Sunday, January 04, 2009

10 steps to making money in SFI

The best way to build a thriving business is to take it one step at a time. Post the following 10 steps to making money in SFI in a prominent place on your wall as a constant reminder of your willingness to succeed...and encourage your team members to do the same!

Step1
Sell SFI's products and services by advertising your Gateway Websites.

Step2
Recruit new affiliates into your network by advertising your Gateway Websites.

Step3
Upgrade yourself to Executive Affiliate (EA) status as soon as you can—10 SVP per month, anyway you like it.

Step4
Upgrade yourself to Team Leader (TL) status as soon as you can. See SFI Compensation Plan for more details.)

Step5
Monitor your network to ensure as many of your affiliates as possible become EAs as soon as possible.

Step6
Monitor your network to ensure as many of your EAs as possible become Team Leaders as soon as possible.

Step7
Pass these steps you're reading right now on to each person in your team, preferably as soon as they come on board.

Step8
Check out the SFI products or services of your choice. Your actions will help the company and your own business thrive.

What skills do you need to succeed in IM?


I've had a couple of email discussions with members recently who were worried about their ability to succeed in Internet Marketing because they lack what they perceive as the necessary skills.

This got me thinking about what skills/abilities you really do need to succeed. If someone had to draw up a Person Specification for an IMer what would it be like? I know from the contacts I have with others who earn their living online that there are all kinds of people from widely differing backgrounds who are trying to make money from Internet Marketing - some very successfully and others not quite so successful yet. So I thought about what, if anything, the successful ones had in common and here are some of the qualities I came up with :

Imaginative : yes there are well established methods for promotion and marketing online but of course a lot of people are already using them! Now that doesn't mean you won't have success with them but anything that makes you stand out from the crowd or makes you a little different has got to be to your advantage. Look on any Traffic Exchange for example and you will see hundreds (if not thousands!) of sales pages that all look the same. Anything you can do to attract attention to yours has got to be a good thing. I recommend that everyone has a go at creating their own website (or a blog which tends to be easier) to promote any affiliate programs you are involved with and ideally also a sales page or fast loading splash page that you can use for things like Traffic Exchanges to catch people's attention. These things are not difficult or expensive to do and if anyone in my downline in any program needs help with this or needs more information just ask and I'll do what I can. Also think about how and where you are promoting your program(s). I was speaking with someone yesterday who is currently having loads of success marketing on mySpace despite the fact that most Internet Marketers tend to dismiss mySpace as a bunch of kids wasting time. Don't just follow the crowd - find out what works for you.

Enthusiastic : you need to believe in what you're doing. If you think a program is a waste of time or not up to much then how can you sell it to others? I have actually been in this situation as recently as last year. PIPs changed some of their programs and added Success University. Now don't get me wrong - I know of lots of people who think SU is just the greatest thing and have lots of success with it, but for me it just wasn't my "cup of tea". Try as hard as I might I just couldn't get enthusiastic about it and that lack of enthusiasm obviously showed to others because in the 6 months I promoted it I didn't get one single sign up! I finally dropped that aspect of PIPs because it was never going to work for me. I gave it 6 months because I needed to make sure it wasn't for me. I had a similar experience with Empowerism when I first started out with PIPs but now I absolutely love it! I've learned so much from being a member of Empowerism I can't believe I wasn't that impressed with it at the beginning but sometimes a program can grown on you I guess!

Tenacity : of all the qualities I actually think this is the most important - probably in any kind of selling/marketing but especially in IM. The dictionary definition is "the determination to continue what you are doing" and there are times when you really, really need that determination! It's so easy to get discouraged when you're going through a "quiet spell" or even more difficult if you've not seen any results at all from your efforts yet! Everyone I know who is active in IM has gone through these periods, and I mean everyone - no exceptions. Unfortunately the hype surrounding so many online programs promises easy, fast money and for most of us that's just not how it happens. It's hard work and it takes time - you're building a business and that doesn't happen overnight no matter what the sales pitch may say!

Anyway those are just my thoughts - if you have any others to add I'd be pleased to hear them.

How To Make Money With SFI

How To Make Money With SFI

Probably the Number One question for everyone who has just signed up with SFI (or any other program for that matter) is "how do I start making money?" The good news is that with SFI there are numerous different ways but they can be categorised as
a)Promoting the SFI opportunity, and b)promoting the products from Veriuni/Nice Offers/Great Domania, etc.

The most frequent comment I hear from new affiliates has to be about the amount of information on the SFI site and how overwhelmed many of them feel by it. There is a lot of info on the site but, in my experience, the affiliates that take the time to read it all are the ones that go on to achieve the most success with SFI. Obviously I don't expect anyone to sit and read every single word on every page the first day they join but the things you should do on your first day with SFI are:

Contact Me - when you join my team in SFI you receive an email from me which gives you my contact details. Use them! Send me an email and tell me a little about yourself. This can be in the briefest terms - just a few lines if you want. My role as your personal sponsor is to help in any way I can but it helps me if I know some of the background, concerns, strong points, perceived weak points, etc of the people in my team. I want team members to feel able to contact me without hesitation and sending that initial email is also a good way to break the ice.

Complete Smart Start - https://www.sfimg.com/Training/SmartStart.sfi - this is an important introduction to the SFI program and will help you understand most of the basics. I'm amazed at the number of new affiliates who don't do this and I feel it really puts them at a disadvantage from the start. It doesn't take long to do and if there is anything in it that you are not sure about just ask me.

Visit the Discussion Board - http://www.sfidboard.com/ - a forum specifically for SFI affiliates and a useful resource for tips and ideas on promoting SFI. It's not the busiest forum you will ever use but it's a good way to see what other affiliates are doing and also Gery Carson (the CE of SFI) is available there to answer questions.

Look at your Gateway Sites - https://www.sfimg.com/MyAccount/GatewayDetails.sfi -
you should really take a thorough look because these are the things that can make you money! In particular spend time looking at the Retail Program Gateways which includes Nice Offers and Veriuni. You will see there is a wide variety of products that you can sell and earn commissions from. Also take a look at your Marketing Aids : https://www.sfimg.com/Resources/MarketingTools.sfi which include banners, leaflets and text ads.

People join SFI with different levels of experience selling online. Some have tried other programs and already know how to promote successfully. Others are completely new to affiliate marketing and don't know where to begin. Whatever your level of experience I recommend you bookmark http://www.sfiteam.com/ and refer back to it frequently. It's full of useful links and information about everything from autoresponders to classified ads.

I suggest you experiment with different methods of promotion until you find the one that produces the best results for you. Personally I find SFI very easy to promote because it is a legitimate opportunity and the quality of the products/services available is excellent. I currently have 97 affiliates in my downline and of those I recruited 71 personally. The methods I use to promote are a combination of the following :

Traffic Exchanges - free although most have a paid upgrade option which I would recommend as worthwhile for a few but not for most of them. I have some success promoting the SFI opportunity using TE's but have never sold a tangible product on a TE. I think that's mainly because most of the people using the TE's are the same as me - trying to make money online! They are not looking to buy weight loss products or pet care products but they may well be looking for a new way to make money online. I have listed some TE's on the right of the screen but there are hundreds of others that may work just as well. I don't advocate spending a lot of time surfing the TE's because they are by no means the best promotion tool but they are still worthwhile trying.

Pay Per Click ads - Google and Yahoo are the two I use for this and both have detailed descriptions of how their programs work on their sites. I strongly advise everyone to exercise caution with this one - particularly with Google Ads. They can really run away with your budget if you don't know what you're doing. PPC is probably not something that those new to Internet Marketing should jump into. I'd advise waiting until you have more experience and also until you have started earning some money so that you can identify an advertising budget.

Article Marketing - this is the primary method I use to get traffic to my affiliate links, blog and websites. The best thing about this of course is it's free! If you are not familiar with Article Marketing it involves writing an article about something which will be of interest to people and then submitting it to the numerous Article Directories online - there are literally thousands of them, some better than others. The aim of this is twofold. It not only builds links to the site you are promoting but also people read the article and are then (hopefully) interested in your product and want to find out more so visit the site you are promoting. If anyone is interested in finding out more about this marketing method contact me and I will send you a couple of useful ebooks I have on the subject. I find Article Marketing is an excellent way of promoting Veriuni products, for example their weight loss range.

My Blog/Websites - I have a number of websites which serve various purposes. When I started working online I knew absolutely nothing about website building, HTML, any of that stuff. In fact I still don't know an awful lot about some of it but through trial and error I'm getting there! If you're the same then the easiest way around this is to create your own blog. It's quick and easy - if you look at the top left of the screen click on the "B" beside the search box. This takes you to Blogger.com and you can create it from there. It's free and the directions are simple enough to follow. Having your own blog or website is important. It's establishing your online presence in a way. Also if you are going to try Article Marketing you will find that many article directories will not accept affiliate links so your own blog or website can be essential as a vehicle for advertising affiliate programs. If you are completely new to website/blog creation and need some help then contact me and I will do all I can to help.

These methods are just the ones I use most frequently. From time to time I will also try alternatives such as classified ads and solo ads but the methods above have brought me the most success so far. I suggest you experiment with various forms of advertising until you find the ones that work best for you. Don't spend a lot of money in the process though - the aim is to be making it, not spending it!

Anyone with any questions can contact me either directly to my email address which you should all have, or via the SFI site.