It's Your Attitude..!

ATTITUDE - IT WORKS BOTH WAYS
By Robert Evans

I am a firm believer in positive
thought, hard work and perseverance.
These qualities, if you like, have
served me well in my online career
to date. They have enabled me to form
good working relationships with other
marketers, to build good contact lists
and to keep going even during quieter
periods.

Marketing other people's products or
services is not easy. First you have
to learn about what they are selling
or providing, then you have to find
the best ways to promote, and in almost
every case, you, the affiliate, have
to close the sale.

There are a large number of affiliate
programmes on the internet and if I
were to say that well over half of
them do not have a very positive
attitude when it comes to helping
their affiliates, I would not
be exaggerating.

How many affiliate programmes have
I joined where I immediately received
Welcome Emails and offers of support
from other members? Not very many,
I have to say! For most of the programmes
I have joined, the procedure was this:

1) fill out the form
2) receive a thank you email for joining
3) pick up a couple of ads

And then it's "good luck with your
marketing"

Is it any wonder that so many affiliates
fail to make even one sale!

Attitude works both ways. We are
constantly hearing about how the right
approach can help an affiliate to build
up his database of contacts and ultimately
make sales. But what about company attitude?
How does a particular programme assist its
affiliates to make those sales? Let's consider:

* the product offered
  Is it something for which there is a large
  enough market?

* the Compensation Plan
  Is it realistic? Can anyone other than the
  'heavy hitters' really hope to earn the
  sums projected?

* the level of support
  Is there anyone at the other end of your
  cry for help who actually has the know-how,
  time and desire to help you?

* the promotional resources
  Is there a wide enough range of material
  to help kickstart the new affiliate's
  campaign?

Taking into consideration the above points,
here is my idea of the perfect affiliate
programme:

* the product is something that has
  widespread appeal

* the Compensation Plan is structured in
  such a way that it benefits 'heavy hitters',
  'newbies' and 'lousy sales types'

* support is actively encouraged with
  affiliates freely exchanging ideas,
  tips and resources

* the company regularly researches new
  advertising avenues and updates the material
  it makes available to all affiliates

Such a programme would surely appeal to
virtually every 'type' of affiliate, from
the workaholic to the less energetic. The result
would be more traffic, more sales, more
commissions. The company's positive attitude
towards its affiliates would enhance or
stimulate a positive attitude from them in
return. It would be a true 'People Helping
People' type of programme, don't you agree?

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Robert Evans has been doing business online
since October 2000. He runs a resource center
incorporating a powerful marketing action plan to
generate targeted website traffic using free and low
cost marketing techniques: http://www.market4profit.net
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