How To Make a living as an affiliate
self help article
by Tom Hua
Prosperity and financial wellbeing self help article:
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 piece
of 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?
Running around in circles after the newest, hottest selling
product of the day, only leaves you dizzy and broke. 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 your
sales 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 peanut
butter 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 form
on 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 butter
expert 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 with
it. 5% of the people that read this guide will put all the
pieces in place and start making a living as an affiliate. All
you have to decide is which side of the coin you want to be
on.
Helpful resources to complete this guide
Web Hosting: http://www.siteshack.net
Dream Weaver website design software:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/
Autoresponder software: http://www.autoresponseplus.com
Turn Your Autoresponder Into A Cash Cow:
http://www.bpcpublishing.net
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This How To guide is brought to you by Tom Hua, from The
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