Actual for You - Internet and Businesses Online

Internet Branding
Having been in the franchising business all my life and understanding how hard it is to build a brand, I have probably read every other popular book on the subject. Some are good and most are excellent, as each one helps give you ideas on setting the stage for your brand marketing objectives. Branding on the Internet is somewhat new as before 1995 there was little if any Internet to speak of. One book I can recommend is:“11 immutable laws of Internet branding” by Laura Ries.This was a goods book. Where as I agree with MANY of the rules of thumb, I disagree completely with nearly all of the examples supporting their assertions. Most of the purported examples to prove their theories are outdated and out of context. I do not recommend this book to anyone and having personally called the author, I was a little concerned with the lack of business history and knowledge that went into the work. Too bad, it is a good subject. In my companies we are following most all of the basic marketing branding rules they consider relevant, and probably better than nearly all of the other companies listed or mentioned.Internet Brand Marketing is important, but only a mere component of the whole. Sure it is important and you should pay attention to your strategy, but the customer will always vote with their dollar, so realize when reading such books that these people who write them actually are writing them to puff up clients they have and trying to sell marketing strategy services. They made errors in their assumptions of Microsoft, the reason for the Boston Market failure, their degree of confidence in Amazon.com, their domain name picking theories. I could nearly crush them in a debate on almost every single example they used to prove a point, as they cite case laws and business histories. On the points themselves they are plus or minus average in their correctness, and I would only challenge a few points, if any and only in certain contexts or situations. All in all however the book should be read with a grain of salt but definitely read by anyone who is in charge of brand marketing on the Internet, which by now should be every CEO in the country.So, why would one recommend a book they disagree with? Because this book makes you think and question reality. You must constant

has some marketing programs work and don't work, they do not know which ones work, which ones don't, so they could be likely to drop the entire program if overall it's not performing, rather than focusing on the performing marketing techniques.

Number four: merchants need to be able to incentivize affiliates to produce more traffic and more sales for them. They need to be able to offer what's called ladder compensation system. As an affiliate, if you sell more of the merchant's products, you should get accumulatively larger percentage of sales than somebody who is not doing too much in sales. This incents affiliates to do more and more and more for the merchant.

10-Day Rule For Franchise Sales; Cooling Off Period
In franchising law we have what we call a 10-day rule, which in laymen’s terms goes something like this; The prospective franchise buyer must receive the (UFOC) Uniform Franchise Offering Circular for ten business days before any monetary compensation is given to or collected by the Franchisor. Sounds like a good idea right? Well, it is very problematic for willing buyers and sellers to operate under such constraints of trade. One of the proponent reasons for this law is that the UFOCs are generally about 200 pages long and that is a lot to read and the government regulators wish to make sure you take it to an attorney first. Currently the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing all the rules in franchising and determining whether we need more over disclosure and which kinds of stipulations to add to the franchise rule. Typical isn’t it adding minutia on top of already over loaded and cumbersome disclosure?I would like to comment first on the 10-day rule. I agree that if such a rule is to remain in play that it should be a number, which is easy to figure out, due to holidays, state holidays, semi-holidays, which are different. If you are going to keep the cooling off period rule, then two weeks in a better idea for clarity so I concur with the commission on this thought. However I warn the commission of leaving the rule in place, I believe the rule should be lowered to one week if not entirely and immediately dismissed. Why? Well because the consumer does not really want any more barriers to buying a franchise. They do not like the 10-day waiting period, which ends up half a month with holidays. They do not want to go through a long sales process. They want instant gratification and they want to start their new career/business and embark on their new chosen lifestyle. All these regulations have complicated the issue and made it tougher to buy franchises, all to the frustration of the consumer, the economy and jobs in our country.Tell me did anyone ever take a survey of the sales process and large documents of given out during their purchases to existing franchisees and ask them what they think of the whole mess, which has been created to supposedly help them? Has the Federal Trade Commission done this? NO, of course not. Yet, I cannot think of a franchisor, which does

Shawn Collins: Thank you for Gene Kavner, joining us today for a little chat. If you're not familiar with Gene, he was formerly of the Worldwide Leader of the Amazon.com Associates program. He's also an experienced entrepreneur and very active in the affiliate business. He's a blogger with the site AffiliateBrand.com. It's great to have you here, Gene.

Gene Kavner: Good morning, Shawn. Thank you. Same here.

Shawn: Great. Just have a handful of questions here. I'd love to hear what you think about them. I'll jump right in. One thing I'm curious How would you define affiliate marketing, and how is it different than a traditional advertising?

Gene: Well, actually, affiliate marketing is not very well understood. We all understand what advertising is basically a merchant or somebody that's got something to sell would typically approach a media, whether it's offline media, such as newspaper or television, or an online website, and purchase some impressions effectively, purchase inventory that they would have and allow their product to be introduced to their viewers or customers or readers of the website. Affiliate marketing actually is the same formula for getting traffic, except for it's the other side of the coin. This is when the merchant would come up with a set of tools that would allow websites to come to their site, grab those tools, and display those merchants' products without necessarily the merchant needing to go and establish a relationship with those particular websites. In fact, merchants would not necessarily even need to know all the different websites that are grabbing their tools and displaying those products with the merchant on their site. So effectively it's the same thing it's who needs to approach who. In traditional advertising it is the merchant who approaches websites, and in affiliate marketing it's basically the websites approach the merchant.

Shawn: Ok. Great. That was a nice explanation. Maybe I'll have to crib that once to get a lot of family and friends asking what affiliate marketing is all about. I always have to try to figure out what to tell them there. Also, with your experience on the affiliate management side, what do you consider to be some essential elements for an affiliate program?

Gene: Well, I've made the list. There's actually about seven really important items of any affiliate program that every single program should have. Not too many merchants or affiliates follow all of those steps, but I'll go through them as quickly as I can. I have a little bit more information on my site, but number one is; Affiliate program is a relationship between a merchant and an affiliate or a website. Every single affiliate knows who their merchants are, but merchants typically are not even made aware who all the affiliates who sign up. Certainly merchants do not need to contact every single affiliate, but they should have information as to who these affiliates are. They should have their names. They should have their email addresses. Any affiliate that is performing very well they need to establish a relationship with them and understand what is driving that affiliate.

Number two; every single merchant needs to also understand how, what I call elastic every single affiliate is. There are some affiliates who will make more money for a merchant if a merchant were to pay them more. Then there are certain affiliates that, if you pay them more, they will not necessarily drive additional traffic. For example, affiliates that did, on paper, click inventory out there to drive traffic to a merchant will actually make more money for the merchant if the merchant were to pay them more. So merchants need to be aware who those affiliates are. Affiliates such as bloggers typically depend on the traffic they get over the internet, so if you pay them more, it is not quite likely they will drive additional traffic to the merchants, so merchants need to be aware of the distinction between kinds of affiliates and pay them on a different scale based on the type of an affiliate they are.

Next is; every single merchant needs to be able to offer their affiliates tracking ID's. That's point number three. These affiliates have different ways of driving traffic to the merchant. Some ways work, and some ways don't work. Tracking ID's is what allows affiliates to understand which of their marketing mechanisms works, and which of them don't work, so they can focus just on the marketing efforts that work. Without these tracking ID's, an affiliate, which has some marketing programs work and don't work, they do not know which ones work, which ones don't, so they could be likely to drop the entire program if overall it's not performing, rather than focusing on the performing marketing techniques.

Publicity: The Best Things In Life Are... FREEE!
One portion of your marketing plan that you probably don't think about enough is "free publicity".Publicity is an extremely important tool and should be given prominence in any marketing plan.What is publicity?It's getting anyone else besides yourself to talk about you (preferably in a good way) and tell about the things you do.If you can get any of the media in your area to give you publicity it will have a tremendous effect in boosting your business.You see, publicity is far more valuable than paid advertising in the same media.Why is publicity or public relations better than advertising?2 Reasons:1. Credibility – If you say that your products or services are the best in a paid newspaper advertisement, readers (who know you are advertising to sell your products) will automatically discount what you say.If, however, a reporter wrote an article about you, the story has built-in credibility because it is seen as the “media” making the statement and is perceived as unbiased. (This is one of the most powerful benefits of publicity)2. It doesn't cost anything – One of the biggest expenses for almost any business is advertising. Advertising can eat up much and sometimes all of your hard earned money if your not careful.Why would any publication want to give you publicity?They will give you publicity only when they feel it is in their own best interest.To keep their readers and viewers, publications and broadcasters must give them hot information that they want. This helps them build and keep their audience – which, helps them create higher profit-margins by selling advertising.If you give the media something interesting that their audience wants to know about, you're helping them keep their audience and sell more advertising.Of course, not every editor will see the value of your information but that's ok because you don't have to get all the publicity you go after to create a large increase in your business.You only need a few free articles or stories to generate a substantial increase in your business.

the website. Affiliate marketing actually is the same formula for getting traffic, except for it's the other side of the coin. This is when the merchant would come up with a set of tools that would allow websites to come to their site, grab those tools, and display those merchants' products without necessarily the merchant needing to go and establish a relationship with those particular websites. In fact, merchants would not necessarily even need to know all the different websites that are grabbing their tools and displaying those products with the merchant on their site. So effectively it's the same thing it's who needs to approach who. In traditional advertising it is the merchant who approaches websites, and in affiliate marketing it's basically the websites approach the merchant.

Action Learning - Effective Listening
Action learning provides a structured approach to making progress on difficult and sometimes emotive issues. Taking part in an action learning set can help improve skills vital to leading a business forward, namely:Being objective and making decisionsImproving listening and questioningCreating the climate for purposeful discussionAn action learning set normally numbers between 5 and 7, and at the start is facilitated to give the group a good foundation. Each member of the group gets a period of time to explain their issue, and then gets questioned by the rest of the group. Each member of the group can take a turn. A good set has trust between the members, a good set of ground rules that have been adopted, and individuals learn to ask the right questions so that another member of the group can make good progress.They probably learn this from each other.Action research is quite similar. Using similar questioning and listening techniques it may be possible to make progress on an issue that has been difficult to resolve. Again the key is asking the right question, and exposing yourself to an answer that may be uncomfortable.Within action learning having the right sort of climate is important. Trust is key to this. For instance if you were having a meeting and the following signals were given, how would you feel?1.‘I’m judging you’2.‘I’m in charge’3.‘I can manipulate you’4.‘I don’t give a damn about you’5.‘I’m superior to you’6.‘My mind is made up. Nothing you can say will alter it’(Gibb, J, (1961). Defensive communication. Journal of Communication, 11, 141-148)One of the problems of considering joining an action learning group is that it could be uncomfortable and public, at least with the other group members. Another Gibb (AA Gib, Enterprise Culture 1987), suggested that entrepreneurs focus on active learning and the opportunity (amongst other factors). An interesting debate is whether entrepreneurs have learnt these skills through experience, or possess them naturally as they are inquisitive.If this is so - that suggests that good business people are able to create the climate in which they can learn from others.Many small business owners find creating the right environment qu

liate program?

Online Business - Affiliate Management In-Built With Your Payment Gateway - Clickbank
ClickBank has a built-in affiliate program. It offers all features of a good affiliate program. There is no need to install any expensive scripts on your website. You can start signing up affiliates right away as soon as you open your account.The beauty of ClickBank is that it integrates the affiliate management program with an in-built payment gateway. ClickBank is one of the most popular and easiest services to use for payment processing online. Sign-up is quick and you get approved and running in one day.The ClickBank Control Panel is easy to use. You can get familiar with the whole system in no time. It costs $49 to open a ClickBank account. This is pretty cheap when compared with other payment processing systems. Once you open an account, all your transaction money gets deposited into your account. You are paid the full balance every two weeks.I’m a member of probably about dozen different affiliate programs, and have literally hundreds of webmasters signed up in the programs I run myself. If you’re serious about earning serious money on the Web, then you’re going to be spending a lot of time checking out affiliate programs and tracking your responses. It’s one of the easiest and most reliable ways to make cash with a website.So far, we’ve talked about the kind of marketing plans that work through your website: banners, links, affiliate programs etc. But the website isn’t the only way to get the traffic you need. In the next chapter, we’re going to begin talking about how you can use e-mail to drum up business.

ertain affiliates that, if you pay them more, they will not necessarily drive additional traffic. For example, affiliates that did, on paper, click inventory out there to drive traffic to a merchant will actually make more money for the merchant if the merchant were to pay them more. So merchants need to be aware who those affiliates are. Affiliates such as bloggers typically depend on the traffic they get over the internet, so if you pay them more, it is not quite likely they will drive additional traffic to the merchants, so merchants need to be aware of the distinction between kinds of affiliates and pay them on a different scale based on the type of an affiliate they are.

Power Pointers for Story Selling
Nothing disarms and invites an audience in more than humor. We are instantly drawn to people we think are funny. We enjoy listening to humorous individuals and hearing what they have to say. Humor grabs attention, creates rapport and makes a message more memorable. It can also relieve tension, enhance relationships and motivate people. If you've got an important message to share, humor can give you a huge advantage. The actor John Cleese once said, "If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth." Don't use humor just to get a laugh out of your prospects. In humor, there is so much potential for influence. Armed with humor, you can provide special insights or teach important principles. Humor must be used cautiously, however. If used properly, it will help your audience to like you. If used ineffectively or inappropriately, however, it can be a big turn off. The instant you irritate or offend your audience members, it's over. Nothing you say or do from that point forward will rectify the damage done. Worse, they'll always remember you as a bad comic. Be sure that you have good material before attempting to incorporate humor into your presentations. Also, cater your comedy to your audience. What would they find funny? What are some inside experiences they share that you could draw humor from? Use humor that will evoke chuckles and lightheartedness but that is still built on truth. It is a very wise idea to test the comedic waters on friends or family to make sure your humor works! Another technique that is sometime used in story selling is the instillation of fear. As manipulative as it may sound, fear definitely motivates others when it is used properly. I would strongly caution against creating a false sense of fear, however. Doing so truly is manipulative, and by instilling false fear you will lose your audience's long-term trust. Use fear only if the threat is real and if it is in the best interest of the audience to be forewarned. For example, doctors sometimes have to be straightforward with their patients about the impending worst-case scena

Number five; some affiliates are just better at negotiating, so merchants need to have a way to compensate different affiliates differently. Not just based on the kind of an affiliate they are, but simply based on the fact that some affiliates want to make more money, and some affiliates do not, are not as good at negotiating and you can simply pay them less. There are some very big affiliates that simply will not deal with a particular merchant if their pay structure is too low. However, that merchant doesn't necessarily need to raise the fees for everybody. Some affiliates would be happy to make what they make. There needs to be a way for a merchant to select this affiliate will make so much, and this affiliate will make so much.

Direct links; number six. Direct links are also extremely important. In the days of Google, where we all depend on free search traffic coming to our site, a merchant should get a second benefit of an affiliate program, which an increase in it's page rank to the site. If affiliates offer direct links, linking directly to a merchant's site, that causes a merchant's site to go up in its page rank. If an affiliate program redirects these links through the program, the merchant does not get the same benefit. It is really important for an affiliate program to allow a direct link from an affiliate to the merchant.

Number seven; and this is the last point, but it's not any less important than any of the other ones: Every merchant program should have a two tier affiliate program, meaning if an affiliate finds another affiliate for that merchant, the merchant should compensate that first referring affiliate for that find, based on sales that second merchant makes. Effectively the two tier structure incentivizes people not only to sell merchant product but also find other people, other affiliates, who sell the same merchant's product. It effectively serves this double benefit to the merchants.

So these, Shawn, are the seven really important parts of affiliate programs. There are some affiliate programs that actually do all seven; some that barely touch on a couple of them. For us to be successful in the affiliate program and for merchants to be successful, this is what I see the world moving towards, is everybody getting those really important features into their programs.

Shawn: That's some great insight. I've often wondered, from your seventh point, why the big affiliate networks don't offer two tiers, and maybe with some prodding they'll do it in the future.

Gene: Amazon, for example is one of those big main programs that does not offer a second tier. Google, on the other hand, does. You definitely see some really big names that do offer it and some big names that don't. Overall, it's about how much traffic those merchants get, and as they see a lot more and more affiliates displaying advertising for programs that have two tiers, they will all move in that direction as well.

Shawn: Sure. What do you think is the biggest challenge for an affiliate manager?

Gene: Well, I think the biggest challenge obviously is for many people, if you're an affiliate manage, is how do you get above the noise level of all the different affiliate programs out there. If you are a brand new manager on the scene, there is probably already 20 or 30 other affiliate managers trying to push a different merchant that sells somewhat similar products. Getting above noise level is really, really tough. One of the most important things that an affiliate manager would need to do is figure out how to incent certain affiliates more than their competitors, going after certain big name affiliates and being able to offer a higher commission structure. Effectively, I know it is kind of buying traffic, and you can only pay so much, but many affiliate programs will in fact build their program around some affiliates on which they do not make any money, but these are the affiliates that bring the name, that bring the traffic, and bring the recognition to that merchant. The merchant will then make money on other affiliates who they did not necessarily need to pay as much. Getting that traffic and getting above the noise level is one of the biggest challenges in today's internet, which is full of many opportunities for many different affiliates to make money.

Shawn: Sure. I saw in your blog that you stated that widgets are the future with affiliate marketing. Could you share some examples of widgets that maybe affiliates could leverage?

Gene: Sure. Widgets are actually a reasonably new phenomenon in the world of online marketing. Basically a widget is a piece of code, a little component, somebody could easily place their website and it displays something for a consumer or reader of the site. It is also something that somebody who's reading the site should be able to easily grab, copy, and paste right from the site they're watching and put it on their site. We've seen YouTube, for example they've done a phenomenal job at allowing pe

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The biometric time clock helps to gain the objectives of security, convenience, and accuracy, which is of great importance in contemporary working environments. Biometric time clock maintenance requires professionalism, even though the maintenance cost is low. The parts of biometric clocks are easily available and can be replaced to give more perfection.

If you’ve never planned a big marketing event or campaign before, some of the little logistics can be daunting. All the little details can seem overwhelming. The last thing you need to be worrying about is your promotional giveaways.

If you are going to do affiliate marketing business, you will that having your own unique content is important and you will also have to make sure that the content is also relevant to the niche that you are in. This article will touch on the topic of why content creation is important and the types of affiliate content which you can create.

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Actual for You - Interview with Gene Kavner-Former World-Wide Leader of the Amazon.com Associates Program

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