Today, I’d like to share my next favorite way to generate revenue and build my business with affiliate marketing. This lesson comes from Module 3 of my SIMPLE 2 Business Acceleration Bootcamp in Baltimore September 24-26, 2010, which of course I’m encouraging you to attend.

Offer Mutually Beneficial Bonuses

I’m not talking about participating in the big bonus wars that seem to distract customers from the huge product launches. I’m really talking about thinking of a complementary bonus that does 3 things:

1. Makes the original offer a complete no-brainer so they buy and you earn a commission,
2. Breaks down any remaining barriers for the customer to implement the product easily, and
3. Builds a relationship between you and the purchasing customer.

This final point truly is the most important because the SIMPLE business model requires you to use affiliate marketing as a market research and relationship building process.

Most affiliate marketers focus only on #1. A handful will consider #2 since they realize that the bonus should be relevant to the original offer. But it’s extremely rare when an affiliate bases their promotions on #3.

Since the E in SIMPLE stands for Experiential, I encourage you to create a bonus for a product that involves interactivity between you and the customer. The better experience the customer has with the recommended product and you, the more likely they’ll buy from you again.

Your bonus should also feature your expertise as a focal point. You are using affiliate marketing to build credibility to your audience, and to eventually launch your product to the same audience. Think of yourself like a teacher who gets to help your audience through a textbook somebody else published.

Out of all the types of bonuses, my favorite three are:

• Accountability group to go through the product
• Multi-session teleclass to teach how to use the product
• Private email support or a pair of coaching calls to answer questions that come up during the customer’s use of the product.

Of course, you can’t offer this kind of bonus to every product out there. Which is great because you should be concentrating on promoting just a few of the essential products, services, and programs that you believe will help your audience the most.

And as you deliver this type of bonus, you’ll be able to quickly move to the next phase of your SIMPLE business plan: Creating your own information product that fills the gap in the marketplace.

Start thinking about your favorite product or course that you promote, and how you can structure a mutually-beneficial bonus around it.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. This strategy is just one of dozens of high-profit methods I’ll be teaching at the next School For Information Marketing Profits – Live Event. Get to Baltimore so I can help you accelerate your business over the next year!

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Or, worse, they spend so much money on advertising and driving traffic that they dig a much bigger hole than the one they started in.

As I’ve developed my own business, I’ve generated quite a bit of my revenue from affiliate marketing. In fact, it typically makes up about 1/3 of my income. At times in the past, it was even more than that. But I don’t subscribe to a lot of the hypey ways to do it.

I’d like to share some of my big secrets to affiliate marketing success with you, starting today with my favorite one.

SIMPLE Affiliate Marketing Secret #1: Create A Product Teaching How To Use The Affiliate Product

My favorite method for profiting from affiliate marketing is to create and sell a product that teaches people how to use the product you are selling.

A lot of times, the product owners do not do a great job of getting customers to know how to use their product.

Sure, they have screenshots, or maybe even tutorials on how to use the basic features of a product. But they usually come up short on how to use their products to their fullest extent.

With an eye towards exploration and creativity, I often dive deeper into a product and discover ways to use it that weren’t originally intended by the creators of the product.

For example, in my first product, Free Ad Report, I taught people how to use a website called “Postaroo” and a toolbar called Roboform.

Now Roboform is intended initially as a password bank, as well as a quick form filler for your contact info on order forms, etc. I discovered early on how you could use this toolbar to fill in free ads on Postaroo (now dead), which reduced the time to create ads from 10-15 minutes to about 10 seconds.

Later on, as Instant Teleseminar became the gold standard in conference calling bridgelines, I created Teleseminar Formula in order to teach people how to get the most out of that system.

Over and over, using my Connect-Create-Collaborate methods that I’ll be teaching at SIMPLE, I created products and training programs that gave my audience better understanding and more profitable uses of the tools and strategies they wanted, but didn’t know how to use on their own. I shortened their learning curve, and gave them a quicker pathway to success.

In the process, this method of affiliate marketing generated revenue for me on 2 levels: sales of my training, plus the affiliate commissions of the product. It also gets me on the radar of the original product creator. Most importantly, this process connects me to the audience that wants my help the most. And as I continue to get to know them, I understand what other areas they need help with.

I encourage you to stop promoting every product and program under the sun. And pick 1 or 2 products that you know pretty well, that are highly connected to your areas of expertise, and create a report, video series, or short audio program/teleclass to teach people how to get the most out of it.

And to learn how to do that even faster and more profitably, be sure to attend my next School for Information Marketing Profits – Live Event! In addition to my other affiliate marketing secrets, I’ll clear the path for you to succeed in becoming a rockstar in your industry. And in the process, you’ll teach more, reach more, and make more!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. Whether you are a service professional, former corporate mover and shaker, cubicle dweller, or tradesperson, your understanding of a particular tool or strategy could become very profitable when you understand the SIMPLE affiliate marketing and product creation strategies I teach. Find out more at SIMPLE10k.com.

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The answer is yes, no, maybe, sometimes, and “it depends.”

In reality, the answer relies much less on the product itself, but in the results you get from taking action on what you purchase.

Let’s take a couple of examples that are hot right now: Affiliate Dot Com and my own SIMPLE 2 event.

Although you haven’t been hearing me talk about it, Mike Filsaime and Chris Farrell released AffiliateDotCom this week, and it’s priced at $1997 (with payment plans of course). I’d love to tell you it’s the greatest coaching course on affiliate marketing ever, but how can I say that when it is going to be taught live starting next week?

What I can tell you is that Mike played an instrumental role in my own success – he was my first mentor in business, and I continue to learn a lot from him. I’ve taught his Butterfly Marketing Workshop, and I’m frequently a trainer on the IM Success Cruise that he hosts. And I can also tell you that I’m on the faculty for the extra modules of the Affiliate Dot Com course. I’ll be teaching a couple of modules later on in the program about how I use my own product development cycle to increase my affiliate income.

So is the course worth $1997?

• Well, based on the hourly rate of Mike and Chris, as well as myself, yes.
• Based on the amount of experience that the faculty are bringing to the course, yes.
• Based on the fact that you get a ticket to a major live event in Las Vegas with other ADC members PLUS 200 of the top internet marketers to network with, yes.

But for you, it still may not be worth $1997.

I’ll tell you why in a second, but first another example…

I’m teaching the SIMPLE 2 Business Acceleration Bootcamp next month in Baltimore, and it’s also priced at $1997 (including a ticket for your guest). During that 3 day workshop, I’ll be teaching my complete business system that you can implement over the next 1-2 years to add $10,000/month or more in revenue.

Is SIMPLE 2 worth $1997?

• Based on the feedback I get from those that attended SIMPLE 1, yes.
• Based on the fact that you get me to teach you over 20 hours, and I’m normally a $1000/hour coach, yes.
• Based on me investing over $25,000 in my own business education, plus countless hours of TARLing (take action, revise later) to learn what works and what doesn’t – yes.
• Based on you getting another $5000 worth of bonuses, yes.

But for you, it still may not be worth $1997.

Huh?

Don’t worry – I haven’t been smoking crack or anything but I’m trying to make a larger point.

If you’re trying to equate value of a product based on the stuff that we put into the products, you’re making a huge mistake.

It’s not about the input we add to courses, workshops, and coaching programs.

It’s all about the output – the results – that you get out of taking action on what you learn.

• Do nothing – and the course is worthless.
• Follow the steps, and focus to the end of your projects, and it will truly be priceless.

I learned this important lesson a long time ago when I “forked over” $500/month for 18 months (that’s $9000 in case you want the easy math). At the time, I wondered if the mentoring I was receiving was really that valuable. But instead of focusing on how much money I was spending, I focused on how high could I get a return on my investment.

During that 18 month period, I took action on what I was learning, followed the steps being taught, while adding in my own creativity. The first 5 months, I didn’t make a dime, but I was committed to succeed. I didn’t quit and claim the training was worthless. I didn’t whine and ask for a refund that it was all a scam. I stuck to it, and at the end of those 18 months, I was earning $10,000/month at a minimum, and was able to leave a job I was increasingly resenting.

Just from a purely dollar-cents perspective, of course it was worth it. And of course, don’t get me started on all the connections that mentoring program made for me.

At the same time, I purchased other products and programs ranging from $10 – $3000, and many of those proved NOT to be “worth it”, because I didn’t actually use them. Who knows how many PLR and Master Resale Rights products I have on my computer that are “worthless” to me because I didn’t put them to use.

So when you’re staring down the Add To Cart button on a sales page, and your mind is wondering if the product is truly worth $1997, consider instead this important set of questions:

• Are you ready to do what ever it takes to maximize your own return on the investment you’re going to make?
• Can you commit the focus you need to have to resist the other shiny objects that will fly your way?
• Are you willing to hold yourself to such a high standard that nothing will keep you from being successful?

If so, then…

What you’re really realizing is this:

It’s not the product, event, or program that’s worth $1997…

It’s really you – your potential, your ideas, your products and services, your impact you can have on the world – that are worth so much more than the price you see.

Keep this in mind whenever you’re presented with big ticket programs, or even the smaller ones that actually tend to be the “expensive” ones.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – post a comment below and reply to the others as well.

p.p.s. And be sure to check out AffiliateDotCom and SIMPLE 2 to see which is most in alignment with what you need to learn right now.

Last weekend, I taught at and participated in the Millionaire Coach Secrets private workshop hosted by Adam Urbanski.

At the event was one of my mastermind partners, Bobby Medina (left in the picture).

Bobby’s known as “America’s Most Wanted Trumpeter” because of his reputation as a superb bandleader at corporate parties, legends tours, high end weddings, etc. He’s toured with Ray Charles, the Four Tops, among others, and has been the bandleader for parties of celebrities like Christie Brinkley.

Anyway, I love this picture we took together as a joke because it speaks to today’s lesson.

Now from first glance, you may imagine that perhaps I have secret talents in playing the trumpet. But alas, I do not. (In fact, my only brush with musical genius was as the founder a 5-person harmonica band in high school, “Bob’s Fünf-Harmonik”).

Instead, playing the trumpet results in pain for those that are nearby. And no matter how much someone else may try to butter me up, or beat trumpet playing into me, trumpet just isn’t my thing.

But teaching is.

That’s the arena where I best perform.

And so I’ve made it the central core of my business. As a result, my business continues to be successful during rocky economic times. My passion for what I do, and my skills at teaching others what I know combine for solid results.

Now I return to the initial question for you: are you doing what you’re great at, or what other people are telling you to do?

Obviously, it would be ironic for me to “tell you what to do”; but it’s important for you to honestly ask the question so you can get the answer yourself.

One of the reasons I’m so excited about the business acceleration bootcamp I’m hosting next month is because it’s based 100% on giving you the strategies you need to take what you’re best at and help people profitably doing it.

As you go through the 3 phases I teach (Connect – Create – Collaborate), you leverage what you’re best at into both active and passive income. You become proud of the work you’re doing, and you’re able to impact people in ways that nobody else can.

No doubt, succeeding in business requires a great deal of effort and persistence. But when you sell products and services based on what you do best, that effort and persistence pays off faster and longer term than chasing after opportunity rainbows.

When you operate within what I call your “Golden Triad” you…

• Have an easier time answering that critical question: “So what do you do?”
• Turn challenge “mountains” into molehills.
• Maintain focus easier, and defend yourself against shiny object syndrome.
• Impact more people in a unique way, which helps you stand out from the crowd.
• Increase your revenue by having higher fees and prices – people will pay a premium for great value you provide.
• Feel energized even on little sleep, because what you do is connected to who you are.
• Get things done faster without the distractions of side projects.
• Attract the right kinds of customers and affiliate partners.

I’m sure I could add to this list, but I believe you get my point.

So if you’re ready for me to teach you my secret methods for creating a six-figure business based on your brain and helping people profitably, head over to the SIMPLE 2 website and grab one of the limited tickets remaining.

Your thoughts are welcome below – especially examples of today’s lesson in your life.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. By the way, I’m fully aware I ended the title of this post with a preposition. If you’re unhappy about that, please recall an alleged quote from Winston Churchill when hearing a similar concern after one of his speeches: “That’s exactly the type of pedantry up with which I will not put!” :)

All the binders, the pens, gadgets, etc., charge me up.

It reminds me of how it felt when I was a kid, and the possibilities of a new year of learning were ahead. Wondering if I’d like my teachers, who I’d be friends with, if I’d get to sit next to the girl I had a crush on…

Or later, when I was a teacher, picturing how my lessons would turn out, the awesome questions curious students would ask about history, life, and current events. How with just a little bit of creativity, and a lot of compassion, I could be *that* teacher a student would remember for the rest of their life.

A lot of my clients and mastermind partners are parents, and they tell me how awesome they feel right now to be sending the kids back to school; how much time they’re going to have again in their day. For some, it’s their first time in 5 years or more that they will have big blocks of time to themselves again.

What’s this time of year like for you? Are you getting charged up by back to school fever?

Well I hope you love to learn, and you’re ready to be part of something amazing I’m putting together to help your business take off over the next year.

Teach more, reach more, make more

Take a look, and I hope you get as excited about this as I am sharing it with you!

Bob Jenkins

p.s. My passion is teaching, and doing it live with entrepreneurs who love to use their brains in their business is what I’m best at. Let’s put our talents together to impact more people.

Combine your brain & heart with my methods

So this weekend, I’m recharging my batteries before the Back To School rush (planning and hosting SIMPLE 2 will dominate the next 7 weeks for me). I’m in Jekyll Island, Georgia for a few days, and thought I’d send you a quick video postcard.

Also, to help you get geared up for the 4th quarter of 2010, I’m putting something together for you on Monday.

Enjoy the video!

After the video, please share your answer to this question:

What do you want to see happen during the last quarter of 2010? What’s missing or would prevent you from doing that?

Bob Jenkins

I call it the Connect-Create-Collaborate model, and it’s the cornerstone of my own success in business. Most people try to do these steps in the wrong order, and struggle with the frustrations of poor results.

If you have the 6 elements of a S.I.M.P.L.E. business in mind, this 3-phase path is sure to lead you to success.

Phase 1: Connect People To Solutions

Since you know your industry better than the average customer in that marketplace, you are in a great position to help people locate existing solutions to their problems. You most likely use those resources, tools, and experts yourself – or you did at one point to help you get to where you are now.

Listen to the crowds of potential customers and what they’re griping about. Help them to solve those problems by connecting them to the solutions. This could mean you share a software tool that addresses the issue, or bringing their attention to a leading expert’s training program that’s already up and running.

You can also serve as a filter by reviewing books or courses that help audiences take action and implement those solutions.

During this phase, you’ll likely be able to generate revenue as an affiliate of those products and services. And regardless of the income, by serving the marketplace, you’ll gain credibility and social capital that will prove beneficial in stages 2 and 3 of this model.

Phase 2: Create The Missing Solutions To Fill The Gaps In Your Marketplace

Whether your Phase 1 takes a few days, or a few months, you’ll come away with an added benefit: market research to discover what people are buying, and what they’re still hungry for. Once you’ve identified what’s missing, you can then create your own products and services to fill in those gaps.

The trouble most entrepreneurs run into is they try this step first. Then they struggle to stand out within a crowded marketplace.

By filling in the gaps, you can serve a niche of your field profitably. And since you already built up a relationship with your audience in Phase 1, you have an eager market that has already told you what they want!

The missing piece you create could deal more specifically to solve additional problems that go unnoticed by the others in your field. Or perhaps you deliver your services and products in ways that the others haven’t considered. For example, your audience may want more individual attention than what the “gurus” in your field are willing to offer.

During this phase, you’ll generate revenue from selling your own products and services, while continuing to earn revenue recommending the Phase 1 solutions you had already identified.

Phase 3: Collaborate With Customers And Competitors For Faster Growth

Once you have your own products and services, you gain status in your field as a solution provider. And this allows you to sit at the “big table” in your industry.

You’ll now be able to partner with others as they help you grow your business with referrals and collaborative projects.

An important step in this process is to connect your products and services to an affiliate management software. This provides an incentive to your partners to promote you with the reward of sharing in the revenue (i.e., a commission). If you don’t have such a system in place, you can always swap marketing promotions. But using an affiliate program makes the process fair.

You’ll be able to turn your customers into affiliate partners, too. As each additional customer enjoys your products and services, doorways to their circle of influence become open to you as well.

And you’ll start hearing “yes” more often to those in your field for joint projects and promotions. No longer will you be the “best kept secret” of your field, but the go-to-expert that you deserve to be.

Repeat All 3 Phases For Exponential Growth

Perhaps the best part of these 3 phases is you can repeat the process for continuous growth. In fact, I’ve used this system over a dozen times over the last few years to become the leading teacher of internet marketing strategies for do-it-yourself entrepreneurs. I know your success is inevitable if you follow this path as well.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. In doing my live 3-day SIMPLE event, each of these 3 phases gets a full day of training. There are a lot of moving pieces to get right if you’re going to truly succeed. Get to the next one if you’d like my personal help in growing your business!

#1: Productivity And Time Management

Some blame the economy for their poor results, but I would be that most people aren’t growing their businesses due to a lack of focus. You need to have a system in place that keeps you on track and makes the most out of your time.

Personally, I prefer to use mindmaps to help set and stay focused on specific goals within my daily, weekly, monthly, and annual time frames. Much more powerful than to-do lists, mindmaps allow you to categorize and prioritize those activities that simply must be done to move forward.

Whatever you use, if you find that you end your day feeling like you got nothing accomplished, then that system isn’t working for you. Your system should give you momentum.

#2: Relationship Marketing Through Email And Social Media

Communicating with prospects and existing customers will likely be the #1 demand on your time. And it should be because a S.I.M.P.L.E. business is based on people!

So you need to know how to manage your autoresponder system to automate the delivery of your messages. You need to know how to use sites like Twitter and Facebook to ensure your business is being represented authentically. And you should be investing some of your time reaching out to people with questions and answers in an interactive way. You can’t afford to let others determine how your brand is perceived; be in the forefront with online relationship marketing.

#3: Website Basics

You certainly don’t need to become a graphic designer or full-fledged webmaster to succeed in your business. But if you don’t know how to edit your webpages, create blog content, then you’re going to waste a lot of money!

With software tools like WordPress driving modern websites, you truly have no real excuse to ignore this skill set.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen entrepreneurs face is finding themselves locked out of their own websites, or waiting for weeks for their webmaster to “get it right” with changes you ask for. It’s crucial that you know how to register your own domains and do basic things within your hosting account. Creating blog posts, uploading PDFs and other files to your site, and even checking your traffic stats are skills you’ll always benefit from.

#4: Creating And Selling Information Products

A crucial part of the S.I.M.P.L.E./Connect-Create-Collaborate model of business is creating and selling information products. This is how you can take advantage of this golden age of information that we live in.

Creating free reports, hosting teleseminars, publishing ebooks: these are easier than ever before to do yourself. And the speed of selling and delivering these types of products will make your customers raving fans.

Best of all, when you know how to create digital information products with low-cost tools and resources, you can realize high margins of profitability that your offline business friends will drool over!

#5: Affiliate Management

If you want to enjoy the accelerated growth that comes from the promotional efforts of your customers and your joint venture partners, then setting up and running an affiliate program is essential.

The software systems that are used to track the sales and traffic being sent by your partners continues to improve in both features and in simplicity. Without these systems, you’ll be relying solely on your own efforts. I imagine if this is where you are now, you feel like a hamster in its wheel, exhausting itself with every revolution!

When you get a handle on your affiliate system, you’ll have an automated sales team doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Outsource These Skills At Your Peril

Although you can hire people to do these skills for you, ultimately you’ll see better results if you have mastered them yourself. This way, you’ll never be held hostage by a webmaster, employee, or virtual assistant who comes up short. You’ll also avoid being taken advantage of by high-priced service providers who rely on your ignorance for their exhorbitant fees.

More importantly, I hope you take action on what you learn from me and other internet marketing teachers. And if you’d like to quickly learn how to implement these strategies and master these skills, do join the others at the IM Success Library and at the upcoming SIMPLE 2 Internet Marketing Conference in Baltimore this September so I can help you personally.

And be sure to share your comments below about your strengths and weaknesses in these 5 areas.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. These 5 are not the only skills to master, but if you are missing these in particular, you’re going to have a very difficult time achieving the level of success you’re aiming for.

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