Section Goals

• To help you understand exactly where to start with your business in relation to the question “What do I sell?”.
• To display the advantages of owning your own product compared to pure affiliate promotion.
• To show you how much more power to earn you have through owning your own products.
• To assist in the development of forward thinking instead of putting all your attention to short term benefits.
• To provide an introduction to resource building techniques.
• To begin to discover what goes on behind the scenes of promotion, and where your real power to hit it big comes from.
• To provide an introduction to quality over quantity and how it’s going to allow you to make lots more cash.
• To demonstrate that when you have your own product, your situation becomes fluid, and not only gives you the power to promote future products but gives you one heck of a bargaining chip too, making your job of promotion much easier.
• To give you an insight into why people fail to create the business they desire by thinking that promotion of affiliate programs is easier or even possible without being able to create and successfully promote their own products.

Affiliate Marketing VS Your Own Products

Welcome. I’d like to talk to you about all the advantages of owning your own product and why creating and releasing products of your own should be a high priority, and of course how this compares to promoting other peoples businesses through affiliate programs. By the time we’re done here you’ll have a clearer idea as to where you’re going with your business and why you’re going there.

The Choice Is Yours

Ok, first things first. How do you choose? The answer in itself is quite simple, and I have always believed that creating your own products does something very important for you, and that’s give you the means, the opportunity and the resources to promote affiliate programs to haul in extra cash.

Promoting other peoples products is all well and good, I don’t have a problem with doing that at all, but to get to the point where you can do this well, and do this confidently you need a good base, and that base is your own products. There are two big ways in which your own products are going to help you get some meat behind your marketing.

First off, they’re going to start getting your name around and start building your online presence. If your customers know you, and have known you for some time, it’s more likely they’ll buy from you again when you either launch your next product, or you come to them with a recommendation of some sort through an affiliate program and other people’s products.

This is all part of building your brand, and even though it is a much longer term concept that initially bringing in cash, it’s also very important and will make a big difference in the future. It’s imperative that you get this right now, as further down the line, you will reap huge benefits.

Imagine for a moment, that you’re creating a product to sell, and all you’ve ever done is promote affiliate programs. It’s going to be hard to hit home about your expertise and the reliability of your product when putting together a sales letter.

Another point here is that generally, through the promotion of your own products and joint ventures, you’re going to make contacts. These contacts are extremely important to you, but when you have nothing to contact them about in the first place, it’s kind of hard to get in with a group of people, unless you wait for them to come to you, which of course we don’t want to do, or there’s no telling how long it’s going to take.

Secondly, and most importantly by far, is it’s going to build your resources. Look at the kind of things that you can do with your own product, and your own website that you can’t do with affiliate promotion. List building is one heck of an important area that’s made easy simply by offering follow-up to your product that increases sales in the short term anyway.

There’s more though, in fact there’s a lot more. The earning capacity of owning your own product is immense, and the flexibility it gives you instantly, and far down the line into the future cannot be matched by affiliate promotion on it’s own.

Lets look at a couple of scenarios that are going to make a huge difference to the amount of cash that you bring in every week that can be done highly effectively with your own product. The reason I want to do this, is to really reinforce and push home the advantages you will have as an online marketer when you own and promote your own products and services and why, if you haven’t done so, this should be a top priority.

Lost Potential

One. Lets start by looking at the ways in which you may come to promote your products initially, and in the future through the use of joint ventures. The first thing that springs to mind right away is simply offering higher commissions and free product to e-zine owners and marketers with their own personal lists. In this most basic form, it’s amazing what you can achieve by giving your product away.

The great thing about this is, although it’s really simple to do, it works brilliantly. You’ll have access to huge numbers of people through the lists others have gathered. Some don’t even allow advertising and use their list as a personal tool for their own products. These lists are usually highly targeted and very responsive. It’s not easy to come up with the means and methods needed to tap in to this powerful resource when you don’t own your own product.

Having complete control over a product of your own also allows you to carry out other joint venture like operations to increase initial profits. As well as deals and giving away your product to gain access to these lists, there’s a whole host of other ideas you can use.

Having your own site provides your business with great malleability from the start. You can personalize certain areas to cater to particular marketers lists, not only increasing response rates, but this also increases the chance that your JV offer may be accepted. List owners like to give something special away to their customers and contacts. This is something you have the power to do with your own product that you won’t with affiliate programs.

It should start becoming obvious to you now how much more power you have with your own product. That little bit of extra work and investment throws the doors wide open and gives you a lot more to play with in the short term, and in the long term, which is the next point I’d like to show you.

Initial profits isn’t the only thing to think about of course, there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes with your own product. That’s building your resources as a business owner that will allow you so much leeway in the near and far future. First up, I want to talk a little more about how the ‘you brand’ is being built. That’s people starting to recognize you as an online business owner.

The You Brand

There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye. Understand that you’re not going out plastering how much you earn and how successful you are all over your sales letters. Although this can indeed be very powerful, when you’re just starting out something a lot more powerful is going on here. You’re going to these marketers and offering them your product for free, and higher commissions and in return you’re getting a whole lot more than just some quick cash.

The messages they’re sending to their own personal and private list that you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to reach promoting affiliate programs on their own, are telling their subscribers, that trust the reputable list owner that your product is good. They’re saying ‘look at this great product, buy it’ and subscribers will listen. Suddenly you find you’re getting endorsements from well-known and trusted marketers. This far more powerful than any initial sales you might make.

Having other people build your brand for you, telling the people that trust them to not only buy your product but to trust you too eliminating some of the biggest problems that arise in customers minds before they even hit the sales letter. “How do I know I can trust this person?” It’s safe to say, once you’ve answered that questions initially, you won’t have to do it again unless you happen to break that trust with bad moves further down the line.

One heck of a powerful tactic that’s going to benefit you right now, and in the future. No single five thousand dollar sale is as valuable as being trusted. People will tell other people about you; the word will get around, and when word of mouth starts happen like this in a positive way, it can only be good for you, your business and your profits.

If you had any doubts that you wanted to create your own product, I’m going to guess they’re starting to evaporate into thin air. There’s more though. Now I want to talk about the kind of things that are happening aside from initial profits and the building of the ‘you brand’.

Beyond Profits

So far your own product has allowed you to earn more initially, simply because of the flexibility you have to do pretty much what you want with it. It’s also built your brand and introduced you to new contacts you wouldn’t have been able to make with affiliate programs and it’s built the trust that others have in you. All of this that wouldn’t have been possible if you had decided to go down that affiliate program route before establishing yourself as a somebody.

Something else is going on in the background here. Something that on the surface seems like old news, but it’s not. It’s far from it, and what most people don’t even realize is the humongous effect this can have on their business. It’s that whole quality over quantity thing. In this case it really applies. What am I talking about?

Ah, you guessed it. It’s building your own client list for you, but in a very special way. Forget going out and buying leads and stuff like that. This is different. The deals you’ve been able to make, the ad swaps, joint ventures, product giveaways and special sites you’ve set up have all lead to something very important, not just a bigger list.

In this case, we’re talking the quality factor. Quality over quantity. All these people that have already heard about you, and know how good your product is are going right onto your list when they visit any of your sites, subscribe to your list, or the follow-up series. This is what I’m talking about. Gathering really meaty ammunition to use for future products.

What you’re getting here isn’t just a normal run of the mill addition in size to your list. What you’re gaining is pure gold, and that is solid, targeted, pre-qualified future customers that already know to trust you, because they’ve been told by their list owners and very respectable marketers to trust you.

This is massively important. I’ve had ads that I’ve paid to go out to e-zines with seventy or eighty thousand subscribers and upwards that have brought far less of a response than an ad that goes out to five thousand people on a respected list owners list.

Now this is where it gets interesting. Do you see how already, even though we’ve just briefly looked at what you can do with your own product that you’ve already gained a huge ability here to promote affiliate programs and future products? This isn’t about the numbers at all; we’re talking a select list that’s going to be highly effective for you simply because of their previous experiences with your business.

It’s when you get to this stage you can decide whether or not you want to go ahead and just promote affiliate programs, just create and sell your own products, or both at the same time.

The most important things here are your resources, and what I’m showing you with all these examples is just how wide your scope can be with your own product. There are all sorts of opportunities to be had, and deals to be made that are to your advantage, both short and long term.

See how your situation is a lot more fluid now? Things are getting good, and it gets better too. There’s a whole host of things you can do to further your business with your own product. I like to look at promoting your own products as dynamic, simply because of the many choices and opportunities you have to promote, gather resources, make contacts, increase list size and quality, build brand, and a whole host of other profitable gains that come from this. Affiliate promotion is far more linear. Promote, get profit.

Beyond Direct Promotion Outlets

Now we get to the good part, where your situation gets even more fluid. A big part of your owning and promoting your own product is setting up and affiliate system, so the established marketers, or those with a good list out there can promote for you. This brings even more resources into your lap for future promotion.

There’s some very important factors about running your own affiliate program that I see many people fail to notice or even implement on a daily basis, that if nurtured correctly, will see you and your business through many products and very profitable times. The first thing to keep in mind is that your resources have grown once again. This is very important. Notice when I talk about resources here, I’m not talking about random quality leads that you purchased or anything as weak as that. Oh no, again this is far more powerful.

Something that you may have noticed many of the big and successful marketers have in common is that they have a quality affiliate base. Just like your list, something you can’t gather if you start off promoting affiliate programs. An affiliate base is very important. They’re just like the big contacts that you may make through joint ventures, and their promotion power can be immense.

Once they’re in your system, or have bought your product and promoted for you as an affiliate, that’s it. Unless you do something drastically miss calculated or unethical to break the trust, they’re going to promote for you again and again. With your own affiliate systems in place to support your product, again, you’re going to get a lot more in the way of initial sales, due to the fact it’s far easier to have an army of marketers promoting for you than it is to try and sell a product on your own, but also, these guys are here for good.

Keep releasing good products, and they will stay with you. Don’t forget them, they are pure gold, and you can take advantage of this fact in a number of ways. Special promotions, special deals, increased commissions for particular periods that you may offer through a broadcast, and so on. Once again, you have a much better opportunity here, and a much more dynamic situation that you can do with as you please, when you please. As long as it pleases your affiliates too.

These affiliate are the guys with the lists. Your promotion power. Not only that, but this is where things get better for the fourth time. Once your resources start growing, the people on your list, and also your affiliates are going to start coming to you with joint venture offers, introducing you to new contacts, and so on. See how there’s a huge snowball like effect going on here? Something that you’ll never see if you promote affiliate programs before you’re established.

Ok, I think that’s enough with the examples right now. I could talk about what you can do with your own product for days, but I won’t. That’s enough to really to show you what I’m getting at and the kind of advantages you can put yourself in front of.

What I just took you through, as I mentioned earlier is an overly powerful snowball effect that you’ll be able to see when you get your own products up and running. Whatever you do, if you’re not established yet, and don’t have the resources like we talked about above, don’t start promoting affiliate programs yet. Get your own products out there at least once along with this course. You’ll be much happier and more successful for it.

The Exceptions

Now, there are people out there who promote affiliate systems really well, and very rarely release their own products if at all. You might be wondering how they did it, and why I’m telling you not to do it. Well, the answer is simple. If you look back in their marketing history, it’s likely that they already have all these resources in place, and can sit back and promote affiliate programs to their hearts content, and bring in tens of thousands of dollars a month just doing this alone.

Remember, above all that your own products are your vehicle to increased resources, a much more powerful and trustworthy brand for yourself, a list of much better quality, more and better quality contacts to perform and exchange joint ventures with, and most importantly, an army of affiliates. Put all those together, and you have one heck of a solid money making system right there.

Don’t worry if you’re thinking “But I don’t know how to create my own product” or “But I don’t have the money to build and start selling my own product”, I’ll be showing you exactly how to overcome this in the upcoming reports, and of course how to come up with folders full of ideas for your own products that you can create and sell.

In the big examples above, your own products are the harvesters of resources, and give you the opportunity to promote other peoples products successfully. Commit that snowball effect to memory, because if you really do follow this course and what we’re telling you, that’s where your business is headed for in the future.

Summary

• Later, we’ll talk specifically and in depth about how to create your very own products, which in effect will snowball, leaving you with a folder full of concept ideas and future products. This is in a few steps time though.
• Lets talk right now about the advantages of owning your product, and why creating products of your own gives you supreme promotion power compared to any other method of marketing out there.
• Creating your own products gives you the both the means and the opportunity to promote affiliate programs at a later date to haul in extra cash.
• So what are the advantages of creating, building and launching your own products? Well first off, something as important as your sales is your brand and your trust rating.
• Although building your brand is a much longer-term prospect when compared with instant affiliate cash it’s even more important for many reasons.
• First up, it’s going to be far easier for you to convince people to buy stuff if you’re launching your own products. If your products are quality, people will trust you, when they trust you, they listen, when they listen, they buy your stuff.
• Second is the persuasion and demonstration of your expertise. How do you prove that you’re a success when you’re only promotion affiliate programs? It’s possible, but far easier when you have physical proof and other people’s words about your own products.
• Third is your promotion power. You’ll see this demonstrated later on in even more detail, but for now, all you need to know is that your own products are going to bring you contacts with their own promotion power, and each of you working towards mutual success, it’s far quicker and easier to succeed than doing everything on your own.
• Fourth is the most important aspect of building your resources. Think about the control and power your own products are going to give you. The ability to build your list for free, have a bunch of people promoting your stuff, building contacts and pulling in lists of long term customers that will buy from you again and again. Can’t beat that immense combination for profits.
• Lets look at some scenarios that that are going to make a huge difference to the amount of cash you’re able to earn relating to owning your own product to re-enforce this idea of your own product equals quicker, easier, and often more profitable success.
• Firstly, lets pay attention to the non-monetary aspects of owning your own product. Things that you are able to do that are going to really pull in the sales without having to spend any of your hard earned cash. Giving stuff away is the first thing that comes to mind. Giving your product away to score deals and promotion power that you wouldn’t normally receive when you don’t have anything to give in the first place.
• How about more examples, giveaways to private list owners, e-zine owners, higher and special commissions for heavy hitters and other advantages along these lines. There’s a whole host of these ideas that dramatically increase your income that you have the power to carry out with your own product.
• Even more examples of malleability for you. You can personalize particular areas of your business to cater to specific marketers lists or customers, further increasing the response rates to your promotions, plus giving you more chance of even being accepted for deals such as these in the first place.
• It should be glaringly obvious already how much of an advantage having your own products holds against starting out trying to promote other peoples stuff.
• Going back to building your brand through your own products, there’s a lot more to this than meets the eye. You don’t have to be earning millions and plastering it all over your sales letter for this to work. Although it’s very powerful, you’re doing something even more effective by opening up your marketing avenues through other peoples prospects, and that’s saying to a marketers list hey, look, the person you’ve been buying from that you already trust trusts me. The subscribers will love this.
• It’s safe to say that once that you open up this avenue, the biggest question on peoples lips before buying anything from you ‘can I trust this person, what they’re telling me and what they’re selling me?’ will be answered.
• This is a really powerful tactic that’s going to benefit you from day one and far into the future. No ten or twenty thousand dollars worth of sales overnight is as valuable for your income as being trusted and known by a wide audience.
• Something even more profitable is going on in the background here too. The widely known but rarely used quality over quantity aspect. Through the deals that you’ve set up, and through these people hearing of you and your products, and trusting you, you’re being granted the power to gather meaty amounts of ammunition to promote future products through the building of your list, again something we’ll talk about in detail later.
• What you’re getting here isn’t just a run of the mill addition to the numbers on your list, but pure gold, sheer quality, solid, targeted, pre-qualified future customers that are going to buy your stuff through that simple concept of brand and trust.
• Do you see how already, even though we’ve just briefly looked at what your own products do for that you’ve already gained this massive ability to make more money than those out there trying to get rich through boring old e-zine ads and last decade marketing methods promoting other people’s products and services?
• Now it gets good, and your situation gets even more fluid, because you have the power to have masses of people promoting for your through your own affiliate system tied to your products. What could be better than hundreds of people working to make both you and them a whole lot of cash?
• There are people who just promote affiliate programs and do this really well, how did they do that? You might be wondering why I’m telling you it’s best not to do that if this is the case, the reasoning is this: If you look at their marketing history, you’ll find that they already have resources in place to be able to pull this off so well, not all, but many of them from their own products.
• Do you see the snowball effect of your resources already beginning to build each other? This is a big part of online business.
• Do you want to create your own products right now? Lets do it.

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