The Ins and Outs of a Network Marketing Business

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Published on: May 20, 2013

 

There are almost as many different kinds of internet businesses as there are people that run them. One of my absolute, all-time favorite business models is an affiliate marketing business. It's the cat's meow as far as I'm concerned. I get to help my people and show them how I do it. When they accomplish the goals they set out, I get a feel warm and fuzzy feeling. Their goals and accomplishments are because of what you showed them and you can celebrate it with them.

These are the only types of affiliate marketing businesses I start because I help I can help them succeed. 

Yes, there's other kinds of affiliate / network marketing businesses including ones that just require getting people signed up and give them – (turn'em over) to that business or your "up-line". I don't much like this type of business. It reminds me too much of the Borg episodes in Star Trek. You join the "Collective", and your ideas and accomplishments don't matter anymore. It's all for the good of the company (collective) and individual accomplishments don't matter much and your acknowledgements are nil.

Now, even with individual network marketing businesses there are big differences. How do you tell the difference between joining a great business or a dud? 

Do your research. I usually start with the BBB review,then do a complete search of the company using a chrome, safari & firefox browser. Every search engine gives you different results so it helps to look at all three.

One of the things that pisses me off the most is someone trying to pass themselves off as something they're not. I've been online since 1999 and Ive owned some type of internet business since 2002. I can smell someone trying to promote one of these nasty affiliate businesses almost as soon as they hit my browser. I don't waste my time, ever. It's much too valuable – Sound like a certain president you know?

Once you get the best and brightest on your team you can turn yourself loose. Show them everything you know and how you did it. It's called duplication. If you ever want to make a buck in the network marketing game, show them duplication. If you want to make a million bucks, show them your secrets.

Here's the "real secret" of affiliate marketing. 

Your Team: If you can find only 5 people that share your vision you are set for life. These are the people that are nice enough – and intelligent enough – to be on your team and the ones you work with closely.

Don't lie: You ask me a specific question about the business and you'll get you my specific answer. You may not like my answer, but it's honest. If you  lie – before you know it, you're knee deep in the shit of your own making and wishing you brought your shovel. When you tell the truth about your business, you'll get much farther in the long run, which to me is why you're running a business in the first place.

That 5 is called residual income – and it will pay you for life.

How did I start a home business?

Categories: Best Money Businesses
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Published on: March 18, 2013

Instead of another blog about internet marketing today, I want to tell you a story. My story – of how I started an internet home business including the good, the bad and the ugly. My intention is to show you anyone can do it, even a stubborn know it all, not willing to listen like me.

 My beautiful wife Sandi bought me my first computer in 1994 as a Christmas present because as she said "Face it-you're not that great with people". I felt like I just discovered fire! Hot Damn, I can do anything with this!

I owned a physical business franchise at the time and had over 1400 customers that had to be billed monthly – BY HAND and handed out small envelopes they had to mail back. Well, I wondered if this puppy could handle that. After learning the Appleworks database application and only after reading my company contract three times, I began typing in customers names, addresses and info, two in an 8 1/2 x 11 format. This took me about a week, working 6 or 7 hours a day to get everything into the database. Think I backed it up? Damn skippy!

When I was finished, I printed out a couple pages and it looked great. All I had to to was cut them in half (I purchased a guillotine paper cutter), collate them and they were ready to go out. But the new bills had all the previous month's data like the date I received their payment & check # or cash payments were recorded. The customers loved it – so I charged each one 50 cents extra to cover the cost of the paper and ink. I made a tidy little profit at the end of each month too – about $600. Now back to the company contract. There was nothing in there that said I couldn't do this and there wasn't anything that said I could. So I took the initiative.

A couple days before I began charging, I put out a letter informing the customers and there were no complaints – not one. The day AFTER I put out all the bills I went to the company's office and showed the head honcho my letter. He read it and said "When are you going to implement this"? I said "yesterday".

You know how you can see someone's face get redder by the second? Well, this guy's face started reddening at his chin and went all the way to his forehead. I literally thought the top of his head was going to go off like a volcano! He started yelling and literally pacing around his desk. This company had a policy, and the contract did state, that if I lost 5% of my customer base they could take my business (I paid $28,500 for it a few years before) and I had no intention of losing it. He told his managers to call my customers to try to come up with the percentage they needed to confiscate my business.

It never happened. In fact from what I found out, many people said if I'd have charged $1.00 more a month they would have gladly paid it because my customer service was so good. In all, I lost 15 customers out of 1400 and when I got the list of people I lost, I called them and got 8 back. The next contract that came out had a clause (other distributors called it the "Paulie Clause") that specifically said you cannot raise your rates unless you tell the company first and got their OK – in writing – that you could do so.

This whole price increase was my wife's idea, but it taught me a great lesson in business – one I want to pass on to you. I simply want to show you how thinking out of the box can benefit you greatly and if you know you're right, to stick to your guns. I sold the business a few months later for $42.000.

Right about then I started thinking about using the Mac for an online business.This was back in 1996 when the Internet was still new and fresh… and people had an internet attention span of about 10 seconds a site. I looked at a few income opportunities and they seemed redundant. It actually took me another year to find the right "foundation" businesses that were a good fit for me. For you, I'd suggest two or three foundation affiliate businesses where they do the heavy lifting – and at least two fun online businesses. Fun Online Businesses are just taking the stuff you love to do and turning it into a business.

That's the key right there to having a wildly successful online business. You love the stuff you do so much, you'd do it if you got paid for it or not. I've since invested in a Windows computer because some of my software will only run on that machine. I've come to appreciate it to a point, but not as much as my Mac.

Your Foundation – (Affiliate Business)    – Join at least 3. Do your homework first and make sure they have a strong reputation with the BBB. There's a simple test you can take to see if the business is right for you. If you find yourself doing things other than working on that affiliate business when  you should be, re-evaluate it. What other things? I once found myself going around the room dusting equipment.

Your Fun Online Business – Start with at least two. Sit down with yourself and figure out what you love to do and just turn it into your business. With this mix of affiliate businesses and your own businesses you should do well.

Just remember, whatever you choose it will take work. I can give you a thousand different sayings – Rome wasn't built in a day, anything worth doing is worth doing well – you know the drill. Don't expect to get rich overnight. Plant the seed, water it, prune it when you should and watch it grow. When you start to make an income, it'll just make you want to reach higher. And don't forget to think out of the box now and then.

 

Supersize your exposure with articles

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Published on: March 1, 2013

 

 

First a confession then on to today's post.

 

I love running a useful blog that helps people with what they are trying to accomplish related to a home business. The reason I don't post more and reason I don't write more articles is because I don't like it all that much. I have to be in the mood and feel creative. I just know I need to be in the mood to write effectively and that mood has been notably absent lately. I'll try to work on that and become a better host.

 

So, what's the post for today? Ironically, the benefits of writing articles! Writing articles is the single best thing you can do to get your blog or website noticed. 

Listed below are the ten top benefits I can think of for writing articles. You could probably come up with more, but this is my playground and I'm going to use the David Letterman format. 

 

If you're new to writing articles that's ok. You have to get your feet wet sometime. Almost every new publisher felt like they stunk at first, and you know what? Many did. Many of my early articles were "less than perfect" but because I included the website or blog address in the author resource box, they're still floating around out there and I'm still getting exposure from stuff I've written years ago.

 

 

The Top Ten Reasons for Writing Articles

 

#10. Submit your articles to an article publisher that has a free content directory on their site. By doing this, they will allow their own visitors to republish your articles – getting your name and site spread out all over the web.

 

#9 You will get free advertising and extra exposure for your articles when starting out and as you get better, you can use the paid article services to boost your exposure even more. 

 

#8 By adding your name, website address, credentials and an email address for contact to a resource box, you'll be branding yourself and your site. This is important. 

 

#7 If your articles are good you could have your articles archived by the publisher. Before actually signing up for the article site you've published to, people may want to get a peek at the back issues to see if they want to sign up for that directory.

 

I was planning on doing this on #5 but I couldn't wait… 

 

#6 Build Excitement in your articles! People love excitement. When they're online they're reading and the best thing you can do is get their attention. It's BORING to read the same stuff. Blend your articles with cool sh*t so they have to sit up and pay attention.

 

#5 Your article could be placed on the publisher's home page (along with your bio). If they like your article enough they may publish each of your articles on their home page – getting you extra exposure.

 

#4 You could allow e-zine publishers to put your articles in their free e-books. Since they give these away, your advertising and exposure could multiply quickly.

 

#3 You could get your articles guaranteed to run one of the many e-zines (e-magazines) on the net today. You can agree to put one of their articles on your site or blog if they'll publish yours. It's a win/win.

 

#2 You will become known as an expert on the subjects you write about and you could earn extra income from people wanting to hire you for other articles, books or consultation.

 

And the number one reason…

 

#1 You'll gain people's trust. I've been contacted (another reason you need an email address in your bio) by owners of other blogs asking me to be a guest author for them. This is probably one of the nicest compliments people can offer. 

  

 

 

When when you sign up for a new service, the first thing to do is to look for a "resource box" or "bio box". Add a short bio about yourself including your name, site or blog address and get an email address devoted just to your articles.

 

 

Here's a couple resources to get you started.

  There are thousands of article directories but this is the best place I've found to get your articles noticed. 

 

  John Carlton is one of my favorite authors and runs a blog called The Rant.

How to build your email marketing lists

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Published on: February 5, 2013

 

Starting today, I'm going to start a series on business specific subjects you'll need to build your online business. 

 

First up is 6 great ways to collect email addresses. Bluntly put, your list is the lifeblood of your business. Without a list you can market to you're basically SOL. Another thing I want to mention right here is the trust factor. People are worried about someone sharing their personal information and rightfully so. If people can trust you with their personal email address it goes a long way for your business, not to mention your reputation. 

 

For me, my promise to never share an address is my word. And you never break your word.

 

 

Ok, the 6 ways I promised you…

 

 

1. OFFER A FREEBIE

You have to give in order to get. If you want people to offer up their email address you're going to need to offer an incentive. And nothing works better than a complimentary (read that FREE) gift of some sort. It can be a no cost report, software, book or even sample pages of a book. That last one works like a charm. But your gift has to be something of value – something people can really use and will appreciate.

 

2. PUT A SUBSCRIBER BOX ON EVERY PAGE

This is a clever little trick that everyone seems to miss.  You'd also be surprised to see where some people put them. They need to be right at the top of the page. Another big plus is that when the search engines index your page, a visitor may come directly to a page other than your home page. If your subscriber box is only on your home page, you're missing thousands of people who might otherwise sign up.

 

3. CONTESTS

Very often, a contest will generate a buzz and traffic for your business. Create a contest and put a form on your site or use a pop-up box. All of the major email marketing companies supply this tool. Just remember though that not all the people that sign up this way may be good prospects for what you're offering. Some may just be looking for freebies and have no intention of buying your product or service.

 

4. DISPLAY YOUR OWN AUTORESPONDER ADDRESS

When most people advertise, they include their website address only in their marketing ads. Why not include your auto responder address instead of or include it with your website address? This way you're one step ahead in the process and capturing all those email addresses of the ones that could have gotten away. 

 

5. HIT SPAM MAIL BACK

A little trick I use (and love it) is to simply respond to all the spam I get. That's right – respond to it. Yes, I know by responding they know you're a real person but I've had great luck in never getting that spam mail again. All I do is reply to the letter, writing back something like "Your opportunity looks nice but I'm busy right now and will look it over when I get a chance. If you really want to see a business that blows everything else out of the water, check this out!" Copy & paste it into a signature file you can just choose with your mail program. Yes, I also know they can just change their email address, then you just check their IP address and you can confirm if it's that Tart that spammed you before. 

 

6. JUST ASK

If you're talking on the phone or have people in your contact lists, don't be shy-ask for their email address. If you're "out and about", ask for their business card which usually includes their email address.  

 

 

 

*If you want a brand new copy of my E-Book  you can pick it up here for free: Laser-Targeted List Building. It will show you 30 Great Ways to build a list of targeted subscribers for anything you're selling or whatever niche you're in. You'll also get full rights to the PLR package.

Affiliate Marketing Business or Sole Ownership?

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Published on: October 25, 2012

Today, many of us want to go to work for ourselves – and why not? You can usually make more money by running your own business. Research shows those that run their own businesses make more money and are happier than those who have a “job” and work for someone else. However, the difference between those who want it and those that actually do is staggering. Those that do make the attempt have two options open to them. Create their own sole proprietorship (usually a brick and mortar business) or go into an affiliate marketing business. Both can be quite productive. The difference?


Any business requires a great deal of work despite the avenue you take. The more you put into it the more you are likely to get back. However, the sole proprietorship requires much more time and commitment and has a much greater degree of risk. Creating your own business is  difficult. Unless you have a unique idea that is marketable you are going to have competition with other businesses. You have to create strategies to attract customers away from the already well known & established businesses in your area and over to yours. If you succeed the rewards can be immense but if you fail you could loose everything. Being a sole proprietor is incredibly risky. If your business fails like the vast majorities do, your sole source of income has just ended and depending on how much debt your business had and how your financed the venture, you could lose much more than income – like your house if you put that up as collateral. 


Affiliate marketing businesses provide several advantages in this area. First, you are marketing products that are already in existence. Known brands are not as hard to sell especially if they have a good reputation. Good and trusted businesses or products will attract customers much faster than something new and unknown. Affiliate marketing takes care of all of this for you.

Affiliate marketing takes most of the risk away. You're paid according to how well you perform. You don't need to worry how the overall business is performing as much as your business is performing. You get your commissions based on products you sell,  sign others  up, etc. Affiliate marketing businesses are usually well established so you don't have to worry about them folding up and going bye-bye at a moments notice.

Advertising is an integral part of either business. If you're a sole proprietor, the advertising depends on you. You'll have to have enough in your budget to hire a professional or devise a campaign yourself. The first costs money and the latter requires a great deal of time.

With an online affiliate marketing business, the advertising is sometimes taken care of for you though not always. Actually, I'd much rather do my own advertising than rely on some advertising model that's been around for God knows how long. And I like to be creative in my advertising. You're usually given what you need such as banners, e-mails, cards to hand out, vehicle signs and other information about your business. You're also likely given good advice on how best to sell the products or services. Affiliate marketing programs should try to help you as much as possible. Generally, they better you do the better they do.



Help and support as a sole proprietor will probably lead you to the
Small Business Association – SBA. Here you can get advice for free or you may need to hire out a professional, meaning extra cost to you. With an affiliate marketing business, there should be a representative on hand or up-line, that you can contact for support and advice. This service is usually free to all members.
 
Business is tough no matter how you slice it. Either route you take will require hard work, dedication and funds. However, if you want to work for yourself, join a program where most of the hard work is done for you. With an online affiliate marketing business, the risk is taken away and you don't have to re-invent the wheel – just follow directions. This allows you time to concentrate on what needs to be done, like advertising, signups, making a profit and building your business.

Above all, join a online affiliate marketing company with a history of being in business for a number of years, has a solid Better Business Bureau – BBB rating, has a history of paying their affiliates in a timely and consistent basis and has great customer service when you need help, because you ARE going to need it at some point.

So, you think you can write?

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Published on: September 10, 2012


I like totally agree with the SEO method. You just have to do what feels good to you and works for whatever website you have to rank. This search engine marketing stuff is totally new to me but I can learn it and do OK with it. People will visit your site if you give them what they want and need.

Working to apply the search engine marketing principles and Google algorithms  to your site and maximizing your SEO efforts will invariably bring you the intended results you are seeking, thus leveraging your efforts in the ranking world. If you can invariably turn your visitors into buyers, your efforts are achieving the intended result .

You can learn and apply SEO (search engine optimization) to your site to get the results you want. If you do it the right way, the people you're looking for (targeted traffic) will want to visit your website and come back to see what new things you are adding to help them. Search engine optimization is the best way to get organic traffic( people who are searching for what you are offering).

Right now, you're probably thinking – what is he talking about?  Let me explain.

Writing for a website or blog:

Look at the samples above.

 In the first example, you sound like an idiot. If you come across as  someone that sounds like you don't know what you're talking about, how many people are going to actually going want to read what you're trying to say? Not too many. For me, it seems as if you're trying to muddle through the piece.

In the second example, you come across as talking down to people. Unless you're giving a seminar or writing a scientific paper that's geared to like-minded people on a particular subject, it's best to steer clear of this kind of writing. It also comes across as trying to impress people when you really don't have to.

The last example I think, shows best what you're writing so everyone knows what you're trying to convey. When I write, I try to give you the subject I'm talking about and what it means in simple terms. In my example above, it's SEO. Experts will know what I'm talking about when I say SEO, but people not familiar with the term won't, so I want to tell you easily and help you to understand (in parenthesis) – "You can learn and apply SEO (search engine optimization)". This writing method is pretty simple but it goes a long way.

It's kind of a fine line. You don't want to talk down to the experts, but don't want to talk above almost everyone else that's never heard of SEO. Hopefully, people will understand what you're trying to explain while at the same time you're not annoying anyone. You actually have to write at an 8th or 9th grade level to appeal to the greatest number of people for a website or a blog.

Something else I think you need to remember when writing for your site or blog and especially for sales copy is not come across as too formal. What I always attempt to do when writing posts is to write as if my readers are my friends, which they ARE! If you think about it, there are millions of blogs across the internet and many more millions of websites. To have people want to visit your blog or site is an honor. This is the way I've always approached it. A big reason why I think this blog is successful is that  I try to genuinely help  people. Now, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I'm just telling you the WAY you write and why you write goes a long way in determining your success or failure. It makes me feel very good when I get comments from people saying they like my style of writing. Believe me I've worked on it for years and I'm still learning every day. 

Copywriting:

Copywriting is the art of writing for advertising or ad copy. People have been doing it for many years. The next time you watch yet another TV commercial remember this is ad copy for whatever they are trying to sell you. Most people writing for online business and salespeople – about 80% – are in this category. They usually work for companies and get paid by the company. The best copywriters are also usually  paid a commission for each article or ad that generate sales. Also in this copywriting category are people running their own online business.They are busy writing sales letters and squeeze pages that hopefully will get you to click through and buy their item or service.

Great Copywriting:

The top maybe 15% in the copywriting field are consummate professionals that usually work by the job. They are hired by other professional business owners who want the best copywriting they can get, want to outsource the work and know these people will be able to sell whatever they are offering. They've done previous work with these copywriters and know what they will be getting for the price they are paying.  I said in that previous post that professional copywriters will charge you $10,000 and UP for a single sales page. The first two questions they will ask you is who your target market is and what you are selling. Most of that 10K is taken up in research. That's right – professional copywriters will research your target market extensively as well as what you're selling to write a sales page for you that will sell (convert) for you. The actual copywriting they do for you won't take long at all. After their research is done, they'll blend the sales page copywriting seamlessly with what you are selling.

The other 5% of copywriters usually start their own business showing others how to write like they do. They are the "cream of the crop", usually have many successes under their belt and are able to hire and pay a team of other copywriters to work for them to show people that join their membership sites how the pros write. You usually pay $500 or more for monthly dues, or $2000 to $5000 for a seminar where you can meet your copywriter in person. So you'd better take in everything you learn. If you do, it's an investment in your future. 

 So, great copywriting lets you write the ticket to your own future. If you can learn to move people by your words alone you're on pace to become a self-made millionaire.

Tip: Try writing easy three line ads first. All you need to do is brainstorm about the headline first. You'll need a GREAT headline that will make people stop and want to read your ad. Then write the other 2 or 3 lines about what your ad is about and always, always split test – which is simply a five dollar word to see if people actually click on your ad. A great way to split test is to use a word press plugin that I use. It's called "smart affiliate links". It free and will show how many people actually clicked on your link.

Ways to Get Traffic to your Website

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Published on: August 7, 2012

Instead of the right and wrong ways to advertise part 2, I'm giving you the different ways to generate traffic. I use these and they WORK! I think this post will help you much more than the one I was planning.


Before we get into the "meat" of the article let me say this. The best way to build traffic and receive visitors is to build an interesting and accommodating website (or blog). This will go a long way towards having your site recommended and building a subscriber base. If your website has many pages with good information, each one of those pages will be packed with words and phrases – keywords- that people will find when they make searches. Another plus in building an interesting site is that other sites will want to link to you, viewing your site as an important resource, giving you even more visitors. In fact, this is what Google had in mind when it set up its current ranking system. A site that is informative and filled with useful information will be noted and other sites will link to it. Each of these links is viewed by Google as important to your niche. Make your site interesting, and people will want to link to it. A content rich site is the first secret of building ongoing traffic. 



Paid Ads:

For immediate traffic to your site the best way is to buy it. It's also the most expensive way as opposed to the more natural and organic ways. By buying traffic (pay per click – or PPC), you can target the people already looking for the product or service you're providing. The biggest player here is Google. For those new to this industry, whenever you run a Google search, the listings that show up on the right hand side can be bought by anyone. They are the sponsored links. You pay a certain amount for each click as defined by the preferences you set beforehand in your account. You can have traffic showing up to your website 5 minutes after setting up a Google AdWords account. Other search engines also offer this PPC service -Yahoo, Bing, Facebook and LinkedIn also have PPC services. The next step after paying for traffic is to your monitor results. You can track the number of hits from various sources to focus on those ads that are producing sales. Every type of advertising must have a tracking system with good accuracy. Just keep the ads that produce for you and delete the others.


Publish on other Websites:

This is one of the most effective ways to build ongoing traffic. By publishing some of your information on other websites you'll be getting backlinks from those websites as well as some of their visitors. Using this "link juice" is one of the most effective ways to get your site or blog noticed as an authority by the search engines. Search engines LOVE both good content and high page (PR) ranked backlinks.  If your site is full of useful content, other people will also want to publish your content on their websites. Webmasters are hungry for content to beef up their own sites and their newsletters. 


Article Marketing:

This is one of my favorites. For every article you publish to an article directory, you'll get a backlink. Just make sure that you insert your website or blog url and contact information into each article. Good article content is the key here, just like good website or blog content. If you provide useful information and quality content in your article on a consistent basis, the article directories will remember you – and your site. By submitting consistently good articles, higher page rank directories will want to publish your articles. Just like the higher PR websites, higher page rank article directories will provide quality backlinks to your site.       


Emailing a List:

If you own a list, that can become one of your greatest assets over time. There are no overheads – unlike PPC marketing – and you can create a huge rush of sales every time you send an email. Creating an email list absolutely takes longer than most of the other methods here, but this is one of the best methods of generating traffic to whatever you choose to advertise. By using an auto responder, you can attract these visitors back to your website again. There's a study that was done a while ago that says people need to see an invitation 7-10 times before they'll actually buy or join what you're promoting. Knowing how often to send emails to your list is also important. The key here is to add value and send regular free content In between asking them to buy something. Send something free that has value. Generally, once a month is an appropriate time period between emails, or maybe more often depending on your market. 


Joint Venture:

This strategy is simple. Other websites send out emails and place strategic links on their website to attract visitors to your website. You only pay them for the sales produced from any clicks you receive. Generally 50% of the profits generated is the best, since it's an equal share. The key here is to make it as easy as possible for your JV partner to advertise for you. Create emails for them, banner ads and any other promotional material that will help them advertise your product or service. JV deals allow you to create a lot of traffic to your site in a short period of time and help you to build your own mailing lists very quickly. You can receive JV support from all of the established companies in the field you wish to enter if you approach them correctly.



Creativity combined with activity is a good recipe for traffic building. Build a good site, then spread the word about it. Use these guidelines and you are sure to succeed.

The right (and wrong way) to advertise

 

This is going to be part 1 of a 2 part post on internet advertising.


Sometimes I wish I had all the money back I've wasted on advertising the wrong way over the years. I literally keep all the ads I've ever created just to go over them now and again.


When I peruse the early ads I've done I'm just amazed at how bad they were. I've never hired a professional copywriter, although I probably would have been better off paying the big money up front then and had more traffic and sales instead of losing money over the long run you know, drip drip drip.


Professional copywriters can charge anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars for writing just a few ads. If the ads are good you've made an investment in your business. If they're not, you've just thrown your hard earned money right out the window. As you know I'm self taught in running all the aspects of my home businesses and a big fan of learning. I'd much rather take the time to teach and train myself something than pay someone else to do it for me – outsource it.


Yep, it takes more time but when you've accomplished it you get a warm fuzzy feeling as well as learning a brand new skill that will help you for years to come. There's way too much involved in what you need to write your own ad copy to go into here, but I'd like to give you a few basics of writing your own ads that hopefully will give you an appreciation of what it takes to write a good ad and maybe put a few more bucks in your pocket.


If you do a quick search for "professional copywriters" (I just did) you'll come up with four million three hundred and forty thousand results. I'm sure these range from the very best to some that have a hard time making out a grocery list. If you ask someone who they like, you'll probably get four million different suggestions. If someone asks me, I suggest Perry Marshall.  


If you're interested in copywriting, he's the best in my opinion. I can't afford to hire him to write for me but that's not the point here. You can learn a ton just by looking over his site. I absolutely love his elevator chat theory, which simply states: If you got on an elevator and someone asks what you do for a living- and you want to get them interested enough to look into it- could you explain it by the time the elevator arrives at the first floor?   


In my experience, less is absolutely better when writing an ad.

 

The Headline – has to GRAB the reader's attention. People aren't going to click on the ad if the headline is just so so and doesn't get their attention.


The Ad Body – it's best to give a clear, concise message. Keep it short, sweet and to the point. People simply don't have the time (or attention span) to read a long winded message.


Then, you simply add the url you want  people to go to if they click on it. 


Probably not as difficult as you thought. But the trick is getting their attention with the headline, letting them scan the ad body and hope they're interested enough to click. It's essential to be able to write a good ad if you're using PPC (pay per click) ads like Ad Words, Yahoo, Bing, LinkedIn or Facebook PPC ads which have a minimum bid of a buck or two every time someone clicks on your ad.


These are great ways to get immediate traffic but you'd better know what you're doing and be able to write a decent ad or you could lose a lot of money in a very short time. Although you can also set how much you want to pay per click and when you want to shut the ad down. I like to experiment with different ads (split test) to see which perform better.


Something else I'd like to share with you is WHERE you advertise. This is called "targeted traffic". If you're new to all this advertising stuff, targeted traffic simply means to put your ad where people are looking for what you're offering. In other words, you wouldn't want to put an targeted ad for selling refrigerators in a place people are looking for cars. I know that's an extreme example, but I've seen people put ads for something in the most obscure and irrelevant category that you have to ask yourself how people looking for this will ever find it .    

 

Something that will also help people to find your ad or website is the correct use of keywords. All you have to do is use a keyword tool to find the best keywords related to your specific ad. Go to your favorite search engine and do a simple keyword search for "keyword tools". This is exactly what people looking for what you're offering will do. All you have to do is make it easier for people to find what you're offering. If you nail down the right category and keywords you'll get far more hits to your ad.


A simple rule that I also adhere to is to ask myself  "Would I want to click on that"? If not, go back and change it until you'd believe it's something that's interesting enough that people will look into.


Hope this helps!


That's about all for this post. Part 2 will be "Emotional Advertising" – How to use emotions in your ads. Check back soon or if you've subscribed to my feed, I can tell YOU when it arrives.


Is it possible to be afraid of success?

I was talking to my friend the other day who’s a affiliate marketing specialist. He bemoaned the fact that many of his affiliates will join his business and just refuse to do anything. He offers to help them any way he can and they just won’t do anything to advance.

 

After listening to him for a few minutes, I suggested maybe they are actually afraid of becoming successful. He said he’d heard something about that I told him absolutely- for whatever reason there are actually factors holding some people back from being successful. Probably the biggest of which is having to move out of their comfort zone a bit or failing at something before and it left them with an actual fear of success.

 

I know what I do in the affiliate marketing game there are many people who join a business and after they sign-up, just stop working towards moving up. Some actually think all that’s needed is to sign-up for something and the money will just fall into their pockets like manna from Heaven. I call this the “instant gratification syndrome”. If they don’t see the money and success in a few days, they stop working at it.

 

Some actually never even start because of “analysis paralysis”. They over- analyze the opportunity so much that they procrastinate and never actually start doing anything useful. There are almost as many different fears about beginning something (especially an online income from home business) as there are people that sign up for them, but these two reasons account for the majority of never getting anything accomplished.

 

Another reason is the discipline that you must have to run your own at home business. It seems strange, but some people are so used to working for someone else and their time is so structured they can’t get used to running a home business on their own schedule and some fear making the wrong decision so much that they actually revert back to the analysis paralysis mode. They are also unsure about not having a boss actually tell them what to do and when that they never get started.

 

What are the actual numbers for the affiliate marketing area? Actually, 50% of people that sign up for an online home business never even start. I’d say maybe 30% do the absolute minimum to get by, while the remaining 20% take the bull by the horns and blast through the ranks to become a success and are now running their own online income business. And you know what? When people sign up I can usually tell the ones that will be successful just by reading their profiles. 

 

The single biggest reason why I got into affiliate marketing is the simple fact that I love to help people to achieve. I love it when I get an email thanking me for helping them to succeed. Some were so unsure of what they needed to do they’d become a little upset. I always tell them as I’m telling you now, don’t try to re-invent the wheel. I’ve been through this before and just use the help I give you, stay focused and you’ll be OK.

 

We have a saying in the affiliate marketing game – Some will, some won't. So what?! Someone's waiting! Next!

 

I mean, all you can do is offer to help any way you can but ultimately it’s in your affiliate’s own hands to become successful. I'll offer to do anything I can, but, some will, some won’t.

 

I’ve added a couple links at the bottom of this post if you’d like to read more.

 

 

Talk Soon!

Paul Touranjoe

 

 

Could you be Afraid of Success – by Sarupa Shah 

Are you afraid of Success - by Troyann Williams

Home Business


No two words have ever inspired so much dreaming, inspiration, soul searching or even terror in the last few years.

In every Sunday's local business section I always look at the new DBA's for people starting a new business. I also look at the business discontinuances  for people ending them. As you may guess, especially since the beginning of the year the new DBA's have increased from one or two columns to three or four. Then I smile. And guess what? The discontinuances have shrunk to about a half column. Good for those of us- both men and women who've had the courage and determination to strike out on their own and did not wait for the hammer to fall. Maybe some just said "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!"

The rules have changed folks, and working for a company that will sustain you your whole working life and provide for your retirement are gone – just like drive-in movies, three or four TV channels instead of a thousand, sub $2.00 a gallon gas and your parents getting home from work and asking how your day went.

In the same local business section I also look at the market indicators and the jobs report. Now, I have no idea where the government came up with that "magic" 400,000 number for jobs. I'd use a multiplier of at least two to indicate the real number of unemployed people and the number who just stopped looking for a job.


Personally, I've found life is way too short to go through all the what ifs and just the constant stress of a "normal job", not to mention the commute. I can tell you that every person I talk to that has a home business is much happier than when they had a "normal job".

There are too many benefits of working at home than I'll list here, not the least of which is having more family time, tax benefits and less stress. I mean the way I look at it is all you have to do is be able to put money in your bank account to support you and your family right? There's nothing I've ever found that strictly specifies HOW you have to do this.

* Did you know that in 1862 the first income tax was put into place to support the Civil War and it was eliminated in 1872? In 1895, the Supreme Court decided that income tax was unconstitutional. In 1913, the 16th amendment was added to the constitution making income tax permanent in the U.S. tax system.

In the last two years, a certain number of people that were in the middle class are now listed as living in poverty. I can't see income tax going away anytime soon so why not consider starting your own home business? Make it easier to put money in your bank account, pay your taxes and be able to spend more time with your family.

A home business isn't complicated. Just like your marriage – it's dedication, determination and devotion.

* Source Infoplease 


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Welcome , today is Wednesday, May 22, 2013