4 Tricks Of The Trade
(c)copyright Terry Telford

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This article is available in MP3 format here
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Anyone can make a living online. There are no secret
formulas, hidden tricks or single method that will
instantly make you wealthy. There are guidelines that
show you what to do, mentors who will hold your hand and
show you what they’ve done and systems that will point
you in the right direction. But none of this matters if
the most important part of your business isn’t properly
prepared...YOU.

You are the key ingredient to your business’s success or
failure. What you do on a daily basis will make or break
your business. Whether you’re an affiliate promoting
someone else’s product online or you’ve developed your
own product, you are 100% responsible for developing your
income.

I’ve spoken to multitudes of people online who’ve spent a
lot of money on a lot of programs and haven’t made a
dime. If you’re one of these people, follow along and see
if you can identify yourself. You’re not alone. I’ve been
in all of these situations, as have thousands and
thousands of other people. Don’t give up, find what’s
broken and fix it.

Since the majority of marketers online are involved in an
affiliate program or ten, we’ll look at business through
the eyes of an affiliate.

1. Focus. Pick ONE business and focus on it. Choose a
business that excites you. If you’re a health nut, pick a
health related business. I’m a marketing nut, so my
business focuses on marketing. You have to choose a
business that you enjoy.

The important point in your online career is NOT when you
get into the business, it’s when the business gets into
you. You want to live, eat and breath your business. It’s
critical that you love what you’re doing. If you don’t,
you easily lose your focus and fail.

Buy and use the products and services that you’re
offering. If you’re an affiliate of a natural food
product, then buy the product, eat it, drink it, see what
it does for you. Then you can recommend the product to
others because you know exactly what it does, you know
how it makes you feel and you can tell people using
genuine emotions.

Your emotion is what people want to see and that’s what’s
going to make them buy. Testimonials are one of the
strongest marketing techniques you will find. Your own
testimonial is one of your strongest sale’s tools. You
have to be a walking talking testimonial to the product
or service that you’re representing.

Ok, we got a little off track there, we’re talking about
focus :-)

This is really hard to do. The grass always looks greener
on the other side of the fence. Other business
opportunities and affiliate programs seem to look easier
and promise a faster way to make money. Don’t be fooled,
there is no easy money.

2. Action. This is where it all falls apart for a lot of
people. They’ve read the sales page which got them excited,
bought the ebook which made them feel empowered, read the
information which made them feel like they could actually
do it, then...nothing.

This is one of the key steps and it’s where most people fail.

Online, we say you’re an affiliate. Offline, you are the
marketing manager of your company. Your only job is to
generate an interest in the product or service that you’re
offering. You don’t have to worry about updating a website,
you don’t have to worry about creating a pay plan, you don’t
have to worry about writing checks, you don’t have to worry
about maintaining a website, you have to send traffic to the
business that you are promoting.

Action makes you responsible.

3. Responsibility. You are responsible for making your own
income. If you’ve joined a matrix program in the hopes that
your upline will be a super star and you’re going to get rich
from the spill over, think again. Maybe you'll get lucky and
it will happen. Maybe you'll win the lottery ;)

You need to take responsibility for the success of YOUR
company. You own a marketing company that has the power to
drive traffic to other people’s websites and share in the
profit. That’s what being an affiliate is all about. You are
in business for yourself, but not by yourself.

Your responsibility is to market, market, market.

4. Marketing. Everything works, as long as your expectations
are in line with your activity. Here’s a couple of examples.

Classified ads - This is a marketing two-step. Because
classified ads are so small, there's no room to cram in all
the benefits of your product. The best you can do with a
classified is offer your prospects a free report,
information kit, CD or whatever, in exchange for their
contact details.

This allows your prospects to raise their hands and say,
"Yes, I'm interested in what you have to offer." You are
able to start collecting names and contact information of
people who are interested in herbal medicine, internet
marketing, losing weight or whatever you're offering.

You can collect these people's contact information in a
variety of ways.

i.
offer a 24 hour recorded message that they can listen to
and leave their contact details after the message is
complete

ii.
ask them to fax their details to you

iii.
ask them to send you a postcard with their details or a letter

iv. send them to a website to fill out a form

That's the first step in classified advertising, collecting
your prospect's information. The second step is sending
them your sales literature. If your sales material is good,
sales will start rolling in.

Postcards. This method of marketing works in a similar
fashion to classified advertising except here you have
enough space to sell your product directly. You purchase a
list of prospects from a direct mail list broker and send
them your postcard with your sales message on it.

A very effective way to cut down the sales time between
sending out your postcard and actually receiving the order
is to send your prospects to your website where they can
make their purchase online. You get orders the day your
prospects receive their postcards.

The reason I mentioned offline marketing before online
marketing is it's very effective. The response rate you
generate from a well planned direct mail campaign generally
out pulls an email marketing campaign every time.

But direct mail offline is expensive. Online is free or
very low cost. Here's a couple online ideas for you.

Email marketing. The most cost effective way to market
online is to develop your own list of prospects and send
them email messages regularly. From a cost and time
perspective this marketing method takes the cake.

The downfall of email marketing is everyone's inbox is so
full of spam, your message is easily lost. To get your
email opened and read, you need a catchy subject line. To
make the sale, you need a short, concise message full of
benefits and a compelling reason for them to purchase
right now. Not later today, right now.

Forum marketing. Another free form of marketing is using
Forums. This type of marketing takes time, but is very
effective. When you ask a question or post an answer at a
forum, you get a signature line under your post, kind of
like an email signature file.

Although you can not advertise directly in your posts at
the forums, your signature file will do your advertising for
you. Your signature file is like a mini classified ad. Use
a compelling statement and your website URL. Here's a quick
example of one of my signature files that I use:

Terry Telford
>> $197 Home Study Course - Yours Free
http://www.YourMarketingJournal.com

>> Tap Into The Minds Of The Experts
http://www.TheBusinessProfessional.com

Error pages. This one is really fast and easy to set up.
Your website serves up error pages to your visitors if they
enter the wrong website URL. For example, if you visitor
enters www.YourWebsite.com/page1.html but there is no such
page, they'll get an error page that says something like,
"You've requested a page that no longer exists or has been
moved, blah blah blah. But you can change those pages on
your site.

Login to your control panel and change those pages into
advertising pages. You can see an example of what I'm
talking about on
http://www.TheBusinessProfessional.com/404.shtml
or you can enter the wrong URL and see that it works.

Once you have a marketing system that is generating the kind
of income that you want from your business, add a second
business to your system.

Is this contradicting what I’ve just said about focus?

No. Now your focus will be directed to making your second
business profitable. You’ll be surprised how much faster
you’ll be able to develop your second business when you just
plug it into the marketing system that you developed for your
first business. This enables you to develop multiple income
streams.

WARNING: Do NOT attempt to add a second business into your
system until your first business is making you a solid
monthly income. If you add a second business before you’ve
got a solid marketing system, you dilute your focus
prematurely and you’ll be back to square one.

Your business is like a pipeline. The more prospects and
leads you pour in one end, the more sign ups and customers
come out the other.

There are no secrets in business. It’s a numbers game.
Once you’ve mastered the 4 "tricks of the trade" you’ll
find you’re well on the way to running your own successful
business and making a living online.

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This mini report has been brought to you by Terry Telford.

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