Who Is Jono Armstrong?
Jono Armstrong is an online guru, entrepreneur, and ex-bassist of an Indonesian blues rock band, Gugun Blues Shelter. Throughout different social media platforms, he has claimed that he made 1 million dollars from affiliate marketing through Amazon in 2019 alone.
Now, I need to be frank with you. I have been making money online for over 20 years, and I have major concerns with the Ministry Of Freedom business model.
My main concern is this: Since you only make money by selling someone else’s product, the product owners may not pay you. They may change their commission structure. They may remove their products from the market. I have PERSONALLY had all these things happen. Instead, learn a business model that puts you in total control. You keep all the profits and you own all the products. And it takes less time to setup than a Ministry Of Freedom business. It uses a loophole in the google maps system to get you autopilot monthly payments. Video Here.
My own teenage kids even make money with this business model!
Here’s a video of my daughter’s business using this :
Click Here to Get The Course My Daughter Used.
The course my daughter used above is much better than Ministry Of Freedom. But since you are here to learn about Ministry Of Freedom, lets get back to our review of that:
As you know, Amazon only pays 1% to 10% of the product purchase price minus the shipping, taxes, and fees. From the Amazon affiliate marketing commission rate, you need to generate a lot of traffic to make 1 million dollars in a year through Amazon affiliate marketing.
Jono claims that the fundamental success of his affiliate marketing business is outlined step-by-step in his launch jacking affiliate marketing course, Ministry Of Freedom. Before moving on to what this course is and if it is worth it, let’s look at who is the man behind the course, Jono Armstrong.
From his motivation and story videos on social media, Jono claims that he had a very rough journey before being an entrepreneur and an affiliate marketer. Like many of the young people in the 21st century, the university would be the direction to go once you finished high school.
This is the trap that Jono took as he had no clear career path that he was pursuing and took a 50 thousand dollars college loan just to be in university. After graduating from college, he realized that he needs to pay for the college somehow, thus he ended up being a teacher for 9 years, from 2000 to 2009. He explained that the salary that he received at that time was $1,100 per month, you can imagine his struggle of paying the loan back and surviving with that amount of salary at the same time.
After 9 years of working as a teacher, he decided to leave the job and pursue another career which is music and acting. He was a bass guitar player in an Indonesian band called Gugun Blues Shelter. In Indonesia, he was kind of a celebrity as he was active in performing live with his band and was acting in different shows.
Not only that, but he was also active as a TV show host in Indonesia and met his first love and Indonesian wife. But things didn’t go well for him during this period as he suffered from alcohol and drug addiction.
As a celebrity, his reputation went downhill among his fans as they found out of his involvement in drugs as well as alcohol especially in a Muslim majority country like Indonesia. On top of that, his affairs with other girls did not bring any good to him as a celebrity there.
He explained in his inspirational Youtube video that being a foreigner, he has always been blamed for his relationship problems with his wife. Later in 2016, he married his second wife and wanted to improve his life thus he decided to get into a new career and left Indonesia.
During this time, he started learning about affiliate marketing and making money online. He mentioned that Amazon affiliate marketing was his first affiliate marketing channel because of the popularity that Amazon already has and the trustworthiness of the brand itself.
As you know Amazon only pays from 1% to 10% commission for their products, this has led Jono to start promoting digital products and services for more affiliate commission. This is a well-known strategy if you want to make big money in affiliate marketing and Amazon affiliate marketing usually involves you in reviewing the physical products that you are selling which can be a hassle if you are broke.
So far, he claimed that from his experience of a few years in affiliate marketing, he can make a full-time income and live a luxurious life. Some people do make a lot of money with affiliate marketing but the question is can Jono Armstrong help you make money with his methods and strategy? Before we look at his course, let’s investigate whether Jono is a scam or not based on his students’ reviews and the web.
Is Jono Armstrong A Scam?
You probably have seen one of his ads on Youtube with the following script:
“People on Youtube are making crazy money from their videos and I am not talking about money from views as that takes years to build up, I’m talking about a small underground minority of people with tiny channels making an easy five figures per month.
“How are they doing it? And more importantly, how can you duplicate their results, well most of these Youtubers are reviewing products from Amazon like children’s toys, mobile phones, and swimwear, etc and they get paid from Amazon’s associate program which I am sure you have seen at the bottom of every Amazon page”
Based on these ads, Jono advertises how people can make money through affiliate marketing on Youtube promoting Amazon products. However, he later explains in the ads that he will show you how to make 40 to 50% commission through selling digital products instead of promoting physical products like Amazon.
As I have received his ads more than 20 times already on Youtube, I decided to opt into his squeeze page and join the free training that he provides. One problem already arises, it seems that the free training email that he sends landed on my spam box. I even used two of my mails to sign up for the free training webinar.
This is kind of a red flag because it is either Jono Armstrong does not know how to optimize his email marketing to make sure that the emails that he sends landed in his prospect inbox or Gmail classifies his email as spam. Either way that is a bad sign if you are trying to make money with email marketing.
Moving on, this is the email that I received from Jono that is regarded as spam mail :
It is a webinar replay so once you receive the email, you can just hop in to the free make money online training with a title of “How To Make $10,000 in 22 days Online”. Below is one screenshot of the webinar.
The webinar summarizes that Jono will guide you on how to make $10,000 in 22 days with affiliate marketing using a very little amount of money. It sounds like a bold claim right? There are three methods which he explains in the webinar, some main method that he talks about is using Youtube launch jacking method to make money.
Youtube launch jacking is posting videos about products that are about to be released or have been recently released. The idea is that with this method, it is less competitive as fewer people promote a new product as soon as it is released. In addition to that, this video will get early exposure when people search for the latest product. Usually, these are digital products that revolve around making money online, health and fitness, and software.
Another thing that he mentions in the webinar is the income that he made online through affiliate marketing with his secret methods which are more than 4 million pounds through Jvzoo and other affiliate marketplaces.
The reason why he discloses his income is to assure you that the method that he is going to be teaching you will work for you so that you would be more likely to get his product, at the end of the webinar.
As soon as I saw the price tag of his product which is $1,497 for an affiliate marketing course, I was shocked because it is very expensive. Even though the product is expensive his affiliate marketing method seems to be different from the common methods that other affiliate marketing gurus out there teach so I decided to dig deeper and find out on the web whether Jono Armstrong is trustworthy or not.
Jono Armstrong currently has 60.5 thousand followers on Youtube and the main content of his channel is digital product reviews. In this sense, Jono practices what he preaches and he receives affiliate commission for promoting these digital products.
Another thing that I found about Jono is that his product is heavily marketed by online marketers because of the high commission rate that he gives to his affiliate, most reviews that I found on Youtube and the web look fake and too positive. There are a lot of people spamming his webinar videos on Youtube as well to promote his course and make affiliate commissions, below is a screenshot of them.
Other than that, when I look at the Reddit forum regarding Ministry Of Freedom, I can say that 75% of the reviews and comments there are negative. Different points are being mentioned by the negative comments there which when I examine look very accurate.
To name a few of them, the first one is the sales page is hosted on different websites with different names, I am not sure why this is the case but usually, if you look at the legit money-making online course, they have a specific website where they drive all their traffic to, instead of creating multiple websites with different domains and use the same sales page template for them.
Another point to add is that based on different comments I found, Jono made a lot of false claims related to his course, one example here is on his webinar he talks about the Youtube launch jacking system and you do not have to create your videos for this method.
However, when you are inside his course, he dedicated some videos solely for video creation and how important it is for you to create your video. He also made a different and confusing claim about his course, some websites mentioned that this course can help you make $5,000 in 22 days while other websites say $10,000 in 22 days. All of these websites ended with the same Ministry Of Freedom checkout page.
Well, it is not fair I would say if we just look at the comments around the web and make our conclusion about Jono and his course, Ministry Of Freedom. Now, let’s look at what this is and the course content.
What Is the Ministry Of Freedom About?
Bottom line, this is an affiliate marketing course created by Jono Armstrong that teaches you how to make commissions through Youtube launch jacking. You will be creating product review videos on Youtube to promote people into buying the product or service. It is quite unethical since you will be taught how to create fake positive review videos since people will not buy a bad product or service.
Jono created this course to teach people that are struggling to make money online the easiest way of making money in affiliate marketing. The current price of this course is $1497 or 3 split payments of $797. This course is very expensive for an affiliate marketing course and it is way over the average affiliate marketing courses out there.
Some of the things that this course will teach you are :
- How To Do Launch Jacking Videos On Youtube
- How To Create Your Email Marketing List With Paid Ads
- Guide On How To Use Youtube Ads
- How To Create Your Course
What Will You Get With the Ministry Of Freedom Course?
The course itself consists of 9 weeks of training and there are more than 100 video lessons. The main modules are outlined as follow:
- Week 1: Mindset, Commitment and Success
- Week 2: Tools and Applications
- Week 3: Launch Jacking Part 1
- Week 4: Launch Jacking Part 2
- Week 5: Advanced Launch Jacking
- Week 6: Soft Launching
- Week 7: Email Marketing
- Week 8: Product Launching
- Week 9: Paid Traffic
Along with the main course, you will also receive:
- 4 Live Coaching Calls Per Week With Jono Armstrong and His Team Of Experts
- 1 Full Year Of Mentorship and Coaching
- 24/7 Support and Networking/VIP Community Access
Other than that, there are 7 interesting bonuses that Jono offers to their students.
Bonus #1: Jono Sends You Personal Sales 2X Per Week
This might sound ridiculous but the first bonus is you will get free sales that will be delivered by Jono himself to you twice per week. He said that this will give you an unfair advantage to guaranteed profit and gives you a headstart with his program. Jono mentions in his page that their students made back their invested money with this part alone which sounds really scammy.
Bonus #2: Done For You Super Funnel (Make $1,200 Commission Per Sale)
The second bonus is a funnel that has been setup by Jono and built in with offers designed to make you a high ticket commission. He explains you will achieve your lifestyle income faster with this funnel and strategy.
Bonus #3: Free $100 Promo Campaign Credit
$100 free credits for paid advertisement campaign, this credit will kickstart your high ticket profit journey risk free. However, realistically it will take more than $100 to make high ticket sales online but free credit is not bad.
Bonus #4: Done For You Program Setup From A To Z
Jono’s team will set up every account that is needed to make this program work for you, this way you can get started fast. He said with this bonus, you will eliminate the stress of setting up accounts and some technical procedures. As a result, you only spend your time on making money with the system.
Bonus #5: 2 For 1 Program Access
This is just an extra login credential that is given to you in case you want to run this program as a team or with your friend. To be honest, this bonus will enable a person to purchase this course with a friend instead of paying the full course price alone.
Bonus #6: The Ultimate Launch Booster
This is another done-for-you bonus where Jono claims that you will have a guaranteed top-seller on your very first product launch. Jono and his team will set you up with everything from a launch partner, sales material & quality control to full promotion. This way Jono explains that you will add a minimum of 500 buyers to your list and make a great profit at the same time.
Bonus #7: Joint Venture Profit Accelerator
This bonus is like a joint venture between you and Jono, if you promote his upcoming courses you will receive 100% affiliate commission instead of just 50% if you are not a member of the Ministry Of Freedom. Another thing that you receive here is the latest information on upcoming products in Muncheye for free.
That is basically all the things that you will get when you sign up for his course, but one may ask if the course is worth it? Is the content of the course valuable? To answer that question, let’s deep dive into each module of the course to give you a rough idea of what you will learn if you purchase this course.
Ministry Of Freedom Module Breakdown
Module 1: Mindset, Commitment & Success
In the first module, Jono explains that you need to be mentally prepared to achieve your goal and make money online in whatever method that you decide to choose.
For this course, Jono requires you to have 2 things which are a positive mindset and a good commitment toward his training and applying them for your business. In terms of mindset, Jono explains that you need to have a positive mindset and be patient with upcoming failures.
He mentions that you might not make $5,000 or $10,000 in 22 days like he claims, but do not get discouraged because of the result and just stick with the process. Realistically, I know that not all people that take this course will make $5,000 to $10,000 in 22 days just like he claims because many factors lie behind this formula. On top of that, not everyone will take action which eventually will lead to no results.
So the main idea is to discipline yourself into doing the work and stay positive at all times.
In addition to that, module 1 also includes a sneak peek of how Jono generates traffic organically from Google and Youtube. He explained briefly the method and strategies that he uses to generate organic traffic easily.
Module 2: Tools & Application
Moving on to module 2, Jono explains the tools and applications that you need to create a successful affiliate marketing business. The tools that Jono covers here are the main tools that affiliate marketers use such as autoresponder, Youtube keyword research tool, paid ads tool, and more.
He mentioned that some of the tools and applications for affiliate marketing can be obtained under $100 per month but there are free alternatives out there with limited function and access. This is another small investment that you need to make when starting your affiliate marketing business.
Jono further explains that these tools will help delegate your tasks and make your business run efficiently. For example, he recommends OBS Studio as a screen recording tool when you are doing product reviews on Youtube, this is an example of a free screen recording application. He also shares his tip on how he manages to do multiple product reviews without losing track of when to post and produce the video content using Google Calendar.
Module 3 & 4: Launch Jacking
In weeks 3 and 4, Jono covers everything that you need to know about launch jacking which is the main affiliate marketing method in the course. Organic launch jacking means providing content related to upcoming digital courses or software. The content usually revolves around video reviews, especially on Youtube.
The main idea of Youtube launch jacking is to be the first few people that produce product-specific video reviews. Youtube usually gives ranking priority to older videos over newer videos, this way you gain competitive advantage in terms of search ranking on Youtube when someone searches for a specific product review video.
Some topics that Jono covers in this module are how to do a good product review video, how to write a good description for your Youtube video, some tips to increase thumbnail clickthrough rate, and more. Then, Jono gives you some insight on where to find upcoming courses which are through Muncheye. He shares the best practice of making video reviews and ranks them fast on Youtube.
The ranking process for these new videos would be very easy as there are almost no video competitions on Youtube for the new courses. Things will get harder as more and more people post the product review videos and some of them might have better video retention and statistics than your video.
Jono mentions that this is how he started his affiliate marketing journey and this is the easiest way to promote affiliate marketing products out there which is through launch jacking video reviews. With his internet marketing experience, Jono creates digital courses like Ministry Of Freedom that give newbies tactics and strategies on how to make money online with affiliate marketing.
Module 5: Advanced Launch Jacking
In module 5, Jono takes you to advanced launch jacking which takes him to the success that he has now with affiliate marketing. This advanced strategy requires you to invest a few hundred dollars in paid advertising for your review videos.
This module is quite comprehensive as Jono takes you to some lessons on Google Adwords and how to use it to boost your review videos’ performance. Here, you will learn everything about Google advertising such as setting up a campaign, some important terms to track your ad spending and performance, how to set up mid-stream ads, and more.
This is especially useful once you see that your video ranking falls on a specific search term, with Youtube ads you can display your review video on the top of a search term so that your potential buyers will always see your video first.
Some other tips that he mentions are to promote your video on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. These social media act as a social backlink for your video which will eventually increase your video ranking. Your video ranking can also be influenced by the size and authority of your social media accounts.
Finally, Jono teaches how to provide bonuses to anyone that purchases a course through your affiliate link. This is a good strategy as it acts as an incentive for people to buy through you as they will get more value from their purchase.
Module 6: Soft Launching
In module 6, Jono talks about soft launching and digital product creation. The meaning of soft launching in this case is once you create the review videos of the product that has not been released yet, your video somewhat becomes like a soft launch for that specific product.
There are a lot of things that you can do in this case as explained by Jono. One thing is that you can create an email list and collect the potential buyer’s email so that when the big launch of the product occurs, you can blast them with sales emails. This will help you create your email list of buyers that are interested in any niche that you are promoting.
Lastly, Jono explains about creating your affiliate product that people want to promote. If you have done a lot of product review videos while collecting your viewers’ emails, you should have quite a huge list with all of the reviews. A good way to monetize this email list is by creating your digital course and promoting it to them.
Module 7: Email Marketing
In week 7, he takes you on a big topic of email marketing. Email marketing is how you make big money in the long run as an affiliate marketer and this is one of the most important digital assets that you should grow. At first, Jono gives some introduction on email marketing, how it works, and the potential income that you would generate with your email list alone.
After that, Jono covers the fundamentals of email marketing which are setting up your autoresponder, creating your email list and integrating them with a squeeze page, creating scripts for email automation, and more.
As mentioned before the aim is to collect the emails of your audience and grow your list. The bigger your list size, the more money that you can make with your email list. Once you find a good product that you can recommend to your audience, you can just send one email to all of your list contacts and at that time, you can make a few thousand in just one day if your list is big enough.
Module 8: Product Launching
This module talks about the strategies and tips that Jono has executed to become one of the top affiliates in Jvzoo. With a good product launch, you can be making thousands in just a few hours but there are a couple of things that need to be prepared before you make a product launch.
Some of the things that are covered in this module are how to create a sales page for your product, how to implement different price points based on the visitor’s action and reaction, and how to structure a perfect funnel for your product.
Since this is the 8th week into the course, Jono explains that he wants you to be your digital product creator as this is one of the ways where you can get big money with internet marketing. However, I am strongly against creating digital courses that do not offer good value for their prices.
In my opinion, this is why many scammy courses exist out there, which is because people want to make quick cash from selling these courses without providing actual value to their customers.
Module 9: Paid Traffic
The last module talks about paid traffic and how to implement them to create affiliate sales. This module is sort of an advanced section of affiliate marketing because it does not relate to Youtube launch jacking. It is more like using paid advertising to promote affiliate products and using your money as an investment rather than your time to create review videos.
Jono gives you an insight into the paid advertising platforms that he uses to promote the Ministry Of Freedom course and how he optimizes his ad spending so that it gives him a good return. Here, Jono lets you take a sneak peek of his ads accounts and teaches you some things that you need to master to be a paid traffic expert.
Pros And Cons
Pros
- High-Quality Video Training – The video training that Jono provides is good in quality and value as he really teaches you how to properly do launch jacking with Youtube and some other tips on making money with affiliate marketing.
- Personal Mentorship and Support – One thing that I really like about this course is that you will have a weekly live Q&A with Jono and his team. This is a great way for someone to ask any questions related to the course or seek expert affiliate marketing advice from Jono.
Cons
- Very Expensive Course – For me, I think Jono’s course is really expensive because it only covers launch jacking and some tips on email marketing and paid to advertise. This might sound ridiculous but with $1497 you can get three high-quality affiliate marketing courses from other experts.
- Extra Cost To Get Decent Income – From my observation, if you want to make a full-time income with Youtube launch jacking, then you need to spend some money on paid ads. This is because the organic traffic that you receive would only spike for a few weeks when the courses are still new, and then the organic traffic will slowly decrease as fewer people search for the products. Not only that, if you decided to promote products from Jvzoo or Warriorplus, the conversion rate would not be high because most of the courses there look really scammy.
Final Verdict
In conclusion, I think that if you are someone who likes the idea of making money online by creating videos of yourself talking about products and your opinion on them, then you should give the Ministry Of Freedom a try. However, if you are not in a good condition to blow $1,500 on an online training course, then I strongly encourage you to not buy the course.
My recommendation for you is if you are a newbie in making money online or just looking for some options to start your online business then you need to keep looking. There are many cheap high-quality courses out there that can give you step-by-step training on affiliate marketing, dropshipping, lead generation business, and more.
The rule of thumb that you can follow when starting is to not spend more than $500 on a course unless you are 100% sure that you are going to be happy with that course and you can make some good money with it.