A Comprehensive Review Of Solo Build It (SBI)

Solo Build it was founded by Ken Evoy in 1997 to provide an enabling platform for entrepreneurs to build and run their online business.It was designed to help members build and implement their website in a variety of niches, using a variety tools. 

To that end, Solo build it was great but they have failed to keep up with advancing trends and is now almost a thing of the past. They currently charge $29.99 per month or $299 per year for membership and boast of 130,000 active members and affiliates.

Whether the charges are worth it or not, you decide but not until you go through the complete review below.

SBI is a membership platform that offers its members a variety of tools, training and other forms of support to get their business off the ground. This platform is called by its owner, an all-in-one platform for online businesses.

The claim is that, once you are on the platform, you won’t need any website designer and developer, web hosting services, and you won’t need to carry out any research on keywords. You will get everything from SBI. But how true is this claim?

Their services can be divided into 4 parts. Content, Traffic, Pre-sale, and Monetize.

Content: This tool is supposed to help you generate compelling content for your website. 

Traffic: This tool is supposed to help you find the keywords that will draw traffic to your website. 

Pre-sale: Sometimes, you may need to create awareness about you products and services before they are launched. So, SBI can help to build trust and credibility that usually precedes sales.

Monetize: Every entrepreneur needs the right monetization techniques to be able to make money. So, SBI will also provide tools and guide on monetization.

Training

The training at Solo build it is Action Guide and it comes with a 10-day course. Here is the breakdown of the 10-day course.

• On the first day, you will be taken through the basics.

• On the second day, you will be guided towards developing your website ideas.

• On the third day, they will brainstorm with you on profitable topics.

• On the fourth day, you will be guided on monetization.

• On the fifth day, you will implement your website concept and register your domain name.

• On the sixth day, you will be able to build a site.

• On the seventh day, they will put you through on how to build sustainable traffic from different source.

• The eighth day will be about relationship development with potential customers.

• You will get to know your visitors on the ninth day.

• The course will end on the tenth day with monetization. You will get to implement your monetization concept.

Tools

SBI offers its members a variety of tools, some of which are;

• DownloadCenter

• InfoCenter

• PageManager

• TrafficCenter

• BusinessCenter

• Drag and Drop SiteBuilder

• SiteDesigner

• Brainstorm

In addition to the tools listed above, they also offer auto blogging function tool, autoresponder, and social media tools. The drawback of the tools is that some of them are a little too complicated for beginners to handle. Some experienced entrepreneurs also have problems with some of the tools.

Support

Solo build it offers its members technical support 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. This is a good one. Since their platform is always available, support should also be available all the time. According to some members, their support team comprises of highly knowledgeable guys that are very eager to resolve problems and assist members.

In addition, there is a forum where members can ask questions and get solutions from older members or SBI staff. Some members have joined several years ago. For any challenge that you may run into, it is very likely that some older members have encountered it too. So, they will put you through on how they resolved or walked around it.

Pros of Solo Build It

• They offer 90-day money-back guarantee

This is a bold offer. It indicates the level of confidence they have in their system and platform. This also means members have nothing to lose to try the platform. However, some people are against this offer. They believe that SBI should have offered free trial instead. That way, members can decide to join or leave after the trial period ends.

• They provide OK training 

Their Action Guide is good training that you may not get elsewhere for as low as $29.99 per month. Most importantly, the training is practical-oriented so the strategies therein are actionable. The training comes in three forms – mobile, video and written (text).

• They offer experience

SBI was established in 1997 so they have been in business for more than two decades. One thing is clear here. Being in business for decades is an indication of good services. It is almost impossible to be in business for that long with poor services. So, they must have been providing values worth paying for.

• They offer low charges

If they actually provide all the resources listed on their site, then $29.99 is just a “giveaway” price. Paying such a low amount of money for all the tools and training is simple amazing. It is a great deal. The 90-day money-back guarantee makes the whole package mind-blowing. So, the price rocks.

Cons of Solo Build It

• Poor navigation

It is very difficult to navigate the website. A newbie will be lost. For instance, you won’t see any login or signup button or link anywhere on the site. You may need to contact support first. Apart from that, the content on their site is not well-presented. Long-winded content turns people off. You may not like it either.

• Their forum is not so active

Of course, SBI has a forum but it is not as active as you would have thought. Some days may go without any member posting anything on the forum. Some members complained of their questions being unanswered. May be those members have resorted to customer support. In other words, the forum on SBI is not so engaging. However, it used to be busier than this several years ago. The reason members stopped using it is due to the decline of SBI as I mentioned earlier. Even the few members that still comment on the forum are not professional marketers; they are mostly newbies. 

• Old testimonials

Another thing that you may not like is that some of the testimonials on their promotional videos are quite old. Using old testimonials sends a pretty wrong signal that there are only few recent testimonials. One testimonial had a bulky and obsolete computer at the background. There is no doubt, such testimonial is very old. Considering the type of service they offer, this is a real big issue. One effective marketing strategy is to keep replacing your older adverts with newer ones regularly. So, this blunder may be pardonable for other organizations but not for SBI that offers marketing as one of its services. This point is quite similar to the next con.

• Outdated websites

Some websites purported to have been built by SBI members are not really encouraging.

They look old and outdated. It is either the websites are very old or there is something wrong with their training. Either way, it is a big minus for SBI. In my opinion, it is the limited scope of their website builder, that fails to offer the flexibility and variety that WordPress sites offer. 

The conversion rate of some many of these websites are very low. In fact, the websites are counterproductive for SBI’s marketing campaigns. Many SBI websites were hammered by Google’s panda update due to poor content as members were trained to over use Keywords. These obsolete websites may have been accepted several years ago but not now that visual appeal has become very important.

Today, it takes visitors less than 5 seconds to decide to either browse a website further or leave. For old websites, most visitors will do the latter. Those websites may have been built a long time ago. Now, websites should be professional and visually stunning.

• Permanent lock-in

The way SBI’s platform is designed, once you build your website on the platform, you will continue to rely on them for the running of your business. For instance, a website built with SBI’s website building software (BlockBuilder and SiteDesigner) must be hosted by SBI as it can’t be hosted by any third party hosting company.

Apart from hosting, you will also need to use only SBI’s tools for your website as long as it was built and hosted by SBI. This is definitely not a good one.

• SBI is focused on only organic traffic

SBI’s platform and tools are designed for organic traffic alone. They are not in support of Google Ads, PPC, and other faster SEO strategies. The problem with this strategy is that it may take you more than 6 months before you begin to see results. You need to consistently make at least, 4 highly informative posts per week for about 6 months or more before you can notice an increase in your traffic.

6 months is a real long time. Besides, Google changes its rules often and it may even take longer. It is very likely that your zeal will begin to die off after the third month when you don’t see any result. The worst part is that you may not make a single dime within the first 6 months but you have to keep giving your best and also expend more resources.

This one is going to sting you a bit but it is still the truth. Making money is not guaranteed. It is a mere possibility. So, do you think it will be easy to keep firing from all cylinders for about 6 months to a year with all that in mind? This is the reason a lot of people give up after a couple of months.

• No Auto-save function on their platform

SBI does not offer any auto save function on their website. If there is power failure while you are working, you will lose your work and start all over again. Yikes, were have you heard of such things in this time and day?!!

• Forced upgrade

Once the number of visitors on your site hits 500, you will be required to pay more to upgrade your membership. This is not so encouraging.

• They charge you more for help

When something goes wrong and you are not achieving the desired results, you will have to pay extra charges for them to find out what the problem is and fix it. So, you will be charged even more when you have not even recouped your initial outlay on the platform.

Is it a scam?

Considering all the information given above, especially the 90-day money-back guarantee, Solo Build It is legit. However, the result every member gets from it depends more on their personal efforts and their level of dedication.

This is why every member cannot get the same results. So, it may have its downsides, but SBI is definitely not a scam.