A client of mine who owned a chain of restaurants radically improved his business when we tested his employees for the personality styles and re-organized the business. We all have characteristics of all the four major personality styles, however one is normally dominant. In business, it’s important to acknowledge our strengths and leverage them, and to find others to supplement our weaknesses. There’s no right or wrong character type. Here’s a quick overview.

The High D – Dominant style (minority of people, hardest to find) is bottom-line and results oriented, impatient, sometimes tactless, driven and extroverted, with weaknesses in details. Major fear: being taken advantage of / ripped off. Good closers, great pioneers. Need the numbers and systems guys.

The High I – Influencing style is an extrovert, “party animal”, great at meeting people and starting relationships, popular, good opener, weakness is details and time management. Major fear: being embarrassed in public. Needs closers and numbers guys.

The High C – Cautious style is introverted, loves details, numbers and systems more than people, excellent numbers guys and accountants, computer experts, analyzers. Weakness is over analysis; fear is criticism of their work. Needs the extravert’s and the drivers.

The High S – Steady style (majority of people) is an introvert, loyal, team player, family type, great systems and support person, needs security and long term relationships, fears risk, conflict and change. Needs others to make things happen and to create change and to take unpopular action when necessary.

This is a simplistic approach, but understanding our strengths and weaknesses and allowing people to do what they’re good at, while avoiding tasks that they’re weak at, is simply smart business sense. For technical sales we use High C’s and S’s. Ideal salespeople are normally High D’s with secondary I’s. One wouldn’t an accountant who is a High D, or a High S to launch a new business. You don’t want a High C to be the host at a cocktail party and we don’t want two High I’s behind a reception desk because they’ll talk all day!

Using personality style analysis has helped many of my clients to be better entrepreneurs and hire the appropriate people. Self knowledge is essential to success. I use the DISC style analysis – there are many others available, including the excellent Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Sales Tip
Selling to High D’s: Talk results and ROI and close early and hard.
Selling to High I’s: Build relationship, have fun and close early.
Selling to High C’s: Provide copious details and proof and take time to close.
Selling to High S’s: Prove that the support and relationships will be in place long after the sale is made and close slowly.

Management Tip
Managing High D’s: Give them lots of control and clear objectives and do what you say you will do.
Managing High I’s: Reward them publicly, make them look good and watch their time allocation.
Managing High C’s: Be specific, don’t rush them, and compliment their work (catch them doing something right), set time goals.
Managing High S’s: Make changes slowly, provide lots of security, share long-term plans.

About Robin J. Elliott

For more than 19 years, Robin J. Elliott has worked with thousands of businesses in over 49 industries across the United States, Canada, and Africa. He specializes in helping small business entrepreneurs build wealth and gain access to new markets and profit centers through Joint Ventures. Through his Joint venture Seminars across North America he has thought thousands how to create increasing, multiple streams of income without cost or risk and very little time.

Get Robin J. Elliott’s FREE: "How To Grow Serious Wealth Using Joint Ventures" Mini-Course, and The Prophet of Profit e-Zine along with video blogs, world class articles, free video, and access to top Joint Venture Partners at http://www.jvwisdom.com

According to the AffStat 2004 Report, 40% of affiliates actively promote 51 or more affiliate programs. That means a whole lot of affiliates are juggling a whole lot of affiliate logins.

Personally, I’m actively promoting affiliate programs through Affiliate Fuel, ClickBank, Commission Junction, CPA Empire, Kolimbo, LinkShare, MaxBounty, Performics, Primary Ads, Shareasale, plus a bunch of independent programs with their own logins.

In the past, I used Gator to try and keep track of my logins, but that stopped due to spyware concerns. Next, I tried keeping track of things with a Notepad file, but that was a hassle.

Recently, I came upon my favorite new tool, RoboForm, which is a password manager, form filler, and password generator.

It enables you to autosave passwords in your browser, autofill passwords to login forms, click login buttons for you, fill personal info into online forms, save offline passwords & notes, generate secure random passwords, and encrypt passwords and personal data using 3-DES.

Plus, all personal info is stored on your computer only. You can put passwords on USB disk for extra security, and sync your passwords and safenotes to a Palm and Pocket PC. And you can backup, restore, and print your passwords.

Best of all, it’s free, doesn’t include any adware or spyware, and it works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Netscape.

http://www.affiliatetip.com

Does this sound familiar:

“Getting started is easy!”
– Complete the online application below.
– Read the ‘Affiliate Agreement’ and the additional terms included with it!
– We notify you of your acceptance.
– Place the links on your site and Start earning cash!

Just like that, you think you are on your way to earning 100s of dollars in income right away. You hear the success stories. You see the potential for earning an income on the internet. You jump right in and join a bunch of affiliate programs, purchase the services and software that you are told that you need…. Now you have spent all this money and have still not made anything to show for your efforts.

What you need to do is start by planning out your business. Make sure that you have an overall business plan. Put this down on paper. When planning your business, you need to determine which affiliate programs to join. You want to avoid just putting up a list of affiliate links. This will never encourage people to buy from you. Do your research about products and services. There is so much out there on the internet about everything… this should not be a hard task. Look to see what people are out there buying. Keep in mind that most people on the internet are looking for information. Make sure that you are able to provide then with the information that is helpful to them. Choose something that you can be passionate about and work hard at showing people how your product or service will help them. This will encourage visitors to click on that banner and purchase the goods or services that you are promoting.

Once you have figured out what your business is then it is time to establish a presentation of your business - Your WEB SITE. This does not have to be a grand 20 page web site. It is more of a one to two page site that allows you to pitch your business. Remember, if you are not building a business, you are not going to earn any money on affiliate sites. You want to keep your site very easy to understand and browse through. You want to make sure that you show your passion about the products or services that you are selling. Show people what the product or service can do for them. Make them think that it is something that they cannot live without. Use testimonials and personalize your web page for the product or service. You want people to see that you are just the average Joe who has found this wonderful product and show what it is going to do for them. It does not have to be anything elaborate. In fact, simplicity is the key to keeping people on your site. The more ‘Bling’ that you have going on, the less likely that people will stay on your site.

Remember, starting any business is difficult. Don’t expect to make big money right away. It takes time to establish trust with customers. But, by planning your business and building a quality site, you will avoid the mistakes that many affiliates make. You will be way ahead of the pack and on your way to building a viable web BUSINESS.

Markus Corkern is a writer and affiliate director for http://www.megaffiliates.com. He is active in new research and development in the internet affiliate marketing field.

Any good affiliate manager will consider their affiliate partners to be their sales team on the Web. And a successful affiliate takes advantage of the tools and support at their disposal. But all too often, the tools, updates, and mission critical information from affiliate manager to affiliate are not getting through.

The culprit here is the over zealous spam filter. For all of the good that spam filters do, they are not perfect, and they turn up fals positives (flagging email you want to receive as spam).

Many email clients send the email they flag as spam to a folder, where you can review the email and ‘white list’ the email from specific senders you wish to hear from in the future.

In newer versions of AOL, there is a link that reads ‘Spam Controls’ below the ‘Report Spam’ button. Click on ‘Spam Controls’ and then click on ‘Custom Sender List’ to add the email addresses of your affiliate managers.

Similarly, the newer versions of Outlook have a folder called ‘Junk E-mail.’ In order to be sure your important emails are not getting dumped into that folder, go to Actions, then Junk E-mail, then Add Sender to Safe Senders List.

The process varies for various email clients, but the bottom line is that it’s in your best interest to ‘white list’ your affiliate managers, so that you can receive the important emails.

http://www.affiliatetip.com

Over the years many webmasters online have found out that affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn added revenues from their website. The opportunity now exists for websites that only contain information only to generate large affiliate revenues by selling other products by using online affiliate programs.

Joining an affiliate marketing program can have a number of benefits such as providing extra income to pay for the daily expenses that it costs to run a website.

Finding out what an affiliate marketing program is can often be a difficult task for the Internet marketing beginners. Affiliate programs are a way for you to partner with other businesses online. By doing so you will be able to provide added information that your website visitors are looking for and also a way for you to convert your visitors into affiliate sales.

There is not doubt that online affiliate programs are very successful. Many online business would not have anywhere near the same success that they are currently having if affiliate marketing did not exist. There is no doubt such programs have been responsible for many successful Internet marketers making money online.

Joining an affiliate program is quite a simple process. With most online affiliate programs the approvals of affiliates generally occurs immediately. Most affiliate services will provide a wide range of banners, affiliate articles and email’s that can be used by you as a way of marketing their products and services online. Each tool that you use will contain your own unique affiliate link that will guarantee that you will get credit for every sale you make.

If becoming an affiliate marketer is what you are interested in then there are a number of businesses online that cover a wide range of niches. You will be certain to find an affiliate program that best suit your needs. If you are online getting started with affiliate marketing then there are a number of services which I would recommend. The first would be commission junction. You will be provided with access to thousands of different affiliate programs ranging from every type of topic you could imagine. They are without doubt one of the leading affiliate marketing networks. Another popular affiliate marketing service would be clickbank. They to offer a large variety of products that you can begin selling right away.

Both affiliate networks are free to join and will help you in beginning the process of becoming a successful online affiliate marketer.

If you are interested in becoming an affiliate marketer and learning how to sell products and services online then be sure to visit the secrets to affiliate marketing. Pick up your free affiliate marketing ecourse by going now to http://www.ebaysellingtips.net/dominatingclickbank.html

I am launching a site for school programs and want to add a page with affiliate links. While checking out, the buyer must select the school they wish to benefit by that sale (a portion of the sale goes to the school). How can we have that tracking for each school?

You will need to add a sub-ID parameter to each affiliate link that populates an ID for a given school when it is selected.

These sub-IDs are needed by many affiliates, such as affiliates that provide rewards or incentives to members and need to distinguish which person referred a given action.

The same applies to identifying which school should benefit from a purchase at your site.

You can break out the tracking for schools appending your affiliate URL with any word, number or combination with most affiliate solution providers. The number of characters varies from system to system.

Note - some companies require that you notify them in advance and/or sign a special agreement before using sub-IDs.

Examples of affiliates using sub-IDs in the manner that you plan to use them are SchoolPop.com, iGive.com, ClubMom and UPromise.

One thing I would suggest as you are applying to affiliate programs (before the site launch) is to have a notice on your homepage that indicates how you will be using the affiliate links.

http://www.affiliatetip.com

If you are trying or have tried to make money online, one of the most prevalent easy advertised to do so if with affiliate marketing. To keep it short, to become an affiliate, you simply sign up to market a product. There are affiliate networks you can become a member of, or you can sign up on just about every website to become an affiliate. You then market that product, send potential customers to the vendors website through an affiliate link and if that person buys the product you make a commission.

With internet shopping becoming more and more popular, there are a lot of opportunities to become a successful affiliate marketer. There are also many pitfalls you should be aware of. The first pitfall is falling for the “you can make money in 15 minutes” or “make money while you sleep” lines. While both of these are certainly possible, they are unlikely. It takes awhile to learn how to be successful at affiliate marketing. If you are lucky, you will hit upon a very profitable product in the beginning of your marketing career, or it may take you longer to find that one great seller. You need to be patient and follow the program.

The most popular way to affiliate market is through Google Adwords. This is a very easy program to set up and follow. There are many tricks to learn as you set up your ad campaigns for the product you choose to promote. If you are able to figure these strategies out on your own, you will be ahead of most of your competition. There are a lot of Adwords Guides available if you want to skip through the trial and error.

The biggest pitfall in affiliate marketing is blowing through your advertising budget before showing a profit and becoming discouraged and quitting. This happens to many beginning affiliate marketers. They give up too quickly. If you are serious about becoming successful at affiliate marketing you have to commit to it and not give up right away. It may take a month or more before you really start to turn a profit. I do believe that anyone can make money with affiliate marketing and becoming successful at it if they set their minds to it and gather all the necessary information that will help them learn the different ways to make money as an affiliate.

Jennie Crawford is the stay at home mom of two small children. For more information go to http://www.jenniecrawford.com/affiliatesecretformula or http://www.jenniecrawford.com/workingathome

Is it possible to make money from affiliate programs without your own website?

Many people want to make money by promoting affiliate programs on the Internet but don’t have the experience to develop their own website or the cash available to have someone else design their website for them.

Affiliate marketing is very attractive to people who want to start making money from the internet as there is no need to have your own product to sell, no need to bother with packing and shipping and no need to deal with customer enquiries and complaints. All you need to do is to sign up with an affiliate marketing program, which is usually free to join and start picking the products you want to promote. As an affiliate, you are paid commission whenever you direct a visitor to the merchant’s site and the visitor actually buys something.

Becoming an affiliate is usually quick and easy, and for the majority of affiliate programs, signing up is also free. Despite these facts and all the benefits promised by affiliate programs, many people are still hesitant to get into affiliate marketing. The main reason for this hesitancy is the lack of a website. This now leads us to the question of whether a website is required or actually necessary in affiliate marketing.

It is true that you can start promoting and marketing affiliate products even without a website; and there are a lot of ways to do this. In fact, many of the affiliate marketing strategies that lead to success do not involve a website. I’ll outline just a few of the main strategies below.

(1) Pay per Click Advertising

If you search for something using Google or Yahoo you may have noticed something at the top or the side of the results page called "Sponsored listings". Whenever you click on a sponsored listing the advertiser of that listing pays for that click. The cost could be anything from a few cents to a few dollars. You can open an account with Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing or another smaller search engine and start bidding on keywords related to the affiliate products that you are marketing, You will only have to pay a fee if someone actually clicks on your ad. Remember to set a daily budget that you can afford and be sure to read the rules of the affiliate program as some affiliate programs have certain keywords that you are not allowed to bid on.

(2) Offline Promotion

There are many ways to promote affiliate products offline. The most common methods used for this purpose are classified ads, brochures and flyers. Classified ads generally work better compared to brochures and flyers because classified ads in magazines and newspapers usually get a wider audience. Rather than put your affiliate URL on the advert you may want to use tracking service or a URL shortening service such as tinyurl.com.

(3) Forum Marketing

Forums and online discussions are great avenues for marketing your affiliate products, whether you have a website or not. If you participate regularly in online chats, forums and discussion boards with topics related to your products, you can easily find people who may be interested with the products you are promoting. Most forums allow a signature which you can use to promote your product(s). Just be sure to read the forum rules before making your first post and do not under any circumstances post spam.

(4) Blogging

Starting a blog is much easier than starting a website and requires almost no technical skill. You can sign up for a free blog with blogger.com and start publishing on your blog straight away. Write posts related to the affiliate products that you are promoting and add affiliate links to your posts. Writing and publishing a post is as easy as writing and sending an email.

(5) Writing and Publishing Articles

Finally, one of my favorite promotion techniques and one that does not require a website is article marketing. If you write a short article related to the product that you are reporting you can add a resource box to the end of the article and put a link to the affiliate program in the resource box. You can then submit your article to hundreds of article directories and get it published on other peoples’ websites all over the internet.

Having a website is not usually a pre-requisite to joining an affiliate program, unless the program owner requires you to have one, but while this is so, I would still recommend that you get your own website, if not now, then maybe at a later stage. Having a website creates a lot of advantages in affiliate marketing. For one, it provides you a place where you can creatively promote not only one of your affiliate products but all of your affiliate products. With a website, you can also advertise your affiliate products to a wider market.

Having a website is not a requirement in affiliate marketing. But with the advantages that it provides, having a website certainly makes affiliate marketing a whole lot easier.

Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster of Home Business Ideas Sign up for her free Home Business Newsletter to receive 6 free affiliate marketing and home business related e-books.

Affiliate programs have been around since the burgeoning of the Internet. An affiliate program is “a revenue sharing program where an affiliate web site receives a portion of income for delivering sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant web site.”

“Affiliate programs have grown today to become one of the most popular ways for you to earn an income from your web site’s traffic,” reports ClickQuick.com. “Most affiliate programs are designed to allow you to simply set up and begin earning commissions on visitors and sales you refer.” How much money you can earn depends on the number of visitors to your site and on how many of them click on the text ads or banners that lead to the merchant site.

When you join an affiliate program, you receive a specially formatted URL that allows the merchant—or a 3rd party service provider—to track the traffic coming from your site and to determine when a commissionable transaction has occurred for which you should be paid.

Many programs, so choose wisely
There are hundreds of affiliate programs to choose from. The variables to compare when considering a program include: commission rates, frequency of payment, and if there is a minimum dollar amount required before receiving a check. Be sure you understand how they track leads and determine sales. Are you being paid per-click, per-impression, per-lead, or per-sale?

Look for programs that have been around for a while and that have a large network already in place. Avoid any programs that require a fee to join.

The most popular programs these days are the pay-per-lead type, primarily because thy do not require a purchase to be made in order for a commission to be earned. Most pay-per-lead programs offer a free service or product, and although they usually pay lower commissions than pay-per-sale programs, they often have more conversions, which mean higher overall payments.

A good example
One industry that pays consistently high commissions for quality leads is the mortgage and home loan business. Take for instance the Easy Home Equity Mortgages Affiliate Program. EHEM pays for completed leads (form submissions) for a variety of loan types: mortgage refinancing, second mortgages, home equity loans, and debt consolidation loans. They specialize in bad credit loans that other lenders might reject. This means they accept more leads (and pay more commissions) than many other affiliate programs.

EHEM is an example of a two-tier system. They pay commissions to both the affiliate that refers a lead and to the person who referred that affiliate to the program. They train affiliates, provide tech support, and supply all the needed text links and banners. Their program features:

- no start-up fees

- $21 per-lead payout

- 25% second tier payout

- high conversion ratio

- 1-page simple form

- timely commission payments

There are several online directories where you can research and compare various affiliate programs, such as: Affiliate Guide, 5-Star Affiliate Programs, and Affiliate First. If you are looking for a time-effective, no-risk way to earn cash from your website or e-newsletter, affiliate programs could be just the ticket.

Mike Hamel is the author of several books and articles. His material is featured on sites like Easy Mortgage Refinancing.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some very good affiliate marketing manuals and ebooks out there that offer valuable information and strategies. However, we live in an age where digital product creation is as convenient as ever, and the market is flooded with eBooks that promise to reveal these so-called "secrets" that will turn you into a super affiliate overnight. Sometimes it’s hard to decipher which ones (if any) are worth your time.

The sales pages of these products are usually brilliantly written and sometimes laced with the author’s scanned check images and screenshots of their affiliate revenue. I won’t deny that some of their techniques are savvy and do work, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling them "secrets." Particularly since it only takes about 10-20 people to buy the book and then go reveal the "secret" techniques in their favorite forums. Pretty soon everyone is writing about it.

So much for the secrets, huh?

For the past two years, I’ve earned a six figure income online, but I don’t have any secrets to share. I just build sites with quality content and join affiliate programs that relate to my site’s themes. And if I want to learn something new, I just pop into my favorite forums and wait for other affiliates to share what "secrets" they’ve learned in the latest eBook phenomenon.

While there are some unique techniques super affiliates use to boost their revenue, the bottom line is, if you want success, it boils down to these basics…

1. Stay Away From Internet Marketing!

Most affiliates try to make their first dollar by pushing another Internet marketing or money making product. My first site reviewed affiliate marketing books and offered tips and strategies on how to market online. It failed. I look back on that and chuckle because here I was with a site that tells people how to become a successful affiliate, yet I hadn’t made much money myself.

It’s so tempting to start your affiliate business by promoting other products that help people market on the Net. The first problem with that is the niche is too crowded. You’ll get smothered by all the other gurus and beginner affiliates with the same goals.

Second, the key to succeding as an affiliate is to build credibility. What do you have to say that will make your audience believe that YOU really can help them make money on the web? How can YOU differentiate yourself from the other 800,000 people with sites just like yours? If you plan to just throw up a website with the same ole’ recycled marketing tips then you’re wasting your time.

Trust me. I’ve been there.

I always suggest that you pick a hobby or topic you are passionate about. First of all, it’s much easier to build a lot of content (search engines LOVE big sites), and the competition probably won’t be nearly as thick as it would be if you created a site about how to make money online or Net marketing.

2. Build Quality, Unique Content

People are lazy. It really benefits those of us who work hard because it keeps competition down. What I mean is that most people want to MAKE money, but they don’t want to take the TIME to build their own unique, quality content rich website.

Some will just steal articles of successful sites and soon realize that goes nowhere because of the duplication content filters imposed by the search engines. Others will just give up after a few pages because the traffic and sales are not coming soon enough. These are two of the reasons we have that staggering statistic of a 98% failure rate for affiliates.

Whatever topic you choose for your site, make sure you are the content KING (or queen) in your niche. It could be bowling, cats, golf, sewing, you name it. Make it THE best and differentiate your site from your competitors, and you’ll soon develop a following. Keep updating the content frequently and be sure your pages are optimized for the search engines.

3. Don’t Try So Hard To Sell

Your site should NEVER appear as though you are just trying to sell other people’s products. It should look like you are trying to help by offering useful content relevant to your target audience. This builds credibility. Start with a goal of at least 30 pages, and prepare to keep adding to that number. After you have a good amount of content, gently sprinkle your affiliate links within RELEVANT articles.

Writing reviews is also a good strategy, especially when you don’t recommend every product you write about. I always get suspicious when I see a webmaster recommending every single product they review. Telling your audience NOT to buy something actually builds your credibility a lot more than telling people to buy everything.

4. Never Give Up

If you’ve chosen the right topic, build good content, have patience and enjoy yourself, there’s almost no way you can lose out here. I can’t say how much money you will make but you WILL make something in due time. With affiliate programs like Adsense, any topic can generate revenue online these days.

It may take a few months before you start seeing search engine traffic and making sales, but as long as you keep building and follow the basic search engine optimization rules you’ll eventually start getting some visits. How much depends on how hard you work.

Keep your eye out for new affiliate techniques, but don’t get bogged down in the latest "secrets". Most of it’s just hype and the techniques will be revealed online sooner or later anyway. There’s no secret to affiliate success. It’s called HARD WORK and DEDICATION.

Lisa Irby is a six-figure super affiliate that has been earning online since 1998. If you want to learn how to successfully build and market an affiliate website, follow her tips at www.2createawebsite.com and subscribe to her website creation blog.