Ask Bob The Teacher

If you promote a network marketing business, or you’re open to the idea of understanding the concept that *some* legitimate network marketing companies are powerful affiliate programs, then this post is for you.

My Michigander friend, James Grandstaff is one of those quiet leaders in internet marketing who has successfully bridged the gap between IM and MLM.  For many, MLM is a four-letter word because of their experiences in getting hassled by friends and family or feeling like that’s the only way to share network marketing opportunities.

I don’t claim to be an expert in network marketing, but I do get bill-paying residual checks every month from a couple. And part of my (albeit limited) success is due to automation strategies I learned from James. Plus, I learned when I first got started in network marketing a long time ago that generating your own leads instead of paying for them from someone else was the only real way to build a profitable organization and customer base.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ahh, the fun of moving.

For most of my life, I’ve learned to really resent moving. When I was a kid, we moved way too many times for my taste. In the end it’s all been good (builds character). Great people to meet throughout a lot of experiences. But the process has always been stressful, and until now, out of my hands.

This week, I get to move again. But for the first time, it’s completely by my own choice (with a lot of help from Joanna of course).

By the way, would you like to know how we picked North Carolina?

HGTV.

Seriously.

About two years ago, they did a House Hunters on Wilmington. Joanna was watching and over the next 15 months we noticed how often Wilmington kept popping up. She kept dropping hints about how nice it would be to live near the coast (her allergies in Maryland were terrible). After visiting my cousin here last summer, she had me hooked.

So thanks to Joanna’s scouting (and Suzanne Whang, of course), now we’re here, just days away from moving in.

That’s where you come in.

Normally when you move, you call on your friends to help you shlep couches and mattresses and all those books. But since we’re brand new to the area, that’s not much of an option for us. In fact, we’d ask our neighbors, but two of the houses are still flat dirt, and the other two are waiting for buyers (contact Justin King and the Alex Paen Team at Coldwell Banker SeaCoast Realty for Wilmington or Leland Real Estate… :) ).

So we have movers coming to deliver all of our stuff on Friday morning. And finally, Friday night, we get to stay in our brand new place.

There’s just one little problem. The movers expect to get paid. The reason that is a problem is that on Thursday, my down payment is due, knocking my regular bank account way too low. In addition to the moving and packing, I have to pay them for storage for about a month. All total, I’ll be paying them over $5000.

Use a credit card, you say?

That’s the bigger problem. I can’t find any of my credit cards.

Thanks to money-managing lessons from Donna Fox (the Credit Millionaire expert), I’ve stopped using my cards several months ago, and paid them down to under 50% of the credit line. I’m very proud of this as I racked up a lot of debt as a high school teacher over ten years.

So while I’ve been very disciplined not to use the cards, I’ve come to realize this past weekend that I don’t actually know where the cards are. With the hit from the down payment, I have to use one on Friday. But they could be in any one of 73 boxes.

What’s an internet marketer to do?

Well, thanks to Jeff Walker’s teachings I’ve been studying, I’m supposed to give you a lot of great stuff that you normally wouldn’t be able to get for a really low price. This is a very rare circumstance — and it calls for a very rare firesale.

Normally, a firesale is a group of 25 or more resell rights packages that seem to be a) oversold, and b) too much to concentrate on.

You deserve better than rehashed stuff — and I certainly don’t want you to buy something from me, then go on eBay and see that it’s being sold for $1.

So yesterday, I went through all of the recordings I’ve done over the last year. I then tossed aside the files that had already been sold a lot, and certainly anything that’s been given away for free was out of the question.

This had to be a true, killer value for you so that there was no doubt in your mind that you get 5X (or more) of the real value of what I’m offering.

Since writing to you with this blog, I’ve noticed some common questions that keep coming up. These questions led to me picking out the very best audio and video training that I’ve done that would help you at various stages of your business.

I concentrated on these major areas:

• Getting Started - Business Building Foundations
• Online Profits From Your Offline Experience
• Using Forums For Building Your Reputation
• Creating Squidoo Lenses For Credibility And Traffic
• Registering Domain Names Strategically
• Creating Killer Squeeze Pages
• Generating More Traffic And Customer Loyalty
• Installing PHP/MySQL Scripts
• Using Video In Your Marketing

These areas seem to be the biggest targets of the questions I get on my blog, and I’m sure that at least 3 or more of these areas are concerns for you right now.

If you help me pay the movers, you’ll get my best training in these areas for less than 25% of their total value.

Nothing in this sale is an eBook or PDF — they are all audio or video sessions.

They are also not pieces of the sessions, but the complete recordings. All the audios are between 60-120 minutes, and the videos are 12-45 minutes in length.

In addition to learning from me, over half of these recordings are between me and another marketing expert — including Matthew Glanfield, Todd Gross, Glen Hopkins, Martin Salter, and Scott Tousignant.

So - can you help me pay the movers while learning important marketing lessons?

Check out the complete details of what you can get, and help me make sure that Joanna and I don’t have to sleep on the floor.

Please realize this is a very rare opportunity to get what amounts to a complete course of study from me for under $100. To make it a little more interesting, I’ve set the price to raise $10 every time 20 sales have been made. If you’re quick enough, you can still get it all for under $50. This is one way I can help you as a dedicated reader of this blog — you’re more likely to have found this earlier than the rest.

After buying and helping us out, I’d love to hear which of the audio and video presentations is your favorite. Post a comment below, and tell me what ideas came to mind as you listened or watched…

Click here to help us pay the movers…

Thanks again!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. About half of these recordings have only been available for top-level members at some of my sites (paying $97 up to $497). But a few have never been released to the public before, because I simply haven’t had time to complete the rest of the sites. Help us pay the movers, and be the first to listen to some great training.

Wondering where you should put your energy when it comes to making your business known on the internet?

AskBobTheTeacher member Matt Geib asked me a very important question after my last post, that I would like to give a more detailed answer about.

He asked:

“If I have a blog (which I do) can it not serve the same function as a ‘mini web site’ ? Do I really need both as I start out?”

This question raises a few different issues that I’d like to take on today.

First, what are the differences between a blog and a mini-site.

A mini-site has just one purpose, and that is to either generate leads (then it’s really just a squeeze page), or sell a product.  A mini-site has three real pages that guide a visitor from information seeker (landing page), to buyer (sales page), to satisfied customer (download/thank-you page).

Mini-sites are perfect for creating revenue with a specific product.

Blogs, however, are designed to build a conversation with your customers.  Because blogs allow comments and easy updates, they are fresher and more immediate.  As you can tell from my blog here, for example, keeping it up to date and asking for you to respond helps each of us know that we’re in this together.  Mini-sites are pretty lonely, but still needed.

So my answer to Matt is that a blog can’t really serve effectively as a mini-site.  A single page of a blog can act like it, but because of the structure of most blogs (the themed template, to be more specific), they are too distracting to serve as a mini-site.  They have too many links and can be confusing to a new visitor.

The truth is, you can use either one to start out, but it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

If you want to get a specific product to market, or publish a report that generates leads and sales, then a mini-site is perfect.  And each different product/service can be on its own site.  Also, mini-sites are the better way to go when working with joint-venture partners.  They allow you to partner with someone who can promote something specific of value to their list, and perhaps generate affiliate commissions in return.

But if you want to establish credibility in a specific niche with what you have to say, then a blog is better.  You can begin posting right away, the technical skills are minimal (although you do need a little bit), and whatever you say is going to stick around longer.

Another advantage of a blog over a mini-site is search engine results.  Blogs are much better at serving as SEO magnets than mini-sites are.  This is because every single time you post, you are actually creating a completely new webpage.

You can also build your list with a blog, as long as you give people a reason for signing up through your opt-in form.

To get a blog going, you just need a good web host (with cPanel preferably - I recommend HostGator), a MySQL database, and the WordPress installation pack (cPanel hosts usually have Fantastico for one-button installations).

So which should you go with?

If you can swing it, do both.  Use your blog to get to be known and trusted, while having a place for your community members to buy products or learn from you.  And they can both be hosted on the same website.

Now yesterday, I gave you an extensive lesson on Mini-Sites in the form of an interview with Dan Kelly (it’s free, did you get it?).

Today, I’d like to share with you another excellent resource from a good friend of mine, and blogging expert, Mike Paetzold.

In my Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits course (open for enrollment right now), I just had Mike join as a guest teacher this week.  This is a guy who really knows blogging inside and out.

He’s created a beginner’s How-To Blog guide that I recommend for your learning.  It’s called Get Your Blog Going, and features an audio interview between Mike and one of his customers (who asks the same types of questions you would if you had the chance).  Although it’s not free, it will pay for itself quickly with what you’ll learn to do with your blog.

More traffic, better connections with your audience, and a lot more.  I especially like what he reveals about getting Google to index your pages faster.

If you are like Matt, and you want to make your blog the center of your marketing efforts, Get Your Blog Going is a great place to start.

Whatever you decide (mini-sites or blogs), starting is the most important thing to do!

Bob Jenkins

p.s.  I’ll be sharing my top resource for managing your blog soon.  But Mike’s audio training is a must for knowing the big basics first.  Get your blog going now, and be sure to post the address to your blog as a comment below.

With the launch of a ton of affiliate marketing training programs from great people over the last few weeks, I thought you should know how the approach I take to teaching affiliate marketing is different.And in a moment, I’m going to tell you the specific 8 steps you should be doing to be successful with this type of business building.First and foremost, the approach I am taking with the Eight-Fold Path live course starting next week gives you plenty of live training and Q&A opportunities to answer your specific questions. I have found that this provides the most value in any learning process. If you have to digest everything on your own, it’s unlikely that you will see results nearly as profound. The only other person I have seen do this effectively is Matthew Glanfield, whose mentoring (when available) I highly recommend.Most of the other courses out there are completely recorded (with no live interaction) and/or they hand-off the personal Q&A time to somebody else.

Second, I don’t teach people to go out and find where the top niches online are. I teach how to build a business that promotes you as an expert in what you already know, even before you have your own products. You already have to learn business building strategies — why complicate things by learning new niches at the same time?

Third, you won’t learn from me how to rely only on pay-per-click methods that require a lot of fine tuning and guesswork while spending quite a bit of money. If you have a lot of money to spare, then that is an okay way to go.

But for the people I’m teaching, I stress the lowest cost, longest effect processes that keep you generating sales long after you set them up. Some call this BUM marketing, but I think it’s much more active than that. However, once set in motion it does tend to last quite a while even if you don’t return to it for months.

Now a lot of people are going to call me crazy for doing what I’m about to do…

I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to be doing to be successful with affiliate marketing — right here on my blog for free.

Most people would charge (and are charging) for giving you this information. But this is too important to hold back from you, so I’m going to give you a very specific (although concise) roadmap of what steps you need to take.

So here’s what I believe to be the best way to approach affiliate marketing, what I like to call….

The Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits
Combine each of these steps together for maximum results every time…

Step 1: Find A Niche That YOU Can Excel In
Over the long term, I expect affiliate marketing to make up about half of your income online. And the other half, eventually, should be from your own products. So the first thing you should be doing is focusing on promoting products in the area of your own expertise.

Doing so does two things.

First, it builds on your own experience and credibility, resulting in more sales because people will trust you know what you are talking about.

Second, it connects you with that industry so when you do make your first product, you will skip over the hurdle of being an unknown.

The additional bonus is the people you have promoted as an affiliate are likely to reciprocate the favor when your product is ready.

Step 2: Set up your links professionally — and measure the results
Most people fail to use the right types of affiliate links because they a) don’t know how, b) are lazy, c) think it’s too expensive.

But if you want the real results people talk about all the time, you need to set up better looking affiliate links.

This usually comes in the form of using php or html redirects within a domain name, which takes just a few minutes of your time when you know how to do it.

I also recommend setting up a unique domain name for each affiliate program. Although this sounds expensive, at just $9 per domain per year, it’s a great investment that yields much better results.

And as many of the people know that I promote, I have a knack for coming up with great domain names to promote products. I have never shared my top strategies for this publicly, but I’ll be doing so in the course.

You also need to track your results, which means setting up the right scripts and services to give you the data you need to make good decisions. I’m talking about knowing the number of times your links have been clicked on, where are you getting higher conversion rates, what is your cost per sale, etc.

The good news this is also very inexpensive, and in fact you can do some of this for free if you know where to look.

Step 3: Set up your traffic net
Although I love free services like Squidoo, ultimately you must have your own website in order for you to capture leads into your own autoresponder, set up the best affiliate links, and provide a place for your product reviews for long term results.

So the third step, before you promote anything, is to get used to the process of setting up squeeze pages and connecting them to an autoresponder.

If you are under a constricted budget, or you want to save time, then you can initially skip the hosting part by using the great service at Your-SqueezePage.com, but your first revenue should be turned into getting your own hosting and domain.

Then you connect your squeeze pages to your autoresponder so that you can follow up with the people who are asking for information. You know as well as anyone that people rarely buy on first introduction.

By setting up your traffic net, and using the autoresponder to give valuable information, you multiply your chances for success.

And again, since over the long term you want to have your own products, setting up the traffic net gives you a ready supply of customers when you’re ready.

Step 4: Use Free Web 2.0 Services For Long Term Promotions
Times have changed where you can set up a static web page and expect good results. Using Web 2.0 traffic methods encourages interactivity. And set up properly, this can add to your credibility as a source of recommendations.

So the fourth step is to create Squidoo lenses, develop articles (and post them to the right places), and utilize the power of blogs in multiple ways (I’ve already helped over 10,000 people learn how to improve their business with Squidoo at SquidooSecrets.com).

These three particular methods are effective because they get more people involved in the process than just you. So when people comment on your lenses, articles, or blog posts, they give you third-party validation. Without this, people don’t know if they can trust you.

But with just a single comment (you’ll get plenty more eventually), your credibility sky rockets.

Step 5: Write A Special Report About The Product
When people search online for information, they are looking for information first, and the chance to buy second. So by writing a special report, you are giving people what they want in two ways.

Even if you hated to write, you are able to communicate about a product that you enjoy. Just think about the last time you recommended some kitchen gadget you used, or a new toy you got in your garage.

Writing a special report simply puts those ideas from words into writing — but you can keep what you say very conversational.

Then you give this report away for free in exchange for people’s name and email address. When they click on your affiliate links inside the report, you’ll be making money.

The steps of making your report into a PDF that can be delivered 24/7 is cheap and a lot easier than you may be afraid of.

And I’ll show you how to do each step of this process. And I’ll also teach you how to get your report into more people’s hands so you get maximum exposure of your review and affiliate promotion.

Step 6: Use Video To Get Their Attention
I learned from Todd Gross the importance of using video online to stand apart from the crowd. Todd competes regularly with other marketers with 10 times the size of a list. So I recently sat down with Todd and had him teach me more about online video.

And yes, I was smart enough to record the interview with Todd and it’s included in the Eight-Fold Path training course.

The bottom line is this: you have personality that is not showing in text. And when you use video, whether something you have created or something you get from the product owner you are promoting, using video gets people in a good mood.

Done right, video explodes your results, and with Todd’s help, you will learn how to maximize this powerful tool.

(By the way, Todd gives away free stuff every month at FreeGiftOfTheMonth.com) 

Step 7: Teleseminars For Profits
It’s unlikely you don’t know what a teleseminar is, because you’ve probably been invited on a call where an expert and his/her guest talks for an hour or so about a subject area you want to learn more about. These are valuable teaching calls in and of themselves, but at the end, they usually promote a related product to learn more.

As an affiliate, holding teleseminars of your own can be a very lucrative process — they can also fail miserably.

In my course, I teach how to hold the teleseminar at little or no cost to you, and how to get the best long term results. You’ll learn even more with Matthew Glanfield’s advanced course on the topic (when it’s available again), but you’ll get plenty to start with from this part of my course.

These seven steps make up the bulk of the Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits, a system that I use again and again for great results.

The eighth step is something I don’t share publicly – it’s too powerful and too rarely used. So to protect the investment of the people who join the course, I can’t tell you about it here.

However, it remains my favorite (and most lucrative) way to promote those products that I want to be connected to for a long time. And I’m going to show you exactly how to do it for your favorite products, if you join the course.

After reading this far, you may be wondering why you need to take this course from me — I’ve already told you what you need to do in order to succeed with affiliate marketing.

Simply do each of these eight things and you’re all set.

However, you’ve always known at some level what you need to do.

My Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits Multi-Media Training Course Goes Beyond The “What To Do”, And Teaches You The Complete “How To Do It”

It’s the how to do it that trips you up. That’s where having a personalized training course comes in very handy. I’ve paced the course over an 8-week time period (it finishes before Thanksgiving), so that you can complete each step with me showing you exactly how to do it.

And if you don’t get it at first, you have the opportunity to ask for help from me and the others in the course, as my advanced training courses are set up as communities, not just simple download areas. And all the training is recorded and downloadable so you can learn at the pace that works best for you.

To enroll in the course, here’s what you need to do….

1) Purchase the Four Noble Truths Of Affiliate Marketing at www.DiscoverAffiliateStrategies.com.
Consider this a required textbook purchase, as I must know that you have the fundamentals down. I’ve kept the cost low (under $10) during this enrollment period for the course, but it will be raised later. The Four Noble Truths is an interview between me and Matthew Glanfield, simplifying the key essentials of affiliate marketing. You may have heard some of this before, but getting it completely right is imperative to your success.

2) Enroll In The Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits
After registering your purchase of the Four Noble Truths, you’ll see the complete details of the Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits Multi-Media Training Course (most of which was outlined in this article). Until midnight, September 29, the price of the course is $197, then it goes up to $297 (many of my mastermind members tell me I should have it at $497 or above, but as a former teacher, I know you’ll show your appreciation for the easier access by becoming a great affiliate of the course later when the price is higher).
Special Note: If you prefer to pay in 3 installments, you can decline the offer, and you’ll see the 3-payment plan immediately. You also have a “Silver” option, where you can receive all the recorded content of this course, without the live interaction for half-price. This option should only be chosen if you have a very limited budget, as the value in the live interaction is easily 10 times higher than the cost.

The truth of the matter is you can get some results doing it on your own. But if you’ve struggled, and you recognize that you are in need of more personalized guidance over a short time span, then this course is your best bet.

And with the payment options and 100% guarantee after the course is complete, you have absolutely no risk.

I want you to be successful. Not just because I’m a good natured person. In fact, I hope you become great at affiliate marketing so that you can become a super affiliate of my products, too.

Like you, I’m a big fan of “win-win” situations. With my live 8-part training course, your success goes from maybe to definite.

See you in class!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. While I’ve been in Poland this last week, I’ve earned over $2000 as an affiliate while on vacation because of using all 8 of the pieces I teach in this course. Let me show you how affiliate marketing is done.

p.p.s. Were these 8 steps helpful to you? Tell me which step you want to master the fastest with a comment below…

While learning from Matthew Glanfield this past year about affiliate marketing, I’ve picked up a lot of great tips.

One of my favorites is what I’d like to call the Affiliate-Squeeze Two Step.

Most people are promoting affiliate products by sending people straight to an affiliate link.

But Matthew has a different take on it.

He showed me how if you set up a squeeze page properly, you could give people a preview of what the product is all about, build your list, and increase your sales.

This forms the core of Second Noble Truth Of Affiliate Marketing, part of a new interview you can learn from quickly at DiscoverAffiliateStrategies.com.

And you have just a few days remaining to enroll in the Eight-Fold Path To Affiliate Profits live training course, open only to owners of the Four Noble Truths.

Have an awesome day!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. One last thing… If technical things aren’t really for you, be sure to check out Matthew’s awesome Squeeze Page service. I use it all the time, even though I am technical. But it saves me time, and gives me an easy way to test all the variables of my squeeze page. Check out Your-SqueezePage.com for details.