Affiliate Marketing - 9 Steps to Building an Effective Home-Based Online Marketing Business

Building a new business from scratch can be complex. This is true of any money making endeavor including internet and affiliate marketing. As ecommerce continues to grow, many households are attempting to establish home-based businesses through affiliate marketing. This article provides a look at a nine-step problem-solving model can be an effective tool for evaluating business opportunities and fine tuning them once they are up and running. It is a formula any business owner can follow in order to grow their enterprise. If you wish to build an effective affiliate marketing business, the nine-step plan will be an excellent guide for you as well.

Step 1: Take out a notebook and describe in as much detail as possible the current condition of your business.

Take out a pen and paper and thoroughly describe your current situation. Be brutally honest about your business and the circumstances contributing to the present state of affairs.

For instance, Sammy is struggling to make money with his home-based affiliate marketing business. He has subscribed to the bum marketing system and has written 20 articles about a certain product which he has posted on EzineArticles. He has written a review of the product that he has posted on a well-known blog carrier. His click-through-rate (CTR) to the review has been fairly steady. Yet, he has not made any sales. Sammy's wife is growing impatient with his new venture because he is working overtime on the internet marketing, neglecting his family to add a little extra income. The current economic conditions have contributed to the need for another income stream.

Step 2: Write a broadly stated problem statement that will lend to a wide variety of possible solutions.

After you have thoroughly described your situation, boil it down to pinpoint the most glaring problem or problems. Then, frame the problem in broad terms in order that it might lead to many possible solutions.

Write a problem statement that does not include a solution within it. The statement should answer the questions: (a) what do you aspire for your business and (b) what is the major challenge you face that must be overcome to accomplish your purpose.

For instance, Sammy will increase profitability as an affiliate marketing agent by becoming more effective and efficient in his affiliate work thereby adding extra cash to the family coffers while returning balance to the various parts of his life.

Step 3: Describe your "end-state" goals.

In this third part, the business owner or affiliate defines what he wants the business to look like when it has attained its ultimate end. Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, calls this part seeing the end from the beginning.

In Sammy's case, he might write something like: Sammy's home-based affiliate marketing business exists to take advantage of online opportunities by putting into practice efficient and effective affiliate techniques thereby (a) establishing a viable source of extra income while (b) maintaining a fair balance of time with the family.

Step 4: Identify the possible alternatives relevant to your problem statement and end-state goals.

In this section, the would-be entrepreneur will want to go to the internet to research companies or individuals who have experienced similar problems as he or she has. This is called benchmarking which basically means finding the best practices of others within your business or of those in other businesses. Once the business owner has identified many possible solutions to his problem then he can list them out and summarize them.

For example, Sammy might write:

Issue: Sammy is not getting potential buyers to click through the blog review to purchase the product he represents.

Opportunity: Sammy has the opportunity to improve his click through rate by improving his review article posted his blog.

Alternative solution: Sammy will improve his click through rate by rewriting his review article.

Benchmarking: Affiliate marketing expert Travis Sago, owner of Bum Marketing, improved his click through rate by fine tuning review pages.

This process may take much time but it will pay off for those who sincerely work through it.

Step 5: Evaluate the possible alternatives

After identifying a wide variety of alternatives, the next step is to evaluate those alternatives. When assessing the various possibilities, a business owner or affiliate marketer will want to compare each alternative with his or her end-state goals. By this evaluation procedure, the person will want to decide which three or four alternatives present the best-case solutions. One way to do an evaluation is to use a weighted point system that helps identify which of all possible solutions comes closest to meeting the vision of the enterprise.

Step 6: Identify and Assess Risks

The sixth step is to identify and assess risks of each alternative. For an internet marketer like Sammy the risks are generally seen in opportunity costs, which basically means time or money spent on one alternative that might have been better spent on another.

For Sammy, one risk could be weaker relationships with his wife or children due to an inordinate amount of time spent on developing his affiliate marketing business.

Step 7: Make the Decision

After identifying the best two or three of the possible alternatives and assessing the possible risks, the business owner must make a decision. There is a time to research and evaluate possibilities but some day a decision has to be made. In making the decision, the entrepreneur will ask such questions as:

What are the most reasonable choices to consider?

What are the pros and cons?

Given the facts, which is the best decision?

The alternative that is most relevant to the problem and the defined end-state goals will be the most appropriate choice. This will be so unless the apparent risks are beyond the affiliate marketer's ability to bear. It is wise not to spend the family's milk money on endeavors that pose a large amount of risk.

Step 8: Develop a Plan to Implement the Solution

The next step in the problem-solving model is to design an implementation plan. A solution is only as good as its implementation.

For Sammy, he may decide that he has to write more than 20 articles to get a fair rate of interest in his product. He may then develop a plan by which to write the extra amount of articles deemed necessary to get the overall response he needs to make his marketing campaign effective and profitable. In the implementation plan, there will be metrics (short -term objectives) and target dates defining what is to be accomplished during any given time period.

Effective affiliate marketing agents will not only define a problem and research solutions; they will make a decision and develop a plan to implement that solution.

Step 9: Review the Results

The final step is to review the results of the decision and implementation. In this step, the business owner will compare what happened with what he wanted to happen. He will judge the results against the end-state goals and then make adjustments as necessary.

This article has attempted to apply the nine-step problem-solving model to affiliate marketing. It is an effective tool for evaluating a business's current status and developing an appropriate scheme to take it to the next level. Any would-be entrepreneur wishing to develop a home-based business into a money-making venture would do well if he or she followed this planning model.

Eric Coggins - Are you having a hard time making ends meet? Affiliate marketing is a growing industry that continues to expand every day. As more companies go online to sell their products and services, so there will be more opportunities for affiliate marketing agents. In fact, even as the economy is going down affiliate marketers are revving up. Wealthy Affiliate is an organization of affiliates that wants to help you be successful in your own affiliate marketing enterprise. To learn more about Wealthy Affiliate, read the following review: http://andrphilip.wordpress.com/my-review-of-wealthy-affiliate-university/

Beyond affiliate marketing, if you need general encouragement for your life log onto http://www.thebestyou.org/ - where you can find encouraging articles and videos as well as helpful tips on how to live a better life.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Six Strategies to Accelerate Business Banking Sales Now

Maybe it's true: If you stepped on the sales accelerator now, perhaps your bank's sales engine would cough or die. The market is bad. There's a lot of uncertainty. Maybe your bank still has credit quality challenges... or now you're INCREDIBLY PICKY about to whom you will lend. Competitors may have better products, perhaps at lower prices. Your salespeople may think the quality of the leads they're getting is poor, or that they're spread too thin.

But now is not the time for excuse making. Instead, implement these six strategies to retune and restore power to your bank's sales engine.

1. Target sales efforts

When times are slow, sales team standards go lower. Salespeople sell to "everybody" whether or not they are a good fit for the bank, saying, "If we don't sell to them, somebody else will," or "If I don't sell to them, I won't make quota." When bank credit standards are high, sales team members can freeze or give up, saying, "The Loan Center isn't approving anything, or they change their standards week by week, so why bother?"

Both statements may be true, but they aren't good guides to profitable sales growth. In many companies, the top 10-20 percent of customers generate 80 percent or more of profits and sales, while the bottom 20-40 percent may be marginally profitable or unprofitable.

Targeting your sales efforts is a better strategy, in both lean times and good. Ask yourself and your sales team:

Do you know who your most profitable (and credit-worthy) accounts are and why they are profitable? What are the demographics of these accounts?
What are the industries, situations, or companies that need the value you offer? What is your value proposition to them (and it may be different for specific industries)?
What specific companies or buying centers within those industries and companies are you targeting? How are you applying your value proposition to them?

Then, ask your salespeople the really difficult question: May I see your plan for attacking these industries and companies? In our experience, most salespeople have not developed written plans for their businesses, and most do not have written plans of any length for their top five accounts. If 80 percent of your revenue per salesperson is coming from their top five accounts, your sales future is at risk.

Action steps:

Define your value proposition clearly.
Define the buyers who are "in" your sales and credit target zones and those who are "out" of it.
Align yourself or your sales team members to deliver the best value to "in target zone" buyers and focus yourself on them through planning and active strategy coaching.
Discourage or don't pay incentive compensation for sales that come from "out of target zone" buyers.

2. Position and differentiate value

Once your salespeople open conversations with your target customers and prospects, you must make sure they can articulate your value proposition and differentiate it from other banks' propositions. If your bank's credit standards are more stringent than other banks' standards, this is particularly important.

Value, in this context, means a change in your customers' business operations (revenue, costs, risks, time) or feelings about themselves or their businesses. A "features-advantages-values" assessment will help you and your salespeople understand and communicate your bank's value.

Action steps:

Write statements describing what's different about your staff, products, and work methods and what value those differences create for your clients.
Validate with your clients that they see it the same way and that they will pay for the value either through the fees they pay or the loyalty they afford you (e.g. by staying with the bank or by giving you first look and last look at any new opportunity).
Make sure your salespeople can deliver short statements that describe your bank's value, distinguish that value from other banks' values, and demonstrate their own personal value to your clients and prospects.

3. Boost sales capacity

Notice this says "boost capacity," not "hire more salespeople." Particularly in lean times, sales managers want to reduce costs by reducing headcount, particularly administrative headcount. Inevitably, they ask salespeople to take on more and more administrative work, expecting somehow that sales efforts will continue unabated.

Our research indicates that the average business-to-business salesperson dedicates less than 30 percent of his or her time to conversations with prospects and customers. Meanwhile, they spend somewhere between 30-40 percent of their time on administrative tasks, and the balance on servicing and traveling to and from their accounts. If this is true in your bank, you're paying your salespeople to be unproductive, and you're making it worse if you're firing $20-an-hour sales support staff. The numbers may suggest you might consider hiring more support staff.

Suppose one of your salespeople generates $450,000 of gross profit per year in 15 hours per week of selling time (30 percent of 50 hours). That's $600 gross profit per selling hour (assuming a 50-week year). If you increase the sales rep's effective selling time by two hours per week, you could generate $60,000 in additional gross profit, more than enough to pay for a full-time administrator for that sales rep.

Action steps:

Determine time spent on specific tasks and gross profit per selling hour for all sales reps.
If profit per selling hour is greater than cost of an administrator per hour, consider hiring administrative support.
Design your fulfillment and account management processes to reduce demands on your sales peoples' time. Eliminate steps that do not add value to clients.

4. Increase activity discipline

Most sales managers manage most salespeople based on results. Salespeople love this: "Don't worry about how I do it, boss, just measure my results." There are several problems with this approach:

You lose the opportunity to understand the relationships between activities and results that would help you understand your sales teams' efficiency and effectiveness.
You lose opportunities to coach salespeople to higher levels of performance.
You lose any hope of consistency in the market.
You lose sales opportunities.

Why do you lose sales opportunities? Because salespeople, in general, look for low-hanging fruit and stop reaching out to buyers who aren't ready to buy now. For example, check to see how many attempts are needed to book an appointment with a prospect; we'd expect that the number would be between three and seven attempts. If your sales activity discipline is low, we'd also expect that your salespeople will stop calling for appointments after two or three attempts.

Action steps:

Develop a success model that connects activities to results.
Create benchmarks that define the path to success (activities, work in process and results).
Coach and manage to the success path benchmarks.

5. Grab market mindshare

Many companies compete for less than 10 percent of the business available to them because their salespeople aren't aware of or haven't contacted the prospects and aren't engaged with them when they're ready to make a change. As a result, prospects feel no connection to your salespeople or your bank when they're ready to change.

Maintaining prospects' and customers' top-of-mind awareness of your bank requires a series of "touches" throughout the year. These may be phone calls, e-mails, encounters at networking or community events, letters, or face-to-face calls. Once you have identified your targets, touch them consistently and relentlessly. This includes the touches needed to obtain appointments and maintain top-of-mind awareness after initial contact.

To ensure that you and your salespeople are focusing your touches on the best targets, tier your prospects and customers and determine how many touches are appropriate for each tier. For example, you might determine:

Six to eight touches per year for high potential/most profitable prospects, of which two or three should be face to face.
Four to six touches for medium potential prospects and top tier clients.
Two to four touches for low potential prospects and low and medium tier clients.

To maximize your sales team's efficiency, use automated software to generate letters or emails, and use support staff to manage the paperwork.

6. Pay for performance

The number one mistake in sales compensation is paying salespeople for not selling or for underperformance. Fixing this mistake is usually beyond the scope of team leaders, within the scope of line-of-business leaders or segment leaders, and so time-consuming (working with HR, handling all of the legal issues) that many sales leaders fiddle with the incentive compensation plan without making major changes.

That said: If salespeople can earn what they need without doing what you want them to, you won't get what you want. You can't make salespeople earn more than they want to earn. To fix this problem (these are the steps I recommend, but I'm not saying it's easy), think about compensation in three levels: need to survive (pay rent, etc.), want (important add-ons like fancier vacations, private lessons for the kids, etc.) and dream (the obscenely fast car, the BIG house, etc.). Then:

Define the outcomes you want very clearly.
Connect incentive compensation to outcomes you want.
Set base and incentive compensation at goal to cover "need to survive" plus a little "want."
Set additional compensation (performance above goal) to cover some portion of "want."
For extraordinary performance (you define this), set incentive compensation to cover "want" and some percentage of "dream."

A frequently asked question is how much of "need to survive" should you put at risk? There's no right answer to this. However, if you want your salespeople to pay attention to client relationships, service and internal paperwork or activities, pay a base compensation and communicate and enforce expectations of activity and outcomes you expect for the base. Placing 15-25 percent at risk is fairly common in these settings.

Nicholas T. Miller, president of Clarity Advantage, helps banks generate more profitable relationships faster with small and medium-sized companies, their owners, and employees. Clarity consulting, communications, sales tools and training help banks recruit and deploy sales team members, choose their best business and consumer prospects and clients, then approach, engage, sell, expand, and retain relationships. Clarity also assists banks with consumer sales and cash management sales. Clarity clients have posted increases in household penetration, cross-sells, deposit volume, and loan volume. Visit Clarity's website at http://www.clarityadvantage.com where you can subscribe to "The Weekly Sales Thought," a free eNewsletter and podcast focused on business-to-business selling and sales management.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

My Father's Business

I am writing this post primarily for all of the professionals, business owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs out there (homemakers, please read on: this is for you too). Business is a daily grind and if you are like me, you know that it is much easier to envision your success than it is to actually succeed. In the same manner, it's probably easier to draw a blue print for a building than it is to build it. I second that by saying that if you are trying to 'build' Rome, rest assured that Rome is not already built--it takes a lot of work, time, and other resources to get there. But if you're confident in your ability to achieve your vision, and you work hard (never giving up), you can succeed.

Benchmarking

That said, there are things we can do to make our journey in business much easier. More specifically, we can learn from those that are already doing or have done what we want to do. In a nut shell, I am referring to benchmarking. That is simply the process of identifying someone out there who has achieved what you want to achieve, and doing what they did to get there. Benchmarking is a common business practice and most companies benchmark other organizations as a means to achieve success. Benchmarking industry leaders is a great way to learn and grow your business, and it should not be skimped upon. However, aside from fast-following other businesses, I have another suggestion. Why not benchmark the perfect business model? And what is that? It is God's business!

God's Business

The word 'business' is listed about 29 times in the King James Version of the Bible. God's business has everything to do with advancing His Kingdom. Consider this example:

Luke 2:49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?

The above scripture refers to a time when Jesus was twelve and disappeared in the marketplace while his parents searched for Him. He was off teaching in the temple and fulfilling God's plan, or tending to His business.

Here is another reference to the word 'business':

1Chronicles 26:30 And of the Hebronites, Hashabiah and his brethren, men of valour, a thousand and seven hundred, were officers among them of Israel on this side Jordan westward in all the business of the LORD, and in the service of the king.

There are countless other references to 'business' that I will not list here. But it should be evident by now that business is of God.

Be Good Stewards

We need to be aware that first and foremost, we are stewards of all that God gives us as described in the parable of the talents (See KJV Matthew 25:14-30). Also, in the proceeding verse God gives us the ability to get what we have:

Deuteronomy 8:18But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

There are a few questions we need to ask ourselves:

Are we recognizing God as our primary supplier of all that we have?
Are we managing the resources He gives us wisely and efficiently?
Are we growing the resources?
Are we doing good works with them and helping others?
Are we managing our lives, households, and families effectively with the resources?

If not, we should.

Sure Profit

I personally believe God lends us what we have and He expects a 'profit' upon His return. God is ALL about profit, as evidenced in the book of Isaiah:

Isa 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Here's some good news based on the verse above: If we are following His business model, we shall certainly profit! So how do we find and follow God's business model? It's in His word...a free roadmap to a sure profit. To see some great examples, be sure to check out these 250 Bible verses about money from Christian Personal Finance: http://christianpf.com/money-in-the-bible/

Be Faithful

Finally, whether you work at the office, at home, or you're a homemaker, you should handle your business the way God handles His. Be a good leader. Be a good manager. Be a good supporter. Be a good steward. Do so, and expect Him to give you MORE in return for your faithfulness!

Believing for your abundance and overflow,

David

http://www.childrensbread.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.