number of these complimentary hotel stays.

So if you take action today, we're gonna give you a three night hotel. Stay in your choice of Las Vegas, you know, Orlando, Chicago, whatever it might, you know is, is appropriate for your. You know, sometimes you wanna offer, we recommend drive to destinations that people can easily use. So, um, you could, if you know where your market is typically coming from, you might create an ad, Hey, get three nights in San Diego or Las Vegas and on us, you know, and then, and then you might have an upsell.

If you buy this upsell product, you give five nights in your choice of Hawaii or Cancun. So you can u you can continue to, uh, so to. Add more value with a different, uh, longer stay, for example. But, uh, I hope that kind of answers your question. Again, it's about creativity and about being a, um, uh, testing too, because it's really, you gotta do AB testing and.

Um, and see what, what people react to. But we have found that they work in, in all industries. We have thousands of business owners around the world using us. Everything from Lemonade stands up in New York. I couldn't believe. I don't even know how they're using our incentives, but we have lemonade stand guys, uh, and we all the way to car dealerships in Chicago.

We have business coaches, real estate agents, insurance agents. Uh, all sorts of, uh, home improvement companies that are using these in unique and creative ways to get people to either show up for an appointment or for a both husband and wife to be home for an in-home presentation. Uh, you know, if, if you're in the travel space, it's a super no-brainer, then it's just a, you know, buy one, get one, et cetera.

Well, 

Jonathan Green: this has been really amazing. We put together a special link so everyone can see. I know you put together a special offer for everyone today. They can get at serve master.com/boost, which will take 'em straight to your website. And I know you put together a special promotion, so can you tell everyone a little bit about that?

Marco Torres: Sure the special offer right now, you can get 30 days of marketing boost for, uh, free, uh, I'm sorry, 30 days of marketing boost for $1 bill, 30 days of marketing boost for a dollar. And then after that, it's only $37 a month. So if you'll use the link that Jonathan is, uh, uh, promoting here, that way you can get.

Uh, 30 days for $1. After you've done that, and the first thing I recommend you do is give yourself these incentives so you can use one, use one of the, I recommend Cancun. We have some AAA, four Diamond resorts in Cancun or, and Cobbles Lucas that are just fabulous. So you wanna give yourself one of those.

Try to take the trip so that you can be an evangelist for our brand. You'll see just what they can do for you and your family, much less your. 

Jonathan Green: That's amazing. That's such an amazing offer. And again, that's at serve to master.com/boost. The link is below the YouTube video. It's in the show notes and it's on our website.

Thank you so much for giving us your time today, Marco. I'm really excited by this one. 

Marco Torres: Thank 

Jonathan Green: you. Thank you for listening to the Serve and Master podcast. We give away amazing business bestsellers every single month. Head over to serve master.com/free books to see what we're giving away this month. 

Marco Torres: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Serve No Master Podcast.

Make sure you subscribe so you never miss another episode. We'll be back next week with more tips and tactics on how to escape the rat race. Please take a moment to leave a review@servenomaster.com slash iTunes. It helps the show grow and more listeners means more content for you. Thanks again and we'll see you next week.