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How_to_Make_a_living_as_an_affiliate
| How to Make a living as an affiliate
95% of all affiliates make $0 - $100 a year. I don't know about
you, but in my books, this is not a living. In this quick "How
To" guide, we'll take a look at how you can become part of the
5% who ARE making their living online. This guide does not
guarantee that you'll make a fortune, but it will point you in
the right direction if you're interested in making a living as
an affiliate.
1. Mindset: Get in touch with your grey matter. Program your
mind with positive, committed thoughts. If you can believe
it,you can achieve it. It sounds a bit like a sales seminar, but
bottom line is, if you don't believe you can make a living
online, you won't. You have to be committed. Commit to yourself
that you will develop an income online - no matter what it
takes. Think of your business as a bacon and eggs breakfast. The
chicken was involved, the pig was committed!
2. Viewpoint: This is your business. Once you've accomplished
your first hurdle and committed yourself to making this work,
you have to look at your business from the proper viewpoint. No
rose coloured glasses here. This is your business. You are the
CEO of your own marketing company. You can choose to offer your
services to one or several companies. Bottom line, you are
responsible for every action in your company. Every decision you
make affects your bottom line.
3. Learning Curve: Expect it. Becoming an affiliate is like
going to college or university. You start at the beginning,
learn the basics and build on what you learn. Take it
step-by-step and you'll build a much stronger business. Think of
it like becoming a doctor. One doesn't decide to become a doctor
with the expectation of opening a successful practice one week
from now. It takes time to learn the products or services you're
marketing and it takes time to learn to run your business.
4. Budget: Time and money. Set a general budget for both. As a
business owner, you'll use plenty of time developing and
promoting your affiliate business. Budget as much time as you
can each day and make sure you use your time wisely. Set up a
budget for your monetary expenses too. You can run a business
online with a shoestring budget, just don't expect a mammoth
income in the beginning. The more you can invest in your
business, the better. This doesn't mean that simply throwing
money at your business will make it grow. Every dollar that goes
out your door, needs to come back in and bring another dollar
with it.
5. Goals: s/he shoots - s/he scores! Your goals will get you
through the tough times. There'll be lots of days when you feel
like quitting. If you make your goals tangible, you'll make it
through the tough days. Money isn't a motivator, but what money
can buy, is. Set your goals for a family vacation, a new car,
boat, or home. It's much easier to get excited about a shiny red
corvette in your driveway than $100,000 sitting in your bank
account. Money is only numbers on a pieceof paper or a computer
screen, but it can bring you a luxurious lifestyle, and that's
where the fun is.
6. Nuts and Bolts: Once you've got your house in order, with the
proper mindset, you're looking at your business from a realistic
viewpoint, you've got an open mind and you're ready to learn,
you've set aside some time and money and you've got pictures of
your dream house, car and vacation plastered on your wall,
you're ready to go hunting. The next step is to find a business
that interests you and offers an affiliate program with a
reasonable commission. For information products, one of the most
popular and profitable online, you can and should expect a
commission of 25% or more.
Pick a product that interests you. Buy it and use it. Your
business is based on your recommendations of a product or
service. If you haven't used it, how can you recommend it? Avoid
running around in circles after the newest, hottest selling
product of the day, it only leaves you dizzy and broke.
Choose a product you're interested in. If you like astronomy,
becoming an affiliate of a star chart company may be a good fit.
Selling women's pantyhose may not.
7. Look before you leap: Finding a company to represent as an
affiliate is one thing, finding a company that respects its
affiliates is another. Do a bit of research before you jump on
the bandwagon. Send an email to the company as if you're a
potential customer. 24 - 48 hours is a good response time. This
shows that someone is actually running the company. It also
gives you an idea of their commitment. Generally, the faster the
response, the more committed the company is to doing business.
The quality of the response is also important.Did the response
answer your question? Was it written in a friendly, professional
manor? Did they answer your question directly or simply send you
to a FAQ sheet?
8. Flip the switch: If everything checks out up to this
point,then your next step is to take action. Fill out the
affiliate application form and get your affiliate URL. Now the
ball is in your court. It's time to get down to brass tacks. If
you freeze now, you make no money and flush your goals down the
toilet. If you take action, you make it one step closer to your
goals.
9. If you build it - they will come: OK not really, but you do
have to build it. If you want to maximize your income and be
taken seriously, you need to own a website. Just like a brick
and mortar business, you need a professional location to offer
your products. Yes, you get an affiliate URL when you sign up as
an affiliate, but promoting an affiliate link looks amateur and
will help you LOSE 98% of your sales. We'll cover this in point
10.
10. Follow-up = Sales: Only 2% of your prospects will sign up or
buy what you're offering, on their first visit. 98% of yoursales
will be made from your follow up. There's a very simple method
for following up and making sales automatically.
i. Check your favourite search engine to locate a free ebook,
software program or report that relates to your offer. If you're
promoting a website that sells peanut butter, a free peanut
butter recipe book would be a good match. Your give-away must
always relate to the product you're promoting to maximize the
results of this system.
ii. Build a page on your website to give away your free
peanutbutter recipe book. Design the page as if you were
designing a sales page. Make people's mouths water until they
want the recipes so bad they'd gladly pay for them, but then
give it to them free. All they have to do is fill in their name
and email address in the simple form and you'll send their
recipe book to them instantly via email.
iii. As soon as your peanut butter prospect fills out the formon
your site and clicks the send button, they are taken to your
affiliate URL where they can buy peanut butter. At the same
time, the peanut butter recipe book is sent to their email
address.
iv. Now your peanut butter prospect receives an email from you
each week with new tips and useful peanut butter information.
This information positions you as a peanut butterexpert and
gives you the opportunity to promote your peanut butter
affiliate website once a week, to hot prospects. This is where
you'll make 98% of your sales.
Although this may seem like an overwhelming amount of work for
the beginner, it's all very simple. The whole process is run
from an autoresponder, a simple piece of email software that
automatically sends your prewritten email messages on a
predetermined schedule.
Your success as an affiliate is determined by you. 95% of the
people that read this simple How To guide will do nothing
withit. 5% of the people that read this guide will put all the
pieces in place and start making a living as an affiliate. You
have to decide which side of the coin you want to be on.
About the author:
Hans Hasselfors is a successful business entrepreneur and
internet marketing consultant. Get the net working for you. Join
a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and make your living
online. Become a member of The Business Professional network. http://ww
w.internet-marketing-experts-online.com
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