Can I REALLY make money with affiliate programs and MLMs on the Internet?
by Leon Brickey Copyright 2000



To respond with a short answer, YES. ABSOLUTELY!


Here is a brief explanation of how to get started making money in
the first 30 days.


The first thing to do is document a simple starting plan on
paper. KISS - "Keep it simple sweetheart!" or "Keep it simple
stupid!" whichever the case may be. :-)


Yes it's important to study and get some advanced ideas from the
so-called experts, but while you are doing this you can start
earning money in the meantime. In the excitement of starting a
new affiliate program or MLM it's easy to get caught up in the
desire to learn everything there is to know about the new program
before you get started, but that's not what these programs pay
you to do.


I was once in a very good MLM program several years ago with a
good friend named Bob for the sake of this article. Bob was a
real student of MLM. He had the presentation down to an "award
winning performance." He could motivate you to the point you
wanted to run out of the room and find someone to show the
program to. He could quote all the great MLM leaders. He was
GREAT to work with! But he never made very much money at all.
Why? Because he never showed his skills to anyone except the
people at the meetings, which were almost always already
recruited or in the process of being recruited by someone else.


There is something to be learned from Bob. You MUST get started
selling and building YOUR business. The sooner the better.


There is something to be said for I.O.F. (Ignorance on fire.)
It's not important that you know everything about everything
before you get started recruiting and selling. Excitement and
motivation go a long way. Folks can see genuine excitement even
in an ad or sales letter and quite often this is more effective
than detailed knowledge!


Spend 25% of your time studying and 75% of your time selling and
recruiting.


Now here are some specific points to help you get off to a good
start:


- Get your own domain and your own website. This is a must. No
matter which affiliate program or MLM you are involved in you
need your own domain and website. Forget the freebie websites,
which are available by the thousands. There aren't many things
the top marketers agree on but most DO agree on this.


- Once you have a website give people a reason to visit it and a
reason to come back to revisit it. It's downright foolish to just
send folks to someone else's affiliate or MLM website. Get them
to YOUR website first! On your website promote your affiliate/MLM
programs, your ezine, and most importantly keep lots of
constantly updated free content. Good things to place on your
website are articles, e-books, software downloads, advertising
resources, etc. Use your imagination and try to be original.
Don't just offer the some old "rehashed" freebies everyone else
has on their websites.


- Once you get them to your website you want to do what?.CAPTURE
THEIR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS! If you aren't publishing your own
newsletter/ezine you have just shot yourself in the foot before
the race ever starts. This is another area that almost every one
of the top marketers agree on. 80-85% or more of my sales and
recruits come from my ezine. Sure, they use my website as a
resource, but they buy and sign up through the ezine more often
than not.


So how do you get ezine subscribers Leon? Submitting my own
articles to hundreds of publishers, submitting my ezine to ezine
directories, and through my website traffic. That's the whole
truth. No secrets. Just hard work.


- When starting out only start with ONE program. Whether that one
program offers one, two, or three products doesn't matter. Start
with one program. Remember to spend 75% of your time promoting
and selling, and 25% of your time studying that program and fine
tuning your efforts. As you promote and study you will see first
hand what works and what doesn't. Never be afraid to contact your
sponsor and ask what they are doing to promote the business. If
they don't seem willing to help you don't join anything else
under them. A successful sponsor who is willing to help you get a
good start is a BIG asset.


Once you get a good grasp of how the program works and feel like
you can handle another program, take on something else. But never
join a program you don't have the time or means to promote
effectively.


- Don't confuse your visitors!


Limit the choices you offer your website visitors and ezine
subscribers.


Never offer more than one web hosting company from the same web
page or ezine. Never offer more than one marketing course or book
from the same web page or ezine. Never offer more than one
auto-submit program from the same web page or ezine. Never offer
two brands of the same dietary supplement from the same web page
or ezine. Get the idea? You will only confuse your visitors and
probably not make a sale. Sell with authority!


- Unfortunately credibility is a really rare online. Oh sure
there are VERY credible marketers online and VERY credible
companies online, but they are often obscured by the
get-rich-quick, fly-by-night scams. Many of these dishonest
businesses have learned to exploit the anonymity the Internet
offers. Some people hide behind a false name and offer no contact
information. Some of these people have no problem taking your
money and running with it. They are often nearly impossible to
track down. Or at least the cost of tracking them down is more
than the amount lost would afford.


Folks there are very few FREE lunches, and the only place
"success" comes before "work" is in the dictionary.


Before joining a program I advise folks to go to
http://www.worldwidescam.com/ and make sure it's not found there.
If you find your program there...you need a new program. I
suppose they aren't 100% fool proof, but they catch a lot of the
scams.


My best advice is to stay away from Internet malls in general,
these are catching a lot of flack almost everywhere.


I believe the ideas above are good advice for anyone involved in,
or starting in, Internet marketing. It's not everything you need
to know by any means. But if you implement these ideas you can
focus your efforts, decrease the learning curve a little bit, and
avoid many pitfalls that I and other successful marketers have
fell into in our past experiences.


Good luck!
And remember, NO program works till you do!


Leon Brickey
webmaster@appalachianmarketing.com


****************


Leon Brickey is webmaster of Appalachian Online Marketing.
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