Business, economic development - the unofficial Chamber of Commerce

The first and most important thought or impulse with respect to affiliate marketing must be to have a viable product or service. There are thousands of possibilities in life and your own experiences to choose from. Keep in mind though that your best success will come from knowing what people need and want. Make it a point to understand what people feel passionate about. Place no limit on the research that will allow you to know how an un-fulfilled need will impact their lives now and far into the future. Then you can link this knowledge with unbridled passion. Success comes when you find a way to share this knowledge and passion with people. This is timeless act of finding a need and fulfilling it.

The next step in affiliate marketing is to narrow your findings down to a niche market. This will be a group whose needs you thoroughly understand. These findings are what you build your business around. The wonder of the world we live in is that we don’t need to continually re-invent the wheel. There are countless products and services on the market that are waiting to be repackaged and sold. One excellent way of knowing what people initially needis to study what they search for on the internet. This study will enable you to plan the structure of your website to attract a high volume of visitors from the major search engines, and induce them to them to buy your product or service, and/or become affiliates.

Overture has an excellent tool for keying in words and finding out what the traffic was for the previous month. Included will be information on any similar words and their number of inquiries as well. This really opens up the understanding of what people are passionate about and searching for. You can then pull up any major search enginekey in a word or phrase and you’ll be able to note the number of websites associated with your inquiry. Pay special attention to the first twenty websites, and how they are structured for keyword content. The keyword content is the secret of what is going to drive inquiring minds to your website.

The basic business plan for affiliate marketing never varies in content. New age marketing will center on these four fundamental ideas. Productknowing the needs of your niche market and fulfilling them. Placefinding the right informational and technological tools to find and distribute your product to your intended niche market. Promotionhaving the knowledge and savvy to place that information in the minds and hands of your target group. Priceknowing what your customers are willing to spend for solving their needs.

Add to this Powerthe right visuals and communications; and Passionthe energy generated in believing in and delivering a product, and you have a winning mix for success.

The affiliate marketing business plan you create should not only find your customer, but should also have so have the right combination of tools to retain your customer for repeat sales. Search for software business programs that will allow you to generate newsletters to interested customers informing them of promotional offers or affiliate opportunities. Though automatically generated, it gives your outreach a solid approach, and your prospects will appreciate the follow-up and attention.

Keep in mind it’s going to be a dual role in finding a successful business plan. One half of your concern will be in finding customers that will purchase your product or serviceand hopefully repeatedly. The other challenge will be to turn these prospects into affiliate members that have the same drive and passion about the product or service. Presenting the product as a stand-alone entity best does this. This can be accomplished by looking at the product and its benefits in meeting your niche market’s needs solely by itself. If there were no affiliate opportunity, would the product or service itself generate income while providing a high level of satisfaction to the customer?

This area of concern is often overlooked, and is why many programs fail to recruit and maintain affiliates. Any good business plan in the new marketing age will also focus on creating a dynamic and effective web site. There are endless packages to choose from, and many businesses that can develop and host your content for the right price. Once again though, it comes right back to thoroughly knowing your product and what it’s meant to accomplish. Web developers cannot create the dreamthey can only interpret it.

There are good affiliate marketing plans already in place. These programs usually come with all of the knowledge and support structures ready to use. Then it becomes an act of plug and play. The same rules of knowing your product and customer’s needs will also apply. You may be at the stage of growing the business by looking for affiliate members to join up. Finally, you may be a pioneer with an entirely new product, or a twist on one that’s been around for some time and you’re looking to build a down-line of customers and affiliates. Whatever the case and stage of developmentknow, understand, and utilize the time honored rules of success.

David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles Newsletter. David specializes in helping people achieve affiliate marketing success by offering real world tips and strategies. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter at: http://www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com

Case Studies can help professional service providers build trust and credibility with clients and prospects. When you are working with intangibles such as services it hard to prove what you can do and why you are the best person to provide the services that your prospective clients need. Case studies can help you shine and prove your worth to potential customers and current clients.

What are Case Studies and Why are they created?

Case Studies are success stories using your product or services. When you create a Case Study you are telling your readers how a client a problem that needed solving. How you solved the client’s problem and turned the client into a happy and satisfied customer.

Once you decide to create your case study. You need to decide which customer’s story would make a good case study. You should choose a customer who has been a client of your business for some time. Ask the client for permission to interview them and create a case study. Try and get quotes that you can use.

When you write you case study try and show how you solved one client’s problem. If you were able to solve other problems, write additional cases studies. You also want to create case studies that set you apart from your competition. This is a great opportunity to showcase your talents and skills.

The case studies that you create should be easy to read and understand, like reading a story. Try to keep your case studies close to one page. You can include figures, facts, diagrams but make sure that they flow easily within the story that you are telling.

Case Studies are broken down into three sections: Problem, Solution and Results.

You being the case study by breaking down a problem that a client was facing. You provide the details of the problem. You give enough background information to tell the problem and the problems significance.

The Problem

Mary and Thomas Dailey a couple in their middle 50″s, faced with the problem of paying for their children’s education and funding their retirement. When they came to see me, their children were 14 and 16 year’s old. They were looking to retire before their youngest child would finish college. They did not want to use up their retirement fund to finance their children’s education and they did not desire to keep working past retirement age.

Once you have stated the problem, you provide the details of how you came up with a solution to your client’s problem. At this point, you tell the steps you took to find a solution to your customer’s problem.

The Solution

I sat down with the Daily’s and we did a breakdown of their finances and future goals. We looked at their children’s grades and interest in and outside of school. The Daily’s had saved enough money for their children to attend public universities. At the time both of their children were looking at attending private prestigious universities.

Their oldest child Maria was an “A” student, on the soccer team and fluent in French. Their youngest child Matthew was also an “A” student, played basketball and volunteered for a wildlife preserve association. We had Maria and Matthew decide what three colleges they really wanted to attend and looked into the financial programs available for families that do not qualify for need-based financial aid.

We were able to determine that the children should be able to receive academic and sports scholarships. We also determined that they could defer saving for retirement for a couple of years to beef up their children’s college funds. When the youngest child entered college, they could then return to saving for retirement. The Daily’s would be able to send their children to college without sacrificing their retirement savings.

Once the solution has been provided, you tell the readers what the results were. Here you get to tell the effectiveness of your solution and the benefits that your client received having used your solution.

The Results

The Daily’s put off saving for their retirement for three years and invested into their children’s education fund. Through careful research and planning the children were able to receive scholarships. The family was able to finance what the scholarships did not cover.

After saving for the children’s education they resumed saving for their retirement. Ten years later Mary and Thomas are happily retired. Enjoying a life of leisure and their children have finished college, without having large student loans to repay.

Case Studies are a valuable resource. It allows you to show your expertise in action. A case study can be more powerful then your brochure or sales literature. Case studies allow you show prospects what you can do for them as you have done successfully for others. If you are adding, case studies to you website. Regularly add new case studies so that readers will keep coming back to your website to check on updates. The more your prospective clients visit your website. The more they will begin to feel as if they know you. Once they get to know you, they begin to trust you and your judgement. We all know that people do business with people they feel they know, not strangers.

It doesn’t matter whether you provide a service or product. Case studies can go a long way toward building trust and credibility with prospects and current clients.

Jennifer Woodard is a freelance Copywriter/Marketing Communications Consultant. If you would like more information, she can be reached at msjenniferwoodard@yahoo.com You can also join her monthly marketing group newsletter at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/JustWriteMarketingNewsletter

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The average pedophile will victimize between 50-150 children before he comes to the attention of law enforcement. A large and growing number of predators have gravitated towards the internet, reasoning that browsing the personal profiles children themselves post on instant message services and anonymously lurking in chat rooms is less risky and more effective than hanging around playgrounds and schoolyards. The number of predators using the internet to groom children for future exploitation rises every month. Winclear is the only software which is capable of removing keylogger programs. I know for sure that you are aware of the words “identity theft and fraud” online phishing and scam. Winclear has been the industry leader in fighting keyloggers for the last 8 years.

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As an entrepreneur, I’m always intrigued by small businesses, home-based or not, that exceed the expectations of their customers in a big way.

Let me tell you about one of them.

Recently I spent some time with my daughter in her college town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We were spending the day getting her apartment ready for her return to school in the fall. When it was time for lunch, she wanted to take me to a restaurant in the small town of Northport, just to the north of Tuscaloosa.

Northport is one of those typical southern small towns whose downtown area has been converted into a delightfully quaint shopping area. Central to it is a restaurant called City Cafe.

What an experience.

We arrived at the location at 11:30 a.m. Typically I like going to restaurants for lunch at that time so that one can “beat the rush.” I commented on this to my daughter before we arrived; she just laughed.

When we walked in, I understood why. I faced a room with

1. a lunch counter to the left (full)

2. booths to the right (full) and

3. a line that stretched all the way to the back wall and then circled around.

Like visitors to Disney World, we automatically took our place at the end of the line. Then I began to look toward the front of the line and realized that it continued on into another room (which I couldn’t see). So I asked my daughter, “where is the FRONT of this line?”

Her response - “you’ll see.”

Sheesh!

So I began to look around at the diners surrounding me. Their plates were piled high with what can only be described as “down home Southern cooking.” And the diners themselves? A quick glance around the room told me that this establishment attracted customers from every walk of life. At this moment, however, they all had one thing in common - the serious business of eating.

Meanwhile, the aroma was making my mouth water. So I turned my attention back to the ultimate end of the line. When would I have my turn?

About 15 minutes later we made our way to the next room. It was there I discovered that the front of the line ended at the doorway between this room and yet ANOTHER room. Both of these rooms had two rows of booths on either side. I didn’t count them, but my estimate is about six on each side of the room, making about 24 booths in total. They could sit as many as four to a booth.

I looked around for a hostess; there was none. Then I began to understand the system; you waited in line with your party, and when someone got up from one of these booths, you just went and sat down. Period.

The waitress appeared at our table almost instantaneously, cleared off the previous diners’ plates, wiped the table, and took our drink orders. Actually, what she said was, “Tea?” And you’re an idiot if you order anything else. It’s important to note here that if you order tea anywhere in the Deep South, it is understood that it comes iced and sweetened. If you want it any other way, you’d better tell them that.

Time to check out the menu. It was at this time I realized that City Cafe operates five days a week only - Monday through Friday. The lunch menu consisted of your choice of entree and/or vegetables which you chose from the list for that particular day of the week. The price of the meal was determined by the number of vegetables and entrees you chose.

This was Tuesday; my choices included fried green tomatoes. Who was I to pass this up? Beef tips with rice and steamed squash rounded out my meal, but I could just as easily have chosen from a dozen other tempting selections. It was tough to pass up the fried okra and steamed cabbage (my daughter chose the cabbage along with chicken-fried steak), but I was pleased with my meal. Dinner rolls and cornbread were, of course, provided as well.

And the tea? Try drinking it to the bottom of the glass - won’t happen at City Cafe. It’s another person’s job to make sure of that.

The price for both our meals? I spent $10.75 - but $3.00 of that was a tip. No kidding. She and I had dined at a well-known restaurant chain the night before and the tip for that meal was the same as the price of the City Cafe meal itself.

Guess which one I enjoyed the most?

About The Author

Cathy Bryant’s newsletter, HomeBizJunction Herald, has just entered its fourth year of publication. Subscribe today by visiting her website, http://www.homebizjunction.com, and you will benefit from her practical, no-nonsense information on how YOU can achieve your dream of working from home!

Affiliate marketing is still an excellent way to earn quick
cash from the internet. I say quick because there’s no need
to research and develop your own product. All the hard
work’s already been done.

Although it’s great to have all the R&D done for you, you
still need to possess certain qualities, a business
mentality if you will, to succeed.

The need for these qualities lies in the fact that as a
person who’ll be most likely be working out of your own home
you need to acquire a mindset that’s geared towards work
first, setting aside not only a place to work in your home
but also a time to work. A time when no one else should be
allowed to take you from your tasks.

With that being said, here’s a breakdown of five of the
qualities most successful affiliate marketers will have.

The first quality’s the willingness to learn and be
trained. There are a few tricks that the ultra successful
affiliate marketer uses that can be applied to any niche.
It doesn’t matter what topic you’re covering, what niche
audience you’re targeting. When you learn the secrets of
the professional affiliates you’ll discover that there’s a
definite pattern to their success.

The second quality’s self-determination. There’s a lot of
competition, a lot of other affiliates promoting the same
products as you. You need to be a self motivator. You need
to be able to push yourself to finish tasks within a set
time frame and complete one project before starting another.

The third’s a quality that takes a lot of thought. This
would be the ability to think outside the box. Because
although you have to be able to follow the lead that other
successful affiliates have set, your biggest asset will be
how well you can differentiate yourself from everyone else.

The reason for this is that most affiliate programs will
give you pre-made sales material. Some will give you email
announcements, banners and even articles to post on your
site. By studying the products you’re promoting and
creating your own material you can literally gain a whole
different untapped segment of your target audience.

A special note on this subject. Always read the affiliate
agreement before creating your own material. Some programs
may prohibit or limit what you can create for their product.

The fourth quality’s discipline. This quality goes hand in
hand with self-determination. As I said earlier, you have to
have the ability to set aside all the distractions that
come with working from home, and believe me they’re
numerous. Setting your time, your space, is paramount to
your success!

The last and possibly most important quality is optimism.

You’ll definitely need this because nine times out of ten
you’ll be surrounded by nay sayers. Loved ones, friends,
neighbors and co-workers will try to tear you down, tell
you you’re nuts and simply put a serious crimp in your
attitude. Don’t let them! Always keep a good attitude and
never let anyone tell you “You can’t!” Remember what the
ultimate goal is and keep striving for it.

Success as an affiliate marketer’s a much shorter road from
start to finish than that of the traditional business
owner but the traits needed for both are basically the same.

Do you have what it takes?

Want to get paid every month whether you worked or not?
Discover the secrets of an affiliate marketing master
at http://www.onlinewealthsolutions.com/affpayday/

It’s not a secret that context ads are an excellent way to get additional income from your site. Google AdSence and Yahoo are current leaders in this market and pay fairly high amounts per click. But is there a way to get more for the leads generated from your site than just a few cents (in most cases)? Yes, there is but it’s not for everyone!

So, let’s take a look at couple scenarios that will hopefully help you determine what type of context ads you should use:

1. If you have an informational site with nothing to sell or a site you are using to attract certain type of visitors than Google AdSence or Yahoo Ads are for you. They require minimum involvement from you to get them running and are not competing with what you have to offer.

2. If your website used to sell any type of product, be it an informational or some hard goods you have to be very careful placing above mentioned ads on your site. There is a very good chance that competing products will be displayed there and instead of getting your product sold - you loosing customer when they click on one of the ads. What about sites that are not accepted into programs mentioned above due to their targeting to a very specific customer niche? If this sounds like you - than you should read this article.

First and foremost let me explain my idea of why AdSence or Yahoo ads could be damaging to your online business.

You have build your site, worked hard to make it Search Engine Optimized, add a content targeting you customer base, perhaps even use one of the PPC services to get those customers to your pages, where you present your sales campaign with a full force. You rightfully expect results, since you worked so hard, doesn’t matter what type of results: be it a product sale, newsletter sign-up, paid membership or any other form. You get the idea. Now let’s look at visitors that come to your page. For the sake of simplicity I will split them into 3 distinct categories:

1. Directly targeted customer. He has come to your site in search of exact information or service you have to offer. How he got there is not important and I leave it up to your imagination. This one is almost guaranteed to become your customer as long as he found what he needed. Not likely to be distracted, although it could happen.

2. An accidental visitor. He got to your site by pure chance, click on search engine or any other means. What you have to offer doesn’t interest him and he is just glancing. If you are extremely good marketer - you might be able to convert him into customer but chance are that 99 out of hundred will simply leave your site. I’m not even going to waste my time on this group.

3. A searching customer. He has come to your site searching for something that falls into same category as what you are offering but he is looking. He likes what he sees on your site but due to his nature he is not sure … he feels that your carefully crafted sales pitch is getting to him … he is almost ready to take the action you want him to … and at same time he feels been sold and just looking for ANY way (excuse) to get away from it. Here comes into play contextual ads from one of the services mentioned above that in most cases will offer an ad from you direct competitor. He sees it and decides to investigate, clicks on ad and he is gone from your site! You might have gotten a few cents or dollars but you just lost a customer. I hope you are happy with results and satisfied with a small chunk of change you just got from that ad!

There is a way to fix that situation! People will always click on ads and you cannot stop it short of not having any on your site! How about another option: still use ads that present information to same category of people that visit your site but are not competing with your offer? And how about getting a 40-75% of profits from each sale generated by these ads?

Here is what I use on couple of my niche sites. It requires some basic technical knowledge and ClickBank account. If you don’t have one just go and register - it’s free. Once you complete registration you have the ability to sell affiliate products from ClickBank market place and get the commissions from each sale. Average commission is about 50%. Only we will do the sales intelligently and have them displayed in form of context ads on your site. I offer a quick review of couple scripts that could be easily installed on your site and get you the profits you deserve:

1. CBQuickAds. Script is free to download and extremely easy to use. Once installed all you have to do is specify your click bank account and a category of CB market place to be displayed on your site. It will automatically pull current available products and show them on your site. You can control what products are displayed by using variable to make sure that your competition is not shown, although it’s not guaranteed.

Pluses: Easy to install and setup. Fully automated solution.

Minuses: You can’t control what exactly is shown. Only supports text ads.

Author of the script offers a “pay for” solution that creates a directory from CB market place but its not what we need and who wants to pay when you can have something fro free.

2. Ads-Rotator. Script is very easy to install and use. Comes with a list of ads from CB market place ready to use, just replace the account with yours and start generating sales. Has an admin interface through which you can ad or remove any ads or affiliate links and not just ClickBank. Gives you an option to use horizontal or vertical ads. Supports any type of ads be it a text ads or a banner rotators.

Pluses: Easy to install and setup. Can be used as advertisement solution for your entire site. Has an easy to use admin interface with reporting of number of clicks generated by each ad. You have full control of what ads are displayed.

Minuses: Not fully automated. Not free.

This is a solution I use myself and highly recommend to anyone.

Visit Author’s site: Free-Secrets to Home Based Business to get additional details on location of both scripts.

Millions of people check the news everyday– in the morning paper, online, and on the nightly news.But far too often affiliates do not find out what has occurred in affiliate marketing that day; this is important because affiliate marketing changes daily.There are many resources for affiliate marketers to learn about the day’s happenings. The best way to learn about the changes in affiliate marketing is by visiting forums often.

Forums provide a great resource by allowing new affiliates to learn from the experts.New affiliates hear and learn about the different opinions and techniques that are used in the industry.In turn, this information helps educate the affiliates and helps them decide whether they agree or disagree on the particular subject or technique.By visiting forums often you can learn timesaving tips as well as common mistakes that you can avoid.

Here are some of the most popular forums that are most useful for affiliates:

• AbestWeb: http://www.abestweb.com/
  Who it’s for: affiliate program managers and affiliate marketers.

With over 14,000 members this is a vast pool of knowledge that you can draw from.

• WebmasterWorld.com: http://www.webmasterworld.com/
  Who it’s for: webmasters and marketing managers.

For all of your questions about anything having to do with Web design, this is the place to go.There are a lot of quality discussions that are segmented as well as moderated.

• Search Engine Watch Forums. http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/index.php
  Who it’s for: webmasters and affiliate marketers.

Here you can find discussions and questions that deal with all aspects of search engines.Some of the topics include: Questions on specific search engines and directories, specific discussions on search engine optimization and web marketing, general search issues, and current issues.

• ReveNews.com: http://www.revenews.com/
  Who it’s for: webmasters, affiliate program managers, and affiliate marketers.

This site is a great location to find articles on various topics and learn about what is news worthy in the industry.

There are also forums strictly for affiliate managers.Here, managers can learn about those issues that are strictly pertinent for them, such as keeping an affiliate program in-house or outsourcing.You can visit http://www.10xmarketing.com/affiliate-program-management.asp to learn more about some of the options that are available to managers.These forums provide a great resource to learn about the technical details of running a program.

Forums teach valuable information about affiliate marketing that will make help make affiliate sites more successful.By visiting and posting often in these forums many people become experts on certain topics.Networking opportunities will also arise.Many of these forums help industry leaders form business relationships.Forums are an amazing resource; do not overlook them because they are vital to ones success. Since affiliate marketing changes everyday, one should visit them as often as you watch or read the daily news.

Alex Hachtman, of 10x Marketing, wrote this article.

10x Marketing provides companies with Internet marketing solutions that will increase consumer visits on a regular basis, thus increasing potential sales and revenue.

Contact 10x Marketing today for more information about your companies affiliate program. See http://www.10xmarketing.com/res/ecommerce-affiliate-program.asp for more information.

The Great Crash of 2005 could have only occurred for one reason: there simply wasn’t enough money coming into the system the money was that was being withdrawn. It looked to me like the Glory Days had been backed by a hefty reserve fund that DxInOne had set in place. By this line of reasoning, The Crash was merely the culmination of a bizarre process of self-induced hemorrhaging. The company, it seemed, had been bleeding itself dry for months.

What were the consequences of The Crash?

Aside from the most crucial fact, that people couldn’t move money out of the system, there were two others.

The first one was the matter of The Crash’s effect on monthly fees.

Just like he would be required to at any bricks and mortar bank, the DxInOne member must pay monthly fees. The important point here is that until the time of the Crash, members were able to pay these fees from the profits their accounts generated each month. There was always more than enough money left over for profits and fee coverage: one simply had to order the fee-money out of the system, then boot it back in. The process rarely took more than three days. And waistlines grew.

But The Crash resulted in people not being able to move money out of the system. This therefore meant that people couldn’t pay their monthly fees according to the former process.
By default, the only way to cover fees would be to pump new money into the system - from out of the members’ own pockets.

Suddenly, having a balance of $100,000 wasn’t quite so cool. Especially with fees in the 4% range. (I’m rounding up from the 3s here.) That’s $4,000 a month to keep an account that’s not paying anything. How would you like to wait, say, two months to move $150 out a system that would charge you $8,000 over this same period of time?

And so here we see the final consequence of the infamous Crash of Summer 2005:

A lot of people were freaking out.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the following chain of causality:

In Part One we saw that a DxInOne member’s monthly fees are a function of the size of his account balance. One factor affecting account balance growth is the daily gains generated on all DxInOne accounts. I had concluded that these growth rates must be arbitrarily determined by DxInOne management , at least to some extent. And this was because the daily gains were adding up to ten-or-so percent a month, at the very same time that the payment process mechanism was severely depressed. This would describe a paradoxical condition that’s continued without interruption for what is now seven months. (January 2006)

On this note we can return to $100k Guy, who is looking at having to pay $4,000 a month just to hold his account balance as things stand now. Yet with this account growing around 10% a month, he can be assured that the fees will rise, and probably by around the same rate of increase.

Maybe $100k Guy could do this for a month or two - he probably made more than that prior to The Crash. But how long would he stick around? $100k Guy could easily walk, and he probably would if staying in required him to pay $4,000 one month, then $4,400 after that, $5,300 the next and so on… Why hold a balance of 100,000 anythings, if those anythings pay nothing, and cost so much to keep?

Considering the political balance at hand, of one company verses tens (and possibly hundreds) of thousands of investors, the pending situation was untenable. There was no way that the managers of DxInOne could force their members to pay fees out of pocket from month to month. If unchecked, the system as it stood would lead to an exodus of biblical proportions.

Pissing thousands of people off was not a good idea for other critical reasons. DxInOne had just morphed its web page into one of unquestionable (if not baffling) sophistication. This was merely a precursor of things to come down the pipeline: DxInOne was about to enter the realms of Ebay (auctioning) and Google (advertising). They were about to roll out a 5 Star Hotel and a wristwatch of unparalled security, one which would enable them to enter and perhaps dominate the billionish-trillionoish realm of e-currency trading.

The new “DxInOne” website was merely a precursor to all of this, a platform whereby all DxInOne services could be accessed. By the time of the Crash, the new system was barely two months old.
The monthly fee crisis threatened to sink a great liner just as it was leaving port for the very first time.
Something had to be done.

Mark Grant is the owner of http://surfatmy.com/twelvedailyproww.htm - a site dedicated to exploring unique money making opportunities on the Internet.

If you are an affiliate looking for a niche market, here’s an important piece of information to make note of:

In 2005 there were over 2 million personal bankruptcy filings in the United States.

Many of these individuals will be looking to rebuild their credit and financial future. This spells opportunity for you as an affiliate. You see, here are just a few products and services that an individual with past bankruptcy will need in order to rebuild their credit and financial future:

1) Credit repair
2) Loans
3) Credit cards

Let’s take a look at each one in more detail, and how you can help as an affiliate:

1) Credit repair

One of the first things someone with a discharged bankruptcy on their credit report will want to do is clean up their credit report and increase their credit score. The problem is that many people simply don’t know how.

As an affiliate, you can help by connecting them with various “credit repair” related resources. By the way, when referring to “credit repair” I mean the removal of any inaccurate or obsolete negative information from an individual’s credit report - not accurate, non-obsolete negative information.

So what type of credit repair resources can you refer them to? Credit repair books, services, and software programs are an example - but as an affiliate you only want to represent solid, reputable companies.

You don’t have to limit yourself to just one avenue when it comes to credit repair resources - for example, some of your visitors may want to take the “do it yourself” route and prefer a credit repair book. Others may want to do less work and opt for credit repair software. Finally, others may want to hire a
service to help them. Why not include affiliate links to all of these options?

If you can find services, with an affiliate program, that specialize in credit repair advice for those with a bankruptcy that’s even better. The same with books, for those visitors that want to take the “do it yourself” route to rebuild their credit. For example, my ebook “After Bankruptcy Credit Solutions” has such an affiliate program.

2) Loans

For a number of people, being able to qualify for a loan after bankruptcy is critical. Fortunately, there are a lot of lenders out there who work with individuals that have had a bankruptcy. Even better, many of these lenders have an affiliate program.

Here is a just a sample of the types loans that individuals with a past bankruptcy may be looking for: Personal loans, home loans, auto loans, refinancing, etc. When researching a lenders affiliate program, see what type of loans they offer.

Just like credit repair, when it comes to loans, you can offer visitors a number of options: Links (with your affiliate ID#) to lenders, books on how to qualify for loans, and membership sites that provide a listing of “bad credit” lenders. Again, as an affiliate you have a lot of choices.

3) Credit Cards

There are a number of credit card affiliate programs out there -and many of the credit card programs target people with bad credit.

Your affiliate website could list a number of credit card programs for people with a past bankruptcy. Best of all, secured credit cards (those that require the customer to open a special savings account that acts as collateral for the line of credit) tend to have a high approval rate - which is good news for your visitors that have a bankruptcy on their credit report.

You’ll notice that I have been talking about giving your visitors options when it comes to each item we’ve covered - credit cards are no different. In addition to links to credit card issuers (with your affiliate ID#), you can also include affiliate links to related books and membership sites. As
mentioned before, research company and offer carefully before joining their affiliate program.

Okay, we’ve looked at the various products and services you can offer your visitors as an affiliate, but aren’t there a already lot of websites out there marketing to individuals with “bad credit”. Yes there are, but a lot fewer that specialize in marketing to those with a past bankruptcy - which means less
competition for you as an affiliate.

In this article we looked at the growing “after bankruptcy” niche market. Hopefully it has given you some ideas that you, as an affiliate, can use to build a new income stream - while helping those with a past bankruptcy in the process.

Copyright (c) 2006 Innovative Solutions Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

DISCLAIMER:

This information is designed to provide only a general overview of the subject matter herein.

This information is provided with the understanding that neither the publisher nor author is engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional advice. If legal or other expert assistance is required, the services of a professional should be sought.

Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss or damages, including but not limited to special, consequential, incidental or other damages, caused by the information contained herein.

R. Lawrence Anderson is author of After Bankruptcy Credit Solutions, which shows individuals how to qualify for credit and loans after bankruptcy. For details about the affiliate program, please visit: www.bankruptcy-credit-solutions.com/affiliate

In the last column we discussed the process of credit card enabling your brick-and-mortar business. I pointed out that research has shown that accepting credit cards can help increase revenue and speed up cash flow. This week we will look at setting up an online payment system for your business website. If you think hooking up a brick-and-mortar location with a credit card system stymies most bankers, try asking them how to do it on your website.

The fact is most banks can provide you with the merchant account needed to accept credit card payments online, but beyond that, they have little to do with the process. Even larger banks may only have a single person on staff that is tasked as the “credit card processing expert” and if that person ever goes on vacation, you’re pretty much out of luck (voice of experience talking here, folks).

I have helped many clients set up online credit card processing systems and more than once I’ve had to sit down with the bank issuing the merchant account and educate them on how online payment systems work. Don’t believe me? This is a direct quote (here’s the Bible, here’s my hand) from the manager who was in charge of processing Internet merchant account applications at a local bank, “When someone pays online how do they swipe the credit card in their computer…”

You will need the following to accept credit cards on your website: (1) an electronic shopping cart system; (2) a payment gateway service; (3) a credit card processor; and (4) an internet merchant account issued by a bank or other financial institution or service bureau.

Here’s how online credit card processing works. (1) Your customer submits his credit card information at checkout on your website. (2) The shopping cart software sends the transaction to the gateway. (3) The gateway routes the information to the processor. (4) The processor contacts the bank that issued the customer’s credit card. (5) The issuing bank approves or declines the transaction. (6) The processor routes the result back to the gateway who then passes the result back to the website shopping cart system. The entire process is done electronically and takes seconds to complete.

We covered most of these elements last week. Here’s a quick refresher for those who missed the basics, then we’ll talk about the shopping cart system you’ll need to implement on your website.

Payment Gateway Service: The payment gateway service comes into play when a customer submits their credit card information to the webpage form. Think of the gateway service as the middleman in the process. The website’s shopping cart checkout system electronically submits the credit card to the gateway service that then routes the information to the processor for approval.

Credit Card Processor: The credit card processor is an electronic data center that processes the credit card transactions coming from the gateway company, ensures that the charge is valid, then settles the funds in your merchant account.

Internet Merchant Account: An Internet merchant account is a bank or account in which funds from online sales are deposited by the processor. Merchant accounts are usually issued by banks that are associated with the major credit card services like Visa and MasterCard. Be aware that many banks will not grant merchant accounts to Internet merchants as they are often categorized as “high risk ventures.” This policy varies widely and in the end, the granting of the merchant account will come down to economics from the bank’s point of view. If the bank sees even the smallest iota of risk, you will not be granted the account.

Fortunately, the growth of online sales has given rise to an entire industry of merchant service bureaus that will grant you a merchant account and everything else you need to accept online payments. The fees are usually higher, but it’s better than not having an online payment system at all.

Shopping Cart System. To accept online payments you must have what’s called a “shopping cart system” that allows the customer to select and purchase products from your website. A shopping cart system typically consists of three components: the product catalog, the shopping cart, and the checkout/payment system. The product catalog is the component that displays the items you have for sale on the website. The shopping cart system is the component that allows your customers to select products by clicking to “add items to cart,” and the checkout/payment system is the component that allows the customer to complete the checkout process and pay for their purchase with a credit card (or in some cases an electronic check). It is the checkout/payment component that communicates with the gateway system to complete the transaction.

Adding a shopping cart system to your website can be a simple or highly complex task, depending on the system you select. The cost of shopping cart software ranges from free (for simplistic form-based systems) to very expensive. Which shopping cart system is best for your business depends on a number of factors, including the product you’re selling, the depth of your product line, the purchase options you wish to offer customers, the inventory control functionality, and the extent of automation you desire.

There are numerous companies who can assist in the setup of your shopping cart and online credit card payment system. These companies typically charge several hundred to several thousand dollars for their services, but like anything you get what you pay for, so always use a company with good references in this area. When you’re dealing with something as important as credit card processing and cash flow, bite the bullet and get it done right the first time. The money you spend now will be returned many times in increased sales volume from credit card customers.

The most important thing to remember when setting up an online payment system is this: online it’s all about security and privacy. Though online credit card processing has been around for years there are still many people who are uncomfortable giving their credit card number online. These are the same folks who do not hesitate to give their credit card number over the phone or hand their credit card to a waiter who disappears with it for ten minutes. Online credit card processing is much less susceptible to fraud and abuse than of those scenarios.

Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur
and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox.
Tim’s latest books include “Small Business Success Secrets”
and “The 30 Day Blueprint For Success!”
Related Links:
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
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