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A very difficult task as an office furniture buyer is to solve the problems of noise within the offices. When they are looking at the purchase, there are many factors to look into, and not as simple as buying the odd office screen. The main factor is the layout of the office whether standard office desk, call centre or an executive office with all its plush leather office chairs. If you can achieve the best layout, and use of screens, will ensure a much more efficient office and a dynamic workforce. Groups of desks where there are no screens separating the working zones, are a must area to fit desk on screens, this will assist the noise levels within the whole office. Another important factor of course, are the employees, what jobs are they doing, do they need more privacy, or have more equipment that needs to be out of the way, for the look of the office, and to bring down the noise level. Before Calling either try and get the area measured, and a rough drawing, this will help, to plan the office, also think how high the office screens you require to be, there is nothing worse than purchasing screens that are either to high or too low, and they do not achieve what you at first desired. Many manufacturers do not allow screens to go back after order as they are generally all made to order.

If you aren’t generating the commissions you expected from your merchants, do some investigation. First, be realistic . This is not like selling more Girl Scouts than the other kids because your mother works in a big office and brings home the orders to you. To be successful at the affiliate game you have to really work for it, and you need to pay attention to two factors: uniqueness and appropriateness.

If you signed up through affiliate marketplaces with all the affiliate programs that were remotely relevant to your site and that would have you, your results will be related to the number of people who visit your site, and who happen to realize they need or want something at a represented merchant at the moment they’re on your site. They can get to the merchant directly or from many, many other sites, and yours happens to be the one this time. In all likelihood they have good products, represented fairly, but dealing with highly exposed sites isn’t likely to give you the best conversion per click.

However, if you spend the time to search out specific sites that have private programs, operated on private affiliate management software, you stand a chance to bring new, different and highly focused products and services to your site visitors. Things they won’t find everywhere. You’ll be doing your niche a service because you’ve spent the time finding and checking out these sites, and made your visitor’s path to them as easy as a click. In addition to earning you commissions, these merchant relationships will reinforce your visitor’s sense that you understand them and have created an environment just for their needs. And that means repeat visits and future sales.

Karen Kari’s articles and more information on the affiliate business can be found at:

http://www.affiliatebandit.com

http://www.advertisingcellar.com

http://www.billionfreeads.com

Today, we’ll cover another set of benefits to selling Big Ticket items. BUT… this time we’ll
specifically focus on the benefits of selling Big Ticket items as an AFFILIATE.

First, we had better define both Big Ticket Item and Affiliate.

A Big Ticket Item is any product or service that sells for more than $500 or
$1000.

An Affiliate is someone who sells other people’s products.

Or, at least, those are my definitions. I’m sure there are other possible
definitions but for this article, let’s stick with the simple descriptions I’ve
given, ok?

Now, let’s take a close look at the BIG Benefits to selling Big Ticket Items As
An Affiliate.

Benefit #1: Make MORE Money On Every Sale

As an affiliate selling Big Ticket Items you are going to make more from every
sale. Typically, you receive some percentage of the sale as your reward from
the product owner. This might range from 25%, 30%, 50% or maybe even 75% of the
sale price.

An example should make this crystal clear. Say you’re an affiliate for a
product marketer who sells both E-books and Home Study Systems. The E-Book
sells for $37 and the Home Study System sells for $1497. If your share of the sale
as an affiliate is 50% then you make:

$37 * 0.50 = $18.50
$1497 * 0.50 = $748.50

I don’t know about you but I’d much rather make $750 instead of $19!! Big
Ticket means bigger commissions for you.

Benefit #2: You Can Make Money WITHOUT Having Your Own Product

That’s right! You don’t have to create your own product. If you currently don’t
have a product of your own, or even if you don’t have a Big Ticket product of
your own, you can still make money selling other people’s products.

This removes all product creation costs from your budget as a marketer. Costs
such as time to create the product, paying for expertise in areas outside your
own, audio or video recording and editing, etc.

It also gives you more time to plan and think about a product or products that
you want to create while making money selling other people’s products.

However, you should ONLY choose affiliate products that you believe in and know
are of high quality. And ones that the product creator will support fully. Make
sure that the product creator has an excellent reputation as you are putting
your own reputation on the line by selling their products.

Benefit #3: You Can Make Money WITHOUT Having Your Own Website or Sales Copy

If you plan to sell on the web today, you must have a website. If you have
expertise in or like to learn about website design then you can do this
yourself. Otherwise, you will hire someone to do this for you.

But as an affiliate, you don’t have to worry about this! The website for the
product will be hosted by the product owner. They will be responsible for the
sales copy on the site, the shopping cart system that takes the order and most
other aspects of the sales process.

You are only responsible for referring people to them. If that person buys the
product, you get paid!

Good product owners try to make it very easy for their affiliates to give them
referrals by providing sample email copy, sample banner, ezine
and magazine ads and other promotional materials. As the affiliate, you simply
use the provided materials to help promote the product in ways that you feel
will maximize sales opportunities.

So having the product owner responsible for all the sales copy and promotional
materials makes your life as an affiliate much easier. And especially for Big
Ticket Items, it reduces your costs immensely.

Why?

Because Big Ticket Items need longer sales copy to
sell effectively due to their larger price tag. All possible objections must be
countered. Every conceivable benefit to the customer needs to be listed. And
the sales copy must be compelling.

Writing an excellent sales letter is time consuming and requires specific
expertise. In fact, it is not unusual to pay a professional copywriter anywhere
from $7,000 - $15,000 plus a percentage of the sales for a killer sales letter!

As an affiliate, someone else pays for that.

And this is true even if the sales letter is not on a website but is sent as
part of a direct marketing campaign instead.

Benefit #4: You Don’t Have To Come Up With Bonuses As Incentives To Buy The
Product

Today, product marketers often bundle bonuses with their products to increase
the value of the overall offer. These products typically don’t cost very much
but add a lot of value to the product. In many cases, the perceived value of
the bonuses will be higher than the price of the product itself.

But this means that the product owners are constantly on the lookout for other
products to use as bonuses. Or they have to create them to sell as part of the
package.

As an affiliate, you don’t have this headache. The bonuses are the product
owners responsibility.

Of course, if you think that you can provide a bonus that will make people buy
the product from you as an affiliate you should definitely throw it in! This is
one way you can differentiate your offer from any other offers on the same
product by other affiliates.

Benefit #5: No Inventory and No Shipping Hassles

As an affiliate, you don’t have to have stacks of paper, shipping boxes, reams
of stamps, Jewel Cases, CDs, Binding Materials or any of the raw materials
typically needed to create and ship Big Ticket products. And you don’t have to
stock any of the product, period!

All the packaging and shipping of orders is handled by the product owner or
their fulfillment center. So you don’t have to worry about trying to find your
car under an avalanche of product and materials

Benefit #6: Affiliate Selling is the Easiest Way To Start Making Money With
Big Ticket Items

I hope by now, after reading the first 5 benefits, you can see how easy it
really is to sell Big Ticket items and make money. This is a HUGE benefit and
so it’s worth calling out as a separate benefit of its own.

Most affiliate programs are super easy to join (after all the product owner
wants to encourage people to sell their product and help them make money). You
get an affiliate id of some sort and a way to use that id to refer customers to
the product. As I mentioned before, you are often given all the copy for ads
and emails you can use. Plus the website is done and ready to convert all
prospective customers. All the shipping and filling of orders is handled by the
product owner as well.

Your startup costs to become an affiliate are very low (almost zero) and your
main job is to get more prospective customer “eyeballs” on the offer. This
could be traffic to the product website or a postal mail direct marketing
campaign.

You can start making big money with Big Ticket items almost immediately!

Copyright (C) 2005 Chuck Daniel, Like Magic Marketing, LLC — All Rights Reserved.

Chuck is a former Microsoft software designer and program manager who spent more than a decade happily working on Email and CRM. Admittedly a seminar, workshop and information addict, Chuck left Microsoft to pursue his interests in personal development, Internet, direct and information marketing and to promote and work for charitable causes.

Chuck Daniel
Would You Like to Make BIG Bucks
With BIG Ticket Items Online?
http://www.bigtickethomestudy.com
http://www.bigticketblog.com

This article may be reprinted in its entirety in your E-zine or on your site as long as the content is not modified, all links are left in place and you include the resource box as listed above.

For as long as employment has been the mandatory way in which to make money, people have been looking for easy escapes. The dream of earning a huge salary without much work, has been the goal of many but has been realised by very few. The online revolution seemed to pry open many of the doors that had shut in the real world. However even now there is an air of disillusionment hanging around the Internet, following the dot com crash and rumours and speculation abound about security. But despite the seemingly insurmountable odds one online industry that has welcomed people of all abilities, backgrounds and qualifications has continued to thrive. The affiliate marketing program is a web based advertising realm, which offers regular website owners the chance to host advertisements and hopefully to earn a little money.

Even in the affiliate program the big money doesn’t come easily, it takes time, patience and some good business decisions. The first of these decisions lies in which industry that a new affiliate wishes to join. The Internet is a hot bed of industry performance, with its uninhibited global reach business and enterprise has become a cornerstone for the new e-industries. One of the most successful global sectors is that of online gaming. People from all corners of the global village have been signing up and playing along in some of the most exciting betting action ever seen. Sports betting has become a particularly hot industry, turning over billions of dollars each year, and maintaining one of the largest clientele of an industry. As such the sports betting sites provide the optimum partnership level for new affiliate, looking to get a cut of the action.

The fledgling affiliate is given all of the marketing tools and instructions to make their site a successful advertising forum. Making the transition from Internet user to marketing guru an easy one. No money exchanges hands in this initial transaction, the affiliate is instead paid on a commission basis. Each fully signed up customer the affiliate attracts brings them extra revenue. In the sports betting market this revenue tends to be based around the financial gains that individual creates for the site. The sports betting sites ordinarily offer up to 35% of each player’s revenue, to the affiliate that attracted them. Therefore affiliates can earn in line with the profits of an online bookmaker, meaning that like the sports betting sites, the affiliate is able to earn without boundaries or caps.

Due to the ease with which a person can sign up and start earning through the online sports betting affiliate program, there is absolutely nothing stopping any person signing up and earning. The potential for custom in the sports betting market is unparalleled, therefore an affiliate has a huge Internet clientele to exploit. The earning capabilities of an online affiliate are only inhibited by their own willingness to work and experiment with the online advertising options. The affiliate marketing program offers opportunity in return for very little in the way of effort or financial backing. In essence you can reap the rewards of your own labours, whilst collecting more in the process, just through hosting advertisements.

Discover how to become a super poker affiliate by promoting the best poker affiliate programs at www.epokeraffiliate.com/

Starting a business is exciting and nerve-wracking. It will be one of the biggest investments you’ll make during your lifetime. Not just financially, but emotionally as well. Doing it right will mean taking on a lot of responsibilities and making a lot of sacrifices. It will also mean working harder than you ever have before.

For these reasons, business ownership is not for everyone. If you don’t have the right skills, personality, and commitment to operate a business, you’ll be in trouble before you make your first sale. So before you begin planning your E-Commerce business, you need to take a hard look at yourself, your family, and your finances, and give honest answers to some very important questions.

The following questions wiH help you weigh your personal characteristics and beliefs against the realities of business ownership. Don’t worry if you find that a few of the questions reveal doubts or weaknesses. Nobody’s a perfect match for any profession. But if you find many of the questions troubling, you may want to rethink your decision to go into business.

1) Are you willing to accept the responsibility of operating your own business ?

Forget the tidy little set of responsibilities that came with a position in corporate life. When you run a business, you’re in charge of everythingfrom opening the doors in the morning to cleaning up at night. Then when you go home, you worry.
The hours are long, there’s a high degree of stress, and there’s always too much to do and not enough time to do it. You’ll have to deal with your customers and your employees. You’ll be responsible for the finances of the business and dealing with taxes. And you’ll need to fill out a lot of forms and sign a lot of checks.

Make sure you understand what you’re getting into. As a business owner, you’ll have more responsibilities than you’ve ever had before, no matter what your previous jobs have been. If you understand this simple fact, you’ll be ready to take your responsibilities on.

2) Are you comfortable making hard decisions ?

As the owner of a business, you’ll also have to make many decisions that affect the business, your livelihood, and that of your employees. Many times thev/11 be tough to make, including the decision to lay people off if your business falls on hard times. It will require decisiveness, mental toughness, and resolve. If you have trouble when faced with tough choices, this could be a problem area.

Do you think owning your own business is the way to easy money ?

Think again. Many people actually end up sacrificing income to open their businesses, at least at first. That’s the price they’re willing to pay for independence.
If you’re thinking of giving up a promising career and a lucrative income to start your business, be realistic about what your financial needs are and whether or not the business will meet those needs. Remember, you’re building a business.

It may take you a number of years to get to the income level you want or need. On the other hand, you may decide that you’re willing to sacrifice some money for the reward of being your own boss. Many people have found it to be worth every penny.

3) Are you starting a business out of desperation N?

This is a very real concern, particularly in light of the huge number of experienced businessmen and businesswomen who have been cast adrift in the job market through corporate downsizing in recent years. If you’re one of these people and are thinking about starting a business because you think it’s your only option, be very careful. Yes, it can be the answer to your future security, but only if you’re willing to make the necessary commitments and sacrifices. The world of business ownership is vastly different from the corporate world. Make sure you recognize the differences before you make the move.

4) Are you well organized ?

The day-to-day operation of your business is going to require you to assume many responsibilities. Let’s consider an average day. You may need to do the payroll, talk to suppliers, pay a few bills, work on a new advertising pamphlet, and prepare some tax forms. At the same time you’ll be filling orders and making sure they get sent out on time. Then there’s always the unexpectedyour computer bombs or the air-conditioning conks out.

As a business owner, you’ll need to keep many balls in the air at one time. Your ability to juggle all these responsibilities will directly affect your success. If you’re well organized, you’ll have a list of the things you need to do, and you’ll methodically go through it during the course of the day. If you’re interrupted, you’ll pick up where you left off after you’ve dealt with the problem. If you’re still not through at the end of the day, you’ll sit there and work until you’ve finished. Procrastinators do not do well in business. If you get behind, you’re sunk.

5) Are you creative ?

It’s an asset to any business. No matter how great your product, you’re not going to be the only one selling it. Marketing and advertising are critical to getting customers’ attention and encouraging them to buy. If you have a creative streakwhether it be copywriting, graphic design, or even an offbeat sense of humorit will be an invaluable asset to your business.

T his is doubly true in E-Commerce . Since your customers can’t see the items they’re purchasing “in the flesh,” so to speak, they need to be enticed by the visual presentation and written description in your promotional materials.

6) Are you flexible ?

In business, if an idea or plan doesn’t work, you can’t let yourself waste time, energy, and emotion bemoaning its failure. You need to quickly come up with an alternative solution. Flexibility and adaptability are the key. You’ll need to stay focused to achieve your goal, but you may need to try several different paths to get there.

In E-Commerce order, for example, one marketing approach may work for a while and then stall. At that point you’ll need to come up with something new. Remember, every business plan and every business

can benefit from a fresh look every once in a while, even when things seem to be going along just fine.

7) Are you goal orientated ?

This trait is obviously helpful in all parts of life, but it’s particularly helpful in business. As a business owner, your goals will be defined in very simple, concrete termsgross sales and net profit.

A good businessperson approaches each year with new goals and uses them as motivating forces throughout the year. Let’s say gross sales for your first year of operation were $500,000 and your net profit was $ 100,000. For the following year, you might set as your goal a 20 percent increase, or $ 600,000and $ 120,000. Achieving or surpassing those figures will drive you day after day.
Goal-oriented people also plan for the future. Eventually, you may want to expand your product selection and your target market. You’ll have a long-term plan that includes the timing of your expansion and what every aspect of your business will do to accommodate increased volume.

Are you an optimist ?

Having the right mental attitude is important for every aspect of life. When you run into hard times, keeping an upbeat attitude and looking for the positive side of things is critical to riding out the storm.

This is particularly true in business. By nature, it’s a trip with peaks and valleys. For instance, the hardest time for any business is the first year or two. You may spend months getting things ready to go, carefully selecting the merchandise you’ll carry, and getting your advertising strategy together. Then you’ll send out your first e-mailing and wait anxiously for the phone to begin ringing off the hook and your emailbox to be jammed with orders.

But nothing happens. Maybe a few orders trickle in, or you get some phone calls with questions about certain items. This isn’t unusual, but even knowing that, you’ll still worry. If you’re the type of person who gets down when things don’t quite go the way you’d like, you might have trouble with the roller coaster ride that any business will take you on. Keeping a positive mental attitude is essential to weathering the bad times and working hard to make the good ones arrive that much sooner.

9 ) Have you any experience you can use in running the business ?

If you have, it will make learning the business a lot easier. Experience in sales, accounting, advertising, marketing, personnel management, taxes, or any other business-related responsibility is a definite plus for a potential business owner.
Experience with computers is mandatory since in E-Commerce of course computers are your lifeblood .

You have to have hands on experience with computers both hardware and software and not be intimidated by comouter experts and geeeks but rather be able to work with these otten eccentric individuals who command often unique skills.

10 ) Do you enjoy workling with people ?

One of the painful realities of being in retail is the fact that the customer is always right. Granted, running a E-Commerce business distances you from your customers in the sense that there’s rarely face-to-face contact. But that doesn’t mean you don’t owe them the same service and courtesy you would if they were standing right in front of you.

As an E-Commerce retailer, you’ll have the same problems with customers that storefront retailers experience. You’ll have complaints about your merchandise, your prices, your service, your policies, and your employees. Believe me, no matter how well you think you have things organized, someone will find fault with them.

This is where tact, patience, and understanding come in. When a customer is unhappy, you must put up with their behavior and try to amend the situation. The last thing your business needs is a bad reputation. If you allow a customer to go away unsatisfied, you can be sure the person will tell all their friends how terrible you are. That, in turn, will keep a lot of potential customers from becoming regular customers.

So there will be times when you’ll have to bite the bullet and make amends quickly and courteously when you’d really like to tell the customer to take a hike. Because you’re dealing with someone who may be halfway across the country, it may take a personal phone call, an overnight special delivery, or a refund with a handwritten note saying you’re sorry the purchase didn’t work out but you look forward to helping them in the future. Just make sure you leave the customer happy. .You’ll also have to deal with the people who work for you. As the owner of a business, your behavior will set the standard for your employees’ behavior. If you’re negative and critical, they’ll be negative and critical. But if you’re cheerful and upbeat, that will also be reflected in their behavior.

You’ll have to be tough at times. Managing people isn’t easy. If you’re lucky, most of your employees will be pleasant, will work hard, and will contribute positively to the business. But you’ll also have a few who will turn out to be unpleasant, lazy, incompetent, or even dishonest. Motivating them will be a challenge. If you can’t change their behavior, you have to be able to fire them.

11) Are you comfortable dealing with money ?

Some people are terribly inept at finances. Others can do it but hate it. Like it or not, financial management is an inescapable fact of business ownership. You’ll be dealing with complex monetary issues, from financing the business to handling the day-to-day receipts. You’ll be responsible for paying the bills, making the bank deposits, doing the payroll, and sending in withholding taxes and quarterly reports to the IRS and the state. You may be handling substantial amounts of cash, and there are certain risks inherent in that responsibility.

You’ll also be making business plans. These are detailed projections of your income and expenses for a given period of time, usually three months, six months, or a year. In some ways, they’re quite simpleyou want to maximize your income and minimize your expenses. But they take careful planning and budgeting. What are the minimum staffing expenses going to be to operate the business? What will your overhead and utilities be? How much money can you spend on advertising? When are the taxes due? How will you determine the price of your products? What will you charge for shipping and handling?

Any financial experience you may have had will help you with this aspect of your business. And if you like this type of activity, it will be to your advantage. But if you find it burdensome, you’ll have to be ready to deal with it.

12 ) Are you financially prepared to open a business ?

Starting any business requires money. The nice thing about E-Commerce is that you can make it about as bare-bones as you care to, particularly if you’re starting a small operation that you’ll operate in your spare time. Many people have started E-Commerce businesses for just a relatively small amount of capital .

But the bigger your dreams, the more money you’re going to need. If you’re planning a full-time E-Commerce business with numerous products, the start-up costs will be considerably higher. Then a whole new batch of considerations comes into play. Do you have the financial reserves to support you and your family for a period of time until business picks up? Some business advisers say you should have enough on hand to survive for a year with no income whatsoever. While that may be an unrealistic goal, you do need to consider what happens if the business fails altogether. Do you have the resources to weather such a catastrophe?

Before you begin planning your business, you need to take a careful look at your finances. How much of your available capital are you willing to risk? Are you willing to personally sign for a business loan? What do you have to offer as collateral? How much cash will you have in reserve for emergencies? If you don’t have enough to start the business yourself, are you willing to take on a partner or partners? Are you staking your entire financial future on the business?

Undercapitalization is the main cause of failure for small businesses in the United States. Yet many people, caught up in the entrepreneurial fever, continue to start businesses on a shoestring, woefully unprepared to deal with the bad times. If you can’t start your business with a comfortable financial cushion beneath you, you may be taking a risk you can’t afford.

13 ) Is your family ready to amke the committment

Whether your family is actively involved in the business or not, business ownership is going to have a huge effect on them. If you’re the only one involved in its day-to-day operation, the rest of the family isn’t going to see you very much. If they’re used to having you around on evenings and weekends, this may cause problems.
Your spouse may be unhappy having less time to go out to dinner or the mov
ies. Your absence may also mean he or she is going to have to assume a lot more responsibility at home chauffeuring the kids here and there, helping with homework, doing the shopping, cooking the meals, cleaning the house, paying the bills, and all the other odds and ends that are part of day-to-day life.

Your kids may have to make some big adjustments, too. You might not be available for Little League games, dance recitals, school plays, and all the other events of childhood.

There may also be some financial adjustments for your family. If you’re like most fledgling business owners, you’ll be running a tight ship for a few years. Your family will have to realize there might not be money for some of the luxuries they used to take for granted.

It’s extremely important to think about potential family problems early in the process. Sit everyone down together and tell them what you’re thinking of doing. Make sure they know what it will mean to the family’s day-to-day routine and find out how they feel about it. Their support will make your life a lot easier. You’re going to have enough stress just handling the business. The last thing you’ll need is a family crisis.

The other side of the coin is having your family members working in the business with you. The dynamics of family businesses can be quite volatile, and you’ll want to make sure everyone can get along. A major question will be, Who’s the boss? Are the lines of authority clearly drawn? Are you and your spouse going to be equals in ownership and operation of the business? If so, are you able to work together cheerfully and consider each other’s opinions? If you are, you’ll probably have no problem running the company together. But if you can’t even agree on what kind of soap to use, you may have trouble.

14 ) can you handle stress ?

It comes with the territory. Long hours, endless responsibility, dealing with customers, worrying about moneythese can take a huge emotional toll. Some people thrive on stress. It actually makes them perform better. They stay calm in a crisis and can react quickly to change. Others fall apart when things get too hectic. Which kind of person are you?

15 ) Are you in good health ?

Running a business can be physically taxing as well. You may have to spend a lot of time on your feet and not get as much sleep as you’d like. You may not have as much time to eat properly or exercise regularly. There may be activities in the business that require a fair amount of physical strength.Take an inventory of your physical health. Do you have any chronic problems that might prevent you from operating the business efficiently? Remember, when you own the business, you have to be there day after day. A long absence because of a serious illness could spell disaster.

These questions may be heart wrenching and difficult to consider but are essential if you are to consider whether you are ready willing and able to run your own E-Commerce BUSINESS?

Bill Piker
Senior Employment Analyst / Counsellor / Labour Dispatcher . Ace Employment Services Winnipeg
Extensive experience in the labour as well as financial field .
billys_office@yahoo.com
www.aceemploymentservices.net

Copyright 2006 Patric Chan

Do you want to know the best way to sell your product that will
almost guarantee you to make money online?

Get a joint venture partner in your same niche market to promote
your product to his mailing list.

I can bet you’ll see sales in less than 24 hours if it’s a
quality joint venture partner My previous Joint Venture Partner
generated US $21,492 sales in just couple of days by just
mailing to his list.

I said it’s the best way, but I did not say it’s the easiest
way. In fact, it’s one of the toughest ways to achieve this
strategy. But — It’s very rewarding. Getting someone to
consider promoting your product is a lot of work. I can’t teach
all of the joint venture tips in this short content because
it’ll take a book or course to teach this. However, I can tell
you how to avoid the big mistake and increase your result.

Most people send out joint venture proposals to the wrong JV
Partners and lose doing business with them!

You see, I know this because I receive a lot of joint venture
proposals. If you’re a long-time subscriber of mine, you’ll
notice that I hardly promote or endorse a third party product.
The reason is, most of the time the proposal does not meet the
expectations. I won’t endorse non-useful products to my
subscribers. Never even if I’m paid 100% commission because it’s
important that the products recommended will help my subscribers
to make money online.

The major mistake I’ve seen is people are trying to joint
venture with partners that have a head-to-head competing product
rather than one complimenting the joint venture’s existing
product!

Example, I have an audio course about niche marketing. At the
same time, I’m currently selling other niche marketing courses
that I have resale rights to. Then I have a coaching program on
this topic as well. So, what’s the possibility of me promoting
someone else’s niche marketing course?

Rarely unless there are other perks involved. But let’s say the
major influence of considering the offer is to make affiliate
commission. That would be my LAST PRIORITY to promote a product
that is my competitor and in conflict with what I’m teaching!

Most people approach joint venture partners to promote a product
that is competing with the joint venture’s existing product.

So what kind of products might I want to promote that compliment
the products that I have?

In this case, I might consider promoting niche private labels
rights to my subscribers if I’m teaching niche marketing. Or
maybe, software to locate niche markets from the internet.
Basically, I’ll consider promoting products that are
complimentary, NOT COMPETING.

Seek joint venture partners that have complimenting products to
yours.

Like, if you’re selling a blogging software, your ideal joint
venture partners would be people who sell courses on how to make
money online from blogging.

Make sense?

In this case, I would be able to sell some blogging software as
a JV Partner but you’ll definitely get better result by
contacting a more targeted partner. You see, the efforts you
have to put in are the same… so why not approach a more
qualified partner like someone who is in the “How to blog” niche?

You still want to approach as many joint venture partners as
possible, but start with the more targeted potential partners
first because it’ll be more effective.

Let me give you another example so that you can relate. If your
ebook title is “77 Ways To Potting Train Your Dog”, your
suitable and quality Joint Venture Partner would be the author
of “How To Train Your Dog To Sit And Fetch” because his customer
would be interested in your ebook.

Of course, this concept will NOT be applicable if there are
other influences in getting the joint venture to agree to the
promotion. Other influences can be relationship, high affiliate
commission, 2-way JV swap, unique product, additional benefits,
free product access, etc.

Finding complimentary product is just one of the important keys
of selecting a Joint Venture Partner successfully.

When other influences are in the picture, a joint venture might
consider promoting a competing product of his. That’s normal and
… logical.

So, are you seeking quality joint venture partners?

Another tip about seeking joint ventures is, start small if
you’re just starting out. Don’t approach the ‘big boys’ of your
niche market when you’re starting out no matter how tempting it
is. Get the ball rolling first because if you spoil your first
impression when you approach them, you’re risking to lose doing
business with them forever. Get a few small deals done and
you’ll be more motivated and inspired to keep it growing. Then,
go for the “BIG BOYS” and offer a win/win deal for them.

You “Chan Do” It.

-Patric Chan http://www.youchandoit.com

The latest report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (Michigan School of Business) reports the following:

Customer dissatisfaction with the quality goods and services offered in the marketplace is more than a nuisance. The US economy is heavily dependent on increases in consumer spending. Such increases are hard to come by when consumers become less satisfied. The ACSI fell dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2004. The Index now stands at 73.6 - dropping nearly 1% compared with the third quarter. One would have to go back almost seven years to find an equivalent decline.

While high levels of customer satisfaction typically lead to company growth, it is not always the case that business growth leads to satisfied customers. In many cases, the opposite is true.

What’s interesting with this study is that since 1995 customer service has consistently not made the grade, and services continue to top the list in terms of customer dissatisfaction. Remember we’re all in the service business!

Taken even further, growing customer dissatisfaction with contact center service levels is boosting the use of IVRs as 20% of customers opt for self service channels over live agents. That’s 1 in 5 customers bypassing the human because of poor service. (CRM Today, 2/18/05).

Most of us know the impact and cost of repeat calls, bad call experiences, poor service, (if you don’t go to http://www.human-technologies.com/newsletter_archive.html). What can you do starting right now?

First, how and what are you measuring for customer satisfaction? Measurement systems must not only be in step with the customer’s preferred communication channel, but the effectiveness of service delivery should be immediate.

What does this mean? If the interaction is via phone, a survey should be via phone, not by a subsequent email. Are you actually asking the customer for feedback on their experiencewhat is now jargoned as ‘the voice of the customer?’ Merely using metrics will give you guidelines, but could be false security. Go to the source. Ask your customers!

Second, according to the third National Complaints Culture Survey unhappy customers are growing increasingly frustrated with the way their complaints are being handled, and hard-pressed call center staff are being hindered by a lack of training and support from their employers.

Since calls coming into an organization are escalated before they’re even answeredif I could successfully find my answers through the website, self service, VRU, IVR, etc. I wouldn’t need to talk to a humanso employees need more tools than ever before to diffuse what is being presented to them such that they can move the customer onto a more productive interaction, and close the call.

Where will they find these tools? The simple answer is with customer centric training. Off the shelf, generic, or outdated training is like trying to put a round peg in a square hole. Today’s training modules must be customized to the customer, not the statistics, and training must be presented ongoingly. It must be highly interactive, current, and robust with role playing opportunities.

Remember, training is a process, not an event

ROSANNE D’AUSILIO, Ph.D., industrial psychologist, President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., specializes in human performance management for contact centers, providing needs analyses, instructional design, and customized, live, world class customer service skills trainings. Also offered: agent/facilitator certification through Purdue University’s Center for Customer Driven Quality.

Known as ‘the practical champion of the human, she authors the best-sellers, Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub, 4th edition (hot off the press), and Customer Service and The Human Experience. Reach her at Rosanne@human-technologies.com, sign up for her complimentary monthly e-newsletter in its 7th year, and check out her new virtual store.

Joining an Affiliate Program is a great way to start earning a sizeable income on the Internet without many of the hassles that come with running your own business.

But the problem is… there are so much affiliate programs out there for you. In this article I will guide you to choose the most suitable and profitable Affiliate Program for you. I recommend you to follow this rule before choosing an Affiliate Program.

1. Find a great quality product or service

Remember that any recommendation you make will reflect directly on you. If you recommend a great quality product, the people you recommended will always trusted you and be interested in future recommendations that you make. If you recommend a bad quality product, and I’ll guarantee that they will likely hesitate to act on any offers you recommend.

Don’t get greedy. Only recommend products that you truly believe in.

2. Look for a program that offers top commissions.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable for you to expect to be paid 30% to 50% of the profits on each product sold. 5% to 10% is very low. You should look for companies who understand the “lifetime value” of new customers you refer and appreciate your efforts.

Only consider joining programs that show a similar level of respect for their affiliates.

3. Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio

Make sure that the affiliate program is turning a reasonable number of visitors into sales. If not, then your efforts directing traffic to their website will be completely wasted. A 1% conversion ratio (1 out of every 100 visitors) is quite good, 2%+ is better.

4. Be sure you’ll be credited for every sales you make

You should find out what kind of tracking software the Affiliate Program that you’re interested in joining uses. You MUST look for a program that uses quality affiliate tracking software that is reliable and tracks ALL (online, by phone, fax, mail orders, etc), because there are many companies only track online orders, and this means that you will never get credit for anywhere from 5% - 10% of your affiliate sales!.

Make sure they have a high sales conversion ratio and a good tracking software.

5. They should allow you to access your sales statistics real time

What I mean is that the Affiliate Program you join should give you a special username and password that you can use to access your own personal affiliate sales information right on their website. Many affiliate programs have done this, you don’t have to worry about that, but incase they don’t, you should reconsider to join them.

6. Look for a program that teaches you to maximize your affiliate sales

A good affiliate program will provide you with everything you need to be successful. They’ll provide you with traffic-generating banners, text-links, and recommendation letter templates. They’ll tell you which techniques work well in which circumstances.

Find an affiliate program that is similarly dedicated to educating their affiliates.

7. Make sure they are reputable.

I still feel I should mention the importance of doing business with a reputable company. I know many people who have worked really hard, made a lot of sales for a company, but then they have never been paid or forced to wait months and months to get their money, I’ve been there too. If you have any concerns about a company that you are thinking of doing business with, ask for references and do some checks on them before you join them.

8. Be sure to read all contracts and agreements.

Before you join any affiliate program, just make sure that you read all contracts and agreements very carefully. Pay very close attention to exclusivity clauses in the agreement. Be careful that any affiliate agreement or contract you sign does not restrict you.

Copyright 2005 Syahriansyah

Syahriansyah is the owner of http://www.advancetactics.com. His website offers an idea for home based businesses related, feel free to check all the guide and articles.

You can convert more of your traffic into sales without having to spend a lot of money. There are hundreds of ways to improve your conversion rate and the persuasiveness/stickiness of your website, many of which can be done very quickly and most will cost you close to nothing to implement.

1. Use real customer testimonials with authentic customer photos…no stock photography. Shoppers can quickly tell the difference.

2. Make sure your marketing effort attracts qualified traffic. Example, if you sell Digital cameras, don’t advertise that you sell macro lens just to get more traffic to your site. This may drive more visitors, but they are visitors with no intent to purchase, thus decreasing your conversion rate.

3. Get a toll-free number and make sure the placement of that number on your site is prominent and consistent.

4. Include “points of reassurance” at every “point of action”. Example - if you are requesting that a viewer provide you with their e-mail address, clearly state that privacy is very important to you and that you will not share that information with any other party.

5. Use SSL (secure server certificates from a well known SSL authority) and make sure that the user knows you are using it. Display a prominent “Secure server” note at the top of the page.

6. Build trust, subscribe to a service like VeriSign, Thawte or ScanAlert and Prominently place these logos to reassure your customer that you care about the security of their information.

7. Have a clearly defined privacy policy and link to it from all pages.

8. Include a physical address on your site.

9. Don’t always concentrate on just making the “buy now” buttons the most prominent on every page, but rather concentrate on styling the “primary action” buttons the most prominently on every page. Example - you sell books, and you provide the customers with the ability to select a few related books and compare them before they can buy now. Make that “compare button/link the same style as you would the “buy now” button/link on a page in which the “buy now” button exists. This will help herd customers through your sales funnel.

10. Clearly Define your return policy.

11. Make sure to include an “About Us” section on your site. The majority of my customers will visit or look for that section before making a purchase.

12. Make your site load fast, easy to navigate and user friendly. No need for horizontal scrolling, excessive vertical scrolling, large animation files or intrusive pop-up windows.

13. Keep your “buy now” button consistently and prominently placed on all product pages. The closer to the top of the page…the better. “Above the fold if you want it sold” & 2. “Eye level is buy level”.

14. Provide clear good quality images of your products with an “enlarge image” option.

15. Make your checkout process as usable, intuitive, reassuring and simple as possible. Losing a shopper during your checkout process is a CRITICAL loss.

16. Don’t make people type their e-mail address twice. Get the site to remember and do it automatically.

17. Don’t force people to install crazy plug-ins just to make a purchase from your site. Stick with JavaScript, Flash and the other breads & butters.

18. Read your copy, make sure its compelling, yet not exaggerated and too loud.

19. Identify your unique selling proposition and exploit it. If you are the only seller of medium-sized green widgets in the UK, clearly state that and be proud of it.

20. Implement a “site search” box and make sure it is accurate. Not only it will allow users to find what they want quick, it will give you an insight as to what they are shopping for and what terminology(keywords/key phrases) they are using so you can tailor your copy (and ad campaigns) accordingly.

21. Don’t just focus on the many features of your product, but rather on the benefits those features will provide you customers with. Don’t just say “folding ladders”, say “Our folding ladders will save you valuable garage space”.

22. Display your prices, shipping charges and tax clearly BEFORE the checkout process is completed.

23. Don’t use a drop-down for the “country” or “state” list over your order form. Many people are using scrolling mice these days, many are sure to accidentally scroll off of their correct state.

24. Let customers copy their shipping info to their billing info if they are identical, with one click.

25. Remove distractions as much as possible from the final checkout process such as the main navigation that existed during the shopping portion of your site.

26. Clearly provide a checkout process indicator. If your checkout process has 3 steps, clearly indicate at the top of the page what step they are on and how many steps there are to complete the order.

27. Clearly identify what info you really require during your checkout process. Eliminate unnecessary text fields/questions.

28. Use easy to understand, friendly error messages. No “INCORRECT USER INPUT IN STATE FIELD!” messages.

29. If your checkout error messages occur on a page other than the page with the errors, preserve the information that the user has already input and get the site to input it automatically.

30. Double check the spelling on your site. And the spelling on your error messages. “Ers in input filed” would look very unprofessional.

31. Try and get good reviews from shopping authority sites (shopping.com, epinions.com, bizrate.com, etc) and from previous shoppers.

32. Don’t use complex formulas for shipping price calculations, Example - ‘if you buy 13.5 kilograms worth of x”, then multiply that weight by y shipping rate. Get the site to do the calculations and show the shopper the price.

33. Consider shipping the product free. This is often a very good selling point with online shoppers.

34. Display the stock status of the selected item and do so BEFORE the user puts the item in their cart.

35. If you don’t sell or run out/discontinued an item, remove it from the site.

36. If you are offering a lot of products, users should be able to sort them by important criteria…price, size, color, etc.

37. Provide an easy way for shoppers to compare details of similar products.

38. Use a custom 404 not found page to link people back to the important areas of your site

39. Give a clear estimate of the delivery time.

40. Accept a wide variety of payment options and clearly display those options.

41. Important information should not look like ad banners. There really is such a thing as “ad blindness” and people will automatically skip over this important information.

42. Make sure you have a “first-time visitor” page. This is where you are going to explain why and how you are different from your competitors.

43. Update your copyright statements on page footers. Make sure that the current year is displayed….fix that 2003 copyright statement.

44. Let customer make a purchase without having to register with your site.

45. Consider making every link the last part of the statement “I want to…”. Don’t just have a link that says “the privacy policy”, but rather “read the privacy policy”. Do you get it… the shopper wants to “Read the Privacy Policy”.

46. Don’t use too clever names for your shopping cart like “widget basket” or “widget box”. Call it “My shopping cart” or “My shopping basket”.

47. Don’t make the shopper specify select an option when there is only 1 “option”. If the product only comes in red, don’t make the shopper select the “red” radio button or choose “red” from the drop down. Get the site to do it automatically.

48. Provide clear shopping instructions in an empty shopping cart. Don’t just say “your shopping cart is empty”.

49. Provide a “special sale” or “special clearance” section. This will attract the budget-conscious shoppers.

50. The most important golden rule…you must portray a lot of trust and credibility to instil shopper confidence and get them to make a purchase. Make sure you do.

Gail Bellaiche is an Internet Marketing professional and webmaster at www.intelliwebtools.com as well as a number of e-commerce sites. Visit her website for articles and tutorials on Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and other great webmaster tools. This article can be freely reprinted as long as this box is unchanged and all links remain active.

When you join an affiliate program or start an affiliate program of your own, you have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program.

With a single tier program you earn a commission on any sales you make and that is it. If you are running your own affiliate program, you pay your affiliates a commission for any sales they refer and that is all.

However, with a two-tier program, affiliates are allowed to recruit sub-affiliates and are paid a small percentage of the sales these sub-affiliates generate. For example, the affiliates may earn a 30% commission for selling product X himself; and when one of the sub-affiliates makes a sale, the affiliate may get a 10% commission as well. This is very profitable for the affiliate as he can recruit an army of sub-affiliates, all earning commissions for him without any effort on his part except for the initial recruiting process.

If you are starting an affiliate program of your own should it be two-tier or single tier? Some might shy away from the seeming expense of a two-tier program. But is it really that expensive? Many affiliate program managers make the wrong decision on this.

Let’s look at an example. You have an affiliate program up and running and an average affiliate joins your program. Mr.Average has a web site that receives average traffic. He also has an ezine with thousands of subscribers published monthly. Mr. Average posts your affiliate links to his web site and promotes your product to his ezine list.

Initially, he generates good sales. However, a point comes when he saturates his market with your product and his sales begin to drop. He begins to lose interest in your program and your sales remain small. What happens if you set up a two-tier program? Rather than trying to keep your commission pay outs small, you motivate your existing affiliates to recruit other people to your program. This will exponentially increase your affiliate sales. Would it not be worth paying the referring affiliate a percentage of their sub-affiliates’ sales? Now when Mr.Average joins your affiliate program this is what would happen. When he has saturated his market with your product, he would now promote your affiliate program to his customers and ezine subscribers. Many of Mr.Average’s customers and subscribers decide to join the affiliate program. This in turn will motivate Mr.Average to continue promoting your products and recruiting affiliates.

Now what is the situation?

1) Your income increases because of increased sales.

2) You have a much larger customer base to which you can sell ‘backend’ products.

3) An increase in your income because of the life time loyalty of the customers referred by your affiliate.

4) An army of sub-affiliates who will sell your products, and in turn promote your affiliate program to their customers and subscribers.

The little extra in affiliate sales commission pay outs will be more than compensated for by the exponential sales increase. This is why the two-tier affiliate program is a guaranteed winner and should be the automatic choice for potential affiliates and affiliate program managers.

© John Lynch

For details of the SiteSell affiliate program with lifetime customer commissions, residual commissions through renewals of Site Build It, and 2-tiers of income go to: http://affiliates.sitesell.com/finian.html