It’s a new world these days when we think of businesses.  If people didn’t trust corporations & the financial industry 10 years ago, what must they think of them now?  The only way to earn back the trust of the masses is by doing business transparently.

Comedian Louis CK showed us all this week how much that point drives-home with all of us.  On December 9^th, Louis released an online comedy special which he produced, promoted, and without utilizing any distribution channels (RIAA and MPAA).  For the cost of $5.00, you could download his comedy special which has no DRM(Digital rights management) or regional restrictions & comes with the freedom of 100% ownership.

“The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?”

In the age of P2P & Torrent networks, would there even be enough people in the world paying $5.00 to cover production costs?  The result was staggering.  In just 12 days, Louis CK’s special grossed over $1 million dollars.  That’s over 200,000 paid downloads.

Continuing the transparency with his customers, the comedian released the following statement:

“I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden and since we’re all sharing this experience and since it’s really your money, I wanted to let you know what I’m doing with it. People are paying attention to what’s going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.”

250k is going to pay back what the special cost to produce and the website to build.

250k is going back to his staff and the people who work for him on the special and on his show.

280k is going to a few different charities

220k is going to Louis CK

It’s not often that you feel so good about a person making a million dollars in 12 days without despising them just a little bit.  It’s interesting how our perspective changes when people are open & candid with you.

We have heard from many of our clients over the years who have worked with other Search Marketing Agencies. We have heard how they are neither given ownership nor logins to their own accounts, shown key data metrics from the actual interfaces, nor ever presented with auditable billing information.  Why is this not shared? Is there something to hide?

Engine Ready prides itself on our transparency.  We will walk our clients through each search engine and show how each dime is spent, each refund attained, and when the time comes, transfer ownership and  logins for every account we built or managed (if they didn’t have it already).

It’s your money and you have stake in how it is spent.

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