Maintaining a Positive Attitude Is Good For Business

Maintaining a Positive Attitude Is Good For Business

And the end result of managing your time properly should be fostering the right attitude for business. Here are six ways to build a positive attitude.

1. Be Committed

It took me a couple of years to reach the point I’m at now. I could have given up any time before I got here and I had a million different reasons for doing so. But I knew what I wanted and stuck it out. That’s the first key to success.

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2. Accept Challenges

Being your own boss and owner of your own online business can be scary and a bit intimidating. It takes guts to leave a 9 to 5 job and start your own online empire. It takes guts to have a dream and to go for it. You ultimately determine whether your business succeeds or fail.

3. Be In Control

Keep your mind focused on important things. Set goals and priorities for what you want to do and accomplish. Develop a strategy for dealing with potential problems—and when those problems surface, feel confident in your ability to handle them. The worst you can do is fail.

4. Don’t be too Critical

There is no use criticizing yourself once you’ve made a mistake. Saying “I should have landed that account or handled that situation differently” is not going to make any difference at all. It’s just going to drain you of your energy and discourage you. Simply learn from your mistakes and move on.

5. Practice Makes Perfect

And stop worrying about getting everything right. It’s not going to happen. If Time Warner can buy AOL, you can create a website that bleeds cash. Just keep trying.

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6. Ask for Help

You want to work for yourself not by yourself. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. Don’t think you’re incompetent simply because you can’t do it all. Professionals hire other professionals to do the job properly. Don’t be afraid to bring in a specialist when you need it.

 

If I have to warn you that there’s nothing more important than getting the work/family balance right, then the chances are you’re going to learn the hard way. I went into this for the money. But there’s no question that the greatest benefit my business has given me is the extra free time I have to spend with my family. I’m sure if I put that time into building more websites or creating more products, I’d make more money.

But there’s more to life than money.

You can also see that the following myths are simply untrue:

Your site has to have millions of page views to make money.

It doesn’t. Small sites with good conversion ratios can make more cash than large sites with lots of click-through traffic.

Ad revenue and affiliate revenue don’t make money.
It’s easy to make money: just put up a website and the money will roll in.

They do, if you know how to use them.

If only that were true! Making money on the Web takes time, effort and investment.

Creating a Weekly Schedule

Creating a Weekly Schedule

Do you work from home?  If so, your ability to manage time is important to your success.  When marketing a website where you sell a product, service, or have affiliate links displayed, traffic can translate into dollars.  So, the more you market the more money you make, but you must have good use of your time.

In terms of improving time management, there are many available approaches.  Some rely on the use of to-do lists, others use desktop calendars, time management software programs, alarm clocks, and schedules.  Each of these approaches are nice, but try a weekly internet marketing schedule.  Chances are, you will like the results.

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Before seeing samples on how you can create an internet marketing weekly schedule, it is important to know why.  There are hundreds of ways to market or advertise a website online.  You want to implement each of these steps, but it is impossible for you to do so in one day.  That is why you need to rely on time management.  It allows you to effectively work and produce quality results, which should translate into income.

The first step in creating a weekly internet marketing schedule is to decide how you want to make your schedule.  Three options include by hand, in Microsoft Word or Works, or with a spreadsheet.  Each method has its pros and cons.

When creating a weekly schedule by hand, you write everything out.  This means that you are more familiar with all the items on your list.  You will still need to consult it, but many like seeing their own handwriting.

When creating a schedule in Microsoft Word, you type as opposed to write.  This is great if you have poor handwriting.  If you quickly write a schedule, you may later be left wondering what it was you wrote.  You don’t have this problem with typed schedules and to-do lists.

When creating a schedule in a spreadsheet, you gain access to one of the greatest organizational tools.  Spreadsheets are designed to promote organization, so your schedule will be organized.  As previously stated, typed documents are easier to read and reference than handwritten ones.

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If you opt for creating a weekly internet marketing schedule by hand, you can create a list or a chart.  A list may be easier.  Start with large headings for each day of the week.  Underneath each heading, write a task.  For example, do you want to write five pages of web copy on Monday?  If so, add that underneath the day’s heading.

If you opt for creating a weekly internet marketing schedule in Microsoft Word, you can also use a chart or a list.  When opting for a chart, you are technically inserting a table.  Have five columns for each day of the week.  You can have as many rows as you want.  The more tasks you intend to complete each day, the more rows you need.  Hit enter to make each row larger in size.  Enter in your daily tasks or print and handwrite.

If you opt for an internet marketing schedule in a spreadsheet, you are provided with less freedom.  This does, however, make creating a schedule easier.  Once again, create a total of five headings in each column. This is for the days of the weeks.  In the row, type in what tasks you want to complete on each day.  Your list may look unproportioned if your to-list is longer on certain days.

When using a spreadsheet to create your internet marketing schedule for the week, you are limited on space.  Large columns will result in multiple pages, which can be difficult to read.  So, you can use abbreviations.  For example, $ 5 ads can translate into arrange to buy five advertisements on applicable websites.

In conclusion, there are many ways for you to create a weekly internet marketing schedule, no matter what your preferences are.  As for why you should.  Remember, a schedule gives you more time to market your website, as you have a guide to follow.  More marketing can translate into more money.

What’s Your Passion?

What’s Your Passion?

notes-on-boardOkay, you’ve decided you want to make money with Affiliate Marketing. So, you join some affiliate programs and start submitting free ads to newsletters and free advertising classifieds sites. You’re going to make BIG money now — right?

Nope! Sorry! Just sending out a few ads is not going to do it. Not if you want to be a real success.

You must first determine your passion. I mean other than making the money! What is your hobby? What do you know how to do REALLY well? What is your job? Everyone has something that is their own special talent. Find yours.

You probably have more than one thing that you are very interested in and do well. See if you can find five (ten if you’re really ambitious). Write them down in a list. Remember, you are going to be spending a lot of time working with this subject. Make sure you enjoy it!

Go down each item on your list. Start writing a rough outline of everything you know about the topic. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. This is just to give you an idea of how much information is available for a given subject.

what's-your-passionTry mind mapping. Write down the main subject of your idea. Draw a circle around it. Now, start thinking of sub-categories that are related to your main category. Draw a line from your main category and end it with a circle. Put the sub-category title inside this circle. Find as many sub-categories (and sub-sub-categories) as you can.

Go through each of your interests with this procedure. Choose the one that you know the most about and that you can write about comfortably.
What if you “think” you don’t know enough about your topic? Then, do some research. Read books and magazines. Do some searches on the Internet. Who knows? You might find an area, a niche, that is just waiting for you to fill it with useful information.

There’s a lot more to affiliate marketing, of course. But the first step is to find your passion. Your “passion” doesn’t have to be making money on the Internet. It can be cooking, sewing, billiards, or whatever. In fact, it’s better if you find a niche that isn’t in the online marketing arena because that’s what nearly everyone else is doing.

Make your topic unique. Make it yours. And make it your passion. It will pay you well.

Tips And Motivational Strategies To Make Money In Affiliate Marketing

Tips And Motivational Strategies To Make Money In Affiliate Marketing

make-money-in-affiliate-marketingThe general perception about Affiliate Marketing is that you simply have to pick an affiliate program start promoting a product and you are instantly transformed into a successful Affiliate Marketer. Yes, this is the scenario in the Internet Marketing world today, with hundreds of people taking to affiliate marketing everyday.

Whatever reason people may adduce for choosing to be an affiliate marketer it is obvious that everyone would like to have a crack at affiliate marketing because of the ease with which you can get started. This is in spite of the fact that only about 5% of the online entrepreneurs really make money or make it to the big time.

If success is only for a small percentage of the affiliate marketers then what is the secret behind their success.

Be Smart:

To succeed you have to be smart , act wisely and remain smart all the time. You should have a Website or even a Blog which will help you to promote your product. Do some research and choose a niche product that is easily marketable. You should select affiliate programs that bring you a decent commission with regular monthly payments. Additionally your affiliate marketing experience will be much easier if the affiliate program provides you with Tools, Tips, Training and possibly a website. Promoting your website, writing articles and generating traffic to your website will be your major activities.

Be Confident:

Confidence plays a major role in the success of your business. You have to believe in yourself and in whatever you have decided to do.

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy”
Norman Vincent Peale

Do Hard Work:

Unless you put in a lot of hard work you can never dream of success in any business. Money cannot be made that easily. All Internet Gurus promoting their Secret Systems finally insist that their method should be strictly followed to succeed and that is in other words pure and simple hard work. Hard work pays. There is no substitute for hard work.

Be Committed and Dedicated:

”Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.” –Peter F. Drucker
Success comes only to those who are completely committed to whatever tasks they have undertaken to do. In affiliate marketing too working with commitment , dedication and self motivation will ultimately bring you the rewards you are longing for.

Be Willing to Learn:

simple-workspace-at-homeThe Internet is brimming with new technology. The great advances being made in the field of website promotion and traffic generation are all great benefits for the affiliate marketer. Those who take advantage of these developments will always be ahead of the competition. Hence the willingness to learn especially from successful affiliate marketers and updating your knowledge regularly will ensure success in affiliate marketing.

Find the Time:

You should give up the idea of affiliate marketing if you are not prepared to invest a reasonable amount of time for it everyday even if you are doing it on a part-time basis. Since the financial investment here is low unlike in a brick and mortar business there is a general tendency to be slack. Affiliate Marketing cannot be treated as a hobby. You must find the time and treat it as any other business if you want to succeed and enjoy doing it.

Have a Balanced Temperament:

The perception in the minds of many is that affiliate marketing is a bed of roses. You simply have to set it up and put it on Auto-Pilot and money will start flowing in. Practically it is far from it. You are going to be the pilot, face all the turbulence and the ups and downs and navigate your business to success. To face all these situations and pressures a balanced temperament is essential.

Conclusion:

Affiliate Marketing is a great way to make money from home. The rewards can be great. Successful Affiliates are aware of this. They did not give up. Failure was no option. Success was their goal. They made it to the top, inspiring others to follow them.

3 Commonly Asked Questions About Affiliate Management

3 Commonly Asked Questions About Affiliate Management

People have all kinds of questions about starting their own affiliate program and it’s always a good idea to be prepared. Starting and managing your own affiliate program isn’t something that can be done on the fly. It takes carefully preparation and planning, but the results are well worth it. Here are 3 commonly asked questions:

Question 1: How much commission should I offer in my affiliate program?

How much you offer will depend on the amount you can afford, taking into consideration the lifetime value of a customer, what your competition is doing and how attractive you can make your offer.

As a general statement, information products usually have a higher commission rate – often between 25-50% with the higher end being more common. Consumer products with smaller profit margins can be as low as 5%, but don’t often go above 20%.

But what you charge should be based on your own unique business. Here are some more things to help you come to a decision:

Sometimes it’s okay to pay a bit more for a first-time customer who will buy from you over and over again.

Always see what your competition is offering. You don’t have to get into a commission war, just be sure to make your program very attractive through good conversion rates, unique and useful promotional tools and other attractive features.

Question 2: What kind of affiliate tools should I provide to my affiliates?

The simplest answer is: Give them what they want.

Talk to your affiliates and see what they need to serve their unique audience needs, and where possible, provide it to them.

For hard-hitting promotions, you can craft email copy, conduct live teleseminars with content and sales pitch, special reports, etc.

For the content-starved webmaster (and there are plenty out there), give them things like articles, free ebooks and other informational content.

The important thing is to listen to your affiliates and watch which tools convert best.

Question 3: Q: Can I have an affiliate program with a service-based business?

Sure you can. If you have a profit margin or a lifetime customer value that allows you to pay commissions, certainly.

If you have services available that are at a set price, it’s easy to automate everything and run your program, just like a product-based one.

If you charge by the hour or have to give project estimates, it’s a little tougher to automate completely.

Here are a few options:

affiliate-management

– Have a script that can track who referred your potential client to you. Ex. Affiliate recommends your service through a tracking link. Potential client clicks the link, checks out your website and fills out a form for more information. Your system tells you who referred the client and if they purchase your services, you can give the affiliate a commission.

– You could do it as a pay-per-lead opportunity where the affiliate is paid a smaller fee for every person that fills out the form for more information. This would be easy to automate in most affiliate systems that can handle pay-per-lead transactions.

– Don’t want to go with a full-blown affiliate program? You can institute a client referral program where you simply allow your clients to recommend your service, in return for credit for services. When a new client comes to you, you ask where they heard about you and you add a credit to your referring client’s account

An affiliate force is an incredibly powerful thing and when you consider you don’t have to pay affiliates anything until they produce results for you, it’s one of the best deals going in Internet marketing today. Plan your program well and you’ll soon have your own active force of affiliates bringing you new customers every day.

Affiliate Marketing In Perspective

Affiliate Marketing In Perspective

What is affiliate marketing on the internet? It is a derivative of internet marketing where one is paid for every customer or sales provided by him. Affiliate marketing is a basic element in most of internet marketing strategies.

affiliate-marketingAffiliate marketing involves the use of affiliate management companies, in-house affiliate managers, and third party vendors, who use e-mail Marketing, Search Engine Marketing and RRS Capturing and Display Advertising, to ensure the success of the product. Web traffic, being critical to online marketing, can be traced with the help of a third party or own affiliate programs. Yes, this process requires a lot of effort. When it first started, this method involved a lot of spamming, false advertising, trademark infringement, etc. With the invention of complex algorithms and enhanced security that make it safer for doing business online, affiliate marketing became more popular as it offered more opportunities. However, at the same time, affiliate marketing has also increased the competition in marketing.

Such pressure led to the introduction of out-sourced programs. These services are offered by companies with expert affiliate and network program managers, who have various affiliate program management techniques. In addition, these affiliate networks also have association with publishers to help them on the advertising aspect.

When was affiliate marketing started? It was started by cdnow.com that had websites related at music. A list of music albums can be found on the website. One is paid if he put those links in his website and a visitor bought an album through his site. Shortly, a woman approached Amazon with a similar marketing strategy. The woman would sell Amazon’s books on her website and she would be paid a certain percentage in return if she sold Amazon’s books through her site. This triggered the Amazon’s associate program.

Affiliate network started to gain popularity and has since been adopted by different businesses, such as travel, education, telecom, retail and subscription sites, just to name a few.

man-using-laptopThe compensation methods vary from one affiliate program to another. Amongst the methods, we have the Cost per Sale (CPS), Cost per action (CPA), Cost per mile (CPM) and Cost per click (CPC). The CPS and CPA are most commonly used today. In CPM and CPC, the advertiser may not capture the target audience as a click would be enough to generate commission. On the other hand, for CPS and CPA, the visitor has to click the link and buy something or sign up for some services, which proves that he is among the target audience, before the affiliate is being paid. What is important here is to send as much targeted traffic as possible to the advertiser in order to increase his returns. Therefore, affiliate marketing is also known as performance marketing because the success of the product really depends on the performance of the affiliate. Is there a difference between an affiliate team and a sales team? Yes, from the nature of the job! It is the job of an affiliate team to generate traffic, and it is the job of the sales team to follow on from there, to influence the visitor to buy the product.

Affiliate marketing is very effective and many businesses have shared and attributed their successes to this method of marketing.

Who Should Consider Becoming an Affiliate?

Who Should Consider Becoming an Affiliate?

Have you ever thought that your skills and expertise were being wasted? You apply all of your creative know how and ability for your boss and their company for very little reward. Have you ever considered taking those skills and making them work for you instead of someone else? Have you looked into your own business enterprise only to realize the capital you need is way beyond what you can raise? If you have answered yes to any of these questions then becoming an affiliate could be the answer your are looking for.

man-in-blue-plaid-shirtMany of us would love to start our own businesses but two things generally stop us. The first being money and the second being risk. You need a significant amount of capital to start even a small sole proprietorship. Even though financing is available there is still the risk factor. A fairly large percentage of small businesses fail in the first year. If you make it through that first year then there are still several challenges that have to be met. It could be five years before you see any real profit. Most of us cannot wait this long. We need a constant flow of money coming in to meet our daily obligations.

Becoming an affiliate can get you started on the road to independence with no risk to you. By becoming an affiliate you work to sell or increase the revenues of another company. This can be done in a variety of ways. You can work, selling a particular line of products. The head company takes care of the advertising and creation of the items; you simply work out how to sell them. You are paid for your performance. The more you sell the more you make.

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You can also create an online affiliate marketing business. If you’re creative and handy at making websites then this could be the perfect opportunity for you. By allowing your site to become an affiliate site with a major search engine, you could make large amounts of profit with ad revenue. Companies such as Yahoo publisher and Google ad sense can help to get you started. They handle all of the advertising costs and placing allowing you to concentrate on bringing traffic to your site. There is no cost to you and absolutely no risk.

People who enjoy independence and flexibility in their work make good affiliates. Those that desire or need flexible working hours can gain the most from being an affiliate. You paid according to how well you perform, not on how many hours you work. You can schedule your work around other things such as families or other commitments. If you’re independent and a self starter than a career as an affiliate is perfect for you.

If you are creative, motivated and driven then possibly consider becoming an affiliate. You can run your own affiliate business from home with no cost or obligation to you. If you are good at working independently then as an affiliate you can’t go wrong. You’ll have the freedom to work as and when you please and will realize the rewards of your own hard work. Start putting your skills and creativity to work for you rather than someone else. What you receive in return will be well worth it. Consider a career as an affiliate, you nothing to loose and everything to gain.