Is a Thief Inside Your Head Stealing Your Money?

I have another niche market I participate in and hope to sell products in. This niche market involves a sizable learning curve. I see people come and go in it all the time.

And from my own experiences and those I observe, there is ONE THING that keeps people from making progress. And that thing is self doubt.

1. You may doubt you have the ability to succeed in this business

You know, we all have self doubts. In learning the new skills I’m tell you about, I know I personally have had self doubt.“Is this something I can do? Is this a skill I can master? Am I TOO OLD?”

Yet,the conclusion I come back to over and over is that success in ANY endeavor is the result of behaviors. Change the behaviors and get the result.

Wherever you are, I’ve been there. I know what it is to doubt yourself or your ability. To not be sure if you have what it takes. To try and have your successes far outweighed by things that didn’t work.

It’s easy to get discouraged. To stop. To quit. To think thatthis is the end of the road for you. In this new arena and skill set area I’m working in, I’ve experienced all those feelings and emotions and more.

2. You may doubt your progress

It’s so easy to look at a few successes against more failures and think,“I’m not making progress.” I think this is the hardest thing. You have to tie a knot on your mental rope and hang on. Because the truth is, things almost always don’t work before they DO work.

You have to really tune up your focus on any successes you DO have. And notice the small successes. So maybe you don’t have a ton of sales yet. But you DO have people subscribing. Or you DO have some sales coming in regularly. Or you DO have your blog up and you ARE getting visitors now from Google.

You have to exaggerate mentally the successes you DO have because those are what show you that you ARE making progress and ARE on the right track.

3. Others will rain on your parade

So you finally get to the point where things ARE starting to work. All of a sudden in a forum or someplace, someone RAINS on your parade.They criticize your model, your idea or your efforts.

Maybe they tell you you are pipe dreaming. Or chasing rainbows. And you let it get to you mentally, spiritually or psychically.

I don’t know why this happens. Some people just aren’t very tuned in. You have to believe in yourself and what you’re doing more than anyone else. I don’t know why it’s that way. But it is.

4. You may have a set back

Man, this one is a challenge. You’re going along. You’re making progress. You’ve got some traffic. You’re getting subscribers. Sales are coming in.

Then you have a set back. Something happens in your life, your family, or some area that holds you back or slows you down.

For me last year it was a quadruple hernia. Not exactly what I had in mind for my year. But you move forward. That’s all you can do.

5. You may think or feel that finally you’ve reached a point where “it isn’t working.”

Anytime you’re acquiring a complex set of skills, that can happen. It’s a signal to do some things different. To up your Game. To tweak what you’re doing and how.

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Solutions for You

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If you’re trying to build a steady stream of traffic on your own, you’re in for an uphill climb. You’ll need to spend a lot of time (such as on tasks like search engine optimization), a lot of money (such as on pay per click marketing) – or both.

Fortunately, there’s an easier way to get loads of traffic very quickly – and for free. All you have to do is leverage other people’s traffic and resources. Read on to discover ten ways to get other people to send you their traffic…

1. Be a Guest Blogger

Some bloggers solicit guest articles, in which case you can create a blog post and submit it for consideration. However, even those that don’t advertise accepting guest articles may be open to the idea if you give them a reason why they should.

For example, you can:

• Trade articles with the blogger (so that they get to post an article on your blog too).

• Use the blog owner’s affiliates links in your article, so that they make money when their readers buy a product.

• Offer something else attractive in trade, such as an endorsement in your newsletter.

2. Recruit Them to Your Affiliate Program

One quick and easy way to sell more products using other peoples’ traffic is by asking them to join your affiliate program.

If you’re selling digital products, you should offer at least a 50% commission rate to affiliates, and even higher for “super affiliates” (those who can send you a lot of traffic and sales). You may even offer additional perks, such as bonuses or discounts for their customers.

Tip: You can quickly and easily set up an affiliate program for your digital products using Clickbank.com (which is also a payment processor).

3. Trade Blog Links

Instead of trading content, you can trade blog links with other people in your niche (AKA “blogrolling”).

The first benefit is that it’s visible for a long period of time, as usually these links are permanently placed on the front page of the blog.

Secondly, you can also get a search engine optimization benefit if the blog has a high Google Page Rank (and if you use your keywords as the anchor text for your link).

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WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE? An affiliate is someone who promotes other people’s products or services. When you become an affiliate you have a money making business opportunity but you have none of the worries or expenses of a typical business. You’ll never have the bother of dealing with processing or shipping an order or be involved with customer care.

You will however receive money for your promotional efforts. When someone purchases a product or service through your efforts you receive a commission on the sale. All you have to do is promote and wait to receive your payment cheques.

WHERE DO I FIND AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM?

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs to choose from. Many of them will tell you that you will earn thousands and thousands of dollars per month if you join them. They will state all the amazing benefits to you and how new and fabulous their particular product or service is. I’m sure you have seen these advertisements everywhere on the Internet. If you type in affiliate programs into your search engine you will see what I mean. You will also just come across them as you are surfing.

It can be quite over whelming to make a choice.

HOW DO I DECIDE WHICH AFFILIATE PROGRAM IS FOR ME?

There are three approaches to choosing the right program for you. Choose something that has a high demand Choose something that you have a passion for. Combine the above two points so you will have a product that is in high demand and you are passionate about it. I personally think a combination of these approaches is the best.

If you choose something that is in high demand then there will be a market for the product or service. It is essential to have a market otherwise you will find that no one will be interested in buying from you. The down side here however is when there is a high demand there is also a lot of competition.

If you choose something you are passionate about then you’ll have more fun and you’ll be more passionate about what you are promoting. When you have something you can put your heart and soul into you will generally do better than if you are promoting something you don’t care about or know nothing about.

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An Open Letter To My Subscribers, Affiliates, Partners, Friends and Customers. Let me say one thing up front: I’m not quitting as an internet marketer.

Let’s get that settled from the beginning. This is NOT another one of those “I’m retiring from internet marketing” deals. I’ve put in almost ten years as a full-time internet marketer and I hope to have many more decades of it in the future.

H – o – w – e – v – e – r … I AM “retiring” ALL of my current products, membership sites, coaching programs, ebooks, software programs, small reports, etc.

What do I mean by “retiring”?

I mean I am systematically going to begin removing ALL of my current offers from the internet and discontinuing the sale of them. Once they are removed, they will no longer be available for purchase.

The offers will be removed, one at a time, at a rate of about every 7-10 days. Everyone on my list will be given advance notice of what product is being removed with the date of removal. This will give everyone ample time to purchase anything they are interested in before it is gone.

August of this year will mark my 10 year anniversary since going full-time. I launched ProfitsVault.com in August 2000. (As a side note, I’ll be totally revamping that site and relaunching it in August of this year to celebrate!)

I’m not “quitting” internet marketing, but I’m going to scale back tremendously.

In a matter of weeks, every single current offer (ebook, membership site, etc.) will have been removed from the Internet and no longer available for purchase.

The big question is — WHY?

There are three quick reasons that I want to share…

1. To free up time for personal interests.

I’ve got a book that’s being released in March called “Lessons That Leave A Mark” for Sunday School teachers and another one that will be done for release in July or August. I’m going back to Poland this summer as the mission trip team leader. I’ve been speaking at some churches and have a Christian based membership site that should launch sometime first quarter 2010. I just feel like my life needs to head in more of a ministry direction. Plus there are a lot of other personal things that I want to give more of my time to such as family trips (we’re gone somewhere almost every month … and loving it!) and running, tennis, backpacking. Life is too short to work all the time and we’ve been blessed enough over the past ten years that we can spend the next ten doing what we enjoy and feel called to do. (NOTE: You can keep up with my ministry stuff at my “other” blog … http://www.LifeTurns.com)

2. To streamline my business.

Despite the fact that I outsource most of my customer support these days, there are still a lot of day to day operations stuff that I’m involved in that demand my time. When you oversee more than 100 different offers, it can be time draining trying to train team members to handle new FTC rules, update sites, use new technologies, troubleshoot errors, not offend 20,000 customers who all feel like “personal friends” which require a personal response, etc. By having only 1-2 offers out there to maintain as opposed to 100+, I’ll be able to be more personal with my customers and eliminate a lot of time drain.

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After you have joined an affiliate program, there are several crucial steps you will need to take in order to succeed. Without taking the steps outline below, your chances of succeeding will be limited. By simply following these guidelines, you will be able to increase your affiliate commissions and earn some money you can live on.

A lot of people fail with affiliate programs because they do not have the necessary affiliate program information.

Generally, the best way of succeeding with affiliate programs in to choose a niche; create a useful and content-rich and keyword-rich website on the specific topic of your niche, and add in your affiliate links and AdSense ads.

So what is the critical affiliate program information you will need to know, and the steps you need to take for you to succeed with your affiliate program?

1. Set your objective of how much you want to earn. You will need a goal to work towards. How much do you want to earn per month? It also helps to visualize what you want to achieve with this goal. Pay off your car? A holiday? You must start with an achievable amount, and gradually increase this amount.

2. Find a niche that suits you and your interests. Your business is a long term commitment, thus you will need to get involved with an affiliate program in a niche that interests you. The internet is full of affiliate program information; make an effort to do your research and find the best niche to suit your interests. One big mistake I see newbies make is right out of the gate they jump on the internet marketing niche which is highly competitive. If you can get into a niche you have high degree of interest in. Success tends to come quicker.

3. Select a lucrative niche. You will need to have affiliate program information about how profitable any opportunity you are interested in will do. Your goal is to make money, and you need to establish how profitable your business will be. The internet has information about profitable niches, and you will need to know these before you decide the best opportunity for you.

4. Another critical affiliate program information you will need to have is the reputation of the affiliate merchant. You need programs with good reputation and high quality products or services that will be easy to sell.

5. Create a useful, motivating, content-rich and keyword-rich website which search engines will pick. Offer some free tips and tools on your site; make your visitors want to come back to your site. This is very critical because more visitors to your site mean more sales and more money for you.

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