Associate Programs Newsletter #230

CONTENTS:

1. Joanna reckons I'm still an endangered species
2. Have you started your exit strategy?
3. Six survival tips
4. How to get a $10 free trial account at Kanoodle
5. Introducing the rest of the team
6. How secure is your computer?
7. More useful tips on AdSense
8. Affiliate Summit for affiliate managers
9. Useful free resource: Clear writing tips
10. More useful tips on AdSense

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=============================================
1. Joanna reckons I'm still an endangered species
=============================================

Please keep those prayers and good wishes coming, folks.

My wife, Joanna, says to tell you that I'm still on the
endangered species list. She reckons she needs all the help with
praying she can get.

In the last issue I wrote about my battle with a life-threatening
rare blood disorder. After I got out of hospital about a week ago,
my blood counts rose, which was very encouraging.

However, today's blood counts were mainly worse.

It could be several weeks before we see if the treatment works
and if I can avoid having the bone marrow transplant that's
penciled in.

Eva Rosenberg kindly started a "Get Well Allan" discussion on the
Associate Programs Forum:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/discus/viewtopic.php?t=226

It's a bit like having my own obituary without having to die
first - embarrassing, but heartwarming, too.

I'll make occasional updates on my health in that discussion
thread.

If you register at the forum you can receive automatic
notification by email any time a discussion you're following is
updated.

Register here: http://AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php

That's the easiest way for me to keep people up to date without
exhausting myself.

Thanks for caring.

Thanks, too, to all the readers who have gone to the forum and
started helping other people there.

It's a beautiful sight.

======================================================
2. Have you started your exit strategy?
======================================================

Continuing the theme I discussed in the last issue...

As Rob Frankel of http://www.RobFrankel.com points out, not only
should you have a survivor plan, but an exit plan, as well.

"And surprisingly, you should have it thought out BEFORE you
start your business, not after," he says.

If your exit strategy is planned before you start the business,
you can work toward that goal and maximize your value for that
occasion.

So what's your exit plan? Will you be bought out by a larger
company? Will you go public on the stock market?

When you want to get out of the business, will you have a neatly
organized business that it's possible to sell?

Most of us probably stumbled into our Internet businesses the way
I did, starting as a little hobby. Back in 1996, it never
occurred to me that one day I'd own a company that hired
employees.

It never occurred to me that I might end up with a business that
would be worth selling, or passing on to a friend or relative to
look after.

Here's something else to think about, too...

If you build something interesting and useful, you'll have
created something that's worth selling.

If your affiliate "business" simply involves sending people
directly to the merchant, you're not really creating a business,
you're just creating a job for yourself.

==============================================
3. Six survival tips
==============================================

Rosie Hamilton used to be a senior risk manager for a large
company and did a lot of disaster/survival training and risk
assessment.

"You know the kind of thing - what to do if the building blows
up, the team all die on a factory outing, the building is
contaminated by chemicals and we can't get in - the happy stuff!"

Here are Rosie's survival tips:

* Keep records of the obvious things, passwords, file folders
structure, notes of regular tasks. Often people don't note the
fact that Joe Smith's nickname is Blondie and all the
correspondence under Blondie is really Joe's.

* Get organized - make it easy for people to find things -
structure all files according to some clear theme - and stick to
it. Create work schedules.

* Clear out the clutter - it is the hay that hides the needle in
the hay stack.

* Make backups of key files and address books.

* Keep your contact books up to date - use complete information
- for example, Joe does this for me, at these times at these
prices.

* Write down the way you do tasks, not just the task names. And
remember to put the sequences in. It may be obvious that you do
not dry plates until they have been washed - but not everything
in business is that clear cut.

(Many thanks to everyone else who contributed exit strategy
ideas. We're working on a series of articles for the web site.)

==================================
4. How to get a $10 free trial account at Kanoodle
==================================

Did you notice a report by Timothy Warnock in I-Sales Digest
recently on fraudulent clicks via pay-per-click search engines?

One pay-per-click search engine which looks after its customers
is Kanoodle.

As Timothy reported, Kanoodle automatically discounts clicks that
it has found to be fraudulent.

Kanoodle is an extremely cost-effective means of delivering
targeted traffic to your web site.

I've done some tough bargaining and arranged a special deal for
readers of the Associate Programs Newsletter, so I urge you to
respond to it.

Right now, by using the special link below, you can get a free
$10 trial account at Kanoodle pay-per-click search engine with no
deposit required.

Find out what Kanoodle can do for your business.

Get the $10 free trial account here:

http://www.kanoodle.com/util/init_refid.cool?refid=68369088

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================================
5. Introducing the rest of the team
================================

While I spent time in hospital recently, our Internet business
didn't grind to a halt.

I want to pay tribute to the rest of the team, who kept the
business running while I had my feet up in hospital.

Here they are, listed in the order they joined me, from Nathan in
1999 to Ros in 2003:

NATHAN POWER
Pay-per-click search engine specialist.
Manages and promotes
http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com

WALLY MORGAN
Moderates the Associate Programs Forum
http://AssociatePrograms.com/discus/index.php

JOANNA (my wife)
Personal assistant/researcher/consultant/editor/battler of
bureaucracy.

CHRIS PEARCE
Problem solver, researcher, and general fix-it guy. He's now
frantically busy with third-year computer programming studies.

GLENNYS FAULDS
Processes submissions to the http://www.AssociatePrograms.com
and http://www.LifetimeCommissions.com affiliate directories and
keeps them to date.

RUPERT FARROW
Answers email and builds successful affiliate web sites.
Read his descriptions of how he does it:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/135/1/Affiliate-marketing-case-study-using-SBI
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/138/1/Web-affiliate-programs-experiment-2

ROS OLIVEIRA
Researcher, writer, marketer.
Has extensive background in the banking and finance industries.
She's a qualified financial planner.

If you're fairly new to affiliate programs and are wondering if
it really is possible to make a useful income from affiliate
programs, here's something to think about...

All these people's wages - some full-time, some part-time, are
paid for by affiliate program commissions.

=============================================
6. How secure is your computer?=============================================

Here's how I've avoided being affected by the latest nasty worm
and virus doing the rounds.

I use Norton Internet Security 2003 from Symantec and keep it
updated automatically. It's a combined firewall and anti-virus
software.

Also, I don't use Microsoft Outlook. I use Eudora.

===============================================
7. More useful tips on AdSense
===============================================

I know I've mentioned Google's AdSense quite a bit in recent
newsletters, but with so many things on my mind lately, I forgot
to mention Audri and Jim Lanford's useful and informative site -
http://About-AdSense.com/.

There's plenty of useful information about how to create or
enhance your site to make it "AdSense friendly".

They also list 12 good points about sites that WON'T work.
Although they're all fairly obvious, it saves you wasting time on
building a site that just won't cut it.

Another interesting feature is the Google AdSense Web Tool -
http://About-AdSense.com/adsense-web-tool.html .

If you would like a peek at the kind of ads AdSense would place
on your site, simply type or paste your URL on the toolbar, and
four ads will appear.

Audri and Jim also offer a mini-course - "Dollars and AdSense".
It's well worth investigating if you're not already in AdSense
overload.

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===============================================
8. Affiliate Summit for affiliate managers
===============================================

Top-notch speakers are lined up for Affiliate Summit 2003,
a one-day workshop for affiliate managers in New York.

For example...

Andy Rodriguez of TigerDirect.com, will describe how he took an
under-performing affiliate program that was booking $80,000 a
month in transactions to over $1 million in under 12 months.
"We'll discuss communicating and using affiliate feedback to
guide, grow and solve your affiliates program woes."

Prakash Bharwani, of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, will talk about tools
that are inexpensive, yet creative and powerful to help improve
affiliate loyalty, resulting in more sales and better metrics.
"These will, of course, include only those tools that I have
implemented and found successful. I will also present actual
performance figures."

Find out more here:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/summit2003

===============================================
9. Useful free resource: Clear writing tips
===============================================

Do you need to learn how to write clearly so that people will
understand you easily?

Clear communication helps increase sales.

"The BBC News Styleguide" is a collection of rules and
recommendations for journalists. It's crammed with tips useful
for any writers anywhere.

If you write sentences like this one...

"When trying to log on, the system
rejects my password."

... you need to read this report.

http://www.bbctraining.co.uk/pdfs/newsStyleGuide.pdf

(For an explanation of what's wrong with that sentence, see the
section on Danglers.)

===============================================
10. Thought for today: Something to treasure
===============================================

"Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long
after your good health has vanished." - Og Mandino

 

All the best

Allan Gardyne