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How to turn MLM on its
Head for better Affiliate Sales
"You
must use the Products"
In
my multi-level-networking days long before MLM came to the
Internet, all the networking programs urged distributors to
“Use the Products”.
Seemed
to make sense at the time. How could anyone recommend or promote
to others a product they didn’t use themselves?
“Please
buy this terrific product. I don’t use it myself but it’s
really great – you try it”.
Wouldn’t
work would it? And it didn’t - so networkers were urged and
urged by their upline to ‘buy their own products’.
Some
networkers didn’t like the products, but they liked the
compensation plan. So they bought the products anyway and just
stored them. Hence the joke about networkers having huge garages
– they needed them to store all the products they ‘had’ to
buy’!
Another
reason they ‘bought the products’ was to increase the group
turnover. All commissions depend upon product sales – no
sales - no commission. Only it was always the sponsors who got
the commission – always the sponsors telling their downline to
“Use the Products”.

It
went like this:
Commission
Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales
People
liked to make the commission so they bought the products in
order to be able to recommend them and to make the commission
for their upline.
To
quote one well known *Big A Diamond* “Who cares how much the
products cost – if they cost twice as much I’d make twice as
much money”.
Many
people felt they were buying unwanted products at inflated
prices – just to keep the network alive. Have you ever been in
this situation?
Well
to me this all sounds a bit like legitimizing the old Pyramid
selling schemes, where people had to buy stock to ‘sell-on’.
Of
course, many bought the stock but couldn’t sell it. Hence
network marketing became tarred with the same poor image as
Pyramid schemes. And it’s hard to shake it off.
Unfortunately
on the Internet, there are a great deal of ‘money schemes’
which are basically networking schemes without products –
chain letters – and pseudo-networks which have pseudo
products, ‘informational’ products sold at huge mark-ups.
So
people are very wary of joining even ‘legitimate’ Networking
programs and everyone loses out on what is basically a very
good idea.

Turning things around
But
suppose this Commission Plan -> Products -> Recommendation
& Sales cycle could be turned on its head.
Well
now it has - on this website.
This
website was built from the outset to provide a real
website to people who found it difficult to overcome the technical
challenges themselves.
Having
built the site and started to promote it the thought came –
why not also offer the tools used to build the site in the first
place. After all, if anyone needed the same kind of tool, then I
had done all the hard work for them finding the best there was.
So
the products come first!
Instead
of :
Commission
Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales
It's
now:
Products
-> Recommendation -> Sales -> Commission Plan

Products sought out to fill a need
These
products, as I said, are the very ones I used to build and run
the site. They are the best I could find at the time, at a price
I was prepared to pay.
They
are products sought out to fill a need, not products sought out
with the best profit margin!
They
include everything from website building – hosting –
marketing - advertising – site automation.
Every
product on this site is one I have actually sought out because
that is the tool I needed at the time. The best tool for the
job. I did not select these products on the basis of any
commission plan.
They
are all products I swear by. I won’t go through all the
products here because this is not a ‘sales pitch’ but I
would like to mention a couple just to illustrate my point.

Example Product 1
Take
MailLoop for example, a really stunning product:
This
handles all my email automatically. I have only scratched the
surface of its features, but here is what it does for me:
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Filters
incoming email. Eliminates Spam. I mean Eliminates Spam. No
unwanted email gets through to me. Worth the price of the
program for this feature alone.
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On
my site I have a web form that visitors complete to join my
On-Track Newsletter and in return they get some free eBooks.
When the visitor presses the ‘Submit’ button the form is
emailed to me.
This is what MailLoop does with the incoming
emailed form:
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strips
out all the data from the the form, including names,
email address, date, IP address, type of browser and
more. . .
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adds
all this information to a database that is specially
configured to allow me to automatically email these
subscribers in future
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sends
the subscriber the latest copy of the Newsletter,
together with a welcome message, by email. The email is
personalised with the subscriber name, email address and
date of subscribing. (Dear David, at david@eamiladdress.com
thank you for subscribing to On-Track Newsletter on 12
December 2001)
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if
a subscriber sends an unsubscribe message, MailLoop
automatically removes them from the list. |
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When
I want to send out a Newsletter, MailLoop does it for me
automatically and personalizes all the emails. |
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I
can even control MailLoop from another computer! Yes if I am
away from the office I can send an email to MailLoop and
command it to send out any Newsletter. (This is a service I
could market, if I wanted too.) |
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MailLoop
also includes as many autoreponders as you want. It can
respond based on Subject, From Subject and so on. |
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On
the other hand, it has a built-in scheduler that can run any
program at any pre-set time. I can schedule follow-up emails
at any intervals I want. |
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And
as I said, that is just scratching the surface of what
MailLoop can do. |
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And
because it runs from my own computer I don’t pay monthly
fees.
Oops, sounds like a commercial for MailLoop! |
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Sorry
about that, but when you see it in action and how it saves
hours of time processing these jobs manually – it's truly Awesome. |
But
the point is - I sought it out. I went on the hunt looking for
email automation software. I looked at all the other well know
products and in the end settled on MailLoop. It does what I want
very well indeed and I recommend it to everyone who wants a
serious online business.
Oh! Do I get a commission by recommending it? Yes, but that is
not why I bought it and that is NOT why I am recommending it. I
recommend it on the basis of being the best tool for the job at
the price I want to pay.

Now can you see?
Can
you now begin to understand why The Affiliate Website Company turns the old
MLM
model on its head?
Instead
of :
Commission
Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales
It's
now:
Products
-> Recommendation -> Sales -> Commission Plan
The same
applies to this website itself. I built
it to help people who wanted a website but were put-off by the
time and technology involved.
I
did not start out with the thought ‘how can I make a ton of
money selling websites’.
My
goal was to make a website that people could own and use to
build their own business.

Example Product 2
So I
recommend that people buy The Affiliate Website Company product
(through this site) because it is the best product for its
purpose.
And
I believe it is the best. In fact it is unique.
There
is not another website out there like it.
Let
me prove it to you. (Then I will get back to turning MLM on its
head!)
You
can buy, or obtain ‘free’ a website from many places on the
Internet. I’ll even tell you where to get them! But just for
now, believe me when I tell you where these other sites fall
down:
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They
are empty shells. That’s right you can ‘buy’ a website
for $1000s (thousands of US dollars) and it has no content.
All you get is the front page. |
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You
never own them, they always belong to the Merchant. |
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You
have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to get access to
‘your’ site. |
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You
can’t add your content or Affiliate links. |
In fact, this product was developed for that very reason,
because there was nothing suitable available! I developed the
website to suit my own requirements, also mindful that it would
suit other people's needs.
So
what better recommendation is there? I am not recommending it
because it makes great Affiliate profits for me, but because it
is a product I had to develop to fulfill a need and it is a
product that I know people want - because they just keep buying
it.
Example
Product 3
AdMinder
is an ad and sales tracking product.
I
am now tracking all my ads using AdMinder. This is essential to
anyone who wants to know which ads perform. It's throwing money
and opportunity away if you don't track your ads. 's throwing money
and opportunity away if you don't track your ads.
I
used to use ROIbot. That's not bad, but near the end of last
year they accidentally deleted my records, so I discontinued.
That was a once-off server problem, so I have no problem
recommending ROIbot, it's just that AdMinder is more
sophisticated.
It
tracks ads and sales. AdMinder is just a single program,
ROIbot is bundled with other useful stuff. You can get a
$1
trial with ROIbot, so if you are placing ads there is no excuse
for not tracking them. All the info on ad tracking and ROIbot is
on your site.
$1
trial with ROIbot, so if you are placing ads there is no excuse
for not tracking them. All the info on ad tracking and ROIbot is
on your site.
But
AdMinder not only tracks ads, it tracks sales also. On the
control panel you will see the performance of each ad in terms
of clicks and also you will see the number of sales each ad has
made.
it
also calculates all the metrics, such as cost per click, cost per
sale and so on. Truly an awesome piece of software that anyone
who takes online marketing seriously cannot be without. as cost per click, cost per
sale and so on. Truly an awesome piece of software that anyone
who takes online marketing seriously cannot be without.
Without
doubt, I would not be without it.
A
true endorsement.
Example
Product 4
[http://www.theaffiliatewebsitecompany.com/includes/ecovergeneratorinclude.htm]
To
learn more about some of the products I endorse, please visit
our products page using the NEXT link below.
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