Douglas James Review (2024): Is Douglas James Marketing The Real Deal?

Updated On: March 5, 2024

Welcome to my Douglas James review. My goal is to answer common questions like: how much it costs, if it's a scam, and if you can actually make money with it. The end goal is to help you understand if it's a good fit for you personally, and if there are any better alternatives out there.

This Douglas James review has been throughly researched with information and testimonials that are available online to anyone in the public. Any conclusions drawn by myself are opinions.

Introduction To Douglas James Marketing

Hello, and welcome to my article on Douglas James! Odds are, you came across the Douglas James training through one a few ways:

  1. You were looking up how to start an online business, and he popped up somewhere along the way
  2. You came across some ad about Douglas James Marketing and decided to take a look
  3. You heard about him somewhere else, and decided to see if the “High Ticket Client Guy” is legit or not

Whatever the case may be, take a load off and stay awhile, because we’re going to break it all down!

My hope is that by the end of this article, you have a concrete understanding of:

  • What’s actually inside the Douglas James Marketing courses
  • If this is a legitimate path toward making money online
  • If it’s feasible for a newcomer to land high ticket clients like he claims
  • What’s the Douglas James training cost?
  • And a lot more!

We’ve spent years researching programs like these, which is why we’re best positioned to give you a solid Douglas James training review (not to mention we’ve made money with this business model ourselves!)

This article should be your one-stop-shop for all things “Douglas James Reviews”, so let’s get crackin’!

For those of you that came in just for the highlight reel and want to know “Is Douglas James legit”, I’ve put together this quick list of pros and cons – check it out below:

Table of Contents

Program At A Glance

What I liked
Douglas James actually runs this business model himself, which means there will be more than just theory - there will be practical strategies for online marketing
He teaches local business funnels via Facebook ads, which means you're learning an actual real business model (lead generation business), not some fly-by-night digital marketing nonsense
The Douglas James Marketing program has been around for years, and seems to have decent enough success stories. That means it might be a real path to make money online
What I Didn’t Like
Local businesses want more than just Facebook Ads, which means if you do start landing high ticket clients, you'll eventually need to buy more marketing courses
You can learn basic Facebook ads, marketing funnels, & other aspects of the douglas james marketing approach to Facebook advertising for free on Youtube
With what you get for the Douglas James training cost, you could buy a program from other online marketing companies that teaches you 2-3 other skill sets for the same price

Douglas James Marketing teaches you an online business model known as “lead generation”. In my personal opinion, this is probably the top business model out there.

While Douglas James Marketing has its merits, it is NOT my top recommendation if you’re interested in Lead Generation.

Our top program in the lead generation category is going to be Josh Osborne & Sean Kochel’s Digital Rental Method program.

The thing is: there’s a good way and a bad way to run a lead generation business.

The bad way is using outdated SEO tactics and sketchy “black-hat” Google My Business listings to send phone calls to local businesses.

This leaves you at the mercy of Google’s search algorithm updates, which has a history of ruining lead generation empires in a single day.

I have friends that have gone from $50K/mo in passive income down to nearly $0 because their listings got suspended (and they never got them back)!

Every guru out there has “their secret method” to “ensure” Google doesn’t slap you down with a huge penalty. Well, to that I say: good luck fighting a $200 billion per year tech giant.

The good way to do lead generation, is building assets that YOU own, while playing by the rules and giving companies like Google and Facebook what they desire most – relevancy.

In this model, you build high-converting digital assets (like a landing page), and push high-quality customers through them. You then flip these customers to a client that’s willing to take them, and charge a fee for making the connection.

You’re kind of like a… lead dealer.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know that I recommend this lead generation program, because it helps my boyfriend and I personally make over $20,000/mo on autopilot.

The cool part is that it shows you pretty much exactly what to do to create a recurring revenue stream, that can bring you in anywhere from a few thousand, to $10,000+ per month.

I really like how you can build it with only an hour or two each day, and you can grow it as big (or small) as you want to.

If that sounds interesting to you, check out The Digital Rental Method program here

TLDR – What’s The Verdict On The Douglas James Courses?

the website for douglas james marketing courses

For those of you that want the high level answer to whether or not you should buy the Douglas James training, my short answer would be no.

However, I don’t say that because I think he’s a scammer, or that you couldn’t make money online with his program.

I say it because the “high ticket client guy” is charging quite a bit of money (more on that shortly) for what I see as not a lot of training on starting an online business.

I see tons of value in providing digital marketing services to local businesses, but this just isn’t the ideal form of a lead generation business. Why pigeon-hole yourself into just Facebook ads or just Youtube ads?

It’s kind of like being a butter knife when these local businesses really need a Swiss army knife.

Or trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, only to realize you’re missing half the pieces from the box.

I want to be clear about something, though.

If you’re hellbent on only knowing facebook advertising and just want to land a few high ticket clients and ride off into the sunset doing OK for yourself, the Douglas James program can definitely set you up with a successful business.

I would just personally invest my money into learning a more complete skill set so that you can charge those customers of yours more, and bring them more value.

If you’re interested in learning more about one such program that I happen to be partnered with, you can check them out here.

If not, let’s get into who the Douglas James Marketing courses are really for, and who should avoid them.

Who Benefits From The Douglas James Training & Who Should Avoid The “High Ticket Client Guy”?

another picture of douglas james

It should go without saying, this article is based off a lot of opinion, based on our own experiences running local business funnels ourselves, being inside programs that have a private facebook group, etc.

The purpose of this Douglas James Marketing review is to help you decide if it’s for you… ya know, food for thought and what not.

That being said, our team believes that if you fit the following criteria, this program might be for you:

  • If you already own a digital marketing agency (or already do some form of online marketing), and you want to tack-on another skill to your tool-belt
  • If you’ve already taken one of douglas james training courses in the past, and are just looking to hop into another one
  • If you already have high ticket experience in sales, and feel you could sell water to a fish, and don’t want to learn many other skills you might need

If you fit into any of these criteria, this program might not be a bit for you:

  • If you’re looking for real hands-on training with depth, this Reddit user claims there was only about 30 videos full of powerpoint presentations, and was hard to follow
  • If you’re looking for the “full suite” of skills, so that you can bring as much value as possible to your clients, this training seems to not really teach much SEO or website development
  • If you want the best of the best when it comes to online courses in lead generation and digital marketing, you may want to look elsewhere. This seems like a bit of bargain shopping for digital marketing skills

The Douglas James Marketing Courses – 1,000 FT View of This Online Business Opportunity

So, let’s start with the basics – what is it?!

Business Model

If you didn’t catch on yet, the Douglas James training teaches you a business known as lead generation. The specific type of lead generation that he teaches is local business funnels and ads.

What that means is, like other marketing courses in the category, he shows you how to set up custom ads (mostly Facebook ads) to help local businesses get more leads, and hopefully more customers.

It’s a fairly common form of online marketing, and a slightly less common method taught to make money online.

It’s definitely a better model than affiliate marketing or drop shipping, because it brings real results to real people that need help.

Paid ads are a helpful skill to have, but there are better training programs that teach you ads + more at a similar price point.

lead generation with douglas james

Douglas James – About The Guru

Long story short, Douglas James is an ex-military guy that got into the world of online marketing. He used to do rank-and-rent SEO, but at some point he transitioned his agency to Facebook ads.

He was involved in other marketing courses that teach lead generation (as a student), so it’s fair to say he’s a successful entrepreneur.

He eventually decided to launch the family of Douglas James Marketing Courses to teach others his simple online marketing strategies.

Douglas James Training Cost

cost of the program

According to this article, the price of his coaching services & training program is a bit of an unknown. That being said, we’ve seen others on Reddit claim it’s in the multiple thousands of dollars.

Based on our own experience in High Ticket Sales, it’s safe to say you’ll need to be willing to spend anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 for this type of training.

The Promises Of Douglas James Courses – Legit Or Not?

screenshot from Reddit of a user asking about douglas james training

One of the big questions we wanted to answer in this Douglas James course review is: “is Douglas James program legit?”

Without having met the Douglas James team, all I can say is that it seems like a legitimate training program, with actual success stories.

There are a lot of really bad training programs and online courses out there, so at least he doesn’t fall into the “really bad” category.

Full disclosure: we’ve seen inside the Douglas James training, and can say it’s not exactly brimming with content and strategies, but it’s also not a pile of garbage.

Compared with some of the other high ticket coaching services out there claiming to help you make passive income, you’re at least not going to get completely ripped off.

How Are Douglas James Marketing Courses Different From The Rest?

The real question to ask, in my opinion, is how Douglas James training is different or better or worse than other programs that teach you the same skill.

Because let’s face it – something about what Douglas James said to you really resonated, so the desire to live life free is there for you. But that doesn’t mean his process is the best.

The big difference between Douglas James Marketing courses and other courses is as follows:

  • He really only teaches Facebook ads, with small references to other skill sets. Other trainings like this one teach you Facebook ads, PLUS a whole bunch of other ad platforms, PLUS search engine optimization, PLUS website development. A well-rounded lead generation training should give you everything
  • He doesn’t give you very many pre made ads, so you’re kind of forced to start from scratch. Other programs do in fact give you dozens of pre made funnels and ads to go along with them
  • His seems to be more of a bare minimum training, whereas others give you a ton more information.

Personal Opinion

I’d like to start rounding out this Douglas James Training review by giving you pure opinion based on my own experiences with Facebook marketing, and specifically having seen Douglas James courses with my own two eyes.

Let’s take a brief step back from Douglas James training.

When you sit down to decide if you want to buy any online course, there’s a few things you need to really know about and understand.

First, when you start doing your research and google things like “Douglas James training review”, you need to know that reviews are usually written by the small minority (or large minority in some cases) that had a bad experience with the program.

In statistics they call it a sampling bias – people likely to leave reviews are the ones that had a bad experience. You don’t hear much from the people that built their 6-figure businesses, outside of those in public success stories.

Second, more important even than the training itself, is the mindset of the person entering the program. If you sign up for Douglas James training or one of the other Douglas James courses and think that semi passive income is just going to magically land in your lap, you’re sadly mistaken.

Passive income is possible, but it takes hard work up-front.

With those two things aside, I want to tell you how I personally would evaluate a lead generation program like this Douglas James course:

  1. The real world experience of the guru
  2. Whether or not they have coaching, like a private Facebook group
  3. The value of the actual course material
  4. How frequently the course material is updated

My Recommendation On This Douglas James Training Review

Let’s start with the positives:

If you put your head down, work hard, persevere through the challenges, engage in the private Facebook group – I’m sure you could eventually reach success with the program (even if it takes a long time to recoup your investment).

Running Facebook ads isn’t exactly rocket science, so if it was FREE, I would happily recommend Douglas James courses as a nice little primer on Facebook marketing.

Here are the top 3 reasons that I would not recommend the program to most people, based on publicly sourced feedback:

  1. One user on Trust Pilot claims they were forced to pay $52,000 and didn’t land a single client! While I’m sure Douglas James offers lower priced packages, you’ve gotta imagine what success you’re really going to have if they can’t get results for someone that paid over 50 grand. To me this indicates the value of the course material isn’t quite there, so they fail in that category.
  2. This Reddit user claims they tried to sue him for trying to cancel the program. I get that when you’re selling high ticket packages you have to invest as a business into each student you bring in… but threatening law suit to someone that can barely keep their lights on isn’t very cool.
  3. To me, value means what you get compared with what you pay. To me, paying $3,000 – $5,000 for a course that only teaches you Facebook and Youtube ads just isn’t there. If I was paying that amount to also get a bunch of other stuff, might be a different story.

What’s Inside – Douglas James Training Review

At time of writing, Douglas James’ offerings fall into a few categories. He has things that an actual local business owner could buy, and then he has actual trainings that you could buy.

We’re going to focus on the trainings that are relevant for you.

Here are his actual trainings that a wishful entrepreneur could buy:

  1. The High-Ticket Experience
  2. Industry Marketing Academy
  3. The High-Ticket Expert
  4. Online Training Course Development

Let’s break each of them down.

The High-Ticket Experience:

The High Ticket Experience

You may find lessons on the following topics in this course:

  • Dealing with people over the phone and closing agreements
  • Sales call scheduling
  • High-Ticket coaching
  • Services Advisory
  • Discovering your niche

This information is available for free. It’s more of a “taste test” of his training programs, nothing to write home about, and nothing you can’t find for free online pretty easily.

Industry Marketing Academy

one of douglas james training products

This covers the following topics:

  • Facebook Psychology & Business Setup
  • Ad Templates & Targeting Customers
  • Building A Value Ladder
  • “The Ultimate Lead Generation Funnel”
  • Email Automation
  • Launching, Managing, Scaling, & Closing Clients
  • How To Set Up Your Facebook Pixel
  • “Agency Secrets”
  • Ecommerce Insights (not sure why this is in training for local businesses)
  • A database of some done for you funnels

How Does This Compare With Other Training Programs?

In our opinion, this is all par for the course and what you would expect in a training for running a Facebook ads agency.

 The High Ticket Expert

application for helping you run an online business effectively

This is really only for you if you are already a business running high ticket sales, and you’re looking to install his systems into your business.

We won’t go to deep into that here because this article is focused on the beginning entrepreneur.

Our top recommendation if you’re looking to actually run a high ticket sales team would be to check out someone like Cole Gordon.

Online Training Course Development

Again, this is only really for you if you’re looking to monetize your existing skills into a training program. If you’re here reading this review, you’re probably trying to actually build those skills for the first time.

Conclusion – To Buy, Or Not To Buy?

In the world of lead generation courses, this one is probably middle of the pack.

Read Our In Depth Breakdown Of The Top 5 Lead GenerationOpp Courses For 2024

Did Douglas James Make The List?

In terms of what you get for what you pay (as illustrated above), it seems that there are other programs that you could invest in to learn more skills with less risk to yourself.

While the Douglas Marketing approach is a sound one, and we fully endorse the lead generation business model, we don’t recommend Douglas James as our #1 pick.

What Is My #1 Way To Make Money Online In 2024?

Digital Landlord Making Money Online

I’ve personally tried all of the major online business models:

  • I have an actual lead generation business
  • I’ve sold fidget spinners through Amazon FBA
  • I’ve dropshipped a toilet bowl putting green on Shopify
  • I’ve sold women’s health supplements via Clickbank affiliate marketing

And I made money with all of them, so trust me when I say: there is no “perfect” business model.

That being said, my #1 recommendation for making real money online is, hands-down: being a Digital Landlord

Whether you’re a complete newbie, or you’ve been around the block before but have never had that “big win” to propel you forward, using the Digital Rental Method is for you.

Why?

1)Time commitment: If you have an hour or two per day, you can do this. Even if you want to drop everything and commit fully, that works too.

You don’t have to be constantly working to make money. The income you generate is recurring.

Imagine taking off for a month to places like Hawaii, Paris, National Parks, & other spots people only dream about – all while collecting dozens of little $500-$2,000 checks. It’s like a dream come true.

But it’s only possible to do it when you’ve separated your income from your time.

2) Complete control: You completely control everything, which means no one can take your business away from you. This is a huge difference from other lead generation models, where Google can end you at the snap of a finger.

3) It’s Effectively Copy-Paste: Here’s my favorite part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up, you can literally copy-paste another version of it and find another willing “renter” in a few days. DOUBLING your income doesn’t get much easier than that…

4) Great Margins: using the Digital Rental Method, your profit margin is nearly 100%. Watch here to learn how.

Just a reminder: these Digital Rental Properties are worth (at a minimum) $500/mo in semi-passive income. And each time you create another one, your income increases, and the effort put into creating the next property decreases.

Best-case scenario, you have properties bringing in over $3,000+/mo on auto-pilot.

5) You’re Helping REAL People: With the Digital Rental Method, you’re helping solve REAL problems that people are ASKING for help with:

Small local businesses around the world need one thing: customers. Without them, their business would fall apart. If you can provide those customers, they’re going to be really happy – and they’re going to pay you for it.

You’re helping a struggling mother or father put food on the table for their families, put their kids through college, or simply live life a little bit more comfortably.

Having this type of impact on the world is what will help you sleep soundly at night.

So, the rest is up to you. You could keep looking at other lead generation programs like Douglas James’ digital marketing, which might work out.

You could keep researching and researching for the next few months (or few years), never making a concrete decision.

OR, you can look deep inside, think about those dreams, hopes, & desires, and make the decision to ACTUALLY make it happen, just like it has for thousands of other students before you.

Making a fortune while actually helping real people that need it.

If this sounds like you, click here to see how it all works.

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