Category: work with others

    Five Books to Read about Affiliate Marketing

    Affiliate marketing involves either creating your own product and providing a commission to people (affiliates) to sell it for you, or finding products and selling them as an affiliate for someone else. You can do both at the same time and they are both fabulous ways to add to your income stream.

    Here are five great books you’ll want to read if you are involved in affiliate marketing.

    1. Affiliate Marketing Smart Affiliate Tactics for Creating an Online Business With Passive Income Forever (online marketing, niche marketing, blogging, work from home, passive income) by Brian Graves.

    This book provides a proven strategy for creating an affiliate marketing business. You’ll learn how to find affiliate products to promote, and how to use keywords, make massive sales and more.

     

    2. How to Make Money Online as an Affiliate Marketer Even Without a Website: Basics for Beginners (Marketing Matters Book 40), by Joan Mullally and Evelyn Trimborn

    If you want to find a way to replace your current salary, affiliate marketing is a great way to do it. You can start part time with nothing more than a computer and a few pieces of inexpensive software. Learn about it with this book, and get started tomorrow making a passive income with affiliate marketing.

     

    3. Clickbank Affiliate Marketing: How to Make Money Online as a Clickbank Affiliate Marketer, by BJ Min

    If you want to earn money in a passive way, Clickbank offers a lot of products in every niche that you can promote to your audience. You don’t even need a website to promote the products on Clickbank because the sellers offer landing pages and sales pages. You can run ads on social media and Google using your affiliate links to make sales.

     

    4. Affiliate Manager Boot Camp: Recruiting, Educating, and Retaining Affiliates, by Shawn Collins

    If you have your own products, this book will help teach you how to find affiliates, educate them to make sales for you, and keep them by paying them fairly and quickly. You can truly have a whole army behind you helping you sell the solutions you create for your audience.

     

    5. Affiliate Marketing: How to Make Money and Creating an Income, by A. Anderson

    If you’re interested in creating an affiliate marketing empire, this book should help you get started. You can determine whether this is the right path for you or not, and get good tips on what to do to get started making money as an affiliate marketer.

     

    Affiliate marketing is a great way to start earning income on a part-time and even full-time basis. You just need to know how to get started. These books will help you get started – whether you want to contract with affiliate marketers yourself or whether you want to sell other people’s things as an affiliate.

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    Ten Ways to Take Advantage of Industry-Related Non-Competing Sites

    You probably know people who market to your same audience, but who aren’t competitors of yours. They have what would be called an industry-related, non-competing site. As you build your business you’ll want to keep track of websites such as these. You can use a spreadsheet to do this. There are many ways to take advantage of being involved and keeping aware of non-competing sites.

    1. Stay Up-to-Date on Industry News – Any industry-related websites are great for getting news about the industry you’re involved in. Non-competing sites are full of opportunities since there is no worry about them taking your audience or vice versa. You can freely curate the information they share and share it with your audience, too.

    2. Place Banner Ads to Run on the Site – Any non-competing site that allows ads that market to your audience is a good choice for placing any type of ad, including banner ads. Even if they do not have a link to place an advertisement, you can approach the site owner about putting a paid advertisement up. If you have an affiliate program, send them a free sample of your product and offer them a special affiliate deal.

    3. Volunteer to Contribute Guest Blog Posts – Most website owners struggle to fill their online real estate with plenty of original, well written, engaging content. Give them an offer they cannot refuse by offering to send free original content in exchange for a bio with a link to your products and services.

    4. Contribute to the Community Message Board – If the website has a message board, you should join it and becomWrite a White paper and Send It to the Site Ownere a regular contributor there. Ask and answer questions; share your expertise freely so that you can become part of that community.

    5. Join Group Chats – Some websites will offer group chats, teleseminars, webinars, and so forth. If you can justify the time and expense, not only should you join but you should also put yourself forward as an expert speaker or panelist.

    6. Monitor Their Use of Keywords – When a website markets to your audience, it is likely they are using keywords that will work for you too. Don’t mislead your audience if you don’t offer certain solutions, but check out the keywords so that you can evaluate whether or not they’ll work for you too.

    7. Write a White paper and Send It to the Site Owner – A great way to introduce yourself to the site owner is to write and send them a white paper that explains a problem and solution that you solve and introduces them to your products and services.

    8. Get to Know the Site Owner – If the website is especially well put together and the products and services offered are top-notch, find a way to get to know the site owner. Follow them on social media, join groups they’re part of and get to know them. Networking with people that you want to work with someday is a great strategy to grow your expertise.

    9. Interview the Site Owner – Audio and video are excellent forms of content for your blog. Ask the site owner to allow you to interview them for your blog. You can do it with audio or video via Skype or Google Hangout. If they are uncomfortable with that, you can use just voice. You can even write the interview.

    10. Create and Propose a Joint Venture Project – When you are known to the other individual and you’ve sufficiently shown them your work, and you’ve seen theirs, try to brainstorm a joint venture project you can work on then send them the proposal.

    If you think of industry-related non-competing sites as complementary sites, it’ll be easier to understand what you’re looking for. You want to find business owners who market to the same audience as you do, but who do not directly compete with you because their product doesn’t replace yours.

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    Ten Ways to Take Advantage of Industry-Specific Forums

    Finding ways to take advantage of industry-specific forums is important if you want to build your business to the next level. Forums offer the ability to communicate with one or more people at the same time. What’s more, with an industry-specific forum you’ll be able to communicate with people who are involved in your industry.

    Some may be competitors but some may actually be people who, while they market to your audience, instead sell complementary products and services to yours and not the same type of solution as you do. Here are ten ways you can take advantage of industry-specific forums that will explode your business.

    1. Meet Like-Minded People – When you join a forum (which is a message board) in an industry-specific community, you will meet people who understand your language. They know the jargon and understand what you do. This is a special thing, especially if you happen to work for yourself. It’s a new type of “water-cooler” experience.

    2. Meet Potential Joint Venture Partners – Watch the forum for the most active and successful members to show themselves to you. These are the people you want to cultivate a relationship with in order to build potential partnerships. JV partnerships are excellent ways to boost your business and expand your following.

    3. Learn New Things about Your Industry – The people who are involved with the message board, and who post on it, will likely share information about the industry with the entire forum. Because there is so much information out there, this is a good way to get information because you are just one person and cannot find everything. But, do check the facts before sharing it with your followers.

    4. Find Industry Events to Attend – When an event is happening in your industry, an industry-specific forum will buzz with the information about the events from the past and the future. This is a good way to find out the best events for you to attend. Even if you cannot attend personally, you might be able to sponsor someone else to attend on your behalf.

    5. Find Industry Events that Need Presenters – During the buzz of events on the forum, people who are planning events in that industry may post requests for proposals for presenters. If any of the requests match your expertise, you can submit your presentations for consideration.

    6. Share Your Expertise – When another forum member asks a question, you can demonstrate your expertise by freely answering the question in a professional manner without trying to sell them anything.

    7. Get Fast Answers from Other Experts – You can Google all day long, but sometimes you really want to hear directly from someone (or many) with a human answer. Asking questions on a message board will garner many opinions and replies and start discussions that can lead to new and valuable relationships.

    8. Get a Link Back to Your Website – Most forums allow for some minor promotions within the signature line or within a bio area. It’s a good idea to make each signature for every forum you’re active in a special landing page just for those members.

    9. Find Inspiration for Content – When you are trying to develop content for your blogs, websites, eBooks, reports, white papers and so forth, an active industry forum is a great place to find inspiration.

    10. Identify People to Interview – On any forum, some people will stand out as excellent and at the top of their niche. Once people get to know you there, you can simply post a request for interview subjects and get responses. You can also contact specific people directly usually via a private messaging system.

    Participating in industry-specific forums is not just informational and lucrative financially; it can also be a lot of fun. Meeting people who care about the same things that you do can open up a whole new world.

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    Common Mistakes Made in JV Partnerships

    A JV partnership is a joint venture where two different businesses join up to work on a particular project together. They do not become one business entity; rather they stay separate through the JV experience and after.

    There are many advantages in having a JV partnership. At the same time, here are some common mistakes that you’ll definitely want to avoid.

    * Not Having a Contract – So many people get involved with JVs without a contract and this is a huge mistake. If you have no control over the purse, the domain, or the intellectual property, you could end up being left out from the profit too.

    * Not Having a Clear Delineation of Duties – Each partner in the relationship should have some type of duty or responsibility. There are cases of silent partnerships where one gives their name, their list, or some funding in exchange for a split of the profits, but everything should be spelled out specifically. If you want one person to deliver a specific amount of work each month, say so.

    * Giving Up Too Much Control of Your Brand – In a joint venture, sometimes one person is in control and in charge. However, you want to keep an eye on your brand so that you don’t give up too much control over it.

    * Unrealistic Expectations – It’s easy to get excited about a joint venture, but don’t place all your hopes and dreams into a single venture. You never know what can happen, but you need to have contingency plans.

    * Entering into Partnership with a Competitor – It’s a bad idea to enter into a JV partnership with someone who is a direct competitor. Instead, try to find people to work with who market complementary goods and services to your audience.

    * Not Planning an Exit Strategy – Most JV partnerships don’t last forever. Therefore, you should write into the contract how long the relationship will last and how it will end. Planning everything in advance usually works better than just letting it dissolve on its own due to potentially having different expectations.

    * Not Offering Something Valuable to the Partnership – If everyone is to be satisfied in the partnership then each person needs to contribute value to the partnership. Everyone will feel better and it will cut down on resentment.

    * Trying to Hook Up With Someone in the Wrong Niche – It’s hard sometimes to differentiate between working with someone who offers complementary products in your niche and someone who is in an entirely different niche. But you need to stick to what you know and only enter JV partnerships within your niche.

    When you enter into a partnership, it’s more important than ever to cross all your T’s and dot all your I’s. Don’t be afraid to ask for a better contract or better terms when working out the initial phases of the JV relationship. If you’re setting it up, don’t have a “me first” attitude about the situation. Instead, find a way to make the JV a win-win association for everyone involved so that everybody can contribute talents and benefit as equally as possible.

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    How to Find JV Partners

    Finding JV partners can seem difficult at first, but it’s not hard once you realize how to do it. Not only that – you need to know what your goals are, who the direct competition is, and someone who can help. You want someone who can complement your business and help you reach your goals.

    * Search Keywords – Use various keyword search tools on social media like Google Alerts, AdWords and others to search for and find authoritative articles, eBooks and other information about your niche. These will be created by people who may make lucrative JV partners.

    * Find People with Complementary Skills – Get to know yourself well enough so that you know when you meet someone who has skills that complement yours. If you’re great at organization, but someone else is a wonderful speaker, you could do webinars together.

    * Your Best Affiliates – If you already have a thriving business that includes affiliates, do some research into your most prolific affiliate partner. This may very well be just the person to help you create a wonderful JV partnership for the next great thing.

    * Your Best Contractors (Virtual Assistants, Graphic Designers, etc…) – If you outsource to others and someone you’ve connected with is super talented in an area that you are deficient, and you know of a product or service that could be a lucrative JV situation, bring it up to them.

    * Your Indirect Competition – Take a look at people who promote complementary products to the same audience you do. How well known are they? How successful are they at what they do? Can you see a way for you two to merge for a project?

    * Be in the Right Place at the Right Time – Some people say that being in the right place at the right time is an accident but the truth is, you can ensure it by design. Join groups, forums, and attend events that the type of people you’d like to work with attends. Making yourself available is important.

    * Learn How to Write a Killer Proposal – When you meet the right people, get to know them and come up with a potential idea, learn how to write a proposal that will get their attention and make them want to work with you. Don’t be afraid of getting a no. If you don’t ever ask, you won’t ever achieve what you want to.

    * Take Applications – Another way to find JV partners is to put an application on your website where others can submit their proposals and ideas for JV partnerships. If you are well-known and popular, you may receive many to choose from.

    Finding the right JV Partners can help expand your reach and put more money in your pocket. Joint venture partners share the responsibility of a short-term project in order to leverage the skills and connections of each person in the partnership. You too can take advantage of the wonderful benefits of JV partners if you find the right partner.

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    How to Maximize Every JV Partnership

    Joint ventures are when two or more people / business owners decide to enter into a particular project together for a limited time to combine resources in terms of talent, funds, and tools. Doing this well requires some understanding and knowledge of how JVs work and what the best practices are.

    * Chose a Strategic Partner – You want to JV with people who offer complementary products to your audience and who also have complementary skills to yours. You need to search for “ying and yang” so that you complement each other rather than work against each other.

    * Don’t JV Core Capabilities – You don’t want to JV anything that is your core income, because if you do you could lose your main business. Instead, JV side projects or test out projects with side partnerships. Don’t risk your main income ability with a JV.

    * Spell Out Detailed Plans – Before you get started, both parties should spell out detailed plans for how they want the JV partnership to proceed. This information can then be negotiated upon in order to come up with a final plan of action.

    * Implement a Contract – Don’t enter into a JV partnership that requires a large input of time, money and effort without an iron-clad contract. Having that contract can protect you both from any misunderstandings and outright disagreements.

    * Share Responsibilities – Ensure that the contract spells out what each person is supposed to do. Which resources are being used in terms of monetary, technical and human capital? Understanding these answers can help make the JV partnership work more smoothly.

    * Choose a Leader – No project can be successful without a strong leader or project manager. Hiring a launch manager and or a project manager will help keep everything in order and working on time like a well-oiled machine.

    * Check Up Periodically – The partnership should have a meeting periodically to discuss the goals, metrics and progress of what is happening with the JV partnership, and whether or not the partnership is successful.

    * Do It Again – When something works, you should always find a way to repeat it. As you embark on joint ventures, you will discover some partnerships work better than others. Be sure to analyze why a particular situation worked and why it did not, so that you can repeat the successes and not the failures.

    Remember that JV partnerships are most appropriate for short- to long-term projects that are not permanent, and between complementary entities rather than competing entities. You want share resources and not compete for them. This ensures that you both experience success in the joint venture that will add to both of your bottom lines.

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    What Is a JV Partnership?

    A joint venture partnership is made between two or more individuals or business owners to work together on a particular project, product, or event. The companies do not become one; instead they maintain their separate individual entities while working on a particular goal together. The purpose of a joint venture is to combine resources to maximize efficiencies of each entity for the particular project.

    Limited Time Span

    While some JVs do last a long time, most of them are temporary until the completion of the project. Many businesses find themselves entering into several consecutive JVs due to the success of others.

    Clearly Defined Objective

    Another thing that denotes a JV partnership is that they usually have a very clearly defined objective or reason for being put into place. Each entity involved knows their place and what is expected, as well as the goal.

    Degree of Involvement Is Obviously Defined

    Each part of the JV alliance has a particular thing that they are supposed to do, and this is clearly spelled out in an obvious manner. Each partner knows what is expected, what to do and when to do their part.

    Spelled-Out Financial Contributions

    Since the business entity isn’t going to be formed in a JV, the financial responsibilities of each member must be expressed. Sometimes one person is responsible for the finances, will deduct expenses from income and then distribute the profits as spelled out in the contract.

    Plans Spelled Out for Problems or Disputes

    In a JV that is temporary in nature, there can still be issues and disputes that arise. The contract usually spells out what to do and who will be the final say in any dispute – typically an unbiased arbitrator or in some cases the person with the main financial input gets the final say.

    Termination of JV Arrangement Detailed

    Since a JV agreement is not permanent, usually the contract spells out exactly when and how the arrangement will end and what will happen to the intellectual property when the arrangement is complete.

    Non-Disclosure Information

    Most of the time both parties require some sort of non-disclosure information to keep trade secrets, contact lists, financial and other information private, since some of them will necessarily be revealed during the JV partnership.

    Other Legal Information

    It’s important to check with your state and country about various terms and issues that should be covered in your JV agreement. Together with your JV partners, you may want to determine which of your locations will have the final say on any legal issues that should arise.

    A joint venture partnership is a great way to expand your reach because you get to use each other’s contacts, resources, and skill set. But, it’s important to understand what a JV is and what it’s not. It’s not combining two businesses permanently and it’s usually a temporary joining of forces.

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    How to Encourage Kaizen in your Workforce


    Kaizen is ‘continuous improvement‘ and is a popular subject among businesses and managers. Kaizen basically means that the best way to affect big change in an organization is to encourage lots of small, incremental changes that can improve workflow, profit margins and everything else. By continually improving in small ways, you can create change throughout your whole business that will result in much more efficient and effective operations.


    But kaizen works best when it is applied at the individual level. In other words, if you can help your staff to work better on their own and to improve the way they approach problems and their regular workload, then you can make your entire organization more effective. A chain is as strong as its weakest link and a business is really the sum of its employees.


    If you try to come from above as management and enforce continuous improvement, then chances are that it won’t go well. Your staff might be resistant to small changes and you might be too far removed from the process to really see where the problems are occurring or where things need to be improved.


    On the other hand though, if you encourage your team to improve themselves they will be far more motivated and they will be able to make changes that really have an effect on what they’re capable of and how much they’re getting done.


    So how do you encourage this continuous change in your team?


    The Environment


    The solution is actually to give your staff more space and to provide them with the environment and the tools they need to continuous improvement.
    What this means first and foremost is that you should create a blame free environment. This means that your team should feel comfortable to try new methodologies and systems without thinking that you’re going to punish them if their new ways of working don’t work as well as they should have.
    Giving your staff a sense of ownership over their work is also an important step that will motivate them to be better, as is making sure that you aren’t micromanaging them to the point where there is no flexibility.
    Finally, get your team to monitor and report on their performance and to show you how profits are increasing or satisfaction is increasing. This shouldn’t be used to apply pressure but by monitoring metrics they will get the feedback to see what works and what doesn’t.

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