First thing to do -- take 2 minutes and introduce yourself ...

[Sam Heyer]

Hey Everyone,

I definately agree with you all on the residuals ... I'm putting together a project with a monthly membership for this reason alone.

I'm under the impression right now that the one time big ticket items are the ones that people want at the moment ... I don't have anything against this, but my lists aren't dedicated to these products. I know a lot of people have lists dedicated to this, but is there any way we can have two types of promotions going at the same time?

There could be smaller products that people can decide to incorporate with their products as an upsell or cross-sell, or they can choose to promote it as-is ...

The second thing is, what happened to "old-time" affiliate programs? With the online systems that I'm setting up I'm incorporating the old-time affiliate style where if you send me a customer for one project, I'm going to pay you for everything else they buy the entire life of that customer ... this isn't a plug for me or my projects by any means, but I think this is what we need more of ...

This is my thoughts on residual income ... monthly membership sites are great, but only a select few can really make a good deal of money from them. I know when you lock a ton of them in place that it all adds up, but what happened to referring your clients to one company/product and then getting a commission check from that company for the next 10 years because they keep on backend selling to the customers you referred?

Okay, I just gave away one of the biggest secrets of my next project lol ... but I'm not too concerned about it because I don't see too many people doing this anymore. Sorry, that's me speaking my mind ...

Conclusion ... let's search for a few more of these affiliate programs Mike (group) ... does anyone agree with me on that? Tell me otherwise if not.

Anyways, Jinger, Ellen, it's great to see some new faces in here and I will get you both a copy of the book shortly (if you are interested that is) ...

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this ... talk to you soon,
Sam

[Jinger Jarrett]

Sam,

I'm with you on paying affiliates for the lifetime of the customer. Maybe this is something that I should talk to my webhost about. I would love to be able to set it where my affiliates get paid every time that person buys.

As it stands now, the best I can do for them is enable cookies for a year.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Jinger

[Sam Heyer]

Hey Jinger,

I have yet to see affiliate tracking software that allows you to track for the lifetime of the customer on numerous projects ... everything that I've seen like this was custom code. I'm having my custom affiliate program created right now (and wow, it's not cheap lol). Anyways, I'll let you know if I find anything that could get the job done for you.

Does anyone else know of an affiliate program that allows you to do this?

As for suggestions ... tracking for a year is better than tracking for one project. You could use this as an irresistible offer when presenting to other JV members for your next product launch.

Talk to you soon,
Sam

[Nick Smith]

Hi All

Since I just joined, I thought I'd just post a little bio to officially say "Hi!"

My name is Nick "The Geek" Smith - I'm a full time web designer and developer and have been since the fourth best day of my life (after the birth of my 2 daughters and my wedding day) - when I quit the fulltime job I was unhappy and bored witless in ...

FREEDOM!!!

I've been building websites of one kind or another since 1997 and then in 2000 I answered a forum post from a young guy called Yanik Silver ... then next thing I know I'm compiling PDFs and building these weird ugly minisites for him that seem to fly in the face of everything I knew about web design ...

A couple of weeks later I stumbled onto a site selling a downloadable book called "Make Your Site Sell", I bought it, read it ... re-read it another 5 times ... then threw away every HTML/web design book I owned and I've never looked back ...

Now, in addition to web development and a little copywriting, I've finally started to create my own software empire (which should keep Yanik quiet for a while [grin] and to start building on my list of 1,800 subscribers ...

I'm aiming for the next 12 months to be my best yet ... and hopefully for all of you too ...

If I could share any "secrets" to the success I've had, I'd say:

1. Cheerfully give more than you're asked
2. Help others selflessly when you can (karma comes back to you)
3. Never give up ... if something doesn't work, learn from it and just keep on trucking ...

I'm looking forward to being an active part of this community ...

'Nuff respect to Mike and Sam ...

Cheers

Nick

[Mike Merz]

Welcome, Nick!

Man, you've hit the nail on the head so many times in your intro that I'm going to have pick a couple to reflect on ..

The idea behind this community is to create and nurture JV relationships ... one big inner circle.

We've got a lot of talent in the list ... over 300 strong (and growing), and those that have slowly migrated over to the community ... and the more they share with the less experienced partners, the better it is for them ... for all of us.

This is one place where it's not just a corny tagline to exclaim ... "to OUR success!" ... honestly ... the more productive our fellow partners become ... the better it is for all of us.

Could you imagine the promotional powerhouse a tight knit group of co promoters, all with the selling ability of a super affiliate, would be if they got behind a fellow partner? ... over and over again?

It would be a win - win - win situation ... everybody wins!

We're going to get there ... I can feel it.

Much success,

Mike

I look forward to reading more from you, my friend ... stop by often

[Nick Smith]

Hi Mike

Thanks for the welcome ... much appreciated ...

You know, I have a very simple (some might say too simple ) way of conducting business ...

When someone hires me, I do everything in my power to make their project a success ...

Whether it's a technical solution or an observation on their marketing/copywriting ... I'll say it, without even thinking twice ... why? Because I honestly believe that Good (and Bad) Karma comes back to you greater than you give it out ...

I laugh everytime I say or type something like that, because it goes completely against my logical left brain thinking ... but you know what? It's true - it's happened to me time and time again ...

As an example, I'm working with a fairly well-known marketer on a major project for him - he ask me to design some banners and showed me some examples of the kind of thing he was looking for ...

I instantly knew these type of banners wouldn't give him the results he was after and so directed him to a site which explained all about "stealth" banners and how they were more effective than regular ones ... (incidentally, the URL is BannerAdMagic.com)

The next thing I know, he's phoning me up thanking me for not just doing what the client wants and for showing an interest in him and his product ... and says he's going to refer anyone who asks him about websites to me ... and not to worry about any commissions ...

I never asked or expected him to do that, I just wanted to help him be as successful as possible ...

That's why I've never had to advertise anywhere online or offline for work ... and that's why building a thriving JV community here is not just powerful ... it can be truly lifechanging ... and if I can contribute even a little to helping someone completely change their life by launching their product or service, I'll do whatever I can ...

It's the old adage, "You can get anything you want in life, if you just help people get everything they want ..."

Anyway, that's enough from me ...

Go check out BannerAdMagic.com and download that PDF if you want to learn all about "stealth banners" for your affiliates to use ..

Enjoy!

Nick

Welcome, Nick!

Man, you've hit the nail on the head so many times in your intro that I'm going to have pick a couple to reflect on ..

The idea behind this community is to create and nurture JV relationships ... one big inner circle.

We've got a lot of talent in the list ... over 300 strong (and growing), and those that have slowly migrated over to the community ... and the more they share with the less experienced partners, the better it is for them ... for all of us.

This is one place where it's not just a corny tagline to exclaim ... "to OUR success!" ... honestly ... the more productive our fellow partners become ... the better it is for all of us.

Could you imagine the promotional powerhouse a tight knit group of co promoters, all with the selling ability of a super affiliate, would be if they got behind a fellow partner? ... over and over again?

It would be a win - win - win situation ... everybody wins!

We're going to get there ... I can feel it.

Much success,

Mike

I look forward to reading more from you, my friend ... stop by often

[Mike Merz]

Thanks ... again, Nick.

I'll be sure to check out BannerAdMagic.com.

And ... I'll be sure to look for your input ... keep it flowing, my friend ...

Much success,

Mike '... teach a man to fish .. ' Merz

[Andy Beard]

Sam / Jinger

Post Affiliate Pro from Webradev is probably the affiliate script of your dreams

The only negative thing about it is that the affiliate program pays so little, because it is also one of the cheapest scripts, even though they recently doubled the price!

Article Marketer use it for their backend if you want to give it some testing. Your affiliates will know exactly where their traffic came from and what converted as well.

[Sam Heyer]

Hey Andy,

Thanks ... and I agree (to an extent). It's the program that I'm currently using, but there are certain areas that I want to improve on for my next projects ... so I'm setting out to create my own.

Thanks again,
Sam

[James McGrew]

ACK! The preview erased my previous, overly verbose, self honoring post .... so here is a shorter version:

I am 30 and have a 4 year old son and 9 year old step son that live with me. I'll be getting remarried soon - as soon as I've reached the financial goals my girlfriend an I agreed on.

I'm mainly a computer geek, but I've worked various other jobs ranging from SATCOM for the USARMY, to candy salesman at lunch when I was 11-17. I'm a jack of all trades but probably best at computer stuff and especially programming, which I do now for a make believe living.

I'm also pretty good at search engine placement, and my biggest client gets about 80,000 uniques a month because of work I've done for her. I'm working on a book about SEO now based on the same information that I've already written on my website: www.DigitalCrunch.com

I'm hoping that I can find a place where my mind is constantly bombarded with ideas and the motivation to put them into action ( like a community of marketers ). Where I live, and in my social circles, I have nobody to talk to about this stuff and just knowing other people would help a ton.

My commissions on affiliate programs might afford me a bottle of shampoo someday, so I'm looking for ways to do that better too! Ideally I'd stay at home and make digital money from websites, but I'm not there yet, actually I don't even know where "there" is, or what to pack when I go!

Anyway, here is me!