Product Review: Crack the Code
This is intended to be the first of many reviews of products, books and programs on HTYC to help you advance your career, be ever moving toward occupations you love and do work that uniquely fits you! We want HTYC to be a place where you can be connected to people and tools that help you build your own roadmap to work you love.
This means we want to promote the heck out of programs that can be good for you and guide you away from programs that don’t offer as much value!
Full Disclosure:
Farnoosh Brock, the creator of this program, has been on our show during Episode 003 and just recently again to talk about an employer or manager mindset. Shortly after the show for her first guest appearance released, she emailed me and expressed that she was doing an invite only affiliate partner program. She thought that we might fit the bill for that partnership.
Here is my email reply on 10/7/2013:
Farnoosh, At first glance this seems right up our alley! I read through the landing page and listened to the preview audio clip. Would Mark and I be able to preview more of the program? I ask for two reasons: 1) because over the next 6 months we will be working to position our brand as a trusted place where you can go for reviews on career oriented products, books and services. 2) because as part of that we will be doing reviews on various different products and services and this does look like a great thing you have going that would very likely line up with the needs of the audience we are building and we would love to post a review on it sometime in the future.
Since that point in time I have gone through the program and listened to many of the audio lessons, previewed the worksheets, scoured the bonus material and in general tried to determine if this program is actually worthwhile or not.
The answer is found below.
Who Cares What I Think Anyways?
I work as both an HR guy and a careers guy, so I play both ends of the field. This gives me unique perspective to connect the two worlds together and see where the gaps are. The one thing I see over and over is that many people are puzzled on how to get promotions at their work. Not only that, they think they know how to drive their own career (by showing up and doing a great job! Right? Wrong) and don’t realize that they can (and need to) take their careers and self development into their own hands (many times guiding and educating your boss along the way).
I have been able to do this in my own career and coached many others on how to promote within an organization. More often than that though I have witnessed people frustrated on the other side of the coin, not understanding how to build relationships, influence and a career that allows them to promote with ease. This is a need for which many people are looking for but only a very small portion find.
Ok so let’s get down to how “Crack the Code” actually stacks up against this widespread need.
Who is it For?
This product is for two types of people both with the same goal: To get promoted and advance rapidly within their company!
Type 1: Those who have tried to get promoted in the past (and it hasn’t worked as well as you want) and type 2: those who want to save tons of time and avoid mistakes on the road to getting promoted.
Who is it NOT For?
This program is not for business owners, non-employees, those who have no interest in advancing their career in an organizational environment.
What is Great/Not so Great About It?
The best thing about this program is it covers very nearly everything from managing your ego to negotiating your new salary increase that comes along with your new promotion. Farnoosh covers each step with near perfect diction in an mp3 format. For those kinesthetic and visual learners she includes worksheets for each section. All of this is kicked of by a well done introduction video that tells explicitly how you can leverage the course and what you should do to get the most out of it.
Here is what the membership area looks like:
User Experience
It’s very simple, easy to follow and not particularly dressed up. Anyone who purchases this program will be paying for the knowledge and a streamlined approach to dispersing that knowledge and not for over embellished design. That being said, I think the beauty is in the simplicity. With just 2-3 clicks you can be working your way to a promotion one lesson (or module) as Farnoosh refers to them.
When I first enrolled, I had some trouble with accessing the audio modules or worksheets on mobile devices (specifically on the iPhone 4). I emailed the challenges I was having to Farnoosh and Andy and although I’m not sure what took place on their end but I can now get on all mobile devices. It should be noted that I have a new iPhone 5c and am able to get all portions of the program the google chrome mobile browser and on safari. Everything worked spectacularly with my experience using a variety of browsers on both my mac and windows laptop.
What you Can Expect Out of This Program
First let me be very clear that in both my professional and personal opinion, if you follow the steps that Farnoosh lays out here about mindset, circle of influence, boss handling (my term not hers) then you will significantly speed up your process to promotion OR discover that you need to change your company, job or situation. Let me also be very clear when I say that although this may save you 1-2 years worth of time and get your promotion faster, it will not save you the hard work of actually building relationships, putting yourself in the appropriate mindset, or doing different work than what you might have previously. So when you get right down to it you are really purchasing more time in your time at a higher paying and likely more responsibility career.
What is the Final Verdict? Is it Worth the Cost?
At http://www.fasttrackpromotion.com/crackthecode/ the program sells for $497. I’m personally have a hard time paying large sums of money for things after my wife and I paid off $138,500 worth of debt, but here is how I evaluate knowledge investments.
1) do you actually have the money and not have to go into debt to pay for it (if yes go to question 2).
2) what is your return on investment of time and money. This one you have to figure out for yourself and your situation but if I know that with this program you will likely save at least a year and upwards of 3 years getting your promotion more quickly. With common promotional pay increases ranging between 3-10% you should be able to do the math.
Here’s an example: if I make $50,000 a year and I get promoted just a year sooner and only get a 5% increase that means my return on investment in dollars is around $2003 ($2500-$497=2003).
I of course also have to consider the time I am spending going through the course and learning the material but I would consider a $2000+ return a GREAT deal.
So What Came Out of the Email?
After I took forever and a day to peruse my way through the program, reviewing each portion along the way, I came to the conclusion that it could really help a lot of people that want a step by step approach to not only get promoted but also become much more valuable to their company at the same time. I know firsthand that this type of training is much needed in the workplace and that this knowledge is actually a win win for both companies and newly promoted employees.
So when you click on this link to check out “Crack the Code”, I will get a small commission if you make a purchase. I really believe that this will benefit people so if you want to purchase from a non affiliate link (I don’t want to stop people from purchasing) and you can do so here
Also If you find yourself using this program listen for “the Persian Trap” explanation about mindset.
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