Your business can grow – aka: make more money – only 1 of 2 ways:

• #1 Sell Existing Products/Services to New Customers
• #2 Sell New Products/Services to Existing Customers

That’s it.  There is no other way to grow your business than those two options.

While it is true, #1 Getting New Customers, requires more resources (time and money) than selling more stuff  to existing customers, it is also true that unless you get new customers, eventually, you won’t have any customers to re-sell to, because one thing is absolutely certain – people will leave your list.  Further, even in businesses with back ends that go on and on, as an info-business, your customer is at some point going to outgrow your offers.

Marketing Challenge: Identify the average customer life-span and average customer value for your business.  Can you improve it?  How?

It is essential for both maintaining your current revenue AND for growth that you place a high value on those things that bring you new prospects, leads and customers and invest accordingly.  Stuff like:

• SEO
• Adwords / Facebook ads
• Banner Ads
• Ezine Ads
• Print media ads
• Article Marketing
• PR
• Blogging
• Social Media Networking
• In-person Networking
• Affiliates and Joint Venture partners garnered “organically”
• Affiliate Networks
• Joint Venture Brokering

Each of the options requires an investment of either time or money or both.  If it’s dirt cheap on the $$$ side, it will surely use up a big chunk of your time.  If it’s done-for-you and costs you little or nothing on the clock, expect to pay a premium, which just might be worth it!  How do you know?

Marketing challenge:  Know how much a lead is worth to your business with this formula.

1. Know your lead/customer ratio – in other words if you have 8500 on your list and 920 of those have bought something from you at some time then your ratio is 9.2.  In other words, on average, you must secure just over 9 leads for you to have a new customer.
2. Know how long it takes on average for a lead to become a customer – let’s say in your business it’s 45 days.
3. Know how much money on average a first time buyer spends with you – let’s make it $60
4. Know how much money on average a new customer spends with you in their first year – for our example, $425
5. Divide #3 by #1 to determine how much your lead is worth initially (for this example within 45 days):  $60/9.2 = $6.52 per lead.
6. Divide #4 by #1 to determine how much that lead is worth after 1 full year with you:  $425/9.2 = $46.20

How quickly you need to re-coup your investment determines how much you should invest in generating leads in your business!

In the example above, if I want to make absolutely sure I get my investment back quickly because I don’t have a lot of surplus cash hanging around, I might choose to set my per lead budget under the $6.52 I’ve calculated it to be worth after 45 days.   I’ll probably choose activities like Article Marketing, educate myself on simple SEO or online PR strategies, and devote time to intentional and targeted social media.  I might create a new promotional offer – a free tele-class or webinar and invite my current customers and others I know serving my niche to become affiliates and promote it in exchange for an affiliate commission.

If your cash flow is not as restrictive, and/or the average value per lead is high, then you’ll be well served by investing significantly more in your lead generation and by having someone else do the actual leg work so you stay focused on increasing your average customer value with higher ticket back end products and services.

One of the most cost effective done-for-you ways to add lots of leads is by engaging a joint venture broker. How much you can expect to pay and what to look for in a jv broker will be the topic of my next post.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

A great question was posted on my Facebook wall re: Part 1 of the much needed discussion of how to navigate with consciousness the whole issue of reciprocal mailing in affiliate marketing.

Quoted from the text: “How do you feel this relates to blocking your marketing calendar to promote only specifically to those who will reciprocate?”

I loved this question because it’s real.  It brings us to the razor’s edge of sussing out on an individual basis what the intention is behind any decision.

First, as a business owner and the CEO of your company, you must place at the top of your job description: Make Money. As a conscious business owner you place at an equal but not greater priority than Make Money, the intention to serve Life either by directly adding to Life or doing no harm.

With that realty firmly in mind, let’s look more closely at the question.

It is a fact that as your business grows, as you become more successful and visible, people will want to join you on the fast track to success.  They will want to joint venture with you and they will definitely want you to mail for them as their affiliate.

The practical reality is that you only have so much space in your promotional calendar to mail for others, so you must set a criterion to follow for choosing the offers that are the best fit for you.  As the business owner, you have the right to choose whatever criteria or boundaries you feel allow you to reach your company goals.

“What” you do is far less important than the “why” you do or the “intention” behind the doing.

If you are indeed “blocking” – which is a strong and absolute word – your marketing calendar to promote ONLY those who WILL reciprocate, then you have left yourself no options other than reciprosity to base your decision to promote or not promote an offer from another business.

How does that feel?

• Open or closed?
• Soft or hard?
• Giving or taking?

Your body cannot tell a lie, so in about the same amount of time it takes to inhale and exhale once, if you are willing, you can feel into whether your intention is coming from what is an authentically soul derived (aka: conscious) boundary or if it is your ego “protecting” your territory.

Instead, honor the practical limit of your marketing calendar and include the potential opportunity of a reciprocal mailing from another business as a factor without positioning it as the absolute pass/fail litmus test to your willingness to promote.

And besides, if promoting for another is ONLY worth it to you if you get a reciprocal mailing out of them, it can’t help but deliver the ego based low vibe energy that is a match to the intention behind it.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

It’s a fact – the holidays, no matter which one(s) you celebrate are an expensive time of year. There’s presents, the traveling you’ll do (or would love to do), parties to throw and parties to attend, and wonderful opportunities to celebrate life and living. And it’s a lot more fun when you can say “yes” and not worry if you can afford it!

1. Decide what you want
2. Ask for it (and remember to be specific!)
3. Believe you can have it
4. Receive it

This will likely be the last time Alexis personally facilitates this powerful program. If you are one of her many graduates, you know it ro cks and gives you exactly what you need to do your Great Work in the world and make the kind of money you desire to create a truly Great Life.

The time has come to address a big problem in the conscious business community: The “I’ll mail for you, if you mail for me” syndrome. It’s Part 1 of ? because it is such a big problem, and there are so many ways this unconsciousness is showing up in our interactions as business owners, I don’t know how many posts will be required for this info to be complete.

Warning: I’m going to vent, and there’s a chance you might take offense or resemble one or more of my real-life examples.   However, remaining silent doesn’t serve my mission: to bring light to the shadows of affiliate marketing.

First, just stop it already.  We are in business not kindergarten.   There’s no such thing as “fair” and even if there were it would not be defined as “equal”.

Your job in your business is to make decisions that make money through serving your clients. Your job is not to “support” another business owner or to be “supported”.  “Support” is what your coach, therapist or 12-Step group is for.

“Supporting each other” is the happy side effect of making good business decisions with an open heart and your CEO hat securely in place.

Unconscious tit-for-tat reciprocal mailings vibrate very low, and you know that’s true because you’ve felt the negativity either as the perpetrator or the receiver of the ick:

• Giving to Get
• Superiority/arrogance
• Not enough/ lack consciousness
• Manipulation – I’ve got to get what I want from this situation
• Power struggles
• Measuring/Comparing
• Guilt/shame
• Resentment

The only reasons you should promote anyone’s products and services other than your own:

#1 You know you can make money because it’s a proven offer from a reputable business.  Remember: Business = Profits or no business.

#2 Your community wants/needs the product or service, and it makes sense for you to introduce it to them (this is what I call falling under the umbrella of your “brand promise”).   Don’t promote a weight loss product to a business development list even if the product did help you lose 50 pounds.

#3 The promotion does not conflict, crowd or dilute the impact of current offers you are sharing with your community.   You’ve got a marketing calendar and you aren’t afraid to use it!

Here’s a list of do not’s taken from my actual experiences:

Do NOT play last minute tit for tat and shove an email down your list members throats just to get someone to mail for you.

Do NOT respond when asked to mail: “I’ll mail for you IF you mail for me.” There’s no problem asking for a reciprocal, it becomes unconscious when your ‘yes’ is dependent upon the reciprocal.

Do NOT ever combine affiliate promotions you’ve agreed to into a single group email.  If you don’t have room, say no even if it means that the other party is going to play unconscious tit-for-tat games and not mail for you!

Do NOT try to play big when you are still small.  Yes, size matters and if you’re list is say 3000 to someone’s say 12,000 (or you’re 12,000 to their 100,000) you might want to remember that before you expect a reciprocal in order for you to mail.  Again, nothing wrong with asking – I encourage that – it’s the expectation that if you are mailing for them they should mail for you.

I’d love to know your experiences with unconscious reciprocity in your affiliate marketing experiences.   Post them in the comments below.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

True story: I got a call a while back from a business owner who was extremely frustrated because the affiliate manager he had hired was not getting the job done.   I listened to him as he vented in great detail.  Apparently, the focus of the discontent, the affiliate manager, had been on the job for nearly 3 months and had not generated a single affiliate sale.

While I could have easily fallen for the story, something inside of me said, “There’s more here”, and the question that rolled off my tongue was:

“So, ‘Bob’ (name changed to protect the guilty), how many sales have you made of your product in the past 6 months?”

Can you guess how many units of the product Bob the Business Owner had sold?

Right.  Zero. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

No sales in the past six months, no sales ever.

Bob didn’t need affiliates or an affiliate manager (who by the way should NEVER have taken on a client who did not have proof of concept), “Bob the Business Owner” needed to get back to marketing basics and create an effective marketing strategy for the product or create a product his market was interested in buying.

The specifics of what was not working in our friend Bob’s marketing is unimportant, what is important is this:

If you can’t sell your stuff, no one else will either want to or be able to sell it for you.

If you’ve been entertaining dreams of affiliates with big lists as the solution to your sales challenges, take a moment and get honest about the results your marketing is getting:

• Are you growing our list consistently?
• Is your community engaging with you in the conversation?
• Is your social media impact where you would like it to be?
• Are you effectively moving your tribe members from engaged prospect to happy customers and clients.

If you answered “Yes” to the above questions, but your affiliate program is underperforming (or you don’t yet have one), Basic Affiliate Management from Affiliate Wealth Partners is an ideal way for you to begin to realize the amazing growth potential that is available to you.   Learn more about how we can help here: http://AffiliateWealthPartners.com

If in your honest assessment, you answered “no” to any or all of the questions, your next move is to get the marketing support you need to begin to more effectively connect your message to your target audience.  We feature some of the best and brightest marketing coaches and teachers available to the conscious business market in our Affiliate Wealth Partners faculty. Full access available when you activate your free membership at Affiliate Wealth Partners.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

It’s a chilly Sunday evening in Boulder, Colorado, and I’m just back from a quick trip across the country to Baltimore, Maryland where I was Bill Glazer’s guest for the Glazer-Kennedy Infosummit.  It was an honor to be invited, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn and interact with so many top-notch marketers.

One of the the themes from the stage was the importance of giving back. Bill Glazer challenged the crowd to donate a minimum of one dollar to a new entrepreneur’s program through Junior Achievement to which both Bill and his daughter Mara Glazer have shared their time and expertise.

I heard it again in Diane Conklin‘s Infomarketer of the Year presentation for the incredible growth she and her life and business partner Gail Saseen have created in their company.  The night before Diane’s presentation, Gail was up until 3:00 am putting together a foundation aimed to end bullying experienced by so many gay teens and young adults.  They will be funneling a portion of the profits from the social media portion of their business into this foundation.

I heard it yet again in the predictably irreverent but also predictably genius presentation on Mind Control by none other than Frank Kern.  In addition to the importance of giving back just because “it’s cool”, Frank reminded the crowd of several hundred of his two and only two commandments.  Here they are edited slightly:

Commandment 1: Thou shalt not f*^# around – in other words >>> get to work!

Commandment 2: Thou shalt not be a wimp – bad things are going to happen. Don’t whine. Refer to Commandment 1!

It is clearly time to get to work giving back!  What better time to do it than the time Thanksgiving 2010 to launch the largest 100% charity driven, on-line event in history coordinated by none other than the Unstoppable Cynthia Kersey.

http://budurl.com/givealittlecampaign

Cynthia has joined forces with the top names in personal development to deliver their very best material for pennies on the dollar and 100% of the money raised goes to her personal and now foundation’s mission to build schools in the poorest regions of Africa.

Fact is, as entrepreneurs we’ve got it pretty good.  Even when the road gets a bit curvier and the climb a bit steeper, we are blessed.  I’d love it if you’d take a moment, count your entrepreneurial blessings then choose to support Give a Little, Get a Lot by becoming an affiliate for this great cause.  http://budurl.com/givealittlecampaign

Nick and Alex Ortner, geniuses in at large scale promotions including the Tapping World Summit with over 100,000 opted in, are volunteering their time to run the affiliate campaign.  I’ve always said one of the best ways to learn how to put on your own successful large scale event that brings thousands to your list, is to participate as an affiliate in a campaign that is doing just that!  This is one of those campaigns!  http://budurl.com/givealittlecampaign

It’s so simple.  You give a little – a mailing to your community providing them with the opportunity to access training by the masters of personal development for pennies on the dollar, then you get so much in return!

You get that cool feeling that comes from doing the right thing. You get priceless behind the scenes how-to for coordinating your own large scale, affiliate-driven launch. You get a big thanks from your community for letting them in on this great cause and the enormous gratitude of hundreds of children who will soon have what we so often take for granted – an eduction.  The link below has all the details include a special video message from Cynthia.

In joy and gratitude ~ MaryKay

http://budurl.com/givealittlecampaign

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

I remember recognizing early on in my Your Body Your Guru business that being an affiliate was a good idea. Creating multiple revenue streams is important for a business and affiliate marketing is the fastest, easiest way to add a revenue stream.  I was gaining a following, distributing a twice monthly newsletter and had only a few products of my own to offer.  It made sense to me, so being the take-action-gal that I am, I studied the “how-to’s” of making money as an affiliate, got to work and…

… hours and hours and hours later I gave up. Why?

It was old school affiliate marketing and it didn’t feel right to my soul. It felt smarmy like I was trying to take money from people. A quick glance at the steps used in old school affiliate marketing provides a clue to my “ew”:

• Determine a hungry, or better yet, desperate “target market” – get them in your cross hairs
• Find products and services that are “crushing it” in your target market
• Pick ones with the right “gravity” score – I still am not 100% sure what this means but the root word is “grave”
• Create a squeeze page (Isn’t that what the Mafia does? “Squeeze” people?)
• Put some “killer copy” on that “squeeze page” (more death images)
• Set up a rapid fire auto-responder with more killer copy and hammer them until they leave or die… Oops, I mean buy
• Count the money! hahahaha

Ew and ick. I quit that nonsense and went back to promoting my own services. No amount of money was worth that experience!

Then something really weird happened. I quite unexpectedly began working on big launches as an affiliate and joint venture strategist and manager. Quite organically, a new set of rules was emerging, a “New School” for affiliate marketing – affiliate marketing for conscious businesses.  Affiliate Wealth Partners was born.

Seven Steps to New School Affiliate Marketing Success:

1. Know your Life Purpose – “Who am I here to serve?” & “How am I here to serve them?”
2. Create a “Brand Promise” based on your Life Purpose – this brand promise creates an umbrella of the information you share with your community (although you won’t necessarily directly provide everything under your “brand promise.”)
3. Build a list or as we like to say in the New School > Create a Container to lead a community or tribe of followers.
4. Communicate with your community/tribe regularly with a combination of value and call-to-action – if you are afraid to make an offer to your community, you will have a tough time finding success and satisfaction in your business. (just sayin’)
5. Seek out high quality products and services from high integrity, conscious businesses under the umbrella of your brand promise.

• If you already have your own products and services, these will be complementary and synergistic to your offers.
• If you don’t yet have your own products and services there is no better way than being an affiliate marketer to get started serving your tribe!

6. Create a 12-month marketing calendar broken down into quarters for your own products/services plus space for your affiliate offers.
7. Promote with confidence and enthusiasm! Play full out! This is easy when you embrace the word “profit” in your business and when know deep in your soul that what you are sharing with your community will benefit them in exactly the manner as promised.

What happens next?  You deposit your commission check of course!   But in the New School, the Affiliate Wealth Partners’ model, the money you have made is a reflection of your commitment to serving your community and to your authentic and aligned support of a fellow conscious business.

Welcome to Win – Win – Win. Welcome to the New School of affiliate marketing! Welcome to Affiliate Wealth Partners!

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

My good friend – the brilliant Sandy Grason – is moving on from internet marketing!! Watch this short video tribute (I could go on about her for an hour – but I didn’t!) that includes an invitation for you to participate in her (final) Fabulous Formula at the craziest “price” you’ve ever heard of.

I did make one wee mistake in the video and that is that you can take action through July 16th, but when you hear what she is doing… Well, just watch the video…

As a conscious business owner the last thing you would ever do is send SPAM emails – right?   Well, if you have ever sent a bulk email to your Facebook friends list, then this blog is for you.

There’s been a trend building over the last several months on Facebook that has on a daily basis, filled my inbox with dozens of unwanted solicitations from well meaning “conscious” business owners trying to get the word out about their products, services and events.  My experience is not unique, as I’ve talked with others who say they too are getting an increasing number of solicitations in their Facebook inbox.

In my opinion, these Facebook emails are SPAM just as unrequested and unwanted as a Nigerian 419 letter or those never ending offers for free drugs to encourage the growth of certain body parts.

It’s understandable why so many are resorting to spamming their Facebook friends – it is a heck of a lot easier than building a real direct response list – but bad marketing practices have never been the path to a solid and sustainable business.   The few sales you gain short term, cannot make up for the damaged relationships and lost credibility over the long term.

Also, while bad marketing practices are annoying when applied to your own products and services, spamming as an affiliate can be grounds for loss of affiliate promotion privileges and even forfeiture of commissions in some cases.

If treating your Facebook friends as a direct response list is not the way to go, what are the options?

Here are my suggestions for upgrading Facebook marketing practices and results:

1) Create an event and invite every one of your Facebook friends to the event. The invitation will show up under “Events” and not in their email inbox.  Then, and this is VERY important, send confirming emails only to the invitees who reply “yes” or “maybe” and NOT to the ones who do not reply or who say no.   Ask your confirmed and maybe attendees to use the Share option on the event page and post the event on their wall or share with individually selected friends via personal email thereby increasing your exposure to others who will be interested.  It’s the Like attracts Like principal, and it works.

2) Create a fan page – which is much more like an opt-in list because by becoming a “fan” the person is essentially saying, “I am interested”.   If you are going to be sending marketing emails to your fans on a regular basis, I recommend you give them a heads up right on your fan page.   Fan pages are getting very creative, and many businesses are making a fortune from well designed Facebook fan pages.  Go for it!

3) Get personal – if you’ve got some “good fit for my stuff” peeps in your friends list (and of course you do), why not send them a personal email inviting them to look at your offer?  Yes, a personal email takes more time but it is proven more effective.  It also creates an opportunity to maximize the real value of Facebook, which is building relationships.  Instead of getting “unfriended” or “blocked” because of unprofessional social media marketing strategy, a personal email could lead you to a new client, a great referral partner or a gold mine of a joint venture partner.

4) Get organized – if you feel you simply must treat your Facebook friends like a direct response list, at least take the time to segment your friends into groups based on demographics or what you perceive their level of interest could be.  Minimally this will prevent you from looking like a dork for inviting friends in Montana to a networking coffee in Florida.

These are some of my thoughts on the subject of email marketing via Facebook, and I’d love to hear yours!  Comments are welcomed and encouraged but please, hold the blog spam.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

Joint venturing is one of the fastest ways to grow your community and your revenue.   It would seem a no-brainer that to hire a joint venture broker is a smart business decision.  The task of identifying, connecting with (emails, dm’s, phone calls, etc), qualifying (Are they really a good fit?), and finally crafting a win/win joint venture relationship is one of the essential tasks that can bring significantly better results if done by someone who is an expert in the joint venture process – if (and it’s a BIG if), if you are ready.

If you are not ready you risk over promising, under converting and burning key relationships that you may never have the opportunity to cultivate again.

How do you know if you are ready?  Take the Joint Venture Readiness Quiz to find out:

1) Do you currently have an affiliate program in place? Score 1 for yes; 0 for no

2) Do you have a proven system for converting visitors to your list such as an opt-in box on your home page and/or a squeeze page? Score 1 for yes; 0 for no

3) Do you have metrics set up on the above page or pages to measure traffic and conversions? Score 1 for yes; 0 for no (If you actually know your conversion rate give yourself 2 bonus points!)

4) Do you have a proven concept (product, service, event) you would like to engage joint venture partners with – a product or service you have successfully tested on your own list for example.  If the concept is completely new then YOU and your business must have a proven track record of successfully marketing similar concepts. Score 2 for yes; 0 for no

5) Have you clearing identified your “ideal” joint venture partner? Score 1 for yes; 0 for no

6) Have you identified the specific benefits (in addition to revenue) this joint venture opportunity will bring to your potential joint venture partner? Do you really know what you bring to the table in this relationship? Score 2 for yes; -1 for no.

7) Do you have a team and systems in place for the customer and technical support you will need to accommodate the increased traffic and business? Score 1 for yes; -1 for no.

Score 8 – 10 points: Way to go!! You are a rock star entrepreneur and marketer and ready to shift the responsibility of building and nurturing your joint venture relationships to a qualified Joint Venture broker or manager.  AWP may be your ideal partner!

Score 5 – 7 points: You are moving in the right direction.  You can begin right away shifting the questions you did not score well on.  Expedite your readiness by consulting with the experts at AWP.

Score 4 or below: Your focus for the short term must be on creating a marketing message that connects with your target market and on developing your systems and team.  It is highly advisable that at this point you begin to actively promote as an affiliate.  Becoming an affiliate member of AWP will connect you with everything you need to begin to generate revenue and credibility as an affiliate.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.