People ask me all kinds of questions — “Should I go with affiliate marketing or network marketing?”  “What’s the best thing to sell online?”  “How can I REALLY start a home business that makes money?”

Most of the time what people really want to know is:  How can I make the kind of money all those gurus talk about?

Well, the first thing that you need to know is that many of those internet marketing gurus aren’t being completely honest about their income, the size of their lists, or their products.  I’m sure you already knew that — after all, it’s hard to take anyone at their word anymore, especially online.

But here’s the other thing you need to know about a lot of internet marketers… for some, the major source of their income doesn’t actually come from selling their internet marketing products (or any products for that matter) online .  Let me explain…

A LOT of Internet Marketing Gurus Are MLM’ers Too!

Would it surprise you to know that a lot of those internet marketing gurus who try to sell you all kinds of marketing products actually make the majority of their income through network marketing? Some of them actually started in network marketing and then developed their internet marketing products later to sell to their downlines and then to the public.

I know that’s hard for some people to believe — network marketing — really?

After all, network marketing has gotten a really bad reputation over the last several years.  But I actually have proof that internet marketing gurus make a substantial part of their income from network marketing… Click here for proof.

See any marketing names that you recognize? How about Jim Daniels, Yanik Silver, Rosalind Gardner, Frank Kern, Terry Dean, Bryan Kumar, and Mike Chen?  Several years ago I was even approached by Corey Rudl about a MLM opportunity – even though he flatly denied it to his internet marketing followers.

So why do so many internet marketers dabble in network marketing as well?

Because there’s HUGE money in network marketing!

In fact, network marketing is exactly like affiliate marketing in a lot of ways… the only REAL difference is that network marketers get paid down several levels for their efforts, resulting in more income, while affiliate marketers only get paid on one or two levels.

Network marketing is a GOLD MINE if you know how to do it!

Should You Follow In The Guru’s Footsteps?

Like any other home based business, some will succeed and some will fail… But one of the real benefits of network marketing over just about any other home business is the possibility of absolutely HUGE paydays.  You just can’t make as much money as quickly in any other business model.

But that’s not the only reason that I like network marketing as part of my own business.

For me, the best thing about network marketing is that I can mentor, coach, and train people in their home businesses for FREE.

Let me explain… In a traditional coaching, mentoring, or training career, the coach earns their living from charging clients an hourly fee.   Frankly, I never liked the idea of charging by the hour. I always found it restrictive and uncomfortable because some clients need a lot more attention than others. …And you can’t always reach the people who need you most because they can’t afford to spend $300 per hour on this kind of service.

But now I can provide unlimited personalized coaching, mentoring, and training, centered around an EXTREMELY lucrative home business model, to people who really need the help and support, and EVERYBODY WINS!

• I get to help people to develop a successful home business that can absolutely change their lives… This is an AWESOME way to earn a living!
• The people I coach get REAL help and training from an expert so that they have a REAL chance to make it in home business and turn their lives around.

For me it’s a win/win situation.

But how do you know if it’s right for you?  Here are the basic reasons why you might want to consider getting into network marketing:

1. You’d like to supplement your current home business income.
2. You’d like to bump your income to the next level.
3. You’re struggling trying to make it with affiliate marketing.
4. You really need a coach/trainer to help you make it.
5. You’ve never had a home business before and you don’t know what to do.
6. You don’t know anything about marketing or internet marketing.
7. You’re already an expert and want the chance to help others reach your level of income.

Still don’t know if network marketing might be your thing?  That’s okay… I was skeptical at first too.

But the network marketing business model is built in such a way that you can actually test-run it for a month or two to see if you like it.  If you don’t like it — move on to something else.  There are tons of network marketing companies out there, so you’re bound to find one that will work for you and your lifestyle.

After all, network marketing seems to be the “best kept secret” of many successful internet marketing gurus — maybe it’s worth looking into.

Learn more about my FREE coaching program… Click here!

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

How Do Gurus REALLY Make Money?

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Welcome to Arvada’s Answers on this Podcast Wednesday!

Starting this week, my plan is to produce a weekly online business and marketing podcast. The idea is to provide you with quick marketing tips, news that affects online business, and a little food for thought to get you thinking about how to turn your website into a money-making machine.  I’ve posted my notes from the podcast below in case you’d like some to follow along.

Now let’s get started!

Really Bad Domain Names

I came across a list of really bad website domains and thought I’d share a few of the least raunching ones.

• chooses pain.com

A tourism site for Spain: choose spain.com

• children slaughter.com

Children’s charity: childrens laughter.com

• dollar sex change.com

Currency trading site: dollars exchange.com

• expert sex change.com

Computer advice site: experts exchange.com

• got a hoe.com

Lake Tahoe tourism: go tahoe.com

• the rapist finder.com

California therapists directory: therapist finder.com

• molestation nursery.com

Plant nursery: mole station nursery.com

I guess that just proves that you really need to think about those domains before you buy them!

Amazon Standing Up Against Taxes

Apparently North Carolina is trying to pump up their tax revenue and they’ve decided to require out-of-state digital retailers who sell within North Carolina’s borders to be subject to state sales tax. As a result of this new sales tax, Amazon.com severed their relationship with all their associates in North Carolina.

A friend of mine sent me an email he received from Amazon that went out to their North Carolina affiliates. Here’s what it says:

“We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor. As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 26. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation’s effective date…

In the event that North Carolina repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to North Carolina residents.”

I say good for Amazon. Taxing people for online purchases is going to hurt us all as both consumers and online businesses. I hope all the “big boys” of online retail do the same thing and force state goverments to leave online purchases alone.

Arvada’s Answers

Here’s a question that I recently received from a blog subscriber:

“Arvada, can you explain the difference between upselling, cross-selling, and backend selling? Are they all really just the same thing or are they completely completely different? I’m confused.”

Based on a lot of the email and questions that I get, I think a lot of people are confused and don’t understand the difference between upsell, cross-sell, and a backend sale, so here’s a quick and dirty explanation of each term.

The upsell works like this:

After a visitor makes a purchase, but before they’ve actually paid for it, you attempt to upgrade them to a more expensive or more profitable product.

McDonald’s is a perfect example of the upsell when they ask you if you’d like to “super-size” your order. Most people go for the upsell, that’s why a lot of businesses use it.

A cross-sell works like this:

After a visitor makes their purchase, but before they’ve actually paid, you attempt to sell them a complimentary product. Think of the whole, “Would you like fries with that?” thing and you’ll understand the cross sell. Fast food strikes again!

Lastly, there’s the back-end sale.

Back-end sales are when you follow up with your customers at a later time and offer them additional products. In this case, it could be a complementary or related product to something they’ve already purchased from you. For example, if you sold a software program you might want to sell special DVD’s that provide unusual or additional ways to use the software.

When it comes to backend sales, you can also offer products that you believe customers would be interested in, even if they aren’t directly related to the original purchase.

Using any and all of these marketing tactics will improve your income if you learn how to set up your campaigns effectively. You can even use affiliate products to supplement your own offerings.

Comic Relief

I thought I’d end this edition of Arvada’s Answers on Podcast Wednesday with an audio clip that I thought was really funny — although it’s got a little bit of basic schoolboy humor in it.

My nine year old son absolutely loved it!

It’s a spoof advertisement for National Bean Month. I bet you can figure out where we’re going here.

Just imagine how many customers you could gain if you could figure out a way to get their attention. This ad would certainly do it!

[You'll have to listen to the podcast above to hear the clip]

And that’s it for Arvada’s Answers on Podcast Wednesday. I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll take the time to post a comment and let me know what you think of this new podcast format.

I’ll see you next week!

Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

Domains, Taxes, Upselling and Farts

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If you’re already selling anything online, this article is going to show you how to add extra revenue you didn’t even know you had “hiding” in your site without getting any more visitors.

Overlooked Way #1 – An Upsell:

If you’ve been in marketing for any time, you’ve probably heard of “upsells” or “bumps.” Car dealers are excellent at using this technique. Once you have agreed to buy a car you then go into the finance office. This finance guy is really another place where they try to extract as much money as possible from you; dealer financing, extended warranties, rust coating, a low-jack security system, etc. These additions will normally add as much, or more, profit to the dealer as the original sale.

These are upsells or cross-sells.

Another great example is if you’ve ever called a late night infomercial you will be given an upsell. They will offer you a special deal on the third bottle of super grime cleaner if you buy 2 bottles. These upsells usually end up bringing more profit than the original item people intended to purchase.

Why not do the same online?

This little “magic trick” can instantly increase your profits 20-66% even without getting any additional business or website visitors. It works great because your prospect is all hot and heavy and ready to buy. They’ve got their credit card in their hand and they’ve already made the commitment. (If you read Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” you’ll see commitment and consistency is a key psychological trigger.)

There are a couple ways I’ve successfully used upsells on my sites:

First you can use an “intermediary” page. Once prospects click on the order buttons they’re taken to a new page (and not the order form). This page tells people about a special offer that is for today only and that they can get a ‘deluxe’ or ‘gold’ version of the package for X dollars more. You can make the upsell a big dollar amount or a small insignificant little ‘bump’. I do this on Instant Sales Letters and my numbers have been quite good using this technique – as high as 68% some days. So think about my additional profit margins just by inserting this one extra page. Awesome!

Another way of doing this is by “recommending” a product. Anytime you buy something from Amazon – that’s exactly what they do. Up comes a page that “Customers who bought __ also bought__” and then they have a slew of products.

Next, you can also have the upsell right on the Order page. I’ve even used something as simple as putting a check box on my order form on Instant Internet Profits. It could be that simple. On this we get a 25% upsell rate. Take a look at what appears at the bottom after the customer has already filled out their info to buy the course. You have to play fair and let people get the original price and package you offered but there’s no reason you shouldn’t add a complimentary upsell immediately. The upsell is one of the easiest (and most profitable) techniques you can start implementing tomorrow. This is like the “would you like fries” strategy. Unless you’re offering “fries” you’re missing out on tons and tons of profit. You simply need to come up with a couple more compelling bonuses, packages or up-sells that people will get for the upgrade.

Overlooked Way #2 – Thank You Pages:

After upsells, I’d say ‘thank you’ pages are one of the most overlooked profit hot-spots. Once again, there are several ways I’ve used this technique.

First of all, anytime somebody buys a product from you online – they are taken to some kind of thank you page. Most people will simply put “Thank you for your order” and that’s it. They leave the customer with their credit card in their hands to go off to some other website and give them money. Why not give people a special deal on the thank you page or at least give them links to your other products or other people’s products that you make an affiliate commission on?

Now if it’s a digital product – then they need to get their download but you can also put some recommended resources right on the download page. At the bottom of the digital download page for Public Domain Riches we have a recommendation for the new Public Domain Gold Mine(tm) package.

Those aren’t the only thank you pages. Many people totally forget about the ‘thank you’ pages that come up after someone signs up for your list. Now where you want to send them will depend on where they are in the sales process – but you can have a list of recommended resources that comes up AFTER people subscribe to your email list.

Why not?

If that’s the last action you were expecting – you should look for ways to profit from this.

Overlooked Way #3 – Thank You Emails/Confirmations:

Don’t forget the initial email confirmation you send back to your customers. Last technique we talked about making offers on the thank you page but your ‘thank you’ email is one of the most read emails. In addition to the ‘typical’ stuff you should include like customer service information, who will bill their credit card, etc why not add a simple P.S. to the bottom of the email like I do offering additional resources (or even a special deal just for customers).

I guarantee just putting these 3 easy overlooked ways to work on your site will help squeeze out even more profits for you & without adding a single visitor. Give it a try.

(c) Surefire Marketing, Inc.

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Yanik Silver is recognized as the leading expert on creating automatic, moneymaking websites…and he still doesn’t know how to put up a website.

He is the author, co-author or creator of several best-selling online marketing books and tools, including his newest resource – http://imarketingwatch.com/ap/ultimatecopywritingworkshop.php
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Post from: Arvada Yates at iMarketingWatch.com

If you'd like to get more answers to your online business and internet marketing questions, subscribe to Answers eMagazine now!

Make More Money: 3 Overlooked Profit Opportunities on Your Site

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