Get More Clients Online

5 Most Effective Online Continuity Program Models

Continuity programs are the "new" online business model that has recently escalated in popularity. No longer is it good enough to simply sell information products for a one-time sale or sell your services online. Instead, online business owners need to seriously think about changing their business model to include the concept of recurring revenue. This passive revenue model brings in regular recurring income on a weekly or monthly basis from the same customers. While there is still some work required to continue to market these programs, overall you will find it much more profitable to sell to one customer over and over again rather than having to go and find new customers repeatedly for a one-time information product sale.

Many companies have been offering continuity programs for years. Proactive does it with face cleanser. Leeza Gibbons does it with Sheer Cover makeup. Doubleday does it with books. Columbia House does it with DVDs. Each of these companies offers an option in which subscribers pay a set fee each month and receive something new in return (books, DVDs, etc.). I've belonged to all of these continuity programs at some point in my life, and chances are, you have, as well. How can you incorporate this recurring revenue model into your business?

Here are the 5 most effective online continuity program models to consider for your online business:

1. Retainer. Attorneys and accountants have done this for years -- their clients go on a regular retainer and the client can contact the attorney/accountant whenever needed as defined by the parameters of the retainer. Consultants, coaches, and virtual assistants offer this option, as well, as a way of providing services over an extended period of time. While having this in place makes for less client turnover, this model is the most time-intensive model of all of these models, as the model requires trading time for dollars. Most retainers offer x number of hours of work or x projects to be completed in return for a set monetary amount.

2. Subscription Membership. In this model, you are providing new content regularly to your members via a membership website. Members log in and access new articles, audio, checklists, ebooks, discussion forum posts, etc. This is a content-driven model, as you need to continue to provide new content for your returning members as well as to attract new members. The upside of this model is that many members retain their membership for a year or longer, especially if offered the option of a reduced annual membership fee.

3. Fixed-term membership. In this model, you are providing new content on a weekly basis to your members for a fixed period of time. While initially time-intensive to set up, this model runs fairly seamlessly once all of your program modules are written. As long as your topic isn't one that needs continual updating, you can create this once and resell this again and again. However, unlike the other models, you keep your members only for a limited time (3 months, 6 months, 12 months) and then need to boost your marketing to continually replace members for this program.

4. Club or Inner Circle or VIP Program. This is a model that coaches, consultants, and speakers often use and may be marketed as a group coaching program. Typically the participant gets access to the program leader or an expert via a teleclass, and a printed teleclass transcript and CD are mailed to the participant each month. The program leader may also include open Q&A/coaching sessions, sporadic 1:1 coaching mini-sessions, and access to various resources and contacts to further help the participants. As long as members feel they are receiving value, they'll generally remain a participant in this type of program.

5. Association. Becoming the founder or president of a national or international association offers the kind of leverage not found in any other model. Because associations connote expertise, being the leader of an association automatically makes you the expert in a particular area. Reporters and writers often look to leaders of associations to comment on trends in an industry, which will result in much media attention for your business. Membership benefits and membership packages are the key offerings here, whether that's a monthly teleclass, access to specific downloadable content, networking opportunities, direct mail membership welcome packets, etc. This model is generally the least time-intensive, as 80% of your members will receive their membership package and not be heard from again until it's dues renewal time.

Why continue to trade time for dollars? Take a look at these continuity program models and see which one(s) make sense for your online business. If you pick the right target market at the right time, one of these models may become your full-time business.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it:  Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses by demystifying the steps needed to successfully market a  baby boomer business online. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at == > http://www.OnlineBizU.com

Teleclass Marketing: 5 Secrets to Selling More Teleclasses with Transcripts

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

While iPods and other mp3 players have taken the world by storm, I'm still a visual girl.  For me, that means I'd much rather read something than listen to it.  If it's a video of a software or service demo, I might be persuaded to view that, if I have the time and if I have no other choice.  For the most part, I'd rather read about it.  I have tons of audio files stored on my hard drive, to most of which I've never listened.  They'll probably languish away on my computer, only to be deleted one day when I've forgotten why I downloaded them in the first place.

However, the ones I have "listened to" are the ones which also offered a written PDF transcript.  Okay, so it's cheating a bit to say that I've "listened" to them, but those files that came with transcripts got my attention much more quickly than those without.

I realize that I'm in the minority here.  The audio and video methods of conveying information online are here to stay, and the majority of Internet users like and prefer those methods to reading.  Studies also indicate that when an online business owner adds audio or video to a site, traffic and conversion rates increase dramatically.

The written word, however, is far from dead.  I'm discovering that there are more and more people who prefer to learn by reading (or maybe we just attract one another).  If you offer teleclasses or webinars as a part of your business model, here are 5 reasons you should offer transcripts with your teleclass recordings:

1.  Multiple Learning Styles.  As previously established, offering both an auditory version and a written version of teleclass content appeals to both kind of learners.  Granted, transcribing can be tedious if you're doing it yourself.  However, most one-hour teleclasses can be transcribed for about $100 USD. If this investment resulted in a 30% increase in your conversion rate or download rate, it would be a worthwhile investment, don't you think?

2.  Printable Format.  Unlike audio files, which require some type of device to play them, PDF transcripts can be printed and carried with you.  So, if your portable device battery dies or if you're in a situation where electronic devices aren't permitted, you can get the information that you need from the printed transcript instead.  Call me hopelessly out-of-date, but I even print out and bind larger (greater than 100 pages) PDF ebooks if I believe they are something to which I'll continually refer.  I still prefer to go to my office bookcase and pick up a resource rather than search for my copy of the same resources in my computer files.  I've had my readers tell me that they regularly print the PDF files they buy from me and refer to them constantly.  Perhaps your readers will do the same?

3.  Upsell New Products.  Transcripts, unlike audio files, offer the opportunity to upsell your reader to new products or services.  In the transcript, you can add several pages that serve as a sales letter for a new product, or include an order form that is similar to one that appears on your site.  You can easily update the offer in the future by inserting new pages.

4.  Immediate Gratification. If your reader is viewing the electronic version of your transcript, she can immediately click on the hyperlinks you include and see the sites to which you refer in the teleclass.  The mp3 listener, on the other hand, may not have Internet access at the time she's listening to the audio file, and consequently has to write down the URLs mentioned and then view them when she's back online.  I've lost more slips of paper in this situation than I care to remember, which is yet another reason that having a transcript appeals to my learning style so much.

5. Second Profit Center.  If you're selling the audio of a teleclass or webinar,  you can offer the transcript as an add-on to the price of the teleclass for an additional fee. I constantly see online entrepreneurs offering a teleclass for $29 and then permitting the buyer to add a PDF transcript for just $10 more.  This method offers visitors a choice and appeals to a wider variety of buyers than offering only one option might.

Teleclasses and webinars are a profitable way to boost your online business.  Add transcripts to your offerings, and see your profits increase even more!

Want to see the template I use to format my transcripts?  You can, if you're a member at OnlineBizU.com. Get your template here.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.

Create a Coaching Program for Your Multiple Streams of Income Funnel

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

Whether you're a chiropractor, an exterminator, a carpet cleaner, or a professional organizer, you're amassed a great deal of information in your field or industry.  You have two primary targets to whom you can market this information:

• to your client base in the form of in-depth or additional training or information about your topic area (a 3-hour health-oriented program for chiropractic clients, a 2-hour "ABC's of Organization" seminar for professional organizing clients, etc.), or

• to others in your industry who want to have the in-depth knowledge that you have (carpet cleaners want to learn how to clean tile and grout as an additional service offered by their business) or who want to learn your business secrets (7 Steps to Attracting Clients into Your Chiropractic Practice).

A coaching program is perfect for either offering. In a coaching program, your primary goal is to take your clients from where they are to where they want to be.  So, if you're a professional organizer, your coaching program, which teaches professional organizers how to fill their practices, could easily target new professional organizers who are currently struggling to find clients.  Get the idea here?

I've watched my clients develop coaching programs over the years, and I've discovered that there are 7 elements to creating a successful coaching program.  They are:

1.  Target Market:  Who is your target market for this program?  The ability to target a defined group of prospects will make it so much simpler to market your coaching program.  Understanding key characteristics of this market,  such as knowing in what professional associations they hold memberships, the magazines and newsletters they read, and the discussion groups to which they belong will help you "reach out and touch" this group on a regular basis.  (Note:  You can download a Target Market Interview worksheet as a member of OnlineBizU.com.  Here's how you can get access.)

2.  Your Niche.  I define niche a little differently than others. I use the term niche to refer to the specialization you will  use to reach your target market.  For example, if you're a residential cleaning company who's had a great deal of success in building your business through referral marketing, then you'll want to create a coaching program that teaches other residential cleaning companies how to build their businesses fast by mastering referral marketing techniques.

3.  Core Message.  What is it that you do better than anyone else in the world?   Where have you been successful?  How can you best convey this information to others?   The answers to these questions are your core message.  Your core message combines your target market (residential cleaning companies) with your niche (referral marketing) along with the results you'll provide (have a waiting list of customers).  So, in this example, the core message for this fictional cleaning company coaching program might be, "Discover how residential cleaning companies create a waiting list of customers through successful referral marketing."  Sounds compelling, doesn't it?

4.  Your System.  Now you need to document your system that helped you get from point A to point B to point C.   In a coaching program, people want to buy a series of steps or a system and they want to have some idea of what those steps are or what's in the system.  That doesn't mean that you have to give away all of your program secrets in your marketing materials, but you do have to disclose enough information so that they can clearly visualize themselves going through that system to reach the level of attainment they desire.  If you can give them a realistic number of steps over a period of time, (your 9-step, 90 day process, for example), you'll have a much greater chance of enrolling enthusiastic participants in the program.

5.  Coaching Model.  How do you want to deliver this program?  Will you conduct group coaching sessions of 10 participants per group over a teleconference bridge line?  How about an email coaching program in which you send out weekly lessons and offer to meet twice a month with your participants on a teleconference line to answer questions?  Will you take only 1:1 coaching clients at a premium price?  Or, will you do all three?  There are a myriad of ways to deliver a coaching program.  You need to discover the one that's the best fit for your style and will be most appealing to your target market.

6.  Signature Coaching Program. Your signature coaching program is the one that emerges from combining your system with a particular coaching model.  In the fictitious cleaning company coaching program I've been using, the signature coaching program might be, "Get More Clients Through Referral Marketing Coaching Program: 90 Days to Creating a Waiting List for Your Residential Cleaning Company."  In the marketing materials for your program, you would further explain your 9-step process that is delivered in 3 group coaching calls per month via a bridgeline over the next 90 days.

7. Your Marketing Funnel.  Once you've created your program, now you need to determine how it fits into the market funnel for this segment of your business, what your longer-term plans are for attracting participants into the program, and then selling them an advanced version when they complete your initial program.  For example, for the cleaning company coaching program, you might get participants into the marketing funnel with a low-cost ebook or ecourse, with the upsell being the 90-day coaching program.  Once they've completed that coaching program, then you offer to work with a limited number in a 1:1 setting at a premium price, or offer an advanced version of the program, which would take them to the next level.  Or, perhaps you turn the 90-day program into a home study audio course and you offer a live version of the program only occasionally. You don't have to have all of these pieces mapped out to get started, but it's helpful to have a plan in place to help you market this program.

Adding a coaching program to your mix is yet another way to create multiple streams of income for your business.  If you have found success in implementing a particular system, more than likely there's an audience willing and eager to pay you for your learning and experience.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.

Use Affiliate Programs to Earn Money Fast

Q:  I need to make $5000 in the next 3 months. Urgently needed for my wife to visit Russia and sick parents.
Ken Drake

A:  Hi Ken.  If you don't have a website or a product to sell, it's going to be challenging to raise that amount of money in that time period.  My best advice to you would be to create mini-sites and sell other people's products.  Here are some good sources to find products produced by others that you can sell and collect affiliate commissions:

Associate Programs  
Commission Junction 
Clickbank  

The ones listed above have been around awhile and are pretty reputable.  However, I found these others in a quick online search:

http://www.lifetimecommissions.com /
http://www.affiliateguide.com/residual.html 
http://www.residualincomefinder.com/
http://www.clickquick.com/topRated.asp
http://www.affiliateseeking.com/residual-income.html

You may also want to add Google Adsense ads to your webpages.

Noted Internet Marketer Tom Antion just did a teleclass called,  "How to Earn Super Large Passive Incomes Using Residual Affiliate Programs."  You can get a copy of that program on CD here.

And here are 2 articles I've written about this subject:
How to Create Your First One-Page Sales Web Site 
Boost Your Online Profits with Affiliate Commissions

Good luck!

Donna  

Adding Coaching to My Service Business

Q:  I want to create a coaching component to my commercial mortgage lending and seminar/DVD program. 
Michael Haltman

A:  Mike, that's a great addition to your current roster of services, as is additional consulting and training.

Here are some topics to keep in mind as you design this coaching program:

1.  Who's your target market?  What are their most pressing problems?

2.  Do you have a ready-made, step-by step solution for their problems?

3.  Do you want to coach people 1:1 or in groups?

4.  What will be the frequency of your coaching and what extras (email coaching, 5 minute between session calls, access to resources or discussion lists) will you provide?

One product that I highly recommend for people who want to integrate coaching into their current offerings is a book by Milana Leshinsky called Coaching Millions.

Boost Your Online Profits with Affiliate Commissions

One of the income streams in my business comes from affiliate commissions, or money I make from the referral of another's products or services. Affiliate commissions are a very viable way to add another income stream to your business where you can make a couple of hundred dollars a month to several thousand dollars a month, depending on how much time and effort you want to put into the process.

Several years ago I felt guilty for sending others to a product or service through my affiliate link because I believed I was manipulating them in some way.  However, now I have a clearly defined set of rules for myself before I recommend a product to someone else:

1.  I usually personally own or have used the product
2.  If I don't own it or use it, I rely on many trusted reviews before deciding to recommend. In most cases, I don't choose to send someone through an affiliate link if I don't personally own or use the product.
3.  I have either a verbal or written review/testimonial about the product.
4.  I am honest about the product's pros and cons.
5.  I can usually tell a story about how the use of this product/service has impacted the business of one of my clients or my own business.
6.  When responding to an email inquiry or forum/discussion list post, I disclose my link is an affiliate link.

Because it's very easy to get caught up in the lure of affiliate commissions, perpetuated by the constant bombardment of "opportunities" to promote someone else's products and services, you must be very discriminating in the products and services you recommend to your contacts.  All is takes is one or two poor recommendations, and you begin to lose credibility with your audience. Your email list will also lose faith in you if you bombard them with affiliate email promotions. In some cases, I receive more affiliate promotions than email newsletters or announcements from some of the lists to which I belong.  Consequently, because of the trust my email list has in me, I rarely send solo email affiliate promotions to them, preferring to make affiliate recommendations in my ezine and on my website.

One problem that affiliate marketers often encounter is their visitor's aversion to clicking on an affiliate link. The visitor will remove the affiliate portion of the link URL instead of crediting you for helping them to find out about the product or service.  I find this a bit silly now, as they are paying the same either way, but since I used to do the same thing (I have to chalk it up to ignorance, I suppose), I know that it happens frequently. Or, the visitor will attempt to substitute his affiliate ID in the URL.  Most reputable businesses now have a clause in their affiliate agreements prohibiting using your own affiliate ID to make purchases for yourself.  However, in many cases, it is still possible.

Here are 4 strategies you can use to "cloak" your affiliate links.

1.  Use a redirect service. Many affiliate links are long and cumbersome.  If you use a service like TinyURL.com or SnipURL.com, you can both shorten the length of the URL as well as prevent any URL tampering, as the final URL provided by the redirect service gives the visitor no idea about the final destination.

2.  Simple website redirect.  You may be able to redirect a long URL through a page of your site with the commands in your web hosting control panel or FTP client or through a 3rd party software loaded onto your hosting account.

3.  Dedicated domain name.  This is my favorite strategy.  I buy a domain name that's clearly seen as my brand, and add a defining word to indicate to me and to my visitors about the nature of the product, and then use the services of my domain registrar to forward it to my affiliate link.  So, for example, if you're a professional organizer and are known under the name "Best Organizer", you might buy something like BestOrganizerAudio.com, for example, so that you have an easy-to-remember domain name to which you can refer when mentioning this audio recording product in client consultations, teleclasses, and articles.

You can check out a few of my favorites at GetMoreClientsCart.com and GetMoreClientsAutoresponder.com.

4. Online Rolodex site.  Create a site or a page containing all of your valuable recommendations, and purchase a corresponding domain name to use with it, i.e. JaneDoeRecommends.com. You can tell your clients that this site contains your Rolodex of trusted resources or is your library of trusted resources, and they can refer to the list any time they are seeking a trusted resource or referral to help them solve a problem.  You can see mine at DonnaGunterRecommends.com.

Take time to set your parameters for affiliate recommendations and inform your clients and email list of those rules. Then, use one of the affiliate cloaking strategies to make your affiliate marketing as easy and painless as possible, both for you and your contacts. As you begin to see your affiliate commissions grow, you'll wonder why you didn't start this process sooner!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE?  You can, as long as you include this blurb with it:  Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online  Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent  service professionals learn how to automate  their businesses, leverage their expertise on  the Internet, and get more clients online. To  claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online  Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet  Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.

How to Sell and Market Your Ebook in 10 Easy Steps

Electronic books, or ebooks, are one of the quickest ways to make yourself an infopreneur, or someone who makes money by selling information. As a service business owner, it's also a simple way to sell the information that you have spent countless hours amassing to all of those who want to buy what you know but who cannot afford to hire you as a service provider.

The most effective way to market your ebook is via a one-page website. If you already have a website, I recommend that you set up a separate stand-alone page for this ebook.  Most domain registrars will permit you to forward and mask your product domain to an internal page of your current website.  If you don't have a site, you can create a one-page site with its own hosting.

Here's what you need to know to successfully market your ebook via a one-page website:

1.  An identifiable target market. Ebooks work best as a product for a very specific niche market, like an ebook on how to teach your dog tricks, how to effectively meditate to relieve stress, or how to find a green career. You need to be able to identify and describe your target market, from determining what the target market needs and what they'll pay for (as well as how much they will pay) to what publications they read, what groups/associations do they belong to, and where they hang out both on- and offline. Make sure you understand what your target market needs and how to reach them before proceeding to the next step.

2. A domain name. The domain name for your ebook site should mirror or closely resemble your product name or a prominent feature of your product. So, for example, if you are a hypnotherapist and you have a podcast that you're selling on how to use hypnosis to lose weight, then you'd want to try and get a domain name like LoseWeightFast.com. Try and get the (dot)com version of your domain name if possible, but if that's not available, seek out the hyphenated version of the (dot)com domain name.

3. A give-away. You have two goals for your ebook site: get the contact info from your visitors and convert them into paying customers. Because not everyone will buy your primary product (thus providing you with their contact information), you need another strategy to collect your prospect's information. The best way to obtain contact info from a visitor is to create a free giveaway that's closely related to the product that you're selling in which the content is so compelling that the visitor gladly parts with his/her name and primary email address to obtain the free giveaway. By giving you their contact information, they have become a warm lead and you can start to develop a relationship with them.  You can then develop a series of 3-6 follow-up autoresponders to upsell them to purchasing your product.

4. A merchant account. In order to collect payments, you need to be able to take credit card payments online and provide electronic product delivery. I use and highly recommend PracticePaySolutions.com, a company that works with many coaches, consultants and speakers. Your merchant account company needs to offer a "virtual terminal", which lets you enter and process transactions online and interfaces with your shopping cart program. The most commonly used virtual terminal is that provided by Authorize.net. If you don't want to invest in a merchant account, you can begin by using third-party processors like PayPal or ClickBank, but they offer less flexibility than a full merchant service.

6. Shopping cart software. Ultimately, your shopping cart software will be a workhorse for you and enable you to automate many functions of your online business. The cart that I highly recommend is KickStartCart.com, which offers a great deal of flexibility in how you list and bundle products, gives buyers a 24-hour download URL for downloading your electronic product, has built-in autoresponders so you can automatically follow up with your buyers, and provides an email broadcast function so that you can send out special notices to the customers or prospects on your list.

7.  Sales letter page. This is the primary sales page of your ebook website, containing a long sales letter with benefits of your product and testimonials of others who've used the product.  In many ways, this has now become the electronic version of the 6-10 page direct sales letters that used to be sent to us regularly via snail mail. The formula for writing an effective one-page sales letter site includes an attention-getting headline, a strong opening statement, body of the letter that outlines the features and benefits of what you're offering, the actual offer itself, several testimonials from happy purchasers, and then a request for the sale. Most sales letter pages are constructed very similarly. If you look and compare other one page websites, you'll find this style used again and again.

8. Follow-up auto responders. It's always easier to sell to someone who has already purchased from you than to convert a new prospect to a customer.  Therefore, the ability to continue to reach out and "touch" your customers is key in developing a relationship with them so that they continue to buy. I create a series of 3-6 follow-up autoresponders that are sent out over the 3 weeks following a purchase to check in with the purchaser and to interest the purchaser in another item.

9.  Traffic to the site. Because your ebook site is only one page, it will be virtually ignored in the organic search engine ranking process. There's simply not enough content to warrant a high ranking on any keyword you might choose. The easiest way to drive traffic to a one-page web site is to purchase keywords, or pay-per-click advertising. Google's Adwords is the best-known pay-per-click advertiser. You can also generate traffic to this site by holding teleclasses or webinars on some topic covered in your ebook, creating a series of articles with a link back to your product in the resource box, or create a blog or an article directory devoted to the topic of your ebook.

10.  Additional selling features.  Once you've created you one page ebook website, you may want to add additional selling features, especially if the ebook is priced more than $50.  You could create additional pages in which you print a chapter excerpt, your table of contents, or an invitation to sign up for your product's affiliate program.

Ebooks are one of the quickest and inexpensive ways to help you establish your expertise and create another source of income for your business.  Follow this simple ebook marketing plan and begin selling your information today!

Conducting Your Online Business Checkup

I recently spoke with an online business owner about the creation of her ideal service business. She wanted to establish a practice with a higher-end clientele who can easily afford to pay her fees. She said that she had a hard time visualizing what a high-end successful practice looked like, because she had never seen one. I responded by telling her that she knew exactly what that kind of business looked like because it was her ideal business -- and the vision of that looks very different to each online business owner.

For some online business owners, the ideal online business might be one in which the owner is spending much of her day working with 1:1 clients, interspersed with a few information product sales.  For others, the ideal day might consist of implementing Internet marketing strategies to sell many information products, and only a small amount of time spent with high-fee 1:1 clients.  The bigger vision to wrap your head around is how do you want to spend your day -- your week -- your year  -- your life?  How much money do you want to make?  How do you want to spend your time -- with family, traveling, completing hobby projects, in relaxation, or working in your business?

There are no right or wrong answers here. The great part about being a self-employed service professional is that you have the freedom and the tools to create the perfectly designed business for you -- to become a lifestyle entrepreneur, or lifepreneur, in which your life and your business work together in harmony so that you have adequate time and energy to devote to both.  And, if that vision changes at some point, you can make changes accordingly.

For my business, that vision includes working many days in my bathrobe, spending time on the phone with hand-picked clients in 1:1 sessions where I get as energized as they do, writing content for additional information products, designing additional revenue streams for my business, enjoying a relaxed lunch while watching Samantha Brown's travels on the Travel Channel, and spending time with my fiancée when his schedule allows.

You won't find me taking lots of exotic vacations or throwing wild parties or bragging about the new expensive car or house or clothing I just purchased --that's not a part of who I am.  I love the creative process I find through my work, and I find my work to be fun, so I treat my business as others might treat a treasured hobby.  Flexibility is also important to me, as is being able to conduct ALL aspects of my business from my home office.  I find myself becoming annoyed at even having to go to the Post Office to check my mail!

If your business isn't developing the way you initially thought, take a long, hard look at your business vision and check to see how close you are to the picture of your ideal business. Syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd says it best: "If you settle for less than you deserve, you'll get even less than you settled for."  So, If you hate the travel component of your business, brainstorm ideas of how to take your information to your target market from your home office.  If you're burned out from working with 1:1 clients, strategize the possibilities of working with them in a group setting. If you want to take more time off, assess some passive revenue possibilities for your business.  If you hate in-person networking events, discover where your target market hangs out online and develop relationships there.

Running a successful business isn't easy -- if it were, everyone would be doing it. And, it doesn't happen overnight -- many "overnight successes" have 5, 10, or more years of work that contributed to that "overnight success".  You deserve a full, thriving business -- don't settle for less!

To make sure your online service business is on track, conduct a regular check-up of your online business, including:

1.  Your service fee structure.  Begin with the end in mind here in terms of what amount of money you need to live on for the year in way you'd like to or are accustomed to living and determine what you need to charge to live your life in this fashion.  In a service business, your time is precious and should not be squandered.  What is the client value of working 1:1 with you?  Are you charging adequately for that privilege?

2.  Your passive income strategy.  What percentage of your business income do you want to derive from passive income streams?  Have you devoted time during the course of your work week to develop these passive income streams?

3.  Your invoicing and payment policies. Are there multiple ways clients can pay you (check, cash, debit/credit card)?   When do you expect payment for a contract?  How do you deal with late payments?

4.  Your hours of operation.  Are you working around the clock, or do you leave time for yourself to enjoy your life?  What about vacation and family time?  Are there procedures for dealing with clients who want you to work outside your scheduled work hours?

5.   Your ideal client profile.  Include descriptive adjectives of the characteristics of your ideal clients as well as more statistically-oriented details, such as what industry they're in, what do they read, where do they hang our on- and off-line, what professional associations do they belong to, how much money do they make each year, what are their most pressing business management concerns.  Do your current clients fit this profile?  If not, you need to clean house and find clients that are a better fit for you and your business.

6.  Kind of work you love to do.  Don't waste your time with tasks that aren't fun or don't tap into your special talents/gifts that come easily to you.  Do what you do best, and delegate the rest.

Once you've reviewed these checkpoints, create an action plan that helps you move forward toward your ideal business vision.  The president of the college where I once worked had this motto he established for all the administrative staff, "If it is to be, it is up to me."  You are the creator of your destiny, of your business, of your quality of life. If you are to have a successful online business, it is up to you to do it in the way that works well for you, brings you joy, and permits you to make a decent living in the process.

How to Set Up an Online Affiliate Program to Sell Your Products and Services

I consider Amazon.com to be the Internet pioneer for establishing affiliate programs. Their strategy to permit others to sell their products for a commission on affiliate websites has single-handedly help them become an Internet powerhouse and has resulted in Amazon.com becoming a household name.

As an online business owner, you, too, should be offering your own affiliate program. Affiliate marketing is so much less expensive than to take out a banner ad or text ad on other websites or in email newsletters, and the results tend to be better. Imagine that you have a staff of people working for you, and they have agreed to work free of charge until they successfully make a sale. At that point, they are paid when their sales reach a predetermined volume (as outlined in your affiliate agreement) at a certain interval. You've instantly created a fast and almost free sales force with very little money.

Even though you may not have the monetary resources available to Amazon.com, you can create this sales phenomenon as well for your professional service business.

Here are the steps you need to consider to create your own affiliate program:

1.  Find affiliate tracking software. Trying to manually track all of the sales of your affiliates is simply to labor-intensive.  Instead, you need to find a software program that will help you manage your affiliate program.  I recommend the one bundled with my shopping cart, GetMoreClientsCart.com, which assigns each affiliate a unique affiliate ID that they can use in their websites to make referrals back to your website, where the actual sale occurs. Each affiliate is also assigned a unique log-in and password so that they can log into their affiliate account at any time and check on their sales volume.  Best of all, once you've set up your affiliate program, the setup for each affiliate is completely automated.

2.  Determine your level of tiers.  Typically an affiliate program is limited to no more than 2 tiers. After two, it begins to take on the persona of a pyramid scheme. The first tier is comprised of the affiliates who are directly signed up for your affiliate program, and the second tier are affiliates of your affiliates. For simplicity, I tend to use the 1-tier affiliate structure.

3.  Determine your commission structure and rules. Many online business owners spend countless hours wringing their hands over how much to pay in commissions. If you offer too little, no one is interested in promoting your products and services because the payoff isn't large enough to motivate them. If you offer too much, you feel like you're giving money away. I've discovered that first-tier commission amounts typically range from 25%-75%, with most in the 35-50% range. Second-tier commissions seem to range between 10%-30%, with most landing in the 20% range. You'll also need to determine if you'll pay commissions on products that people buy for themselves through their affiliate link. Many people join an affiliate program solely for that reason. However, if that's the only reason they've joined your affiliate program, they probably won't be making additional sales for you.

4.  Create your payout schedule. Next you'll need to determine at what intervals you'll pay your affiliates. I've seen some programs pay commissions weekly, but monthly payouts is the most common.  Let your affiliates know on what day you determine the month's commission, what their minimum earnings must be to get paid (i.e. at least $50 in earnings, for example), and on what day you send payments.

5.  Determine your payment form. For many affiliate programs to which I belong, I receive a check in the mail for my payments. However, more companies are transitioning to PayPal's Mass Pay feature to pay affiliate commissions. PayPal's Mass Pay feature eliminates most of the paperwork involved in check writing, and with the upload of a few files, you can pay your affiliate quickly via their PayPal email addresses. In order to use this service, you have to have a PayPal Premier or Business Account and you need to ask for your affiliate's PayPal email address.

6.  Provide marketing assistance. For the greatest success in your affiliate program, you need to provide your affiliates with marketing materials to help them promote yours products and services. Have a graphic designer create a variety of website banners and buttons they can use, and you can compose classified ads that they can place in ezines and sales letters they can use on their site or as an email marketing tool. You'll need to create some reminders about ethical email marketing strategies so that you don't become associated with anyone who is labeled as a sp*mmer. Lastly, give your affiliates access to a group of articles that they can use on their site to promote your programs and services, with directions on how to insert their affiliate link in the resource box.

7.  Educate your affiliates. After joining an affiliate program, I often receive a phone call from a company's affiliate manager welcoming me to the affiliate program and encouraging me to contact him/her with questions. Or, I get an invitation to special affiliate teleclasses/webinars to give me strategies on how to be a good affiliate. You can offer the same amenities to your affiliates by working with an Online Business Manager/Virtual Assistant to run this program for you. At a minimum, you can create an affiliate handbook that your affiliates receive upon signing up for your program, which will walk them through the steps of your affiliate program.

8.  Market your affiliate program.  Once your affiliate program has been set-up, you'll need to promote it. Have your OBM/VA seek out strategic alliance opportunities. Search for websites that permit you to promote your affiliate program. Send out notice of your affiliate program to your list, on your blog, and on discussion lists where this is type of promotion is permitted.

Creating your own affiliate program is a great way for you to grow your business in a short period of time. You never know--you may be on your way to creating your own Amazon.com!

Want to be an affiliate of OnlineBizU.com? Check out our new affiliate program here.

10 Questions to Ask Before Licensing Your Program

Once you have several products or services that are selling quite well, your customer will begin to ask if you will permit others to use your product as the basis for training that they are doing.  Or, if you are doing training or consulting, you may be asked if you'll train others to be a trainer using your system.

This is the perfect opportunity for you to consider licensing your content or program.  You've only got so many hours in the day, and if you have others delivering your content and/or requiring the purchase of your materials, your business will grow exponentially as a result.

Here are some issues to think about as you consider licensing your content to others:

1. What will you charge for a licensing fee?  Will it be a one-time fee or something that has to be renewed periodically, like on an annual basis? Or, do you base it on a percentage of sales?
2. Will you charge a royalty for each product sold or per participant in a training session?  What systems do you need to put into place to ensure that you are being compensated appropriately for each sale?  Does the fee increase when the sales volume hits a certain level?
3. Is the licensing exclusive, i.e. pertinent to a particular project only, or can it be used at the licensee's discretion?
4. How will you ensure that your content is being delivered appropriately?  Do you require each licensee to go through training?  Is that an additional fee that you charge, or is that a part of the initial licensing package?
5. What are the requirements for your licensees to purchase any materials for a licensed training (CD programs, ebooks, etc.) through you, or if the materials are available through other sales outlets, can the materials be purchased elsewhere? Do you offer the materials to them at a discounted rate?
6. Can your licensees modify or alter your program or content in any way to fit the needs of various target markets?  If so, what are the parameters for doing so?  Does the modification need your approval?
7. Can your licensees adopt any part of the name of your licensed product into their business name in any way, or into a domain name for a website?
8. In what ways do your licensees have to display your logo, trademark info, or contact information for any products or training they license from you?  What are the standards for usage of such information?
9. What are the grounds for terminating a licensing agreement?
10. What actions must be taken by both you and the licensee in the event a license is terminated?

In the process of drafting your licensing agreement, I would strongly encourage you to hire an intellectual property attorney who has experience in licensing products or programs. S/he will tell you where the holes are in your agreement, and make suggestions for other issues you need to consider.

Licensing your programs or products is a great way to get the word out about what you do, and have others (your licensees) pay you for the privilege of distributing your info around the globe.  Take a look at your products and services with a discerning eye. Which of them could you license to others today?