That would include you if you have created your own ebook, telecourse, membership site, software, plugin, checklist package, calendar or video series that you sell.

Well, one of my friends is someone who I brainstorm with regularly and who I feel is doing a LOT of things right, as evidenced by her multiple six figure income.

Melissa Ingold.

Well, Melissa is teaching a new course for infoproduct sellers that is being covered in five parts:

1. Simple Planning that Helps You Get the Right Things Done, Faster
2. How to Work Less and Less, While You Make More and More Money Consistently
3. How to Easily Use Email to Market and Sell to Hundreds or Even Thousands of People at a Time
4. How To Get Others to Sell For You with Affiliate Marketing
5. How to Create Easy Information Products in as Little as 3 Hours & Launch Them for the Greatest Impact and Maximum Profit

I thought it would be fun to ask Melissa a tough question about each of those areas. And, despite a nasty stomach bug, she got it done for us. She's cool like that.

Before we dig in, though, be sure to click here
-> Melissa's Info Publishing Success System

Melissa has a cool video on the page.

Here is our interview. I hope you find it helpful.

Simple Planning.

Nicole: Melissa, we both know the many quotes that essentially say “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” (Alan Lakein) However, I also believe that over-planning can be detrimental, too, because it limits you in your flexibility.

What is your view on planning, specifically for an infoproduct seller, and what mistakes do you see them making that cost them money in this area?

Melissa: I agree that there is such a thing as over-planning, because what happens is that you get so caught up in creating this wonderful plan for your business that you’re not actually doing anything. So over-planning by itself will cost you money.

On the flip side, you do have to plan to some extent because if you don’t, you’ll get sucked into the cycle of looking busy without actually working – if you know what I mean. I personally hate to-do lists because they’re so overwhelming, and looking at one gives me an icky feeling so I don’t use them. Instead, I use Basecamp to manage all my projects which has a built in calendar. And then for my actual planning, I use pen and paper and a blank monthly calendar.

As an infoproduct seller, it’s especially important that you plan your month out, because if you don’t, you’ll find that the month will come and go and you still won’t have your product ready. There are a lot of little pieces that go into creating and launching an information product.

For instance, will you need to record audio? And if so, who is going to transcribe that? What about writing your promotional blog content and emails? You can’t expect to have those things done overnight. So planning out what needs to be done and will help you move your project along quickly.

Nicole: I agree. I work with a loose plan. It allows me to make sure things are moving on schedule, while still having the flexibility to pop in a quick blog post like this to help my readers, too.

Working Less while Earning More.

Nicole: We both outsource in our businesses and have for years. In this area, what would you say is the myth that people buy into that holds them back?

Melissa: I’ve found the number one thing that holds people back from outsourcing is money. They believe that it’s expensive and that they shouldn’t be hiring help when they’re not making any or enough money.

And it makes sense, right? I mean why pay for someone to do something that you can do yourself for free? But what they don’t realize; is that it’s costing them money whether they do it themselves or outsource.

Scheduling content to a blog isn’t free just because you do it yourself. In fact, it will cost you more money to do it yourself than it would to outsource it, but most business owners don’t see it that way. They don’t understand that their time is money.

Knowing what an hour of your time is worth is so important, because when you see the numbers, it all makes sense.

Let’s say you want to make $50,000 per year. Here’s how we would figure out what your hourly rate is worth:

Income Goal: $50,000
Divide by 50 weeks: $1000 (2 weeks off for vacation)
Divide by 5 Day Week: $200
Divide by 5 Hours: $40/hr. (based on 5 hours of focused work time per day)

So your time is worth $40 an hour. If you spend 3 hours scheduling blog content, it costs you $120. Does it not make sense to hire a VA to do it for you for $15/hr. (a skilled VA can probably do the same amount of work in half the time, which will cost you even less money)? Then you can spend those 3 hours on money making tasks like product creation and marketing your business.

I’m going to end this question with a quote from Loral Langemeier about outsourcing, “Time can be bought through team.”

Email Marketing.

Nicole: You and I both earn a sizable income from our relationship with our lists. (Love you all!) The biggest struggle that I see that people need to overcome before anything is getting people to sign up in the first place. As an infoproduct seller, what has really worked well for you to grow your list overnight?

Melissa: Squeeze pages have and continue to work really well for me. I have a whole process that I use to set up a winning squeeze page, but I won’t go into that here. I almost wonder if people think squeeze pages are too ‘old school’, so they’re not using them anymore.

Anyway, if you’re not setting up squeeze pages to funnel traffic to your list on autopilot, you need start doing that right away. This is where PLR content comes in really handy because you can get packages that come with a squeeze page already written and a freebie report that you can use to entice people to sign up. And some even come with emails already written for you. So make use of that type of PLR to make fast work of setting up your squeeze pages. Set them up and then forget them…they’ll work for you while you’re off living your life.

Nicole: Hey guys. Melissa has some PLR sets that include squeeze pages on her site.  PLR for Internet Marketers

Having a Rocking Affiliate Program.

Nicole: Considering that I have been pretty much your top affiliate for years, I know you know how to run an affiliate program that is enticing to promote.

To that person who is totally overwhelmed by having their own affiliate program (or whose affiliate program is pretty stagnant), can you tell me what benefits you've gotten from investing time and energy into yours?

Melissa: Growth. My business continues to grow and grow because my affiliates are out there spreading the word and promoting my products for me. I have this great sales force that I only have to pay when they make sales. So it’s not like it’s going to cost you money on an ongoing basis to run an affiliate program, no, it’s going to make you more money than you can make on your own.

It’s impossible for you to market your business all on your own. You just can’t reach everyone, everywhere, which is why having an affiliate program is so beneficial to your business – it allows you to expand your reach beyond your existing market, which means you can help more people.

Expanding your Product Line.

Nicole: I always ask my Coaching Clients “What's next?” One infoproduct does not make a solid business. Having a line of products does.

That said, adding a second and third product typically confuses people as to what to create next – and then how to promote it. So, in a nutshell, how do you decide what product to create next in your line?

Melissa: I think it makes sense to build on what you’re already doing. For instance, let’s say you have an ebook that is an overview of marketing on facebook and you’re trying to figure out what product to create next. Why not do a quick survey asking your people what they struggle with most when it comes to marketing on facebook. Then based on their answers, you can create multiple products that solve their problems. It could be a webinar where you walk them through setting up their facebook timeline, or a series of videos about building their list with facebook, or whatever it is that your market wants to learn.

Your one product doesn’t have to be it…you can expand on it and create a whole bunch of different products around that one topic. So you lead from a $17 ebook, to a $27 webinar, to a $47 video series, etc. And then expand on that again with a membership site, coaching program, live workshop, etc. You can do the same with all the topics you decide to create products on. Don’t just plan for that one product. Look at the bigger picture and then break it down into multiple products.

What's Next?

Be sure to check out Melissa's program here
-> Info Publishing Success System <-
to see if it's right for you.

Talk to Me.

What are your biggest struggles as an infoproduct seller?
or
Got tips? Share your answers to any of the questions above.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Friday is the day where I give you free content that you can use on your blog – with your affiliate link, to make money with affiliate marketing. Hurray!

Not only that, but it's copy/paste ready for you to profit.

So, yep. You can make money by publishing my stuff. Pretty cool eh?

Of course, rules apply.

• You can’t edit the articles in any other way.
• You have to keep the author’s name on there. In this case, me.
• And, you must link to the author’s product in the article through the resource box. (BUT you can use your affiliate link for their product.)

Here are the latest articles…

Just click through, copy/paste the article onto your blog. Change the link in the article to YOUR affiliate link for that product so that anyone who clicks it and buys will earn you money for referring them.

• 7 Ways to Tell if your Affiliate Program Stinks Here’s a question that I get asked regularly by frustrated infoproduct sellers. “Why aren’t my affiliates promoting my affiliate program? And, how do I get more to sign up?” Dear Infoproduct Seller: I can tell you in a heartbeat whether or not your affiliate program is attracting loyal, motivated affiliates… or not.

• Did you Love the Movie “Julie and Julia”? You Can Live It! Have you seen the movie Julie and Julia? A woman, Julie Powell, decides to dedicate a year of her life to cooking all the recipes in Julia Child’s first book while blogging about the adventure. What Julie didn't know at the time is that you can blog for profit!

• Dear InfoProduct Seller, Women are from Venus Here’s a question that I get regularly from frustrated infoproduct sellers. “My target market is women, and I’m having a hard time getting them to promote my products. They just seem unmotivated. I don’t get it. Does my affiliate program stink or am I recruiting bad affiliates?”

• 4 Reasons Why I’m Promoting your Competition and Not You Today, I’m sitting at my computer, about to launch a new site and I’m going through Clickbank, looking for potential affiliate programs to promote. Not only am I considering personally promoting the products that I find, but I may recommend that customers who purchase my PLR articles at EasyPLR.com promote them, too. Here's the problem.

What if you're an infoproduct seller and YOU want to recruit affiliates with your articles?
If you're an infoproduct seller and you would like your articles to appear in this directory, here's the scoop:

Click here to learn how to add your articles to FreeAffiliateArticles.com

That's all for today! Now go grab some articles.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

The topic of running an affiliate program comes up often – probably because I'm so experienced as an affiliate manager.

Here's an excerpt from the Q&A report for this month. I hope you enjoy it!

“Nicole, With the first lesson on Affiliates I have a question.

I am starting an internet marketing site and will be creating a business PLR site as well as a tutorial type site for businesses. Should an affiliate program be set up each separately?

I would also like to have an affiliate website but I don't want one for each site (i think that would be too much to handle). What would be the best way to organize these?

My Response:

I have separate affiliate programs for EasyPLR.com versus my other courses for two reasons.

1. I may decide to sell EasyPLR.com in the future. If so, I don't want it tangled up with the rest of my business. I want a clean and clear sale. And, I want to be able to show that the profits from EasyPLR.com were exactly $X/month to a potential customer. That would be hard to do if it were inter-meshed.
2. I don't want confusion on the part of my customers as to their rights. I tend to attract a lot of newbies to EasyPLR.com. So, if they buy one of my “non-PLR” reports, I don't want any misunderstanding. Like to find someone taking a report like this one and copying pieces on their blog. This way, it's very clear which stuff of mine HAS PLR rights versus which only has personal rights.

As to how to organize it?

That's a really good question. Take a look at my affiliate center ILoveMyAffiliates.com. It's not a perfect solution, but you will notice that each page has a “signup” and “login” section.

Depending on what you're using to run the two programs, you could keep all of the tools in the affiliate management program and just send people directly to that section. You'll see that I do that for my JustAddSweat.com stuff – I just send them to my affiliate center that's built at JustAddSweat.com rather than trying to list everything in the general area.

I hope this helps if you're facing a similar decision.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

Hi. It's Nicole Dean from NicoleontheNet.com

My friends have been asking me to teach a course about how I get so much traffic to my sites. And, it's on my “to do” list.

Guess what? A traffic course came out that sounded quite a bit like the one I am creating — so I bought it to check it out.

AND… it's really quite good.

This gal does a lot of the same things that I do – so I know that her methods work. She even had a few twists in there for me. And, she teaches it very clearly.

In fact, I promise that if you do even a few of the things she teaches on a consistent basis — you *will* get more traffic.

The cool thing is that you don't even need an affiliate program to make her methods work – so it works for bloggers, too. And, you can use the methods to drive traffic to a squeeze page – so this course also will help you with list building.

So, if you'd like to double or triple your traffic next year – which is totally doable — I'd highly recommend you check this out.

Click here for the Traffic Course Info.

In fact, I like this course so much that I'd like to offer a bonus.

So, here's what I'll do…

IF and only IF the offer is something you can use, then keep reading.

— Get THREE Special BONUSES! —

After you purchase, email your receipt to helper@easyplr.com and you'll receive the following…

BONUS #1: Ask me any question about traffic.
AFTER you've gone through the course, you can email me your biggest
questions that you still have. Anything from “Nicole, I understand
how she teaches it, but how do YOU do ___”.
I'll compile the questions into a .pdf WITH my answers, of course,
and send it out to everyone who buys through my link.

BONUS #2: My Blog Tour Guide.
Guest blogging is still one of the best ways to generate traffic and my system works.

BONUS #3: Protect your Online Business from Disaster.
The info in this report can save you thousands of dollars and countless
headaches down the road. I mean, why build a business just to have
it crash and burn from something YOU could prevent?

If you want this traffic course and my bonuses, here's what you'll need to do:

STEP 1. Go here to my affiliate link and buy:
Click here for the Traffic Course Info.

STEP 2. Send your receipt to helper@easyplr.com

We'll verify that you purchased the course through the link above, and then send you an email to get the rest.

STEP 3. Then go through the course and choose a few of the methods that speak to you the most. IMPLEMENT them. They WILL work.

That's it, guys and gals. This course gets a high recommendation from me. And, it's pretty impressive especially since it doesn't have a high price tag, either.

Check it out. Go ahead and leave comments, questions, concerns, etc. below.

Warmly,
Nicole

This week, I have one of my best friends in the whole world with me – Susanne Myers of Niche Affiliate Research Packs and HillbillyHousewife.com.

Not only is Susanne a great friend, but she is a brilliant marketer. She's been behind-the-scenes making a living with niche sites for several years, but has recently started sharing her marketing knowledge as well, so I quickly grabbed her for this interview.

The audio recording of our interview is at the end of this blog post. Just look for the “play” button and listen. It’s free!

Here's more about Susanne in her own words so you can see why I think she's cool:

Susanne Myers has been making a full-time income as an Affiliate Marketer for the past three years.

Until recently she has only occasionally brainstormed with a few close friends and her only student was her husband who was also able to quit his day job 2 years ago.

But, that's starting to change with the launch of her new site selling Affiliate Niche Research Packs that you may have seen me promoting here.

Susanne also wrote a guest post here awhile ago, that I'd like to recommend you check out: Tools that Help you Make Money with an Affiliate Program

“Must Have” Online Business Tools Recommended by Susanne:

• Aweber
• SEO Elite
• Studio Press
• WordPress.org
• Google Keyword Tool
• Free WordTracker Tool
• Google Analytics

Check out Susanne's Niche Research Packs:

Be sure to post your comments below. I'd love to hear what you learned and will apply from this interview.

Plus, one lucky listener can win the Niche Research Pack of their choice. The Winner will be posted in approximately a month, as usual.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. If you can make a phone call, you can have a podcast like mine: Click to learn  How to Record a Phone Interview like I do.

She's a smart cookie and I'll be having her on my Online Business Success Podcast soon, so be sure to listen to what she says.

Tools That Really Help You Make Money With An Affiliate Program

Hi there, my name is Susanne Myers. I make a very nice living online and a large portion of that income comes through affiliate programs. Today I’ll share a few of my favorite tools that I like to see an affiliate program provide me with. I’ll also give you some tips on how to tweak and use those tools for maximum results. Let’s get started.

Graphics
They are always the first thing affiliates look for. Sure they are nice and easy to add to your site, but don’t expect a lot of sales from them, unless you use them right. Instead of just slapping them in the sidebar of my blog, I like to pick an affiliate product that pertains to the particular post or article I’m writing and then include it right there in the middle of the content.

Here’s a good example of just that.
Why Register A Domain Name to Promote an Affiliate Product

This post is about using a domain name to promote an affiliate product and I’m recommending my favorite domain name registrar right in the post. Note how it ads both visual appeal and provides some value to the reader. She reads my posts, likes the idea and is ready to register a new domain. One click on the graphic and she’s ready to get started.

Articles
I have a lot of content sites and getting new articles and posts added on a regular basis is a lot of work. I take all the help I can get and the articles provided by good affiliate programs are a great way to do that. Provided the information in the article is relevant and good, articles can convert readers into buyers.

I prefer being able to edit articles (changing the title, slightly rewriting the first paragraph, and improving the call to action in the article). Not all affiliate programs will allow you to rewrite the articles they provide you with, but it never hurts to ask. At the very least, come up with your own title and introduction for your page or blog post and then add the article.

With many articles, especially if you find them through an article directory, you’ll see only one little link in the resource box. That just doesn’t cut it. Glance through the article and see if you can turn some of the phrases throughout the article into anchor text for your affiliate link. At the very least, work a link into your introduction of the article.

Here’s an example of me doing all of this with an article on Article Marketing Tips by Jeff Herring. Since I found his article on Ezinearticles.com, I asked permission if I could use my affiliate link in his author resource box.

Brandable Reports
I love using brandable reports as an affiliate. By the way a brandable report is a short pdf on a particular topic that includes some offers and links to a product. What makes it brandable is that the product owner allows you to change the links in the report to your affiliate links.

These reports are a great because they are often passed around from person to person and can create quite a bit of traffic (through your affiliate link of course). Make sure the report prominently states that it can be passed around and shared, if not ask if it’s ok for you to add this text yourself.

I like reports that allow me to promote more than one program at a time. Often two or more people work on putting a report together and allow you to brand it with all their affiliate links. It’s a win-win situation. I’m often not even aware of the second (or third) affiliate program and will sign up and start promoting it which helps the owners of those sites, and my biggest advantage is that I can now potentially sell two or three things instead of just one.

I also like to ask for permission to include my own name and website link into the report as well.

Note from Nik: You can find bunches of these types of reports at Brandable Reports, Videos, Audios

Text Ads
Text ads are a great starting point when you’re working a recommendation for a product into an article, blog post or newsletter. But there just that, a starting point. You can almost always improve on the ads the affiliate programs provide you with and it helps to add a personal touch to them as well. If you’ve used the product (and I hope you did) and got results, share those. If there is a particular aspect of the product you liked or didn’t like, share that as well.

Reviews
Unfortunately not a lot of affiliate programs provide you with prewritten reviews for their products. But when they do, take advantage of them. As with all the other tools, use it as a jumping off point for your own product review.

I use them as a template to make sure I cover all the main aspects and benefits of the product I’m reviewing but adding a lot of my own experience with the product. It’ll make the review unique (which is good from a SEO perspective), but also makes it more effective because the readers sense that I put some thought into this and am giving them my honest opinion on the product. Don’t be afraid to point out the downfalls and shortcomings of the product. It’ll make you more believable. Then include how they can overcome those shortcomings.

Keyword Lists
Keyword lists are great. I use them as idea generators for my blog posts and articles that I write to promote a particular product. You can also easily expand keyword lists by plugging the individual keywords they provide you with into your favorite keyword research tool. Do your homework and look into each of the keywords they provide you with to find the gems that you want to rank for to create continuous traffic to your affiliate link.

Susanne Myers has been making a living online for the past three years and shares some of the tips and strategies she uses every day on her blog on all things Affiliate Marketing at AffiliateTreasureChest.com.

Hey guys. I'd like to chip in with my thoughts on this, too, but it'll have to wait until next week.

However, if you have your own affiliate program and it does not have all of the items above for your affiliates, I would like to recommend you check out this link:

Get Easy Affiliate Tools Created Here

My friends will review your product and create affiliate tools for you that will pull in sales.

I'll be back with more soon!

Warmly,
Nicole

What if it was broken down into just three parts? Would that make things easier?

I thought so.

Here's a new article from my bud, Jimmy D. Brown, that breaks online business down into 3 parts… no matter whether you're doing affiliate marketing, building blogs, or creating membership sites or ebooks.

The Top 3 Money-Making “To Do” Activities
By Jimmy D. Brown
http://www.HomepreneurHabits.com

I've always been impressed with those who can take overwhelming
things and handle them with ease and poise.  It never seemed
to work that way for me, until I discovered the secret for
tackling those daunting tasks.

The secret is simple:  make things simple!

With just about every major undertaking, things can be simplified
into a handful of “core” components.  That makes them manageable.
Manageable fosters productivity simply because I can work on
something that seems accomplishable.  And when productivity goes
up, desired results come.

I received the following question from one of my clients…

“If you have to pick, what would you say are the top 2 or 3
things we should concentrate on? I've heard the
domain/site(blog) are the most important, then others say
writing info products, others say lists. For short term and
long term investment, what is the most important things to
be working on?”

This client wants things simplified.  And rightly so.  He knows
the secret to success is getting things down into manageable
chunks.

So, what are these core practices for building an internet
business?  There are three things – and three things only – that
you need to concentrate on with your business…

1. Offer Development.

You cannot make money online unless you have an OFFER. It's that
simple. Unless there is some way for income to be generated, you
can't get paid. End of discussion. Every business is founded
upon a revenue-generating offer. Now, this can either be your
own offer (small reports, ebooks, membership sites, coaching/consulting,
advertising, etc.) or something you promote as an affiliate and
earn revenue for referred sales.

2. List Marketing.

The fortune is in the list. You've heard it an untold number of
times in the past, right? Building and profiting from opt-in lists
should be a major priority on your schedule. You need to devote
yourself to attracting new subscribers and then getting all of
your subscribers to spend money with you … by purchasing your
OFFERS (see #1 above).

3. Traffic.

The third and final thing you need to concentrate on is “traffic”.
This includes both traffic GENERATION (getting visitors to a site)
and traffic CONVERSION (getting that traffic to buy). This includes
things like: starting an affiliate program, buying PPC ads,
participating in joint ventures, utilizing viral marketing tools,
raising your visitor value, tweaking your sales pages, etc.

With each of these categories, you have a variety of options to choose
from in directing your attention. It would be foolish for me to say
“grow your affiliate program” as your number # traffic activity since
I don't know if you even have your own product to sell. That's why I
don't recommend specific activities, but rather three key categories
of business-building.

With each of these categories, find 2-3 activities to work on each
week and you should see results in a short amount of time.

I recommend you work on offer development every Monday, list marketing
every Tuesday, and traffic generation every Wednesday.  If you just
spend a couple hours each of these days working on these core parts
of your business, sales should come.

In a nutshell –

•    Find an offer to promote.
•    Setup a list to promote the offer.
•    Drive traffic to the list opt-in page.

Keep it simple.  Keep it successful.

—————-
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of the 65-page “operations
manual”, Homepreneur Habits:  How To Run A Successful
Home Business.  Learn The Internet Marketer's Weekly
R.O.U.T.I.N.E. at http://www.HomepreneurHabits.com

Kelly McCausey and I at MomWebs.com have built a very successful hosting brand for the Mom community. We enjoy a great reputation and have enjoyed consistent growth.

Several times over the last year we have had comments from friends who say ‘We would promote MomWebs in a heartbeat for the residual affiliate commission – but our market isn't Moms!'

I know that many of you are looking for a web host to recommend to your clients and readers, but feel a little “silly” recommending MomWebs.com to people who aren't Moms.

We discussed this and we decided to offer another option for you.

(drum roll please)

Introducing…
http://www.reliablewebs.com

Reliable Webs is equal to Mom Webs in every way that's important:

1. Friendly, Helpful knowledgeable Support — USA based & English-speaking support.
2. Quality
3. Reliability/Uptime
4. Did I mention Awesome Support?

Reliable Webs is a bit more expensive that Mom Webs. We made our pricing decisions after researching the small business market. It's competitive yet not so low that we would look “cheap” to business owners.

If your target market is Moms – keep promoting MomWebs.com But if you reach small business owners and non-mom marketers, Reliable Webs is perfect for you.

If you've been promoting another hosting program that pays a flat rate for a referral, I invite you to compare how much you can earn (and keep earning!) from our residual program. (People really DREAD switching web hosts. Get them signed up and you may still receive commissions from that sale 5 or 10 years from now.)

Sign up to start promoting now!
http://www.reliablewebs.com/affiliate-program/
(Note: We just posted a review that you can grab and use as a draft & Lots of text ads to get you started.)

FAST ACTION BONUS: EVERY affiliate who makes at least 3 sales by December 1st will receive a $25 cash bonus.

If you have questions, just let us know.

Warmly,
Nicole
www.MomWebs.com & www.ReliableWebs.com