7 Must-Know Money-Making Tips for Online Affiliates

A downline is essentially the group of people (or pyramid, if you will) that works together to build sales. Let's say you sell flash templates for people to find unique website designs. You may have an affiliate program where people can sign up with you to become affiliates and sell templates as well. You then receive a percentage of their sales. People sign up under them, and they in turn get a percentage of those sales, and so on. It's a pretty good racket that's worked for a good number of years, and as is well-known, it's virtually the way the internet world works today.

Affiliate programs by the thousands are introduced to the web almost as fast as we breathe. In fact, Affiliate Scout, located at http://www.affiliatescout.com, holds more that 3200 programs in more than 270 categories. So there are a lot of ways to go. You can sell or offer virtually anything on the web today -- and this is a huge advantage for you right off the bat. Think about it. The internet is the ONLY place that you can sell just about any product or service 100% legally. You can open any kind of store and never require a license to do so.

That said, when you're thinking about an affiliate program to try, you more often than not will need a downline. People who are going to help you claw your way to the top of the heap of people helping you. Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? Why should someone help YOU make money? Why should these people do all the hard work and get barely the same percentage? Why count on others for your success in the first place?

We're going to show you how to make the dream downline. This is the group of people you will WANT to be associated with, who will help you, because you in turn are going to help them to succeed. One big happy family of successful entreprenuers. Let's get started.

1.) Finding the right fit.

First off, you should pick an affiliate program OTHER people are going to be excited about participating in -- not just you. And we can't stress enough, pick a program YOU are going to like. Don't pick it because of the big commission, or the testimonials of others. It's a free world -- choose what you want. Let's say you decide to participate in this interesting "green" program called Tandem Energy, an alternative to high gas prices through biofuels. It's exciting to you maybe because you're a "green" person, you care about the environment, and love the idea of participating.

2.) Finding the right people.

Now then, you've signed up, been given a website, or a button, or a link to bring others to. What now? A lot of people will tell you to try to get as much traffic to that Tandem website (or link, etc.) as you can -- and hope for the best. Maybe you might want to join a link-partnership program where you can add your link to other sites. Or maybe join a web-traffic program where you can show your website to anonymous surfers automatically. Or try to get to the top of search engines somehow, using META tags or other special Google tricks.

While these are all great ideas, there is one slight problem -- everyone is doing these things! The web is swamped and saturated with these seemingly perfect ideas and there's unfortunately not enough exposure to go around. Unless you spend a lot of money on hiring an internet marketer, you are at the whim of chance no matter what avenue you take.

Take a moment to think here. What is your goal? To find other people that will like your program, right? What really are your chances if you go through an auto-surf site, or a link-exchange program, of finding like-minded people? Not really good at all. Because of one major flaw -- the market is just too large and scattered. 99.9% of the web-traffic, link exchangers, surfers, etc. are trying to market THEIR program. So what possible good comes out of them? Do you really want a lot of no-names hawking your wares who really have no urge to? Of course not.

So how do we find these people who share your vision and want to help you? In the case of Tandem Energy, we need to find "green" people, right? So what you want to do is search for "green" or environmentally proactive websites and visit their forums. And don't just blab right out that you're an affiliate for Tandem Energy, or they'll be very upset. People need to be lured, slowly and delicately. The human mind online is a fickle thing. Consider the following:

"Hi everyone! I just found this forum and it looks great! I'm from Ohio, where the price of gas just skyrocketed to $3.50 a gallon! It's crazy! Anyway, glad to meet all of you, and hope we can talk sometime!

Paul
Tandem Energy"

That's all you need to do. Don't expect miracles overnight. This takes time, a few weeks, maybe even a few months. But if you stay active, and post frequently, especially if you offer opinions or answer someone else's questions, very soon you will start to get people asking about you -- and Tandem Energy. Then, in private messages, you can start your sales pitch. Let's say five people contact you to request information on joining your downline. Try and express the idea sensibly -- don't use lines like "You'll make a fortune! Tons of money for all!" Try something better, like:

"I'm really excited about this program. I think it's the key to helping shrink our nation's dependence from foreign oil, and helping everyone save money. If you'd like to sign up, just let me know."

3.) Bring your people together.

Let's say after a month or so, you've got twenty stalwart associates. If they're all from the same forum, suggest NICELY to the forum administrator if he or she would allow a new, private topic area for discussion between Tandem Energy associates. If not, and everyone is scattered across the nation, and different forums, first and foremost create your email list, and send a message to everyone and tell them your goal. If you want to make money, that's fine, but make sure your downline knows what they all can expect. It is highly recommended that you draw up a nice, neat contract between everyone, guaranteeing equal shares of income in this venture. Whatever you make will be shared among the others. Plus you look like a total professional. You won't believe how many affiliates fail because they do not take their job seriously. You must understand that the moment you undertake such an endeavor, you are running a BUSINESS. If you treat it as such, you will succeed because you want to. Also, it looks great on any resume.

4.) Get to know your people.

Get yourself a free conference call line. You can get a wide variety of choices by Googling "free conference". We use Free Conference Call (http://www.freeconferencecall.com) ourselves. You'll need this because you want to be able to really know your people you're working with. A conference chat with your downline is a great idea because you all get a chance to "meet", give feedback, suggest ideas, and so on. Think of yourselves as a new business: The Tandem Twenty or something. Remember, you're in charge, so take a few days to prep, and list all the issues that need discussed. It's going to work out well for you if you go about this program with all the same professionalism and decorum you would expect from any other business meeting with employees.

5.) Keep your people talking.

Effective communication with your "staff" is pretty much a given. But what do you talk about? First off, you should be emailing these people on a regular basis, maybe 3-4 times a week. Keeping constant contact with your crew makes them feel important and overall more excited and motivated to work with you, and when a conference call comes around, you'll all be ready. Don't bug them with offers or "chain mail", and don't put them on any other email lists -- like our families constantly do, which we really dislike sometimes.

In the conference calls, just like in a meeting, talk about "old business" and "new business". Have someone ready to take minutes, or if you all feel comfortable, have someone on a speakerphone to record the conversation. Talk about what is going on with Tandem Energy, any key issues to discuss about sales, have a question & answer period, and above all, give everyone a chance to talk. You should never come off as the "leader" or superior person in charge. You never know, some of your crew might be better salespeople than you are. So make sure they know their opinions and concerns count.

If you're starting to earn money or popularity from your program, that would be a great attention-getter in the subject heading to your email-list:

"The Tandem Twenty has made $1,147.00 so far!" or "Our group is in the news!" (and provide a link to the article)

6.) Keep an eye on progress.

Another good idea is to get a report from each of your team members. Again, this is just like a business. Think of every person on your team as running a specific sector. A standard form works wonders:

Name:
Number of Affiliates signed up:
Number of "hits" to webpage:
Number of impressions:

For best results, require everyone on your team to send you a "print-screen" of their own report each week. Most affiliate programs have a way to report your earnings, affiliates under you, impressions of your website, even clicks and visits. On most computers, holding the Shift-key down and pressing the "Prt Scr" button at the top will take a "snapshot" of your screen, which you can then save as an image file and email.

In this way, you can keep track of how your team is doing, and you can quickly spot who is doing a great job, and who needs to do a bit more work. Praise your best workers and motivate the weaker ones. If he or she is having some problems, solve them quickly and without a lot of backlash. Your workers are very important -- don't lose a single one if you can help it.

Now of course, your workers should be following the same rules as you are. Each one of them is the "leader" of their groups and so on. Make sure your leaders pass on any information from the meetings to their workers, all the way down the line, and that they have reports of how their affiliates are doing, and the reports of the affiliates of the affiliates, etc. This just builds a friendlier, more exciting atmosphere.

Yes, it's a lot of work! What, did you think you could make money without lifting a finger? Your email should be swamped with reports. Each of your leaders have teams of their own and should be communicating with you quite frequently. When this works correctly, and with little hassles, your income stream will be quite substantial.

7.) Keep your people happy and motivated.

You want to make sure that you reward your leaders! It makes them want to be in this for the long haul. If you've made a decent amount of income, consider a bonus check, maybe a nice holiday gift, something that will motivate them to continue with you. Because while you're making the big bucks, so will everyone under you. Just like any other business -- keep your employees satisifed and happy, and they'll do wonderful things for you. If your team is really starting to show a great profit together, suggest a weekend getaway at a nice hotel and meet your people face to face. Imagine! Your dream downline on a dream cruise! It could happen!