Me And My Best Friend

Me And My Best Friend
A Day At The Office!

Friday, January 19, 2007

Traffic Exchanges And How To Make Them Work

When I was new to the online business and marketing world, traffic exchanges made no sense to me. It was easy for me to feel as though I was spinning my wheels. I was mindlessly surfing for credits and had no idea of why. I had no concept of how to advertise properly and I became very frustrated when all of my traffic translated to NO new business.

Traffic Exchanges are going to play an important role in your business. For those who are new to internet marketing, this will hopefully clarify what traffic exchanges are, how they are used in your business and how to maximize their effectiveness.

How Traffic Exchanges Works

Traffic Exchanges are website networks whereby members (mostly other business owners) advertise their businesses.

For example: I have a business with a website that I place on a traffic exchange. Once my site is approved by the exchange, it will be placed into rotation along with all of the other sites owned the other members of the exchanges network.
Now what you do is “surf” for exchange credits. Each time you visit another exchange network member’s web page, you earn exchange credits. Each credit you earn often times equal 1 web page exposure. So it you view 100 web pages, at 1 credit per viewing, you will earn 100 exchange credits. That means that the web page you submitted to the exchange network will be viewed by other network members 100 times.

So the more you earn, the more your page is displayed around the network.
Almost all traffic exchange programs are free, although many of them offer special features to paid members and offer credits for purchase. Almost all traffic exchange programs encourage users to build their own referral networks, which would in turn help the referrers accumulate more credits. For example, when a referred member receives credits through browsing, the referrer would get a small portion of the credits earned.

For the most part, traffic exchanges are used by small business owners who want a low cost advertising option. This leads to one flaw of traffic exchanges. Most people who browse these networks are looking only to earn credits for their own business and are not interested in the other businesses that are being advertised.

Keeping in mind your audience, it would be better to target your advertising to business owners. Offer something that will help business owners generate more business; for example, offer and e-book on how to generate targeted traffic to their website. Make sure your heading is eye catching. You want to make that surfer stop and actually read your site.

If the business you are promoting is really good (good product, good business model), then create an ad that speaks to how a business owner can supplement their income by considering your business.

Here are several factors to keep in mind for successful traffic exchange advertising:

•Remember your audience. You are advertising to other businessowners. Make it worth their while.
•Your heading is everything. Make it stand out!
•Exchanges often allow multiple web site submissions. Use them ALL
•Try not to advertise your business directly. Use lead capture pages in connection with an auto responder when possible
•Use multiple exchanges
•Set aside 20 minutes a day to surf for credits.
•Track your hit results.

Traffic exchanges are a great low cost way to advertise your business. If you focus on what is outlined above, you should expect to see a steady rise in traffic and business.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

What is your Primary Focus as an MLM or Affiliate Business Owner?

There are a lot of people who are getting involved in the home based business industry. There are thousands of companies out there that offer everything from educational products to juices. There is still, other of companies that offer an affiliate relationship whereby you get the right to market someone’s company and in return for a commission on all the sales that come from your marketing efforts.

These companies have their own way of explaining how and why their particular company is the latest and greatest. Some have elaborate presentations that are designed to get you excited about the opportunity that you are exploring. I find, though, that there are few companies out there that really explain what your job truly is as a mlm or affiliate business owner.

Let’s say, for a moment that you have found an opportunity that speaks to you. You sign up and get access to your own back office and website. You are very excited because you really are proud of the company that you represent. You’re ready to hit the ground running!

What do you think your job is now that you are all set up?

Many people believe that their job is to simply promote the business to as many people as possible. While the above statement is true, it is my contention that directly promoting your business or affiliate program is a secondary task. Your primary focus should be collecting the contact information of willing prospects that you will continually market to.

Here’s what I mean:

If you have unlimited sources of money, then directly promoting your business is not going to be a problem for you. All you have to do is flood your market with your advertising everyday, all day and night through all advertising mediums. You will develop brand recognition fairly quickly and if you have a great product, the rest will be history. But if you have limited funds, as many do initially, then you will have to shift your focus from promoting your business directly to building a list of willing prospects (those who’ve contacted you) or leads; as they are often times referred to in the mlm world.

What this means is you will have to devise ways to get people to come to you. Here’s an example: In my real estate business I needed clients. Sticking my face in the newspaper with every other realtor in my area was not going to do me any good. I was just one of many. What I did was offer a free first time homebuyer seminar. I rented a space and placed one ad in the news paper. I also hand delivered flyers to every apartment building in the area where the seminar was to be held. I had a raffle and gave away a free breakfast for 2 at a local restaurant and, of course, gave them great information on the home buying process and how they could best position themselves to buy a great home. At the event, there was standing room only!! The turnout was amazing. As people arrived, I had them sign in with all of their contact information. I then would periodically send them info on the local real estate market and offer them free resources to assist them in buying a home if they were still interested.

From that seminar, I collected 6 new clients who all purchased a house or condo. Of the six, 2 of them referred a friend to me who also ended up purchasing a home. So by not advertising my business as a realtor I closed 8 deals for a total of $70,000 dollars in commissions. I still advertise to the other 50 or so people who attended the seminar. And I know that they appreciate my contact because I still get response e-mails from many of them.

The lesson here is this: You may think that your product or service is the “Bees Knees” and just showing people what you’re selling is enough to make them want to purchase or sign up. The fact is, you have to build a relationship with people by either spending a lot of money and flood your market with your advertising or by building a list of leads that you can personally follow up with over time.

If you don’t have an unlimited source of funds then don’t waste your time advertising your business or product and how great it is. No one cares and most will think you are trying to scam them out of something. Instead, spend all of you energy in creating a system that will help build list of willing participants automatically. Once you have a substantial list and you have created a relationship with the members of that list, THEN you can start to promote your opportunity or product. That is your job as an mlm business owner. Without this list, you will have a hard time building your business and income.

Coming up next building a relationship with your prospects through the use of your auto responder.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

What Online Biz-Ops Fail To Mention

“Join For Free”, “Never Seen Before Opportunity” “Lazy Individuals Path To Wealth”, “The Most Powerful Pay Matrix On The Internet”…..And so it goes!

These are the many teaser headlines that a large portion of online business opportunities use to get people excited about their “incredible offer that no one in their right mind should miss!” Well the jury is out on whether or not some of these latest and greatest biz-ops are indeed “Latest” or “Greatest”. In fact, some of these, so called opportunities, are just lame. But that is a topic that is far outside of the scope of this article at this time.

The one thing that these “Lamest” and “Grating” biz-ops have in common with the many legitimate opportunities is their lack of up front disclosure on how much money one is going to need to effectively get their enterprise off of the ground. It is completely understandable why these companies do not spend their advertising dollars explaining in great depth the process of running a business. That would scare a lot of people away from opportunities that may be a great fit for an individual.

Can you imagine a Business Opportunity with a pitch such as: Great opportunity to earn an extra income from home. Must have 6 month commitment of paying for Auto Responders, lead capture pages, Adwords ad, various co-op lead sources such as Traffic Oasis; print media, and multiple traffic exchanges, before seeing any results. Fill out the form below and join the fun!

No one would join. No one would even consider whether what the company had to offer. It is sad, but words and phrases like “Free” and “Full time salary, part time effort” or my favorite “The most money you will ever make doing nothing!” are the ones that get the most attention on the web. It seems that there are a lot of people who are not interested in learning a new skill (i.e. internet marketing) But are interested in making the most money without doing anything or investing anything (Money and time)!

There are many legitimate online business opportunities that are completely free to join, but it is up to the individual to do what they can to properly promote and build their business. There are many free ways to promote and build your business, (which is how these companies can say that their opportunity is completely free to join and free to maintain) but you have to realize that those free promotion and building techniques are the ones that are usually more time consuming. This means slower results, and higher drop out rates. That’s when a legitimate biz-op gets called a scam because that person gave up! And I don’t blame them! Manually doing all of the things that one needs to do to effectively promote and develop a business is a pain in the you-know-what! But if you can automate your promotion and development through auto responders or lead generation pages (fee based services) then you will have more time to attend to other aspects of your business. This means faster results and lower drop out rates.

This brings us to the initial point of this article; The various legitimate biz-ops out there are only advertising the “Hype” and not the work involved; Again, understandable.

So here is what a new person should research BEFORE considering an online business, affiliate marketing venture, or other web based MLM business.

Set an advertising budget:

Even if it is only $20 per month, this way when you start researching ways to advertise, you can quickly cross off those that are out of range.

Research auto responders:

Keeping up with contacts as they are generated is very time consuming. An auto responder is a must.

Traffic Exchanges:

Type in Traffic Exchanges in Google and read about their service. Get used to the nomenclature. It’s like a foreign language. Most will be free to join, but again very time consuming. If you pay, you will spend less time “surfing”.

Google Adwords:

Find out about Adwords. Learn how it works

Submission services:

These are services that will submit to classified ads, blogs, e-zines, and the like. This will help promote your business. In most cases it is free to submit to these entities individually. Again, very time consuming. If you can automate your submissions, More time for you.

Lead Capture Pages:

This is your bread and butter. The idea here is to publish a web page that offers a free newsletter that you will create. A prospect will then enter their name, email and other contact info. By filling out your form, they will then be entered into your auto responder. Your auto responder will keep in contact with that prospect for as long as they continue to receive your e-mail. You can do this manually, but you know the deal…manual = Time consuming Automated = More time to focus on other aspects of your business.

The above items are just a few things one should focus their attention on. This is far from the complete list. Things like article syndication, RSS, FFA pages, Safe Lists, Forum Posting and Blogging are things one should become familiar with.

Start assembling your library of resources and books on the subject of internet business.
Take a look at these two books:

Ken Varga—"How To Get Customers to Call, Buy & Beg for MORE!"
Shawn Casey—Mining Gold On The Internet
(A Step-by-Step Guide to Quick Cash Flow Online)



What’s important to understand is that there is NO legitimate business in the world that doesn’t require an investment of either time or money. More likely, you will invest both. Why do the biz-ops shy away from that fact in there own marketing efforts? Well maybe if hard work and constant, never ending perseverance were as fashionable as “Free” and “The Lazy Individuals Road To Wealth” or “Do nothing and retire tomorrow!” then we would see a whole different type of “hype machine” in effect.


Take Very Good Care

Terrence Sanders
Pass2Pro@Yahoo.com
XtraHomeIncome.net

Friday, December 15, 2006

How To Make Money In Pro Wealth Solutions!

How To Make Money In Pro Wealth.

If you are considering joining Pro Wealth Solutions, there are a couple of things you should consider before you start paying $35 for the membership.

Pro Wealth Solutions is a typical MLM business opportunity. Meaning that you sign up, start paying the $35 membership and then you will be paid a commission on whoever you get to sign below you. In essence, you are being paid a portion of your “downlines” membership money.

Some will classify this as a “Pyramid Scam”. Though it is a pyramid structure, the word “Scam” is a little harsh. One definition of “scam” that is apropos to this situation is “to obtain money from somebody by dishonest means”. If Pro Wealth Solutions promised to give you access to their resources for a membership fee of “X” and did not deliver, then that would be a scam. If they promised that you are going to make “X” amount of money if you pay them and “Y” amount of membership money, and don’t deliver, then THAT would be a scam. Further, if PWS promised to pay you “X” for each person you sign up and fail to send you a check when your downline is 150 deep, then that would be a scam.

We have yet to see that happen. As a matter of fact, PWS is quite prompt with their payment of earned commissions. We have FULL access to their resources. And as with any business, online or off, they have never guaranteed the amount of money we would be making. So we don’t see scam. YET!

I say yet because things can change. But until they do, we will continue to implement what PWS has to offer into our own strategy.

Now, if you have not taken a look at Pro Wealth Solutions, do so now. It is free to evaluate. Of course our mantra: DON’T SIGN UP FOR ANYTHING THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. You are just signing up so that you have access to what PWS has to offer.

HOW THE PRO PROFIT TEAM IS USING PWS TO MAKE $1,000’s

Pro Wealth Solutions offers several what they term “Income Streams”. The idea behind these income streams is for the member, in addition to signing people up, to have multiple products to sell which will help you put cash into your pocket while you grow your business. Here are the income streams:

PWSMortgageCo.Com
BetterCreditToday.net
Credit Card Processing
Real Estate Training

And several other training pieces that you are licensed to reproduce and sell in any creative way your little heart desires.

I come from a real estate investment background. So when I saw the Pro Wealth Mortgage Business, it clicked for us. After carefully assessment, and of course extreme due diligence, (I had to speak to whoever was going to be originating the loans, I had to find out the legality of what they were doing, and other loan industry questions like how they handle appraisals, notary issues, origination fees, funding time lines etc.)

The rest was easy! All of our executive members at The Pro Profit Team have since refinanced our homes and investment properties through PWS. The bank that PWS has the relationship with is a publicly traded FDIC insured Bank. Not a mortgage broker. So there are no brokerage fees. I got a better interest rate than I had on a 4-plex that I own and they were able to save me about $800 bucks on my monthly mortgage payment.

Because we are customers, it is truly an easy sell. All of my friends and family are using PWSmortgageCo.com. They are that good!

Our strategy is to present PWSMortgageCo.com to as many people as we can within our community. We have a great strategy that targets hard working class people (like myself). The sell is the most soft sell in the world! It works like this:

Hey “Homeowner”, Check these guys out. (give them the info) I just recently refinanced my house with the people and they saved me $800. They may be able to save you some money as well!

Or

Hello “stranger in the pub” I overheard you talking about your home, you should check these guys out, they have some of the best interest rates I’ve seen lately.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how well these two strategies work! I have yet to meet a homeowner who wouldn’t like to save money on their mortgage. Here is the phrase that is worth $1,000 almost every time you speak it:

“They may or may not be able to save you money. It’s definitely worth checking into!”

It’s that easy! This is not a potion made from some fruit from New Guinea. This is not a super vitamin, this is not set of motivational tapes, this is not protein powder. This is a Mortgage!

EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO BUY A HOME NEEDS A MORTGAGE!
(…Unless you are independently wealthy and are paying cash for your home; In which case you don’t need a program like Pro Wealth Solutions!)

EVERYONE WHO CURRENTLY HAS A MORTGAGE WOULD LIKE TO SAVE MONEY ON THEIR MONTHLY PAYMENT! GUARENTEED! WITHOUT EXCEPTION!
That is very VERY POWERFUL!

I have shared only 2 strategies that we use to promote our PWSMortgageCo.com business. We are currently targeting 5 different markets with laser beam accuracy. It is truly simple and inexpensive. Come Back and visit this blog in the coming weeks, I will go into detail on each of the 5 different marketing strategies. Each is an article in itself.

The most important thing we want you to take away from this article is this: You can make money with Pro Wealth Solutions as we are. There are caveats to that statement.

Don’t join Pro Wealth Solutions based on their “hype”. Don’t join ANY business based on hype for that matter. Yes, you will make money if you can sign people up. If you are good at that sort of thing, then more power to you, you’ll do well. Signing people up for the opportunity is not how The Pro Profit Team chooses to focus our energy. Yes, we do sign people who are interested up for the opportunity, but we focus on the income streams primarily. Here’s why:

The Income Streams pay better for the new person that doesn’t have a substantial downline yet.(Click here for a Free Report on how to build your downline.)

The mortgage business in particular is the “Easiest sell”

With the mortgage business you are paid immediately at the close of escrow

The income stream money that you earn is ALL yours! No profit splitting!

Those who use the mortgage product are always willing to sign up and learn to do the same thing you are (Grow you downline!)

Those who use the mortgage product are happy to refer other people to you.

One referral pays your Pro Wealth Solutions membership for 2 years!


We have focused on the mortgage product of Pro Wealth Solutions. Next we will introduce the BetterCreditToday.com income stream and strategies

Until Then…..

Happy Holidays

Take Very Good Care,

Terry Sanders
The Pro Profit Team
Xtra Home Income
Pro Wealth Solutions

Sunday, December 3, 2006

Which Business Is The Right Business?

Which Business Is The Right Business?
Copyright © Terrence Sanders



Hello ALL!

We have all heard the saying that "not all MLM's are the same." That is totally true. There are some MLM businesses that make absolutely no sense at all. ( I will refrain from mentioning any names, just trust your gut.) I have to clarify that statement just a little; they make no sense at all TO ME!The difference in those 2 statements is subtle but poignant. Just because I may or may not understand a particular opportunities value, doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no value. Again, you have to trust your gut.

What always amazes me is when people come to me and tell me; “I join x program and nothing happened”. I would ask the normal questions; “what was the program?”, “how much work did you put into it?” and most importantly “did you understand the program?”

The answers I would get are baffling to me! I would hear “I’m not sure what the program was”, “I did what they suggested I do for a week” and the kicker “I’m not sure about how all of this works”! I need not go any further on why this person had it rough! If this is you who is reading this and you have signed up for some program that you don’t understand, DON’T EMAIL ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS! I’m just going to hurt your feelings. Here is the only advice I can give to you….

STOP SIGNING UP FOR STUFF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!

Keep your money and invest FIRST in a book on time management, business plans, Affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, and sales. Then explore the different offerings out there and STILL hang on to your money until you find an opportunity that speaks to you.

THEN (oh yeah, there’s more!) READ, READ, READ, and read everything that the biz-op has to offer. You want to know the nature of the op. (what do they do? Do they have a product or are you just trying to get people to sign up below you?) How you get paid, why you are getting paid, how much you are getting paid, when you are getting paid and what your pay is contingent upon. If you belong to a matrix you have to understand that process.

After you have done your due diligence, it is time to ask yourself weather the opportunity “speaks to you”. Is it something that you can get behind with excitement? Would you be proud to share it with your friends and family? This is very important because if you are constantly fighting off the thought that you yourself may be getting scammed, then how good of a pitch person do you think you’ll be? I mean, why would you promote something that is a scam? You HAVE to run an ethical and legal business.

Lastly, you are going to have to spend some money! Let me say that again, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEND SOME MONEY! Yes there are some free ways to promote your business. Yes there are some biz-ops that are free to join, Yes there are programs where you don’t have to buy and warehouse product.
I will use the following equation to illustrate a point

FA=GTC (Look out Einstein!)
FREE ANYTHING = Greater Time Commitment

Think about it….If you have to travel 2 miles to go to a x-mas party you could walk for free. You could get there faster if you took the bus but that’s going to cost you $1. You could get there even faster if you take a cab. That’s going to cost you $10 or you could rent a car the day before and drive yourself to the party which will get you there even faster because you don’t have to wait for the cab to show up at your home. That is going to cost you $100! You could buy your own car for the party and….. I think you get the point. This brings me to the next equation;

MSW=MFT
Ready?
Money Spent Wisely = More Free Time.

If you have your own car (continuing with the above analogy) you will have more free time to get all gussied up for the party! (Unless you bought a Ferrari that you can barely afford and you are constantly working so that you can make the car note. In that situation, you’ll NEVER have ANY free time and…. Sorry, I digress!)

The point is simple. For your business to be successful, you will have to choose wisely how to best spend your hard earned dollars. Just know this; YOU WILL PAY ONE WAY OR ANOTHER; Either money or time. And there are many who will tell you that T=M!



About the Author: Terry Sanders is a 10 year MLM Veteran. He Currently Runs 10 successful Online Businesses. He has extensive Online marketing experience that he brings from the world of Real Estate; Both as an investor and as an agent. The Pro Profit Team is responsible for 20 of it's members presence on the leader boards of several online businesses.

To find the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home visit: http://tboner1.payitforward4profits.com-----------------------------------------------------------------