For more information on turning on ten “built-in” ways to make money from your blog, visit www.infoprofitshare.com

The Easiest Way To Outsell Other Affiliates

If you’re an affiliate marketer, then you’re always looking over your shoulder to see if the competition – your fellow affiliates – are catching up to you. Or, worse than that, you’re looking up ahead trying to catch up with them!

At times any market can be crowded, so selling the same thing to the same group of people means you’re lucky to get just a small share of the market. Imagine having thirty-five Wal-Mart stores in one small town, all competing with each other to get the local business. You get the idea.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The easiest way to outsell other affiliates is this…

Turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE offer!

You see, most affiliates try to sell the product as is. If your prospects are shopping around, they’re going to skip all the “buy from me” offers.

Instead, they’re going to focus on those offers that give them an incentive to buy. And that means you can outsell the other affiliates simply by offering a bonus product to anyone who buys through your affiliate link.

I’ve been teaching this concept since 2001 and, all things being equal, those affiliates who put this into practice will outsell those who don’t virtually 100% of the time.

It’s a very simple strategy. Let’s break it down into three steps…

Step 1: CHOOSE Your Incentive

Your goal is to make your offer stand out from the crowd by offering an incentive to buy from your link, thereby boosting your conversion rate. And that means you need to offer a bonus that enhances or otherwise complements the affiliate product.

Did you catch that? Your bonus should “enhance” or “complement” the product you are promoting as an affiliate. That’s what makes for the best incentive.

————- Case Study ———–

Let me give you a “real” case study (not made up … actually done by one of my customers).

A customer – who is also one of my affiliates – recently purchased my Multiple Streams Theme wordpress blog theme. He loaded it to his site. Then, he invested a little time writing a small report that teaches how to customize and tweak the theme. He offered this small report, filled with insider shortcuts and tips for enhancing the theme, as an incentive to anyone who ordered the Multiple Streams Theme through his affiliate link.

Brilliant.

I’m just guessing, but I bet the report didn’t take him half an hour to write. He just logged his own personal experiences. And yet it has high value to anyone who has plans to order the theme.

That’s how you outsell other affiliates. You turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE OFFER.

————- Case Study ———–

One way to do this is by reading the sales letter for the product and choosing one particularly enticing bullet point.

Example #1: If the sales letter tells prospects they can learn how to get traffic from social media sites, then you can create a report called “27 Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Any Website!”

Example #2: If the sales page for a diet book promises a month of low calorie recipes to customers, you can create a supplementary low calorie recipe book and give it away to those who buy from your link.

Example #3: If you’re promoting a dog training book and you see a bullet point about eliminating bad behaviors such as jumping, incessant barking, digging in the gardening, etc. You can create a report or even a video called, “The Secrets of Training the Perfect Dog: How to Keep Your Dog’s Paws Off Your Guests, Off Your Counters and Out of Your Garden!”

The point is, your freebie should be directly related to the affiliate offer. You want your prospects to buy through your link just because the incentive is so enticing.

What kind of incentive? You can do videos, software, coaching, advertising, installations, services, etc.

But, “pound for pound”, the best and easiest incentive to create is a small report.

Step 2: CREATE Your Incentive

Once you decide on the topic, your next step is to create the bonus product. If you’re creating a short report or video, you can probably finish it in one day. Otherwise, you can hire a trusted freelancer to do it, which frees your time to focus on marketing the offer!

Tip: You find ghostwriters on sites like WarriorForum.com, Elance.com, and GetAFreelancer.com. You can also ask for recommendations from your colleagues via your social networks or on business forums.

Step 3: CIRCULATE Your Incentive.

Finally, your last step is to promote your offer by letting prospects know that anyone who buys the affiliate product using your link will get the bonus product.

Let your list know. Tell your blog readers. Tweet about it. Purchase advertising. Distribute free marketing materials such as ezine articles. Mention it in sig files at forums. You know the drill.

Now, there are a few ways to deliver the product:

1. On the download page. If you’ve developed a relationship with the product vendor, he may agree to set up a special sales page that promotes the bonus plus a special download page so that customers can download it instantly after purchasing.

2. Manually. You can have customers forward their receipts and then you send them the link to the bonus.

3. Automatically. You can also set up a special email address with an autoresponder, so that anyone who sends you a receipt gets the download link automatically. (Naturally, some people will try to “cheat” this system.)

And there you have it – the simple three-step strategy you can use to outsell your competitors and put more money in your pocket.

It’s so easy you could be making more money by tomorrow… if you get started today!

Speaking of “making more money”. If you have a blog, how would you like to have ten “built-in” ways to increase your affiliate commissions from your blog? Visit www.infoprofitshare.com to learn more. NOTE: The offer mentioned at the website will no longer be available after Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10PM. Jimmy is “retiring” it then and discontinuing all sales.

As usual, Consumer Reports asked 7,000 subscribers about their satisfaction with tech related dealings with various companies. At the end of the day, Apple scored 86 points out of 100 in laptops, and 87 points out of 100 in desktops. What’s amazing is that second place didn’t even come close to challenging Apple’s tech support dominance: in the laptops category, Lenovo was 23 points behind, and in the desktops category, Dell was 55 points behind.

Good for Apple, but if anything, this is just confirmation of what we knew already: if you control both your hardware and your software, you’re going to have better luck responding to customer problems.

Included in the informational appetizer are details regarding the 3G data plans available for the device, the iBooks application and how it will work, a small hardware change that should make a pretty big difference, and a couple other eyebrow-raising late-game additions.

Data Control
The iPad benefits from having to deal with only two available data options at launch in the U.S. Because it knows exactly how much data you should have, it can provide much more useful usage information. You get access to an iPad Cellular Data Plan window on the 3G-enabled devices, from which you can modify, sign up for, or even cancel your AT&T data plan.

The iPad will let you know when you’ve got only 20 percent and 10 percent remaining of your 250MB if that’s what you’re working with, and when you’re completely out. From there, you can top off by adding more data, or even upgrade to the full unlimited plan at $30 a month. Sure beats sitting on hold waiting for an AT&T representative. There’s also evidence that you’ll be able to manage an international data plan from the screen in the future, but Apple hasn’t revealed any details regarding this yet.

iBooks
The actual iBooks app won’t be installed by default on shipping iPads, probably owing to the fact that it might not be available at all on international versions of the device, at least if the lack of a mention of the app on the iPad pages in other countries indicates anything. Instead, you’ll be able to download it from the App Store.

Good news for public domain fans: any free ePub format books you download from elsewhere can be synced to the iPad via iTunes and read on your device. And Kindle fans will appreciate the ability to highlight and look-up any word in any book, either on Wikipedia, the dictionary, or via web search, just by touching and holding.

Screen Orientation Lock
I absolutely hate using the iPhone while lying in bed for a lot of things because many times, a screen lock is a software feature and isn’t necessarily available for all applications. That means that it’ll constantly switch to landscape mode, despite that not being at all what I want it to do.

The iPad solves that problem via a hardware switch above the volume controls on the side of the device that locks the screen’s orientation into whatever mode it’s in currently.

Accessibility
More accessibility options have been added, including the ability to switch audio to mono and route it through just one headphone for users who may only have hearing in one ear. iBooks are also apparently covered by VoiceOver, so that users can have them read to them by Apple’s emotionless robot drones.

AVI Support
Perhaps the biggest little detail added in the iPad’s specifications is support for AVI videos, using the MotionJPEG format. Resolution for the files supported is 1280×720, which is HD, and PCM stereo audio is also part of the deal. Best of all, the data rates supported run up to 35Mbps, which is well beyond even the Apple TV’s standards. Looks like Apple has really big video plans for this capable little device. Wonder if this has anything to do with all of its recent talks with TV studios?

But two things happen: No one knows when during the day the new products are added to the online store, and, unless you check back every five minutes or so, you will not know when the online store will begin taking orders.

Whenever a new product is due to be announced by Apple, they take down their stores and put up a single page showing a yellow sticky note proclaiming, “We are busy updating the store for you and will be back shortly.” As soon as the stores are down Twitter reaches its capacity and websites and blogs come up with rumours and speculations about new products.

If you‘re one of those Apple nerds, now you can follow AppleStoreCheck.com on Twitter and they will check the Apple Store for new products and changes – so you don‘t have to.

AppleStoreCheck.com

It’s pretty straight-forward, and pretty well hidden:

Scroll down to the bottom of your Gmail page and look right next to Gmail view in the middle of the links, and there’s the magic phrase, “turn off buzz.”

But instead of focusing your power on creating that, here’s what you do instead. You decide that before you can attract a new relationship, you need to get into better physical condition first. You have to “fix” your diet and hit the gym for a while. You need to lose some weight.

Or maybe you decide that in order to be more attractive, you need to get your career on track first. Maybe upgrade your finances a bit.

Or maybe you hold yourself stuck in a relationship that isn’t what you want, one that will never become what you truly, deeply desire. That relationship serves as a convenient block to keep your true desires out of reach.

The basic pattern is that you decide something else has to happen first before you can attract the relationship you truly desire. However, those extra steps you add to the process are not absolute prerequisites for your desire. You’re using them as excuses, creating unnecessary roadblocks to delay yourself from receiving what you want in the present moment. You push your goal into an imaginary future instead of allowing it to come to you right now.

Stop.

If you want a new relationship partner, then tell the whole world what you’re looking for. Don’t keep it a secret. Don’t feed your power to some people’s adverse reactions. Boldly and unashamedly proclaim what you want. If anyone has an issue with it, tease them about it. Own your desires. How else will your potential partner know you’re looking for someone just like him/her? If you want someone yummy to cuddle at night, then feed your power directly into that.

The quality which a young man should most affect in intercourse with gentlemen, is a decent modesty: but he must avoid all bashfulness or timidity. His flights must not go too far; but, so far as they go, let them be marked by perfect assurance.

Among persons who are much your seniors behave with the utmost respectful deference. As they find themselves sliding out of importance they may be easily conciliated by a little respect.

By far the most important thing to be attended to, is ease of manner. Grace may be added afterwards, or be omitted altogether: it is of much less moment than is commonly believed. Perfect propriety and entire ease are sufficient qualifications for standing in society, and abundant prerequisites for distinction.

There is the most delicate shade of difference between civility and intrusiveness, familiarity and common-place, pleasantry and sharpness, the natural and the rude, gaiety and carelessness; hence the inconveniences of society, and the errors of its members. To define well in conduct these distinctions, is the great art of a man of the world. It is easy to know what to do; the difficulty is to know what to avoid.

Long usage a sort of moral magnetism, a tact acquired by frequent and long associating with others alone give those qualities which keep one always from error, and entitle him to the name of a thorough gentleman.

A young man upon first entering into society should select those persons who are most celebrated for the propriety and elegance of their manners. He should frequent their company and imitate their conduct. There is a disposition inherent, in all, which has been noticed by Horace and by Dr. Johnson, to imitate faults, because they are more readily observed and more easily followed. There are, also, many foibles of manner and many refinements of affectation, which sit agreeably upon one man, which if adopted by another would become unpleasant. There are even some excellences of deportment which would not suit another whose character is different. For successful imitation in anything, good sense is indispensable. It is requisite correctly to appreciate the natural differences between your model and yourself, and to introduce such modifications in the copy as may be consistent with it.

Let not any man imagine, that he shall easily acquire these qualities which will constitute him a gentleman. It is necessary not only to exert the highest degree of art, but to attain also that higher accomplishment of concealing art. The serene and elevated dignity which mark that character, are the result of untiring and arduous effort.

In company, though none are “free,” yet all are “equal.” All therefore whom you meet, should be treated with equal respect, although interest may dictate toward each different degrees of attention. It is disrespectful to the inviter to shun any of her guests. Those whom she has honoured by asking to her house, you should sanction by admitting to your acquaintance.

If you meet any one whom you have never heard of before, you may converse with him with entire propriety. The form of “introduction” is nothing more than a statement by a mutual friend that two gentlemen are by rank and manners fit acquaintances for one another. All this may be presumed from the fact, that both meet at a respectable house. This is the theory of the matter. Custom, however, requires that you should take the earliest opportunity afterwards to be regularly presented to such an one.

The great business in company is conversation. It should be studied as art. Style in conversation is as important, and as capable of cultivation as style in writing. The manner of saying things is what gives them their value.

The most important requisite for succeeding here, is constant and unfaltering attention. That which Churchill has noted as the greatest virtue on the stage, is also the most necessary in company, to be “always attentive to the business of the scene.” Your understanding should, like your person, be armed at all points. Never go into society with your mind en deshabille. It is fatal to success to be all absent or distrait. The secret of conversation has been said to consist in building upon the remark of your companion. Men of the strongest minds, who have solitary habits and bookish dispositions, rarely excel in sprightly colloquy, because they seize upon the thing itself, the subject abstractly, instead of attending to the language of other speakers, and do not cultivate verbal pleasantries and refinements. He who does otherwise gains a reputation for quickness, and pleases by showing that he has regarded the observation of others.

It is an error to suppose that conversation consists in talking. A more important thing is to listen discreetly. Mirabeau said, that to succeed in the world, it is necessary to submit to be taught many things which you understand, by persons who know nothing about them. Flattery is the smoothest path to success; and the most refined and gratifying compliment you can pay, is to listen. “The wit of conversation consists more in finding it in others,” says La Bruy,re, “than in showing a great deal yourself: he who goes from your conversation pleased with himself and his own wit, is perfectly well pleased with you. Most men had rather please than admire you, and seek less to be instructed, nay, delighted, than to be approved and applauded. The most delicate pleasure is to please another.”

It is certainly proper enough to convince others of your merits. But the highest idea which you can give a man of your own penetration, is to be thoroughly impressed with his.

Patience is a social engine. To listen, to wait, and to he wearied are the certain elements of good fortune.

If there be any foreigner present at a dinner party, or small evening party, who does not understand the language which is spoken, good breeding requires that the conversation should be carried on entirely in his language. Even among your most intimate friends, never address any one in a language not understood by all the others. It is as bad as whispering.

Never speak to any one in company about a private affair which is not understood by others, as asking how that matter is coming on, &c. In so doing you indicate your opinion that the rest are de trop. If you wish to make any such inquiries, always explain to others the business about which you inquire, if the subject admit of it.

If upon the entrance of a visitor you continue a conversation begun before, you should always explain the subject to the new-comer.

If there is any one in the company whom you do not know, be careful how you let off any epigrams or pleasant little sarcasms. You might be very witty upon halters to a man whose father had been hanged. The first requisite for successful conversation is to know your company well.

There is another precept of a kindred nature to be observed, namely, not to talk too well when you do talk. You do not raise yourself much in the opinion of another, if at the same time that you amuse him, you wound him in the nicest point, his self-love. Besides irritating vanity, a constant flow of wit is excessively fatiguing to the listeners. A witty man is an agreeable acquaintance, but a tiresome friend. “The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company,” says Mrs. Montagu, “is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do not love to see a man of wit win all the tricks in conversation.”

In addressing any one, always look at him; and if there are several present, you will please more by directing some portion of your conversation, as an anecdote or statement, to each one individually in turn. This was the great secret of Sheridan’s charming manner. His bon-mots were not numerous.

It is indispensable for conversation to be well acquainted with the current news and the historical events of the last few years. It is not convenient to be quite so far behind the rest of the world in such matters.

But Knowledge must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child; on a field-mouse instead of a human soul. Knowledge in use is wisdom, and wisdom implies a sense of values you know a big thing from a little one, a valuable fact from a trivial one. Tragedy and comedy are simply questions of value: a little misfit in life makes us laugh, a great one is tragedy and cause for expression of grief.

Poise is the strength of body and strength of mind to control your Sympathy and your Knowledge. Unless you control your emotions they run over and you stand in the mire. Sympathy must not run riot, or it is valueless and tokens weakness instead of strength. In every hospital for nervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of control. The individual has Sympathy but not Poise, and therefore his life is worthless to himself and to the world.

He symbols inefficiency and not helpfulness. Poise reveals itself more in voice than it does in words; more in thought than in action; more in atmosphere than in conscious life. It is a spiritual quality, and is felt more than it is seen. It is not a matter of bodily size, nor of bodily attitude, nor attire, nor of personal comeliness: it is a state of inward being, and of knowing your cause is just. And so you see it is a great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications, limitless in extent, implying the entire science of right living. I once met a man who was deformed in body and little more than a dwarf, but who had such Spiritual Gravity such Poise that to enter a room where he was, was to feel his presence and acknowledge his superiority. To allow Sympathy to waste itself on unworthy objects is to deplete one’s life forces. To conserve is the part of wisdom, and reserve is a necessary element in all good literature, as well as in everything else.

Poise being the control of our Sympathy and Knowledge, it implies a possession of these attributes, for without having Sympathy and Knowledge you have nothing to control but your physical body. To practise Poise as a mere gymnastic exercise, or study in etiquette, is to be self-conscious, stiff, preposterous and ridiculous. Those who cut such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep, are men void of Sympathy and Knowledge trying to cultivate Poise. Their science is a mere matter of what to do with arms and legs. Poise is a question of spirit controlling flesh, heart controlling attitude.

Get Knowledge by coming close to Nature. That man is the greatest who best serves his kind. Sympathy and Knowledge are for use you acquire that you may give out; you accumulate that you may bestow. And as God has given unto you the sublime blessings of Sympathy and Knowledge, there will come to you the wish to reveal your gratitude by giving them out again; for the wise man is aware that we retain spiritual qualities only as we give them away. Let your light shine. To him that hath shall be given. The exercise of wisdom brings wisdom; and at the last the infinitesimal quantity of man’s knowledge, compared with the Infinite, and the smallness of man’s Sympathy when compared with the source from which ours is absorbed, will evolve an abnegation and a humility that will lend a perfect Poise. The Gentleman is a man with perfect Sympathy, Knowledge, and Poise.