Duplication is the biggest myth of them all. Just do what your leaders are doing and you to will be successful. When you stop to think about this, it's impossible for anyone to duplicate exactly what someone else is doing. Now you can certainly do some of the things that person is doing, but not all.

Alan Kaplan notes, The variables from one person to the next are too vast and uncertain. One guy may have a much more entrepreneurial work ethic than the next. One person may be working part-time vs. another working full time. One person may have a larger marketing budget than the next. Duplication can only be applied to the task, but the results of the tasks can very rarely be duplicated exactly from one person to the next.

Don't focus on duplication, but rather having your teams maximize what they do have. Don't expect the same out of every person; work with each person as an individual and you'll get the most from everyone.

Rick Clifton - Clifton Web Group

Alan Kaplan provides the fact to the matter. You don't need to know exactly how your television works to watch it. So the myth here is that you don't need to know what to do. Because you can besuccessful marketing by outsourcing some of the work, if not all of it. But, if you don't know what goes into actually getting results in a network marketing business, then you will be doomed to fail and waste time and money.

The fact is that if you don't have this general knowledge, then you will fall prey to dishonest vendors who will sell you things you don't need and more than likely you will over pay for things you do need, but if you don't know what's going on, you'll get ripped off.

Whether or not after this network marketing training you decide to outsource your marketing initiatives, you will be so well rounded and have a clear understanding of what to look for, that you'll actually have the power to negotiate better prices than the novice or uneducated. And that's what the game of the network marketing business is all about, lowering your costs and increasing your profit margins. Get knowledgeable about what it actually takes to get things done.

Rick Clifton - Clifton Web Group

One of the funniest things I've ever heard from a tremendous mentor to the Internet Marketing Community is this: Of course, you need experience to succeed online! The only job in the world that doesn't need experience is a "virgin."

As Alan Kaplan stresses, If you want to make money in the network marketing industry, you need to get hip as quickly as humanly possible. You need to figure out what works, what doesn't, and how you can use all the "tricks of the trade" to build your success.

That's why getting quality training works. Working with someone who's "been there and done that" can save you time and money. Your income can only grow to the extent that you do. You must educate yourself and you must be open to the process. Be prepared to make mistakes, try new things, and push yourself beyond your safe, secure comfort level. Do whatever it takes to earn your Masters at the School of Hard Knocks. Learn your lessons and develop the skill sets you need to make the kind of money you want to make. The best teacher for success in any endeavor is experience. You can not be successful skiing and cut up the slopes until you first put on the skis and fall a couple of hundred times until you have enough experience to know exactly what to do so you can control your movements and direction. This isn't to say that you can't short-cut the curve with good support and training... the point I'm making is that you need to get in the game with full body... don't dip your toe.

It's no different here. Why would you ever think that you could be successful at anything without being in the thick of it, getting dirty, making mistakes and correcting and adjusting until you know that you know exactly what to do.

Here's a thought and we'll move on. I learned a while ago this very valuable thought process that has allowed me to stay open to new information, regardless of what I initially thought. There are things that we know we know right? We know that we are human. There's no disputing it, we know we are flesh and blood.

Then we know that we do not know how to perform open heart surgery, unless of course you are a heart surgeon. So, we know that we don't know how to do that.
Then consider this one. What about the things we don't know that we don't know. If you stay centered on understanding that there is a bazillion things that we don't know we don't know, and then it allows us to keep our eyes open and our ears open and our mouths closed so we can learn your skill set will flourish. You can not be successful doing anything without experiencing what it's all about, and what it takes.

Rick Clifton - Clifton Web Group

This is just complete BS. As Alan Kaplan says, Of course you need money to get started in network marketing. If you're one paycheck away from being homeless and you can barely put food on your table, you're not going to be able to get a network marketing business off the ground. It's amazing how many people fall for this. The bottom line, and keep this close and upfront in your thinking, this is a business. Not a social setting or environment to gossip and do anything but build a business, your business, a network marketing business. If you find yourself speaking with people who are not focused on growing business and finding effective ways of doing it. Set them straight on your objectives, or move away from them.

I don't mean to be brash but, Your pretty smile or past credentials are not going to help you become wealthy in network marketing. Being an effective marketer and treating this like a business will allow you the ability to attain the success and wealth we're all after.

Now, the truth is that you don't need a lot of money, but you do need some. This of course will cost less than opening a brick and mortar shop in the main part of town, and all the expenditure that goes along with that. So yes, network marketing is definitely a better and more cost effective way of achieving your financial goals.

You've heard it all before. It takes money to make money. And in your network marketing business it takes money to educate yourself on being a better business person with your marketing and then also to research the market.

It takes money to get a domain name; it takes money to host your site. It takes cold-hard cash to hire a designer to program your site and a copywriter to write a killer sales letter for you. And then of course it takes money to drive traffic to your website.

In the network marketing industry you are going to learn how to be an excellent marketer and control your spending, but don't be under any illusions that you don't need to make an investment.

Last thought on this myth, from here on in, you must think return on investment ROI, not cost per lead. Look at your marketing dollars as an investment that you are working hard to get back in your pocket so you can use it again. Market using your money, make some sales, and reinvest the return you got, and do this over and over and over, and before you know it, you have a cash flow positive network marketing business.

Rick Clifton - Clifton Web Group

The fact is there is no such automated system for Network Marketing. If there was we would all be using it by now and have no need for anything else. And the biggest fact here, everyone would be doing it whether they were interested in having a Network Marketing business or not. It's like everyone is looking for the free cash register. Just sign-up, buy products and turn on the cash register in the morning, and at dusk you'll have a full drawer of money. Alan Kaplans overview says it best as he provides the following reality:

I may sound like I'm trying to be funny, but the fact is people always want to know how much time do I need to put into my Network Marketing Business and does it cost money. The bottom line is simply this. Your network marketing business is going to cost time and money up front, and the goal is to get it where you have consistent cash flow and begin turning a profit.

Now let's move this into marketing your network marketing business and driving this point home. If you think that speaking with people is the most important part of building your network marketing business, you're absolutely wrong. Period. The fact is, by the time you do speak with someone, they should be saying things like, ok where do I sign. And this can only happen because your marketing is doing its job. Get out of the paradigm that you don't have to work and work hard. You do period.

The difference is where you are working hard. You must work hard at being an expert effective marketer and implement that into your daily work flow. And I know most of you have heard this before, but if you only spoke with five people per day, but they were highly targeted and qualified you would easily do it. My point is put the hard work into getting these types of leads, and your Network Marketing business will explode.

I am addressing this up front because it's necessary for us to be thinking and moving in the same direction or what I'm going to train you on will be for nothing, because you will bring your old ways of thinking to this other wise new information. I'm starting this out laying the ground work, so you can be productive and break away from being a rep and transform into a business owner.

Marketing is not a game of chance or some crap-shoot nor is being a successful Network Marketer. You must know exactly what is working and what is not so you have the control to improve your results and close more sales. You can't do Network Marketing with an automated system.

Now like I said earlier, you can put automated things into place, like your auto responder. And tracking software that will work for you day and night. But these are tools that will need to be monitored and not left on auto-pilot. There is no such thing as auto pilot in the Network Marketing business.
Automation is a myth so please stay away from anything or anyone that tells you different. Anyone who has had any level of success on or off line - worked hard up front, and then once things were in place there is daily maintenance. This is the reality and I think by now we all know it.

Rick Clifton - Clifton Web Group

Think about your future. Do you need an easy to use automated marketing system 5 years ahead of anyone else Online or Offline? Of course you do, if it was the real thing! Automated marketing allows you to market to more targeted prospects, so that you can identify who you want to develop business relationships with.

The right prospects with the proper follow-up yields more income each month. If your systems are not automated, you will spend a lot of time with tasks that do not produce income. One of the biggest issues of this is SPAM. SPAM is sending an unsolicited commercial based email to someone who did not request your information.

Even with op-tin lists of people, safe lists, and those who do subscribe, you can still have major problems with some who cry SPAM.

You will never have a problem with someone crying SPAM with verified automated systems, because these systems keep a record of every single subscriber and the corresponding routing information, IP address and time stamp of their verification. Another thing the Automated Marketing System does is it gathers the necessary information about each subscriber, prospect, and/or lead. This is crucial so that you understand who you are communicating with and do not waste valuable time dealing with the wrong people.

Many have thought if you just drive lots of people (traffic) to your website, you will get a lot of business. Just as many are finding out this does not work.. Again, contact information for each person is absolutely necessary for optimum results. Automated systems gather this information for you. Because the right automation verifies, gives you the information needed for each person, and manages each prospect and your email campaign(s), you have the best chance for success than any other process on the market.

Success is not achieved by getting more hits to your websites, but email communications and email campaigns with your contacts. This means having the ability to email people your website in HTML (not text and not a link), so that the person (subscriber) can make an educated choice right away about your company and you.

This is what made McDonald's so successful. Instant delivery of the product! Automation operates on the same basis. Turnkey, easy, and all in one system. One of the many other things that good automation does is the ability to customize email campaigns, email follow-ups, automated letters that are emailed one after the other, and custom PDF files. This is just a brief summary as there is a lot more to automated systems and the right system is crucial to your success.

Rick Clifton - Clifton Web Group

The best kind of content is information presented in a straightforward manner along with the all-important links to your website. Matt Van Atta suggests that, “it could be contained in a PDF that facilitates ease of downloading and assures the user that no virus or spyware is associated with downloading the content. Reports and online white papers are ideal; articles are good, too.

Sure, you could make your content more visually exciting through such formats as video clips and Flash animations. But you’re likely entering dangerous territory by taking this approach. These options result in larger file sizes that take longer to download (and the 56k modem hasn’t completely faded yet). They also give the impression that you’re providing a lot of sizzle to hide the fact that there is little or no steak.

Which leads to the most important point: Whether you are tapping into an existing niche market or creating your own, viral marketing content should show that you know your subject matter. Those who download the content should trust your site. Such trust can go a long way when it comes to promoting products or services on your site.”

Matt - Clifton Web Group

As we enter the holiday season, which is traditionally a time of giving and sharing, what better time than now to examine the concept of viral marketing? After all, good affiliate marketers know how to develop viral marketing content. When they give it away to customers for free download, they know that a certain number of those customers will eventually give something back to them.

As best described by Mark Van Atta, “viral marketing is the creation and distribution of content that gets passed on to others. Its recipients perceive it as being valuable to them, but it also serves to promote your website. Viral marketers usually make their content available online and allow it to be copied and shared with anyone. It works somewhat like marketing buzz or word of mouth, except that it streams through people’s computers more than through people themselves.

The reason for the word “viral” is that given these parameters, such marketing can spread, like a virus, to potentially millions of customers – only this kind doesn’t wreak havoc on computers throughout the land.

But if you don’t like the connection with viruses, here’s a nicer spin on this definition: Think of viral marketing as a means to generate word of mouth over email and the Internet. Word of mouth is the oldest marketing tool in the book for a reason. Viral marketing allows the electronic equivalent of word of mouth to grow at relatively low cost to you, and with relatively low resistance from recipients because they choose to accept the content.”

Rick - Clifton Web Group

Lately, many affiliates have been in a complete uproar with Google’s aggressive campaign to get merchants to adopt to using Google Checkout. It’s not that affiliates have anything against Google Checkout, but wouldn’t YOU be upset if Google was taking money from you? Anik Singal explains: “What’s happening is that a lot of very large merchants are starting to allow Google Checkout for their customers. Google is also offering $10 to consumers who use their service at participating merchants.

Now the main problem is that all of a sudden it seems that affiliate links are not tracking properly!
I guess the “semi-good” news here is that CJ is working on trying to find a solution to integrate with Google Checkout since many of their merchants are participating - but who knows if that solution will be out soon enough to catch most of the holiday shopping season (a BIG time for retail affiliates).”

Rick - Clifton Web Group

While trying to find a new template for my blog today, I lost the coding for the Google AdSense ads that were in my sidebar. This got me to thinking, why do I have those ads on there anyway?

Evelyn Grazini’s says,”the answer is because this month she made 70 cents by having them there. OK, so 70 cents is better than nothing, and she made that money because people left through an ad that they found interesting.

However, if you’re NOT running a site that is set up to specifically make money with AdSense ads, you might want to rethink your Marketing strategy. How else could these people leave your blog or website?

They might have left through a link that was listed on your blogroll and ended up buying something from one of the companies you represent as an affiliate? Certainly that commission would be more than 70 cents! I digress. The only reason I bring this up is because so many people tout Google AdSense as the greatest way to make money. It’s never been that way for me; I really don’t make much on any of my sites with those ads. But now there’s a new kid in town. It’s called Exit39 – it’s what I read about today.

Exit39 is a new Datafeed Ad creator with Ad Rotation. It’s in beta testing right now, so affiliates can use it for free (for a short time). You can go to their website and check it out – and then you’ll be happy that you read this blog regularly.

If Exit39 works the way it says it does, you can replace your Google AdSense ads with rotating datafeed ads in the sidebar or footer of your website or blog. If you’ve worked with datafeeds before, you know that when an affiliate uses a datafeed, it is coded with their affiliate number. You won’t get paid pennies for a click; you’ll get paid dollars for a sale!

The cool thing about Exit39 is the rotation. You could conceivably load up a bunch of products from the datafeed into your sidebar, and every page view would pull up a new set of products. That means that while people are surfing your site, they will see different products on each page.

There are a limited number of companies participating in the program right now, but this looks like very good news for affiliate marketers. I’ll give it a try and let you know how it works.”

Matt - Clifton Web Group

Need some good examples of squeeze pages? Evelyn Graziniz says to “look no further than your friendly neighborhood Google search on “squeeze page.” You’ll find a number of sites that sell squeeze page-building software and other products – using squeeze pages themselves in the process!

Opinions vary as to what the squeeze page should contain. Some argue that it should contain only the email signup mechanism and the copy to persuade visitors to sign up – seemingly making it more like dangling the carrot in front of the horse. But others believe it’s OK for squeeze pages to include links to other pages that contain information as well as the email signup.

Personally, if I enter a page with next to nothing on it except an email signup, I’m less inclined to sign up than I would be if I could see what else the site has that would interest me. But that’s just me.

Since every audience responds differently, it makes sense to test one type of squeeze page over another, using a script that will rotate two different pages. Make sure you set up two separate mailing lists for each page, so you can see which one pulls the most subscribers. In fact, how you craft a squeeze page depends on two factors: your understanding of your target audience, and how much content you’re willing to give away without getting something in return.

In other words, you may “squeeze” that email address out of the visitor… but don’t forget to consider the degree to which you yourself may need to be “squeezed” in order to get that information!”

Ricky - Clifton Web Group

As Matt Van Atta illustrates, “an opt-in list of email addresses can be the affiliate marketer’s “secret weapon.” With them you have a ready-made, reliable audience for your marketing efforts, including information on new products, email newsletters, special offers, and more.

Best of all, the email addresses on the opt-in list belong to individuals who voluntarily signed up because they want ready access to your content. The larger the opt-in list, the more people to whom you can directly market your products, and - if all goes well - the greater your conversion rate.

So how do you start building an opt-in list?

Easy – start collecting email addresses. (Everyone needs a hobby, right?) One way to do this is by using a squeeze page, a web page intended solely to collect the names and emails of visitors to that page. Also known at times as a landing page (although many would argue that not all landing pages are truly squeeze pages), the squeeze page brings in visitors through offering information that appeals to the site’s intended target audience.
Say you have a report that ties to a product you are marketing on your site. The squeeze page can provide details on the report and why it’s beneficial to the visitor. It can offer the content to the visitor for “free.”

All the visitor has to do is provide his or her email address, and possibly his or her name as well. (That name could be used as part of the website’s effort to personalize the visitor’s experience on that site, thus making it more appealing. However, if your affiliate business is just getting off the ground, the email address is the nugget of gold on which to focus for now.)

Because the visitor to the squeeze page sought out your content in the first place, chances are that he or she will give you that email address. You can then send those subscribers ongoing high-quality content, such as a newsletter or a product update.

In the process, you establish a sense of trust on which the visitor can make a future purchase either from or through your site. That can be very important given online buyers’ tendencies to visit a site several times before buying.”

Carol - Clifton Web Group