Affiliate Marketing Business Blog

A funny thing happened the other day. Two business associates of mine met for the first time. The funny part was that one of them was convinced they’d already met in person. We assured him that they had not but you could tell that he wasn’t totally convinced. Finally we concluded that because he had seen him in some Youtube videos that he simply felt that they had already met. And he’d only seen just a few videos.

So how would it change your business if your clients actually feel like they’ve met you’ve both met face to face? Do you think they’d buy more from you? In the small niche we’ve been working in, I’ve certainly seen huge results from doing our own video campaigns. People really do feel like they know you. The same way many feel like their favorite TV personality is part of the family, you become part of their family. So buying from you is a much more personal transaction.

Plus, making videos can be so easy. For me, it’s often not as painstaking or laborious as writing an email. Just turn on your camera and start talking about the topic of choice. Videos are super powerful and I’ve seen major results from using them. I’d highly recommend you start making them as often as possible. Your first ones won’t be very good so get those out of the way as soon as possible. Don’t worry about making too many mistakes. That just makes you more personable.

To Your Success,

Matthew Glanfield

Many just starting to build their business, don’t realize how much THEY determine whether they get awesome or awful customers. They think that having great customers is all about good customer service. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Don’t get me wrong, good customer service is important. But anyone who has ever done any kind of customer service realize that angry and hard to deal with customers don’t often turn pleasant no matter how nice and accommodating you are. So the challenge of finding happy buyers isn’t in making bad customers good, it’s by getting the best kind of customer in the first place.

There are two main factors that will make sure you find buyers that sing your praises.

1. A Narrow Market
New business owners often want to see everyone as their market. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people tell me that their market is everyone. This is not only a poor perspective for most markets, but it’s also going to be nearly impossible to compete in that kind of market without major capital. Also, if everyone’s your market, inevitably, you have to cater to the lowest denominator. And that means that you automatically get those customers that continually give you problems. Trust me. You don’t want those kind of problems while starting your business. You want to start your business with the best customers out there. And that means you need to target your market as much as possible. A targeted market is generally much more pleasant and easy to work with. If you target your market, you will see fewer complaints, fewer refunds, and people will thank you for selling to them.

2. Your Marketing
The second factor in finding happy buyers is having the right kind of marketing. Again, if your marketing is catering to the lowest denominator, no doubt, you’ll be dealing with lots more problems. Here are some marketing practices that will undoubtedly attract more problem customers: Free Offers, Hyped Claims and Promises, Push Button Results, No Work Solutions, Get Rich Quick, and a ton more, but I think you get the picture.

Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t use any of these tactics ever. But it’s important to use them sparingly if you want get those happy customers and thank you for letting them buy from you.

So while building your online business, make sure you build around Satisfied and Happy Buyers.

To Your Success,

Matthew Glanfield

Ok…maybe hate is a little harsh. But you’d have to admit that many internet marketers don’t really want to have anything to do with you. They don’t want to hear what you have to say, they don’t want your questions, and they certainly don’t want you to be able to contact them. They want you to buy their product and just leave them alone.

Now I’ve always tried to provide as much support as possible for all of my products. But as I’ve been building my business outside of Internet Marketing, the importance of interacting with your customers has become even clearer. People want to interact with the people they buy from. And lots of people are willing to pay more to do it.

In my current little niche, I charge more than many of my competitors for the exact same items. But my business has dominated that niche because we are continually interacting with our customers. We happily answer their questions, make a ton of videos, and encourage them to interact with us at every turn. What has that done for us? Well in 2009, we saw an explosion in growth while many other businesses were hurting.

So if you’re looking for a tool to explode your business in 2010, my advice is, don’t hate your customer. Interact with them every chance you get.

If you have success stories with how interacting with your customers has helped grow your business, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

To Your Success,

Matthew Glanfield

Yesterday I posed the question, “What Is A Real Business?” A real business is made up of two basic elements and these two elements should be the main focus of every business owner. If you find yourself working on other things, you need to shift your focus.

So what are the two elements? They are Traffic and Conversion. Any business activity, whether the business is online or bricks and mortar, can be summed up in these two elements.

Traffic:
This is perhaps the most important element in building your business. Lots of people think that if you have a good product, the customers will come running. But most of the time, that isn’t the case. Here’s an example why. Lets say, there are two men who own hotdog cart businesses and they want to sell hotdogs around the superbowl stadium. The first one has all the best hot dog toppings one could imagine, and he gets a spot a few blocks over from the main entrance to the stadium. The second man just has the basic toppings but he gets a prime spot located right in front of the superbowl stadium. Which one is going to make more money that day? Of course the guy with the basic toppings but a prime location. This is the reason why McDonalds is so successful. McDonalds focuses on prime traffic locations. That should be your focus too. It isn’t uncommon for a savy internet business owner to start building traffic before they finish or even start the website.

Conversion:
The second most important aspect to running a business is conversion. Once you have the traffic, you’ve need to get them to buy. You might be asking, “Don’t you need to worry about your product before thinking about conversion?”

My answer: No. Athough both are elements of conversion, good marketing is more important than a good product. The product is important in the sense that you want happy customers who buy and keep buying from you. But no one will even understand the value of your product without good marketing. It’s up to you to let them know that you’ve got something of great value and why it’s of greater value than the amount of money you’re asking for it.

Now, pretty much any aspect to business will fall under one of these two categories. Your job as a business builder is to find the most effective ways for you to achieve these two things. Sometimes that depends of the market but often when you’re starting out, much of it depends on you.

A Real Business’s success depends on how well you can focus on traffic and conversion.

I could go on, but I’d like to hear from you. What are the most important activities you find that fall under one these two categories?
Or would you like to share what your thoughts about traffic and conversion, feel free to leave your comments below.

Matthew Glanfield

I got an email last week asking me if I have any recommendations for building a “real” Business. It was a good question because, if you are reading this blog, that’s exactly what you want to build. Too many people buy courses and training and think, “that’s going to make me money” and don’t give much thought to building a “real” Business. That’s a huge mistake. If you just want to make a quick buck, you are reading the wrong blog. But if you want to build a solid business, keep reading. Actually, if you’re just looking for a quick buck, you probably need to stick around more so I can convince you that it’s not the way to make money online.

Now, with that in mind, let me be clear. Affiliate Marketing, Membership Sites, etc.. are all real businesses. These tactics can be used to get a quick buck, but lots people use them to run legitimate businesses. In fact, almost anything can be built into a real business. You’d be surprised to learn about many of the zany and off the wall businesses people are building out there and making good money. My point, is not that you need a crazy idea to have a business, but whether or not it’s a real business is dependent on how you run it more than what you do.

So when you see someone offering to teach you how to make money online, ask yourself one of these two questions.

1. If you’re just starting out, “Will I be able to make this into a real Business?” or,

2. If you’re already running a real business, “Is this something I can implement now to help grow my current business?”

If you can’t see yourself using their training or service to build a real, viable business, don’t bother looking at it any further. It’s not something you want to get involved with.

In fact, last year, my attention was almost completely outside of internet marketing because I’ve been building a real business in a niche that’s a ton of fun for me. I feel like I get to play all day. When you find something like that, it makes building a business so much easier.

How would you define building a “real” Business? Feel free to leave your comments below.

Matthew Glanfield

In Yesterday’s post I talked about how education can be the best friend and the worst enemy to your business. Now before you think that I’m against educating yourself, I want to make myself clear. Education is Critical to building a successful business. But it’s important to be strategic and Find the Best Kind of Business Education.

So what IS the Best Business Educational System? The best education you can get is in The Doing. Actually running a business, making decisions and taking action will help you learn quicker than any “Guru’s” course ever could.

Have you ever wondered why McDonalds requires that you work there before you can own one? It’s a system of success. You need to work in a business to learn how to make it successful.

There’s a lot of people out there that don’t want to believe you have to do it to learn it. They have their sites too focused on the idea of the quick buck and easy money. They keep buying product after product thinking, each time, this one will be the Magic Bullet. But it never seems to happen because it doesn’t exist.

Now, while there may not be a Magic Bullet, there are shortcuts. Don’t buy anything thinking it’s a magical solution. Look for shortcuts, not magic.

So what’s an example of a shortcut? One example is to buy an already functioning business from someone else. Even if it’s just making $1 a month, that’s a great start! By running the business, you’ll get the best kind of education possible. It can often be better than investing in a course or educational product.

That’s just one example of a shortcut to success. What do YOU think are some of the best shortcuts to building an online business? Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments below.

Matthew Glanfield

In order to succeed online it’s vital that you invest in your education. All the successful entrepreneurs I know invest heavily in their education. Investing in my education literally helped me make the huge leaps I needed each time I launched my business to the next level. Yes, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on my education but that education translated directly to hundreds of thousands of dollars in my pocket.

But there’s a dark side to education as well. Some people become so wrapped up in purchasing educational products, they buy everything that comes their way but don’t do a thing with it.

Of course, there’s always a reason why the last product wouldn’t work. Perhaps buying the latest course just feels better than doing nothing. Or maybe they just feel a little more secure knowing that product is on their shelf/computer (just in case they need it someday). But also people get overwhelmed with too much information that they don’t know where to start.

Whatever the reason, the end result is the same. The educational “investment” doesn’t get implemented and they never get their online business off the ground.

What’s important to understand is that investing in your education is much more than plopping down some cash. Investing in your education and business is, as much if not more so, about taking the time to implement the things you learn. The biggest investment you can make is using your time and energy to do what you’ve learned. Educational products aren’t an investment unless you use them.

Now that doesn’t mean that you’ll use every bit of the information you buy. Most of the educational material I’ve purchased, I didn’t do a thing with. In fact, I probably only use about 10-20% of what it all had to offer. But implementing just that small percentage has helped me run a very successful online business.

And that’s the great news! You really don’t have to implement everything you learn to be successful. Just do something. The best education you can get is in the doing.

I’m curious to hear about your own successful experiences with education products. How much do you invest in your education and what percentage of that do you actually use and implement to see success. Leave a comment below.

To Your Success,

Matthew Glanfield

You may not know this but it was just a few short years ago that I launched my internet business. It all started with a little niche website that I setup with no intention to make money. I simply put it up as a resource for myself and others in that niche. Soon I noticed lots of people were coming to my site. I figured I might be able to make a little money from Adsense. So I put some Adsense ads on the site and made a some money but nothing to write home about.

After a short while I purchased a small ebook from a guy named Joel Comm about improving your Adsense revenue. I figured I might be able to make a bit more money so I bought it. I followed Joel’s book to the ‘T’ and then something totally unexpected happened. My revenue didn’t just improve, it exploded! Joel and I later became friends and I’ve had several occasions to work with him and several other big name ‘gurus’ out there. But it was that little website and Joel’s ebook that launched the successful business I run today.

So what can you learn from this story?

* First, Stop trying to make money and start providing something of value to people. If you do, the money will follow.

* Second, that your education is key to making money. When you need to move your business forward, find someone who can teach you what you need to do to take it to the next level.

If you follow these rules, I have no doubt that you’re going to do well this year!

If you have any other suggestions for those struggling to start their business or just want to comment, please scroll down and leave your comments below. I’d love to hear what you think.

Matthew Glanfield