Jerry D. Russell dot Com

if you are just getting into affiliate sales there is a very real temptation to simply go after those products that make you the most money. I caution against this.

While there is potential profit in chasing each and every product with a high percentage of payout per sale, the potential for garnering a distrust between yourself and your customers by far outweighs any potential for a profitable lasting  relationship.

Before you decide you’re going to market a product or service you need to ask yourself if it’s something you would use yourself. If the answer is yes, then buy the product or sign up for the service and make sure that it works for you. If the answer is no, walk away, you shouldn’t be selling it.

I don’t offer this advice lightly. the decision to be ethical in your sales approach can be costly. Very costly. It’s simple to promote the heck out of some product that has no real use to your customers but turns large commissions for each sale, but this method of doing business comes at an even greater cost.

It will cost you your customers

A customer who feels that they have been slighted in the least is not likely to return to you for advice on their next purchase. It’s far more likely that they will tell every single person that they know how badly they feel they have been treated, thus costing you more customers, more revenue and a serious lack of trust in an open marketplace.

If you’re wondering why I so vehemently preach customer relations on this site, it’s because I learned a long time ago that making a small sale today and leaving my customer satisfied translates directly into more sales from that customer later. It was true when I sold retail, it was true in web development and it was true in technical support. A satisfied customer will most likely come back to you the next time he or she need something that they feel you can supply for them. They might even tell a friend or two.

If you’re selling or promoting software or programs on how to make money, it’s likely that if your customer runs into a problem, he or she will contact you before bailing out completely and walking away in disgust. If you have used the product or service you’re selling, you have the tools to turn the situation into a positive one. If you’re hawking snake oil… Well, don’t expect to see many “thank you” emails. It’s more likely you’ll be seeing chargebacks on sales.

Nice guys don’t finish last. They may get to the finish line later, but they have more to show for it.

If you promise what a product can deliver and sell it on its own merits, you stand to gain a collection of loyal customers, a good reputation and at least one of those “thank you” emails. Your customers will very likely trust you to recommend another product at some point in the future, since the first actually worked for them. This is what they call in marketing a “win-win” situation. You have a sale and you customer is happy.

This concept is especially important in times of economic upheaval. In times like these customers expect to get what they paid for. They don’t have a lot of disposable discretionary income. Make that sale count and it will provide a gateway for another. Blow it by selling your customer something he or she didn’t need and you’ve shot yourself in the foot in the worst possible way.

Stand behind what you sell. It may not make you a fortune in your first three hours, but it will build a solid foundation on which to make more sales in the future.

Jerry Business Sense, Monetizing best practices, Business, Business Sense, ethics, making money, Monetizing

Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject of affiliate sales and affiliate marketing. In this short amount of time I’ve come to realize that 99% of the information that most people see on this topic when they first decide to venture into the world of affiliate sales is absolute chaff not worth taking the time to read through.

In my first three hours of research I was completely inundated with products offering me the one sure fire method that would jump start my online affiliate career. These programs promise all sorts of amazing results, from making a profit within the first three hours to making $700.00+ per day with just minutes of work on my part. Each one promises to give you all the secrets the top affiliate marketers don’t want anyone else to know. All you have to do is sign up for their program (for a fee) and they’ll show you how to get rich in minutes.

I call BullS**t!

The truth of the matter is this. There is no magic bullet. The promise of “if you build it, they will come” only works for baseball fields in small Midwest towns, not marketing niche sites. It may have been true in the early days of the Internet but it is most definitely not true today. Successful affiliates are doing well for the same reason any other entrepreneur does well. They work very hard at it.

I’m not saying that all of these programs are completely useless, but I do feel that he basic premise of most is to prey on the gullibility of people who really do want to learn new ways to supplement their income. Each and every one of the sales pages I visited tells the same story. “It’s simple”, “It’s Easy”, “we’ll walk you through a step-by-step method to make amazing amounts of money”, “it’s fun!”. The promise is for amazing profits with no effort, the same promise that’s heard all over the world on late-night infomercials and it’s the same in the case of the Internet. It’s a false promise.

The more reputable of these systems is selling information that anyone could have found for free on their own if they had just looked for it. In essence you are simply paying them for doing some of the legwork for you. My wife actually purchased one such affiliate program and made her money back within one month without spending another dime. The reason she did not continue was that she found she wasn’t really interested in the situation. Fair enough, the program delivered at least the basic tools for a complete novice to make some extra money. In this case it wasn’t a complete scam.

Other programs are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to sell even more products that their customers will probably never really need, with the promise that these tools will help in making that first “Internet million.” The reality of this type of program is that they have taken the same basic skills detailed in more ethical systems and turned them into an affiliate marketing sales pitch of their own. In the end they’ll promise to refund the entire cost of their program if the customer isn’t satisfied (this probably happens quite often), but if their customer went through and bought several different tools and utilities as suggested, the company has easily made treble that amount of money off of that person.

It’s simple for an inexperienced or gullible individual to fall prey to companies like the latter and eventually find that they have spent thousands of dollars on useless software, bloated website hosting, design services and useless or outdated information. These people leave the experience disillusioned and disparate. They probably won’t try again, which is a shame, as there is money to be made if the situation is approached in the right manner.

That’s why I’ve decided to write an eBook on the topic. I want to take the mystery out of the process and point people to the right resources, tools that actually do work and people that can actually help them move forward without burying themselves in debt. As a byproduct I’ve come up with ideas for several other eBooks, all on topics that are designed to help people move in a positive direction toward their goals.

I have to be a bit vague at this point on topics and the actual titles and information these eBooks will contain, not because I’m not so excited about it that I don’t want to share it with everyone, but because I don’t want someone to take my exact idea and get it out before I have the chance to do so.

And how will I market this little gem, you ask?

With affiliate marketing, of course. I’ve already gotten a massive amount of help from dozens of affiliates, why not give back by hopefully earning them some money in the process. (Making a bit to help with hosting costs and other necessities doesn’t sound bad either.)

I’d love to know what you think about this. Is it worth the time? Does the topic interest you? Please leave your ideas in the comments. And hey, feel free to let other people know so that I can get as much feedback on the subject as possible.

Peace, I’m out.

Jerry Announcements, Business Sense, Monetizing Announcements, Business, Business Sense, ethics, growth, making money, Monetizing

One of my former employers taught me a valuable lesson in making money on the Internet.  His simple concept has shaped the way I find income for years and it has never proven to be the wrong choice.

His philosophy in creating new ventures was simple:

Don’t innovate, imitate and then improve

Or in other terms never try to reinvent the wheel. The wheel already works. What you need to determine is if you can improve on it in any way.

This isn’t to say that if you have a revolutionary new idea for a product or service that has never been done that you shouldn’t go after it.  The chance of being the next “big thing” is definitely there, but the chances of success in those situations is far less than you might imagine. If you do have the next great idea, work it on the side, for everything else follow these simple tactics.

This article assumes that you’re going to be developing a new web presence, whether it be a blog, website or … Whatever. therefore the terminology used will be about a new web site. Your exact focus isn’t important, but the method is.  In fact, this method would work if you were planning on staring a new restaurant or dry-cleaning shop. It’s about how you approach it, not exactly what it is.

Find a site or service that you really like:

If you aren’t in love with the concept you’re trying to imitate, it will show in the end product. If you aren’t the financial type, don’t try to build a better version of a blog that reviews financial services.  Your readers will quickly abandon you when they discover your heart isn’t in it.

Sign up and work with it for a while:

Become an active member on the site.  Go through all of the features that are offered and become proficient with them. Sign up for newsletters and RSS feeds.  Remember, you like the concept enough to want to emulate it, you’re going to have to know how everything works.  This is not the time to rush!

Define the site’s strengths:

What are the owners of the site doing incredibly well? you’re either going to have to do these things just as proficiently or simply accept that they are better at it.  How can you add value to your visitors in these areas or can you compete at all?  You have to know before you get started.

Define the site’s weaknesses and determine if you have the skills to do it in a better way:

This is the most important pat of the process.  Determine where you and perhaps other users of the site feel that it falls short. if you’re going to be any kind of competition you are going to have to squash these issues before you launch. If you have previously found that the site far exceeds your abilities in one area, this is the place to distinguish yourself from the pack.  Even if you’re on level ground with all of their strengths (and you probably will not be), don’t make the same mistakes that they have made.  Do these things right the first time.

Check the competition and make sure someone hasn’t already done what you were considering:

There is nothing more disappointing than spending a great deal of time and effort on a project only to find that someone has already beaten you to the punch, so before you get in too deep, go check out your target site’s direct competition.  while you’re at it, assess their strengths and weaknesses as well.  In the end you have to offer something different and more useable than each of these services.  You have to stand out.

Plan, Plan, Plan:

You’ve checked the competition, you know that you have the capability to offer something that they can’t, or at least do what they are doing better than they have managed to do.  Now it’s time to lay the groundwork.  Buy your domain name, set up hosting hire designers and developers that you can trust to turn your vision into a reality.  Set up a facebook and twitter account to start a buzz in your chosen niche. All of this has to happen before you launch.  You want people waiting to see what you have to offer, not finding it on their own sometime down the road.  A site launch benefits from a little buzz.

Get at least a small group of testers together to work out any kinks.  You may have made sure that you aren’t recreating your competition’s problems, but you’ll surely have some of your own.  If you’re running a community site, that group of testers will also make the site look a lot less empty when it first launches, and this is a good thing. Nobody wants to be the first to sign up.

Mind your professional manners:

Just because you’re using an existing concept does not give you permission to use any of your competition’s content.  You can’t “borrow” their layout, images or text and you don’t want to.  You aren’t building a clone, you’re building something different and you want to be sure that people can see that the minute the site opens in their browser window. If you are perceived as nothing more than a knock off of some other site you will find it difficult to attract new visitors and even harder to keep loyal readers.

Wrapping it all up:

There are those who scoff at the idea of doing “the same thing everyone else is doing.”  These people will tell you with a smirk that “it’s already been done” and that there really isn’t a point in the effort.  These people are missing a very important point. if someone else is doing it and making money, then there is money to be made. There’s a market for it and if you are willing to work at it, you can get your share of that market.

In the course of my career in the Internet industry I’ve seen many people fail at selling their big ideas.  I’ve seen far fewer people fail by following in someone else’s footsteps.  They may not make millions, but they make a profit and they are free to pursue other projects.

Still think I’m mad?  Consider your local area restaurants. I’ll lay bets that at least 4 of those are burger joints of some description.  Each one of these places does basically the same thing, is producing the same kinds of product and each one has its loyal followers.  If there was no money in it, they wouldn’t be doing it.

the fact of the matter is that each one of those burger joins does what it does just a little bit differently. For each person that thinks that difference is great, there are three who don’t agree.  The other places take up that slack.  All four are getting steady business and their customers are happy.

The same is true of websites that offer basically the same services.  Take Google Mail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail as examples. Each provides the same service in slightly different ways, but none of these services has a lack of users, or a lack of revenue.  Some people prefer one over the other and that’s all that matters.  Most people choose their favorite service and use it exclusively.  Others use all three, but both types of customers bring in potential income.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.  Get out there and build a better one.  it takes less time, less effort and in the end can make you more money.

Jerry Blogging, Business Sense Blogging, Business, site cdesign, site considerations

Let’s get one thing straight.  Stimulus package or no, it’s going to take time for the economy to get back on track.  In the time being, it’s getting more and more difficult to get a fair price for the work we do.  This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s that advertisers are feeling the crunch just as much as we are and no one wants to risk any money that they don’t have to.

If you are counting on one source of income from your online ventures you’re in for a rude awakening. The amount you earned last week will most likely be significantly larger than the amount you will earn this week. If you haven’t noticed a difference in the amount you can earn per job or per sale, you are among the lucky ones.

If you think I’m sitting in a gilded room spouting these little tidbits of information you’d be wrong. In the past three weeks I’ve had four advertisers send polite emails telling me to pull the ads and links that I had on various blogs.  Each of them was sure to tell me that it was not the performance of these ads that prompted their decision, rather it was a change in marketing focus. What they really meant is that their companies are feeling the strain as well and they can no longer afford the advertising channel that included my blogs.

I have no hard feelings.  this is business and in tough economic times businesses need to cut back. if you do paid posts, you’ve seen it in the pricing for them.  What used to pay $10.00 for a few hundred words is now paying $2.50.  It’s a trend that is going to continue in every market.  Advertisers need people to buy their products.  When people aren’t buying, they don’t have the advertising budget to pay their affiliates or freelancers as well as they used to.  In turn, those people that are dependant on these companies for income accept lower payments, which brings the overall market down.

Diversity is the key

Diverse income channels was a good idea in a strong economy.  Now that the economy is depressed it’s not just a good idea, it’s an absolute necessity.  If you’ve got all your eggs in one basket, you’re going to suffer, if you survive at all.  That’s not a remark made lightly, it’s the plain simple truth.

now is the time to get out there and find other methods of making money.  Look to affiliate sales, freelance writing assignments and alternative forms of advertising.  See if you can barter links with other sites to get your traffic up.  At the very least your CPC revenues should increase with more traffic.

Look closely at any affiliate programs you may be using.  if they aren’t bringing in money, get rid of them. now is not the time to be stubborn and wait for results.  if it’s been there a month and made no money, its dead weight that is on;y eating screen real-estate.  Liabilities cannot be tolerated when money is tight.

The time for tough decisions is here.  There is still a lot of money to be made, but only those who are willing to work very hard are going to reap thee benefit of a good income in times like these.  What the future holds is still uncertain.  For the moment it’s time to tighten your belt and live lean.  if you’ve got the right mindset you may just come out of this in a far better place than you were when it wasn’t so hard. And at the end of this we’ll all have a lot less competition, because those who don’t adapt will go under, leaving more opportunities for those who did.

Jerry Business Sense, Monetizing Business Sense, Monetizing, Recession, the business end

Keeping your money working for you in tough times can encompass several different strategies, including watching your savings, making sure your credit card and CD Rates are as low as possible and making careful choices in advertising and expenses. If you have a financial advisor, work closely with her to make sure that you don’t find yourself in a tight spot before the stimulous package has a chance to get us all back on track.

Jerry Business Sense Finances, nc