Fortunately, there’s an easier way to get loads of traffic very quickly – and for free. All you have to do is leverage other people’s traffic and resources. Read on to discover ten ways to get other people to send you their traffic…

1. Be a Guest Blogger

Some bloggers solicit guest articles, in which case you can create a blog post and submit it for consideration. However, even those that don’t advertise accepting guest articles may be open to the idea if you give them a reason why they should.

For example, you can:

•  Trade articles with the blogger (so that they get to post an article on your blog too).

•  Use the blog owner’s affiliates links in your article, so that they make money when their readers buy a product.

•  Offer something else attractive in trade, such as an endorsement in your newsletter.

2. Recruit Them to Your Affiliate Program

One quick and easy way to sell more products using other peoples’ traffic is by asking them to join your affiliate program.

If you’re selling digital products, you should offer at least a 50% commission rate to affiliates, and even higher for “super affiliates” (those who can send you a lot of traffic and sales). You may even offer additional perks, such as bonuses or discounts for their customers.

Tip: You can quickly and easily set up an affiliate program for your digital products using Clickbank.com (which is also a payment processor).

3. Trade Blog Links

Instead of trading content, you can trade blog links with other people in your niche (AKA “blogrolling”).

The first benefit is that it’s visible for a long period of time, as usually these links are permanently placed on the front page of the blog.

Secondly, you can also get a search engine optimization benefit if the blog has a high Google Page Rank (and if you use your keywords as the anchor text for your link).

4. Trade Newsletter Articles

If you like the idea of trading content, then consider trading newsletter articles with other people in your niche.

Tip: Look for those who also post their newsletter issues on their blogs, as then you’ll get the benefit of a backlink and ongoing traffic!

5. Co-Promote On Your Download Pages

If you have products or services that are closely related to another marketer’s products, then you may agree to trade product links on your thank you / download pages.

Alternatively, you can ask the marketer to use his affiliate link to point to your product sales page.

Either way, this tends to be responsive traffic, since they’re customers who just bought something (and thus they’re in the buying mood).

6. Swap Links On Your Subscription Confirmation Pages

Another place you can trade links is on your newsletter subscription confirmation pages. You may even agree to trade endorsements in the welcoming emails that you send to your new subscribers.

7. Do Joint Mailings

If you ship physical products, then seek out other marketers who’re selling physical products in your niche. Then ask these people to send out a flyer advertising your products in every shipment they send, and you’ll do the same for them.

Tip: Look on eBay® to find marketers in your niche who’re selling a high volume of physical products.

8. Ask to Interview Them

The biggest marketers in your niche might not be open to some of the other suggestions we’ve talked about so far, such as content swaps (especially if you’re relatively unknown and don’t have a busy blog yet). However, they may be open to you interviewing them, perhaps on a teleseminar. And if so, then they’ll also likely help you advertise the call, which means you get free traffic.

Tip: Be sure to mention your website link on the call, because then you’ll get traffic months or years from now if you distribute the recordings.

9. Co-Write and Promote Articles

Instead of creating a recording with another marketer, you can create an article together.

Example: You can each share five niche tips. Or one of you can share the tips and the other person can write the article.

Either way, you’ll get traffic because your partner will help you distribute the content, perhaps by posting it on his blog and telling his list about it.

10. Create Rebrandable Reports

Finally, you get others to send you traffic by creating rebrandible reports (using a tool like ViralPDF.com). This is where you allow others to change the affiliate links in a report to their affiliate links, so that anyone who distributes the report has the opportunity to make money on the backend.

Summary

You don’t have to invest months of work or thousands of dollars to get traffic – not when you simply leverage other people’s traffic!

—————-

HEY - I’m “retiring” all of my products and services!  After 10 years as an internet marketer, I am closing down all of my current money-making sites … removing all of my ebooks, reports, membership sites, software programs, coaching programs, etc.  To find out what’s still available, visit http://www.jimmybrown.com/im-retiring-all-of-my-products/

An Open Letter To My Subscribers, Affiliates, Partners, Friends and Customers

Let me say one thing up front:  I’m not quitting as an internet marketer.

Let’s get that settled from the beginning.  This is NOT another one of those “I’m retiring from internet marketing” deals.  I’ve put in almost ten years as a full-time internet marketer and I hope to have many more decades of it in the future.

H – o – w – e – v – e – r …

I AM “retiring” ALL of my current products, membership sites,
coaching programs, ebooks, software programs, small reports, etc.

What do I mean by “retiring”? 

I mean I am systematically going to begin removing ALL of my current offers from the internet and discontinuing the sale of them.  Once they are removed, they will no longer be available for purchase.

The offers will be removed, one at a time, at a rate of about every 7-10 days.  Everyone on my list will be given advance notice of what product is being removed with the date of removal.  This will give everyone ample time to purchase anything they are interested in before it is gone.

August of this year will mark my 10 year anniversary since going full-time.  I launched ProfitsVault.com in August 2000.  (As a side note, I’ll be totally revamping that site and relaunching it in August of this year to celebrate!)

I’m not “quitting” internet marketing, but I’m going to scale back tremendously.

In a matter of weeks, every single current offer (ebook, membership site, etc.) will have been removed from the Internet and no longer available for purchase. 

The big question is —

WHY?

There are three quick reasons that I want to share…

1. To free up time for personal interests.

I’ve got a book that’s being released in March called “Lessons That Leave A Mark” for Sunday School teachers and another one that will be done for release in July or August.  I’m going back to Poland this summer as the mission trip team leader. I’ve been speaking at some churches and have a Christian based membership site that should launch sometime first quarter 2010.  I just feel like my life needs to head in more of a ministry direction.  Plus there are a lot of other personal things that I want to give more of my time to such as family trips (we’re gone somewhere almost every month … and loving it!) and running, tennis, backpacking.  Life is too short to work all the time and we’ve been blessed enough over the past ten years that we can spend the next ten doing what we enjoy and feel called to do.  (NOTE:  You can keep up with my ministry stuff at my “other” blog … http://www.LifeTurns.com)

2. To streamline my business.  

Despite the fact that I outsource most of my customer support these days, there are still a lot of day to day operations stuff that I’m involved in that demand my time.  When you oversee more than 100 different offers, it can be time draining trying to train team members to handle new FTC rules, update sites, use new technologies, troubleshoot errors, not offend 20,000 customers who all feel like “personal friends” which require a personal response, etc.   By having only 1-2 offers out there to maintain as opposed to 100+, I’ll be able to be more personal with my customers and eliminate a lot of time drain.

3. To maximize offers.

Ever heard of InfoproductMastery.com?  Most people on my list haven’t, despite the fact that it’s arguably THE best course available on the subject of creating information products to sell.  Ryan Deiss and I created it somewhere around 4 years ago.  While I’ve sold a couple hundred copies … I should have sold THOUSANDS of copies by now.  Why haven’t I?  Because it’s been sitting there with no attention from me for years.  I have so many ideas for new offers that I generally don’t spend enough time marketing them after I create and release them.  I.E.  I create an offer, promote it to my lists, get partners to promote it and then I move on to another list.  That’s a waste of good  products and services.  I need to limit myself to fewer new offers and try to get them into as many hands as possible instead of mass producing content and casting them aside to gather cyber-dust.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

I know there are going to be questions.  Let me answer them before you ask them…

FAQ #1:  Are you retiring? 

Re-read the opening sentence:  “I’m not quitting as an internet marketer.”  Despite the fact that I’ve spelled this out, some will tell people I’m quitting or they’ll think I’m quitting.  I’m NOT quitting.  I’m “retiring” my current products, not myself.

FAQ #2:  What about affiliates? 

My affiliates and joint venture partners stand to make even more money than ever before.  Every affiliate will have the opportunity to promote my products prior to them being removed, have the opportunity to promote limited “special offers” that will be a part of some offer removals and will have the opportunity to earn commissions on follow-up sales of new offers.  Any existing links you have in place for items that are removed will be redirected to an explanation page about the removal, along with information on current offers … you WILL receive commissions on purchases made through valid existing affiliate links.  Bottom line:  if you’re an affiliate or joint venture partner, don’t go anywhere.  Even better things are coming!  (NOTE:  If you ARE an affiliate, you’ll receive separate emails related to the “retirement”)  Not an affiliate yet?  Join at http://www.Infoprofitshare.com … it’s free.

FAQ #3:  Will you release new offers? 

As I mentioned earlier, I will DEFINITELY be releasing new offers later this year.  I have several new membership sites, coaching programs and other products “ready to launch”.

FAQ #4:  What if I’m a member of Membernaire or Affiliatenaire? 

If you are currently a member of Membernaire.com or Affiliatenaire.com (or if you join PRIOR to me shutting the sales process down for them) you WILL be able to continue in the series of lessons until you complete them all.  There are NO CHANGES for current members or anyone who joins prior to me retiring these two successful membership sites.

FAQ #5:  Can I buy licensing to these removed products? 

At this time, there are NO LICENSES available for the offers that I’m retiring.  I do anticipate licensing (PLR) some of the content in the future (after everything is retired) and will make it known when and if they become available.  At this time, no licenses are available.  If you want PLR, grab all you can at http://www.PLRSO.com before they are removed as well.

FAQ #6:  What if I’m on your list? 

If you are on any of my lists … stay there!  Firstly, all of the free content (articles, blog posts, newsletter issues, mini-courses, special reports, video tutorials, etc.) will still be free and as relevant to you as always.  You don’t want to miss out on quality content that you can use.  Secondly, by staying on my lists you’ll know which offers are being retired so you can grab anything you want prior to their removal.  And, finally, moving forward there will continue to be new content and offers as usual … staying on my lists keeps you in the loop for all of it!

FAQ #7:  Is this a marketing trick?

If by “trick” you mean “are you saying this just to get a bunch of sales and you really have no intention of retiring the offers”, then NO this is definitely not a trick.  Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t play marketing games.  If I say only 100 will be sold, only 100 will be sold.  If I say I’m closing the doors on Friday, I’m closing the doors on Friday.  When I tell you that I’m removing the offers and they will no longer be available for purchase, that’s exactly what I mean.  No tricks!

HERE’S THE TIMELINE…

The first offers scheduled to be removed are ALL of the special reports at http://www.SRzone.com  On Friday, February 26^th at 10PM all special report offers at the site will no longer be available for purchase.  This includes http://www.HomepreneurHabits.com , my 65-page “operations manual”. 

***DISCOUNTED PRICE*** As part of this special promotion, the prices of ALL small reports at the site have been discounted to only $10 each! (Yes, including Homepreneur Habits!) 

-> The description of the reports will still read “$15”, but when you click on the order link, it will show that you are only being charged “$10”.

After the 26^th, the next offer will be “on the clock”.  I’ll announce which one it is, mention any special offers related to it and post the deadline.  This process will repeat until ALL of my existing offers are retired.

I’ll still release new products, coaching programs, membership sites, etc. but for now, it’s time to say goodbye to ten years worth of existing offers.

In the meantime, grab a copy of anything you want from http://www.SRzone.com  At only $10 per special report, you probably should stock up.  EVERYONE should especially order Homepreneur Habits at that price!  Remember, this is a time limited offer.  On February 26^th, they’re gone.

Best regards,

Jimmy D. Brown

P.S.  If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact me at the support center … http://www.Infoprofitcare.com

With many people concentrating most of their spending on Christmas gifts and travel, selling digital goods generally takes a backseat.

I haven’t seen a single “top ten gifts for Christmas” list that included a “how to make money as an affiliate” infoproduct.  After all, it’s hard to gift wrap an ebook and put it under the tree.

Many internet marketers simply take the month of December off and enjoy the profit they’ve made throughout the year.

That’s good news for you and I.

It leaves a lot of extra money for IMers who want to implement some age-old Christmas retail practices.

If you want to get some extra sales before Christmas, here are three ways to do it…

1. Offer a discount coupon.

CASE STUDY:  My wife received a coupon a few days ago from one of her favorite stores, a hobby shop.  She loves this hobby shop, but it’s not usually a place that she shops at Christmas.  But this coupon offered 40% off any one item.  Coupled with sales and clearance discounts, that could mean a great bargain.  Effective use of a coupon.  It brings in people who might normally shop during this time of year.

How many retailers have you seen offering coupons?  Many, many, many.  Why?  Because they work!  Pure and simple.  They work. 

Three principles that will really drive up the usage of coupons to increase sales…

Principle #1:  The deeper the discount, the greater the interest.

Ten percent (10%) discount is better than none, to be sure.  But if you want to really get people to take notice, bump it up to 50% or more. 

Principle #2:  The broader the discount, the greater the interest.

Offering a deep discount on “select items” is good.  But, the best usage of coupons is to make it a “blanket” coupon.  In other words, customers can use it on ANYTHING you offer.

Principle #3:  The timelier the discount, the greater the interest.

When you couple a great discount coupon with a TIME DEADLINE, you’ve got a winner.  “This coupon only good from 5AM-11AM on December 12th”.  Guaranteed boost in sales that morning.

*** The Digital Version ***

With so many shopping carts offering the ability to use coupon codes, with the ability to let people send you Paypal payments and with the ease in which you can temporarily lower prices in Clickbank and other order processors, it’s extremely easy to put this into practice if you’re selling digital goods.

(NOTE:  If you’re an affiliate marketer, talk with the owner of the products and services that you are promoting and arrange for a discount for your own contacts.)

2. Create a limited supply.

CASE STUDY:  When the sales flyer for a huge discount on 52″ HD plasma televisions made its way to my mailbox, it got my attention.  Now we’re speaking MY language!  Here’s the deal, though:  it was for “the first 10 only”.  The race is on!  Again, this is effective.  Not only do you create an intense desire and sell out your initial 10, but you get additional customers in your doors to (a) buy other things, (b) buy the television at a smaller discount.

There is something about a genuine limited supply that causes people to scurry.  If you make some kind of special offer that is only available to a small number of people, it’s usually going to translate into a quick sales boost.

Of course, this isn’t going to inject much additional PROFIT into your account if it’s a low-ticket item.

It’s kind of hard to get excited about the money you’ll make on a “Buy my $27 ebook for only $10 … first 10 only” kind of sale.

What you need to think about in using a limited supply is this:  premium offers.  Offers that afford you a greater profit per transaction since you’ll be limiting the number of spots available.

*** The Digital Version ***

Eclasses.  Coaching.  High-end memberships.  Physical products.  Licensing. 

I’d recommend something that is a MINIMUM of $97 and preferably $297 or above.  Selling out 10 coaching packages at $297 would bring in almost a quick $3K.  That’s some good extra spending cash for your significant other!

Again, the offer you are making needs to be something out of the ordinary.  Something special.  An incredible deal that’s only available to a privileged few.  That’s what gets people to buy.

NOTE:  If you’re smart (and you are, because you’re reading this post), you’ll put up a list after you’ve sold out the initial offer and then offer something related to those who join your “waiting list”.

3. Give a bonus.

CASE STUDY:  A software retailer offered a special “buy one get one of equal value” free during the holiday madness.  I wasn’t planning on buying Adobe Elements, but when I saw that it was on sale and on top of that I would get Adobe Premiere for free, it was too much to resist.  Need I say it?  Effective!  This offer got a customer who wasn’t in the market to buy anything to actually come in and spend money.

Why do we accept “buy one get one free” offers?  Or “buy this and get that free” offers?

Because we love getting “extra” stuff for free!  Seriously.  Why do some retailers offer a plush doll with a new children’s video at the same price another retailer offers the children’s video alone?  Why do some convenience stores offer a free coffee or soda with every $10 gas purchase while others do not?  Why do some restaurants offer free appetizers and/or dessert with an entree purchase and others do not?

Because some people get it!  Some marketers are smarter than others.  They know that all things being equal, we’ll buy something from the person who gives us an extra incentive for free with our purchase.

I’ve been teaching the practice of using digital incentives (especially for affiliates) for about ten years now.  It’s nothing new.  But it keeps working.

Especially this time of year.

*** The Digital Version ***

How hard would it be for you to create a special report and offer it as a bonus to anyone who orders XYZ in the next week?

How hard would it be for you to offer a free personal consultation as a bonus to the first 50 who order XYZ?

How hard would it be for you to comp a copy of Product A to any customer who purchases Product B?

How hard would it be for you to throw in PLR licensing for the next 100 people who order a copy of your older product?

The short answer is:  not hard at all.

There are many options (good grief, I just gave you four!) for using bonuses to increase your sales quickly.  Most of them are very easy to put into practice.  And, just like that, extra sales.

(NOTE:  If you’re an affiliate marketer, this is perfect for you!  Create some kind of bonus incentive … special reports are easy … and offer it to those who purchase something through your affiliate link.)

Once you’ve chosen your method of getting these extra sales, tell your people about it.  Mention it at your blog.  Send it out to your lead list.  Contact past customers.  Get your affiliate team involved.

And watch a boost of extra sales come your way quicker than you can say, “Ho Ho Ho”!

———-

WANT 50% OFF OF JIMMY’S PRODUCTS?

NOTE:  This offer good only until December 21st @ 5PM Central Time. 

Visit http://JimmyBrown.com and http://www.123webmarketing.com to view all of the special reports, ebooks, physical products, software and more that are available.  Find the price.  Take 50% off.  Send me a Paypal payment to webmaster@profitsvault.com.  Within 24 hours I’ll email you back with download instructions.

YES … this DOES include InfoproductMastery.com.

One of the questions that I’ve been asked a lot as I near this mark is this…

“What do you know now that you wish you had known 10 years ago?”

If I had to narrow it down to one core truth from the “Money making” side of things, I’d have to answer this way…

“I wish I had known how profitable and easy it is to start an FTM membership site as opposed to a ‘traditional’ membership site”.

While I’ve continually had at least one membership site active since August 2001, I only started dabbling in FTM (AKA “fixed term membership”) sites in the last few years.

SIDEBAR:  “Fixed term membership” is a phrase that I personally created and introduced to the internet marketing crowd, although the concept itself wasn’t original to me.  A “fixed-term membership site” (FTM) consists of weekly content shared via autoresponder to paid members for a specified period of time.  If you’d like to know more about how to start one of these, visit http://www.Membernaire.com for all the details.

There are a variety of reasons why a fixed term membership is a better model than the “traditional” membership site that are explained at the above referenced site, so I won’t go into them here.

But perhaps the most significant is the fact that all you need is that FIRST LESSON created in order to launch the site, as opposed to needing a bunch of content to stockpile a “traditional” membership site.

That’s important because you LITERALLY can have a FTM up and running in just a couple of days.

What I want to teach you in this article is a simple way to quickly setup an FTM site without writing a word of the content.

If you want to create residual income in 72 hours or lesson, here’s what you do…

Step 1:  Buy Quality PLR Content.

It begins with purchasing a private label rights license to “quality” content.  Choose this carefully as you’ll be converting it into your membership site lessons.  You want it to be first rate since your name is going to be attached with it in the end.

A) Look for content that “teaches a process”.  In other words, you want content that is very “how to” in nature.  The materials you purchase PLR to sell should teach the reader how to accomplish a desirable result.

Examples:  How To Build A List, How To Lose 20 Pounds, How To Shave 10 Strokes From Your Golf Game, etc.

This is important because the “fixed term” model works best when your members learn a series of steps for reaching a desired end result.

B) Look for content that is written by a qualified expert.  Preferably you’d like content that wasn’t created specifically for a PLR sale, but rather was originally sold as an actual product.  This will generally yield a better class of content.  (Especially if you’ve purchased the product in the past and KNOW personally that it’s good stuff.) 

C) Look for content that is lengthy enough to be divided into at least 12 lessons of 5-9 pages each.  In other words, you’ll need 50-100 pages of meaty content to use for a 3-month FTM site that offers members weekly lessons.

Step 2:  Extract Marketing Materials.

After you’ve purchased the content, you’ll want to “extract” some marketing materials.  By “extract” I simply mention that you take out small portions of the content and convert them into a variety of marketing materials.

A) The default recommendation that I generally make is this:  you want 2-3 ezine articles, 4-5 short blog posts (think “tips”) and one short report (7-15 pages).

B) If you can find PLR offers that INCLUDE bonuses specifically created to promote the content, that’s even better.  The “best” PLR offers include marketing materials (in ADDITION to the product content itself) that were created specifically to promote the product you are licensing.  These are your best options.

You’ll use these extracted marketing materials to promote the FTM site once it is completed.

Option 1:  Use the materials yourself.  (IE Post articles to directories, post tips to your blog, send out report to your list, etc.)

Option 2:  Get affliates and joint venture partners to distribute. 

Option 3:  Be smart and do both of the above options.

Step 3:  Setup FTM Membership Site.

The biggest part of your time will be used in actually setting up the FTM membership site.  But, even that can be done in just a couple of days.

Here’s the general overview (clearly this is an abbreviated version … it’s NOT a tutorial on how to do this)…

A) Register a domain and secure hosting.

B) Write the first lesson and set it up on a member autoresponder list.

C) Create a sales page and a download page with access to the member list.

That’s it.  You’ve got an FTM site setup.  (Again, this is a blog post, not an infoproduct.  If you want a full explanation, visit http://www.Membernaire.com)

***A WORD ABOUT THE LESSONS***

What I recommend you do with the PLR content is divide it up into 12 sections.  These sections should be “self contained” (teaches a smaller part of a bigger process) lessons which work together to teach an overall process.

An example would be this:  “How To Setup A Squeeze Page” is a SELF CONTAINED lesson that works together with other lessons in the series to teach an overall process of “How To Build And Profit From Opt-In Email Lists”.

Think “chapters” of a book.

When you have these steps completed, it’s simply a matter of getting the word out (distribute those marketing materials!) about your new FTM site.  Drive traffic!

So, that’s how you use PLR content to setup an FTM site.  The overall model here is solid.  It’s an easy way to create residual income from scratch virtually anytime you want to do so.  If you locked me in a room with no content on my computer at all, I could have an FTM site setup in lesson than 24 hours using this model.  I’m guessing that any intermediate marketer could do it in 72 hours and certainly in less than a week.

*** IMPORTANT ***

Before we close out, let me address one more thing.  If you’re looking for the kind of content that I’ve been talking about, this *MAY* be ideal for you.  Go ahead and visit http://www.plrso.com/9-list-profit.html for an incredible PLR deal that…

+ Is a bonafide best-selling course that still makes me money today.
+ Includes a variety of bonuses (several special reports, templates, etc.) that you can use as ready-made marketing materials.
+ Is perfect for the FTM model (it lends itself well to self-contained lessons that teach an overall process)
+ Consists of 90+ pages of meaty content (not including bonuses!) that will give you more than enough for an FTM site.
+ Won’t cost you a fortune to get started.

I say this *MAY* be ideal for you simply because there are only 250 PLR licenses available.  Once they’re gone, they’re gone for good. 

Visit http://www.plrso.com/9-list-profit.html and grab your copy NOW if they’re still available.  You can have it converted into an FTM site by the end of the week.

Best regards,
Jimmy D. Brown

The one thing that most internet marketers want the MOST is what they need the LEAST.

Most internet marketers are actively looking for a new marketing tactic or tool.

Their days are spent trying this idea and that idea, giving this new thing a chance and that new thing a chance.

They try a few list-building things.  They try a few traffic generation things.  They try a few affiliate marketing things.

They do the SEO “trick” they heard about on the forum.  They write a gazillion ezine articles ‘cuz they heard that works.  They move on to videos.  Yeah, videos — that’s the answer because it’s new for now.

30 days later, 6  months later, 3 years later … they’re singing a new verse of the same song.

They are actively looking for a new marketing tactic or tool.

In the process they’ve been spending money instead of making it.  They’ve been wasting time instead of freeing it up.

What’s the problem?  Is it all smoke and mirrors?  Is it all one big scam? 

The problem is the ironic and sad reality:  most internet marketers never see huge success because they constantly pursue things they WANT instead of things they NEED.

We’ll get back to that in just a moment.  HOld that thought.

What I’m going to share with you in the remainder of this article will be a paradigm shift for a few who “get it”.

Some will skeptically say, “Jimmy is just trying to sell something.”  Some will say, “Ah, what does he know?”  Some will say, “I’m sure that’s right, but it’s not as sexy as all this other 3-ring circus stuff the gurus are doing”.

Whatever.

Take it for what it is.  I’ve been doing this for ten years.  I make a lot of money.  I spend a whole lot more time traveling and playing tennis and going on mission trips that I do on my business.

I must know something.  It may not be flashy.  But it’s like novocaine, folks.  Give it enough time and it always works.

Someone out there will read this.  And they’ll get that what I’m telling you is legit.  For that person, it’s time for a new song.

For the rest of you.  Come back in 30 days. Or 6 months.  Or 3 years.  And read this post.  Maybe then it will sink in.

Here are 3 keys to kick-starting your business in the next 24 hours…

1. STREAMLINE.

The first order of business is to bring some order to your business!  You’ve got to streamline.  And what I mean by that is simply this:  do one thing and do it well.

You need to “decide what you want to be when you grow up”.  That is, what business model do you want to follow?  What is the ONE primary thing you’re going to do to make money?

Are you going to create information products?  Be an affiliate marketer?  Sell items on eBay?  Create and flip websites?  Provide a service?  Coach?

Resist the temptation to try it all.  Resist the temptation to dabble.  Dabbling is a horrible, horrible thing for the average internet marketer.  Trying a little bit of many things almost certainly will mean you won’t do anything well.

Decide right now what the ONE PRIMARY method of generating cash for your business will be.  Don’t proceed until you’ve streamlined your business.

Then…

2. SYSTEMIZE.

Internet marketing is too big in and of itself.  Imagine someone saying, “Now go do health” or “get out there and be a traveler” or “start parenting”.

Regardless of what your ONE revenue path is, there will be many parts.  You’ve got to systemize your business into manageable chunks.  You’ve got to break everything down into a daily, weekly and monthly schedule of action steps.

For me, I keep it very simple.  I have three parts to my business…

* Offer creation.
* List marketing.
* Traffic generation.

I create a new offer.  I market it to my list.  I drive traffic to the offer site.

End of story. 

I have a system I  use to create a new offer.  I have a system I use to write and send mailings.  I have a system I use for getting visitors to my site.

It’s the same system I’ve been using since 2000.  Novocaine, folks.  Always works. 

Create a checklist of action steps for ONE kind of offer.  Create a checklist of action steps for ONE way to build a monetize a list.  Create a checklist of action steps for ONE method of generating website traffic.

Don’t try a bunch of things and do them average or poorly.  Find ONE method and do it WELL.

You want to UNcomplicate things.  You want a MINIMAL set of action steps.  You want to do the very least amount of different things as possible to achieve your goal.

You’ve got to systemize your business into manageable chunks.

Then…

3. STICK.

Perhaps the most devastating thing in the life of the 95% of those who fail is this:  they don’t stick to it.

Seriously, that’s what failure is … it’s NOT DOING SOMETHING.  It’s quitting.  It’s coming up short of the finish line.  It’s NOT DOING SOMETHING.

When you narrow things down to ONE way of making money and then create a simple checklist of MINIMAL ACTION STEPS to make money, you absolutely must STICK TO IT.

Don’t quit.  Don’t quit.  Don’t quit.

Despite me saying this, most reading it will quit anyway.

A “new” offer of the week will come along and they’ll get distracted.  Someone well respected in the industry will convince them that the latest trick is the “most important thing you’ll ever do”  (Talk about a new verse of the same song!)  Things won’t happen instantly, overnight like other people promise.

Listen, you can rationalize the decision to quit in a thousand different ways.  You can make excuses for why you should move on and try something else.

Label it whatever you want, but just below the surface you’ll see this word tattoed on your being in permanent ink … failure.  If you quit, it’s all the same … it’s NOT DOING SOMETHING.

I know it’s hard to stick to things when there LITERALLY is a new offer in your face every single day.  Most people just can’t resist that temptation.

So, do this:  find yourself one mentor that you trust and believe and remove yourself from everyone else’s list.  Just cut that temptation off at the root.

At the end of the day, I can tell you this.  I’m about to celebrate 10 years online.  I make more money than ever and work less than ever.  I promise you, I know what I’m talking about here.

If you want to do well online,  you’ve got to STREAMLINE, SYSTEMIZE and STICK.

You can stop reading right now and apply what I’ve told you so far and you’ll be right on target in six months.  Pay attention to what I’m saying.  You don’t need what I’m about to offer you.  I know that’s contradictory to most people’s sales pitch.  I’m supposed to convince you to buy something from me right now.  And it’s true that I do have an offer for you.  But I’m telling you up front, you can do everything I’ve told you above and be fine on your own.  You don’t need my offer.

Now, for those who want some hand-holding and some specifics for the three keys above, I can help you.

I can personally (one-on-one) answer your questions, help you create a daily schedule and give you some specific action steps to take each week to build a streamlined, systemized and sticked plan of action.

All the details are at http://www.SixFigureFormula.com

Due to the personal interaction with me, there are only 50 spots available.  Once they are sold out, they are gone.  I can only take 50 students since I’ll be personally interacting with you EVERY DAY for four weeks.

Check it out at http://www.SixFigureFormula.com

Regardless of whether we create a plan together or if you do it independently, it’s time for you to sing a new song. Good luck!

—————

According to Dictionary.com, the word “increase” means “to make greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality.”

There are a variety of ways you can “make greater” the size of your affiliate checks.  If you want to increase your commissions, here are ten things you can do…

1. Provide Evidence Of Results.

Nothing will boost the sales of an affiliate promotion like showing proof that the product actually works.

For example, if you’re promoting a product on how to make money with Google Adwords, then take the time to use the strategies in the course, and document the results you’ve achieved out of studying the program.

Maybe you had a low clickthru ratio before, but now your clickthru has more than tripled. Well THAT is worth talking about. Take before and after screenshots of your clickthru, so that people can really see that it works.

The web is full of marketers who make empty promises that can’t be backed up. Stand out from the crowd by showing your readers that what you’re saying actually IS true, and then prove it.

2. Choose Products With Backends.

You can make great money promoting a product with a single offer right up front. But it’s usually much smarter to promote products that give you the immediate opportunity to make more money on every single sale.

That means products with good built-in upsells and one-time offers. That way, you can make easy additional money when some percentage of front-end buyers grab the upsell or one-time offer.

Another option is to promote “residual” income generating offers such as membership sites or other subscription programs.  In doing this, you’ll earn commissions MONTH after MONTH for as long as the referred customer remains active, as opposed to simply getting a one-time commission.

3. Presell With Great Content.

A pre-sell page provides some information about a product before making a recommendation. The technique works like a charm, because it can put a prospect in the mood to buy-it softens him up before he hits the sales page.

Let the sales page do its job (making the sale), but get your prospects ready to buy first. That can boost your commissions instantly.

Whether you write and distribute ezine articles, post materials to your blog, create video tutorials or some other form of providing information that “points” toward a product or service that you’re promoting, by offering great content up front, you can easily warm up your readers.

HINT:  The very article you’re reading is an example of this in action.  We hope by providing great tips up front that you’ll consider the offer we make at the end in our resource box.

4. Ask For A Higher Commission.

It never hurts to ask, especially if you have a reasonably large list. You’re going to be sending a significant number of sales to whatever product you promote, which is definitely worth something to the product creator.

Ask him if he’ll bump your commission percentage past a certain number of referral sales. If he’s smart, he’ll do it, because you both win.

Think of it this way:  if you’re currently getting 50% and you commit to long-term promotion for the product creator if he bumps you to 75% … what does it hurt him to grant the request?  Nothing!

In fact, he stands to gain 25% profit every time you refer a new sale for him long-term.  That’s 25% he wouldn’t have received if you were NOT promoting him.

5. Protect Your Reputation.

Here’s a “no-brainer” for increasing your affiliate commissions: stop promoting garbage!  Stop taking advantage of your contacts!

You should protect your reputation as an affiliate at all costs. Always review the products you promote ahead of time.  That’s right, either buy them as a customer or obtain a complimentary review copy from the creator.  Make sure you thoroughly review the offer and make sure it is HIGH QUALITY before you send out a notice to your contacts.

Be selective about what products and services you promote.  Resist the urge to simply promote the latest “big thing” just for the sake of earning commissions.

If you become an “offer harlot” who simply sends out mailings for every new thing without investigating the quality of what is included, sooner or later you’ll end up with a list that is either not responsive … or not existent!

6. Repeat Your Promotions.

One of the biggest mistakes that we see happening with affiliates is simply this:  they promote something and then move on to the next offer of the week.

Big mistake.

The most successful affiliates do MULTIPLE promotions for an offer.  They send out a mailing.  They send out a follow-up mailing.  They post to their blog.  They distribute ezine articles.  They buy ads.

In other words, they GET BEHIND THE PRODUCT and they continue promoting it as long as it remains profitable for them.

One of the best things you can do to increase your affiliate commissions is to send out a follow-up email 24-48 hours after your initial notification to your list.

7. Create Original Marketing Materials.

Every good affiliate program will provide you with marketing materials such as ezine articles, blog posts, rebrandable reports and so forth.

While these are certainly a good start and you should use them, don’t stop there.  Remember, EVERY affiliate has access to those materials and THEY will be distributing them as well.

If the offer you’re promoting is a good one (and it should be, or don’t bother promoting it at all!) then invest some time in writing ezine articles, blog posts and even short reports that provide useful content (see #3 above) while promoting the offer as a featured resource.

Not only will you separate yourself from the “cookie cutter” affiliates out there, but you’ll also have additional and original materials to continue distributing to your network long after the “buzz” has died down.

8. Learn From Others.

Want to really rack up the sales notifications?  Take a look at what other successful affiliates are doing … and model your own efforts after theirs.

Join their lists and watch how they create prelaunch buzz. Keep your eyes on their subject lines to see how they get attention.

Read their mailings to see how they promote offers.  Review their presell content to watch how they blend information and their affiliate link.

Visit their blogs and listen to their teleseminars and read their reports … study their practices. 

We’re not saying “steal” or “copy” their materials, but rather to look at their MODEL and incorporate their practices into your own promotional activities.

9. Know Your Audience.

An easy way to get extra commissions is this:  find out what your audience wants and offer it to them!

If your audience loves soft drinks but can’t stand orange juice, do you think you’ll do well if you continue to try to sell them orange juice … no matter how good it is?

Of course not.

You sell them what they WANT.

Look at the buying history of your subscribers and site visitors. What type offer do they respond well to?  Do they love ebooks or do they prefer membership sites?  Do they buy low-cost products or do they prefer premium goods?  Do they need a lot of warming up first or do they prefer you “announce” an offer to them?

When you learn WHAT your audience wants the selling is easy.

10. Offer a Buyer Bonus.

You often see this tactic being used when there’s a big,  expensive course being promoted. The courses usually cost over a thousand bucks, and offer a 50% commission, so you can imagine how people would be scrambling to get a piece of that pie.

But you don’t have to limit the use of this tactic to expensive courses. You can do it with any product that you promote.  Let’s say you want to promote a course on how to get traffic through YouTube. You could take the time, and go find 10 great examples of people who are using these techniques effectively, and create a PDF report with information about each person, and what they’re doing to succeed.

A report like this would be extremely valuable, because examples like this are very powerful teaching tools. You could easily hire someone off Scriptlance or Elance, and pay them to create a special bonus like this if you don’t want to do it yourself.

The other reason that this tactic works so well is because you can create your own scarcity on an offer that doesn’t have any.

Sure, they can buy the product anytime, but if they want to get their hands on YOUR special bonus, they have to buy before the given deadline.

So, there you have it - 10 great ways to increase your affiliatecommission checks.

And just to show you that we “practice what we preach”, here’s a very special “buyer bonus” for YOU.

If you grab a copy of Michael’s Affiliate Launch Blueprint through the link below, we’ll give you a FREE copy of Jimmy’s http://www.AffiliatePayraise.com course!

All you need to do is order through the link below and then send your receipt to jimmy@listandtraffic.com. 

Take a look at the Affiliate Launch Blueprint here…
http://www.Infoprofitshare.com/alb.html

———————

Michael Rasmussen is the creator of Affiliate Launch Blueprint, a set of video tutorials showing how to become a top-level affiliate even if you are starting from scratch! 

Visit http://www.Infoprofitshare.com/alb.html for details.

Jimmy D. Brown is the creator of Affiliatenaire, a comprehensive 52-week, step-by-step affiliate marketing training program.

Visit http://www.Affiliatenaire.com for details.

————————

Nonetheless, your clients aren’t going to magically appear at your virtual doorstep. And that means you need to actively market your offer to get it in front of your prospects.

Here are five surefire ways to do exactly that…

1. Offer a Free Consultation. Just as you offer free ebooks, ecourses or other freebies to get people on your mailing list, you can lure prospects to your coaching program using a free consultation. Not only do you build a list of “warm” (or even hot) prospects this way, you also give them a chance to sample your coaching (which increases response). Best of all, you can close the sale on the phone, which is much more powerful then sending an email.

2. Ask for Referrals From Existing Clients. You should always ask your existing satisfied customers to refer their friends, family members and colleagues to you. Some will, even without an incentive. But you can increase the number who do so simply by offering an incentive, such as discounts, free coaching sessions or even cash.

Example:

• You can offer a 10% discount for every paying client an existing customer sends your way. An active client may even get free sessions doing this!

• You can offer a discount or a free (related) product for every free consultation an existing client refers to you. If the referral becomes a paid client, the existing customer gets an extra discount or product.

• You can also offer cash. Simply have your existing clients join your affiliate program.

3. Create an Affiliate Program. Since you’re offering a service, you probably don’t want to offer the typical 50% or 75% commission rates you find on downloadable products.

However, here’s an idea: Set up a low-price initial consultation for something like $50. Then give your affiliates 75% or even 100% of the profits. In essence, you treat this as a “free consultation,” since you’re hardly making money on the front end. However, you make this up by enrolling these clients into a long-term coaching program on the backend.

4. Advertise Offline. Even though you’re primarily running your business online, you should still go offline to find clients. And that means you can find clients by attending niche events, trade shows, giving free talks at local organization, getting on talk radio programs, writing and distributing press releases or even placing ads in your local newspaper.

5. Join Forces With Other Marketers. Finally, you can do co-promotions with other marketers in your niche to get new coaching clients.

Examples:

• Swap endorsements or ads in your newsletters.

• Be guest authors on each others’ blogs.

• Offer exclusive discounts for each others’ customers.

• Do joint direct mailings. (Share the cost of the printing and postage and include both of your ads in the mailing.)

• Sell your products as a package. For example, you can find someone who sells products related to your coaching, and you can sell his products and your coaching as a package. Then you can both promote this package.

If you apply all five of these ideas every month, you’ll never run out of coaching clients. Indeed, you might have to start turning some of your prospects away!

Of course, if you don’t already have a high-ticket offer, you need one!

Visit http://www.WorkshopAtHome.com to discover how you can create your own 4-week $997 coaching eclasses … even if you have no experience and no one knows who you are!

It’s the easiest way I know of to substantially increase your monthly profit.  All the details are at http://www.WorkshopAtHome.com

DISCLAIMER:  There are only 50 spots available for the Workshop At Home training program.  I cannot guarantee there will be spots available when you arrive at the site.

No, you don’t have to tell me. Just think about the number. Now let me ask you: Would you like to make ten times that amount of cash? Of course you would!

Now, there are plenty of ways to grow your business, including:

• Improving your sales copy so you can get a higher conversion rate.

• Finding more customers (i.e., start pulling in more traffic).

• Creating more products so you have more to sell.

• Improving your “closing” the process.

And so on.

But here’s a little secret that will explode your income once you full absorb and apply it.

Namely: It takes about as much effort to sell someone a $47 product as it does a $497 product. This is especially true if your $497 product is backend product, since you’ll already have an eager list of proven buyers in place.

Think about it for a moment. What sorts of products are you selling to your existing customers? If you’re just hawking more $47 products, you’re cheating yourself. And indeed, you might even be cheating your customers if you’re not offering them the chance to get advanced training.

The solution?

Create a high-ticket product that’s worth at least $497! If you sell this product instead of selling $47 ebooks, you’ll make ten times the profits without putting forth ten times the effort!

Now, maybe you’re wondering what type of product you can sell for that kind of money. Usually when you think of high-ticket products, you think of:

1. Offline weekend workshops. If organization and public speaking aren’t your strong suits, you can cross this off your list. Plus to put on a good workshop, you usually need to bring in other experts.

2. Personal consultations. If you can imagine yourself as a highly paid consultant, then you better also be imagining yourself chained to your phone and your computer, because this option has you trading time for dollars.

3. Physical products. Nice idea, but then you have to contend with product distribution (e.g., packaging and shipping). No more “set it and forget it.”

Before you get discouraged, let me offer you a solution: A workshop at home. An eClass.  A short-term, curriculum based e-coaching program. You can offer the same sort of material as a weekend workshop but without any of the hassle or nervousness. Plus you can offer your workshop over multiple weeks, so that you can provide as much info as you would in a home-study course.

For example, you could offer:

• A four week blogging workshop that takes participants through the process of setting up and making money with a blog.

• A six week workshop that teaches people how to make and market their own jewelry.

• An eight week “boot camp” that gives people the tools and motivation they need to lose weight.

For a REAL LIFE example of this sort of product, just check out www.SixFigureFormula.com.

Then go ahead and crunch your own numbers.

If you have a $500 workshop, you need just 20 customers per month to make $10,000. If you want $20,000 a month, either up your fee to $1000 or find 40 customers.

Compare that to a $50 ebook which would require 200-400 customers instead!

With your own high-ticket eClass you can dramatically DECREASE the number of customers you need to find (which is the hard part if you haven’t figured that out yet!) while dramatically INCREASING your profit per transaction.

It’s almost too easy.

IMPORTANT:  About 2-3 times per year I offer a 4-week eclass that teaches you how to create your own 4-week eclass on any subject you choose.  Check out http://www.WorkshopAtHome.com.  Enrollment will begin promptly at 10:00 AM CST on September 9, 2009 for the next class.  There will only be 50 spots available, so get there early.

It might be the economy, it might be a holiday, or it just might be the season. For whatever reason, they happen – but you don’t have to just accept it.

Instead, you can get proactive and go rustle up some sales.

Here’s what to do: Create a short report, sell it to your list and then make even more money on the backend. Let me explain in more detail…

Step #1: Create an in-demand report

Sales are slow, meaning your prospects might not be ready to haul out the credit card for a three or four figure product.

Instead, you can hit them up with a cheap report – about $10 to $15 – which is a “no brainer” price. Not only will you get your existing customers lining up with cash in hand, you’re also likely to get a nice conversion rate on new customers.

The trick is to create something that your market really wants. You can do this by visiting Clickbank.com to see what kinds of topics are really popular right now. You should also have a sense of what sorts of products your list has been gobbling up in recent times.

Tip: You may even ask your list to see what they want. But keep in mind that the best way to deliver a profitable product is by creating something similar to those that are already selling. Sometimes what people say they want isn’t actually what they’ll buy.

Once you’ve selected your topic, create your report. It can be as few as 5000 words, so you should be able to complete it within a day or so.

Step #2: Create backend offers

Now before you unleash this product, you need to create a 7-12 part autoresponder series for those who purchase this new report. This autoresponder series should seek to sell related offers to your list.

Here’s what your series might look like:

Email #1, immediately: Thank customer for order and recommend a related product.

Email #2, 2 days later: Remind customer of the benefits of the report they just purchased and then recommend a related product.

Email #3, 2-3 days later: Give your customer a tip that’s related to the report they just purchased along with a recommendation for a related product.

Email #4 and on… about once a week you can send out a newsletter that includes an article (or even just a short tip) alongside a product recommendation.

Tip: You may sell your own products (which is preferable) or you can recommend affiliate products.  You may even create a series of short (related) reports and sell them on the backend.

Step #3: Unleash the product

Next, it’s time to write your sales materials and then promote your product. You can tell your list, blog about it, get affiliates, mention it to your social networks, use articles marketing, use video marketing, etc.

In short, promote it just like any product and enjoy your automatic backend profits.

We could stop here. But you can squeeze even more cash out of the report with this last step…

Step #4: Offer rights to the product

Now that you have a proven product and sales copy on your hands, you can make even more money by licensing the rights to this product to others.

Example: You can sell 100 licenses for $50 each. And as a nice bonus, any links you put into your report will bring in a nice backend income for you.

In summary: Don’t let a sales slump shrivel your paycheck! Just use this simple four-step plan to pull in thousands of dollars quickly. In fact, you could start right now and have profits in your pocket in as little as 24 hours!

Click here to find out how tiny reports created $18,000+ monthly residual income, a $30,000+ one day payout and $1,000,000+ in pure profit!

Hey guys. I’m back. I’m Nicole Dean, and I’m Jimmy’s Affiliate Manager at www.InfoProfitShare.com. I’m also his business partner at www.OutsourceWeekly.com.

You may have noticed that Jimmy’s not doing a lot of the things that most gurus say you MUST do or the sky will fall and you’ll die broke, alone, and homeless.

He’s not active on Twitter or Facebook. He’s not Digging or Stumbling. He’s not hosting weekly teleseminars or recording and submitting videos.

Sure those things work, but.. no one can possibly stay on top of every single hot new trend online to make money. You can try, if you want, but – don’t believe that you must do each and every thing that comes through your inbox if you want to succeed online.

So how can you make money online? 

Affiliate marketing? Certainly. (Learn how at Affiliatenaire)

CPA networks? Yep. You can do that, too.

Small Reports Business? Most definitely. (Learn how at Small Reports Fortune)

eBay? Sure. That works.

Creating membership sites? Absutively. (Learn how at Membernaire)

And, 1000 other methods.. Do most of them work? Yes, yes, and yes, again.

BUT! (And, there’s the big but…) You can’t do them all at once and expect ANY level of success. You’ll just spend your time running in circles and you won’t make any progress.

The same can be said for your marketing efforts. Which leads me to lesson #5 -

Lesson 5: Do what Works and Keep Doing It instead of Chasing the Latest Thing Like a Crazy Person.

It’s funny, but one of the biggest lessons about online business that I’ve learned from Jimmy is how to filter the noise and stay the course without getting distracted by all the “latest and greatest” tricks and tactics.

So, which marketing methods work best? Easy. The same solid online marketing tactics that have worked since 1999 when Jimmy started, as well as the same mail order marketing tactics that have been working since Benjamin Franklin started his first catalog business in 1744.

What are they?

Quality & value. List-building. Good copywriting. Relationships.

Or in more details -

Offering valuable products or services that people naturally want to talk about.

Building lists and sending helpful and relevant information to those people.

Having a clear sales message.

Nurturing relationships with joint venture partners and affiliates.

What about Twitter, StumbleUpon, SEO, video marketing, podcasting, and all the other stuff?

Those are simply other ways to accomplish the same things.

Video Marketing, Podcasting & Twitter – Builds Relationships and hopefully also offer value.

SEO – A tool to help with list building. Get more visitors to your website so that you can get them on your lists and offer quality and value – get them to know you, like you, and trust you, so they want more from you.

There are not enough hours in the day to do all of that!

I get this question all the time: “Nicole, how in the world am I supposed to do all of this stuff? Video, Twitter, Digg, SEO, submitting articles, podcasting, etc. etc. etc…. There aren’t enough hours in my lifetime to learn and apply all of these things.”

My answer? You don’t HAVE to do them all. Just pick a few marketing activities that work for you and that you enjoy doing and do one of them daily for the next month (or HIRE someone to do them for you). Then reassess and repeat. Just by doing that simple thing, you’ll be ahead of 99% of the rest of the online business owners who are spinning in mental circles all day long.

Speaking of hiring people, Jimmy and I put together an Outsourcing course for beginners and intermediate level online business owners called Outsource Weekly. If you’re thinking of outsourcing but can’t afford it – or you’ve hit a plateau and are working too much, it’s written with you in mind. Check it out if you’d like to take a week or two off … or more without a computer.

Just to let you know how much I love outsourcing, last summer I took off for over a month without an iPhone or Blackberry and with no internet coverage. My business grew during that time while I was canoing and traipsing around out in the woods. While that may not be your dream or the way you’d spend your free time, freedom when “NOT” to work is as important as the freedom when you work. Again, it comes back to working towards or away from your lifestyle goals. The course isn’t for everyone, but I wanted to throw it out there because outsourcing has made such a difference in my life.

Well, that’s it for me. I hope you’ve gotten some inspiration this week. I sure have from reading your comments. Thank you for making this week special.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

If you’d like to hear more from me, my blog is www.NicoleontheNet.com - Again, thanks for reading!