Today, I’m sitting at home, sipping some hot coffee, and I’m focused on planning the changes I’m making in my online marketing business.

Somewhere along the way, I lost that focus. Now, I’m working hard to regain it.

I understand business, at least enough to do well enough so that I can live as I please, set my own schedule, and be my own boss.

When I started out with online marketing over a decade ago (way back in the 20th century!), I was fully focused on business. I knew what I wanted to accomplish and I was working hard to implement the plan. It was easy for me and there were few distractions along the way.

However, a few years ago, things changed. I began to get distracted by new technologies, new social networking sites, new marketing techniques, new toys to learn and use, new this, new that, and I lost focus of my plan and many of my goals.

It’s easy to do.

I’ve written about this before, and I’ll probably write about it again. Focus and a well-thought-out plan, with goals to achieve, and milestones to gauge progress are necessary for every business that is oriented to long-term success.

When plowing with a mule or horse, we put blinders on them so that they can only see straight ahead and focus on where they are pulling the plow. That way, they don’t get distracted by other things that may be going on around them.

These days, in regards to my business, I put on metaphorical blinders before working. It helps me to focus specifically on what I want to accomplish during the next few hours.

If you are involved in online marketing in any way, you already know what I mean. All of your friends are doing different things. One suggests that you do something, another invites you to do something different, you get a newsletter in your inbox that tells you that something (like email, Google, etc.) is dead or dying and you have to do what they’re advising (and you can learn all about it by buying their new (ebook, membership site, webinar, course) product for only $47 (or $97, or $197, or $497…).

Before you even get started with what you were going to do, you’re already being pulled in multiple directions. Soon, self-doubt sets in. Are you doing what you should be doing, or do you need to do something entirely different? The more distractions, the more self-doubt. The more self-doubt, the less progress you will make.

I know this for a fact. I’ve gone through it and I’m looking back on much of what I’ve done over the last few years with a sense of amazement. I’m amazed that I let myself forget good common business sense and well-established marketing techniques and spent my time chasing all the shiny, new, red balls that kept bouncing along all around me.

One of my friends was talking to my daughter a few months ago about a mutual friend of theirs. He said she was suffering from ADOS syndrome. My daughter asked, “What’s ADOS?”

He replied, “Attention Deficit…Oh, Shiny!”

Many of us are suffering from the same thing. We’re losing the ability to focus. We expect immediate (or at least very fast) gratification. We want sound bites that coincide with our prejudices and predilections rather than in-depth knowledge and understanding. We want easy money with the least amount of work possible.

That’s no way to build a business. It might be okay for a hobby or a temporary distraction, but it’s a sure-fire way to fail in business.

Ken Evoy wrote in a recent blog post, Focus and Determination, “Very few small businesses go straight up like a rocket. Some businesses go faster, some take longer. And when you’re all by yourself at home, working and building content and getting links and progress is slow, it’s easy to have some doubt about your niche or your ability to make your website ‘work.’ Work through the doubts. Like every business, success goes to those who persevere… ”

Perseverance without a plan and tight focus isn’t enough.

You also have to put your words in front of someone who is in the mood to buy, has the resources, and finds the information you offer reliable enough to make the decision.

Whether we choose to build content-rich, hierarchically-organized websites or write a blog, we need to create something that ranks well in the search engines, and even more importantly, is something that people are looking for with a mindset of buying. It does us absolutely no good to attract a loyal group of readers, friends, and associates who like to read what we say and join in the conversations, but who are never going to be a customer or client. You need to attract people who are interested in what you’re writing about and want to buy something related to it that either solves a problem they’re having or links to something they want to buy.

Marketing to other marketers is a huge waste of time and energy. We are sellers, not buyers, for the most part. Now and then, we may find something we want to buy, but many of us are do-it-yourselvers and would rather spend the time and effort in learning something for ourselves rather than purchase something that you are offering.

You know what I’m talking about.

Compare that with someone who has a passion for a hobby or other interest. They have a good job and love spending money on their hobby. Whether it be raising dogs, gardening, travel, camping, fishing, weddings, photography, games, movie collectibles, dolls, or anything else in which they are passionately interested, they want to do more of it and they have the money to spend.

Most of them don’t care if they ever get their money back or make a profit on their “investment.” The purchase is part of the enjoyment. It’s part of the anticipation of enjoying more of what they do.

Those are the people you want to attract. People are searching billions of times a day for something in which they are interested. You need to learn what they are looking for, evaluate your competition, and then do a better job of providing information, products, and services that all these people want.

The best way to do that is to identify something for which you have a passion (or at least a strong interest), research the topic, identify what people want related to that niche, and then find a way to be found by them.

There are many ways to be found. The least expensive and often easiest is to rank well in the search engines for the terms for which they are searching.

Other ways include traditional advertising, coupons, newsletters, mailing lists, interviews, radio, TV, and all the other ways of inserting yourself and what you offer into their attention.

If you haven’t read “Guerilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson, do it this week. It was written before the Internet and the Web, and it still offers outstanding advice for selling what you are offering.

With my Murphy Gold site, I’m focused 100% on locally-owned small businesses in the rural area surrounding Murphy, NC. Most of my marketing will be done online, but I’ll also be using what I’ve learned about local offline marketing, too.

Most people do not live in the online world as much as many of us do. They don’t spend hours on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever.

No. Really. I’m serious.

They have real lives that don’t involve blogs, websites, social networking, social bookmarking, and may not even know what an ebook is.

And many of them could become your best customer if you find a way to offer what they want and put yourself in front of them when they’re ready to purchase.

One way to do that, in both the offline and online world, is to offer something free.

In Internet Marketing, people offer free ebooks in return to get you to sign up for their mailing list. This has been effective in the past, but is getting less effective as time goes by.

How many free ebooks or reports do you have on your computer that you’ve never read or even skimmed? I’m willing to bet there are quite a few. If you ever took the time to read them, you’d quickly discover that a very few are outstanding and offer great information. Some are good and worth a read or quick skim. Others, and I’m willing to bet they are the majority, are worthless. They were put together quickly with little quality control, lack of any depth of knowledge of the subject, or any other intention other than offering you a bauble to get you to sign up to their marketing list.

And, then, to top it off, most of those marketing lists are just as bad. In fact, I’ve seen more than one “marketing guru” advise giving anything away to get someone to sign up for your list, and then you can “market” to them (nearly) for free until they buy what you’re selling or unsubscribe from your list. When they do buy, add them to the next list in your marketing funnel and repeat the process with something more expensive that offers more profit. Ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Don’t fall for that.

Yes, some successful businesses have involved and very profitable marketing funnels and they do well for the owner. I am not disputing that. If that’s the way you want to live, then go for it.

I don’t.

When I talk about offering something for free, I’m not talking about giving something away to get your readers to sign up for your mailing list.

I’m talking about building a site with lots of free, high-quality, authoritative information about a topic you really know and in which you and your reader are both interested.

I want to develop real relationships (perhaps friendships) with real people about something I really care about. I want to offer the best information I can to them for free and also give them ways to purchase things they want.

I have not done a good job of that. Why? Because I was not focused on doing business. I was distracted by “online marketing.”

I’ve come to view affiliate marketing as more than just advertising. You probably will disagree with me on this, and feel free to do so.

Over time, I’ve promoted a lot of things. I had to learn the ropes, make my mistakes, learn from some of them, and try not to repeat those same mistakes.

I got sidetracked into downline builders, traffic exchanges, and social networking on lots of sites that produced no (or very small) results. I tried multilevel marketing. I tried all sorts of ways to build traffic and turn visitors into dollars.

Then one day, I put on my blinders and walked off those treadmills. I was making what lots of people would call a good income, but none of us were getting anywhere from it. It was a treadmill that lead to nowhere and all we were doing was trying to run fast enough to bring in a trickle of income.

Yes it works. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying it’s bad for me. It’s not something I can look back on with pride and satisfaction knowing that I helped others. If anything, I’m responsible for sucking some of them into that same “running on the treadmill to nowhere” scenario and calling it a business.

I stopped doing all of that and I’m canceling accounts on hundreds of sites.

Mea culpa.

Would I want to get my best friend, parent, sibling, or child doing all of that just to earn a few (hundred) dollars per month? No.

So, I asked myself, what DO I want to do? What can I do that will be satisfying, helpful, and real?

I took a close and not-too-comfortable look at myself and started shedding lots of things I had “learned” from “marketing gurus” and “online business mentors” and “coaches.”

My new criteria is this: Would I offer something to my mother or my daughter?

If the answer is no, then I won’t offer it to you.

That greatly simplifies things for me.

Getting back to Murphy Gold for a moment…

I will only promote businesses on that site that I would recommend to my mother or daughter. Each business on that site is a personal recommendation from me. I’ve turned down several business owners because I don’t like the way they run their business or treat their customers.

I only contact business owners with whom I’ve had good, long-term relationships, or who were recommended by more than one person I trust who lives in the community and has done business with that business owner. I offer to promote them online for a fee. In the future, as I get healthier, I’ll also be promoting them offline in our community (and it won’t cost them any extra).

I have a lot of work to do on that site. I started in one direction, learned from a few mistakes, and now I’m tweaking it to make it better. I still have hundreds of pages to write, but I’ve already done the majority of the research and I’ve developed a site blueprint. I know where it’s going and how to get there. I’ve focused and planned.

Now, it’s time for implementation.

I have to knuckle-down and do the work. It’s going to take time to write those hundreds of pages and then promote them where the residents of our community (and those who are interested in visiting and/or moving to Murphy, NC) will find them, and that means both online and offline promotions.

Focus, planning, and implementation.

While most of my other sites rely on Google Adsense and affiliate links for monetization, Murphy Gold will focus on introducing real people (customers) to other real people (business owners) so that they can do what people have been doing for centuries — trading money for goods and services.

It’s real business. It’s real people. It’s real relationships. It’s real.

It’s something I’ll be able to look back on in twenty years (if I make it) and be proud of doing.

Affiliate marketing will play a very small part in monetizing visitors to Murphy Gold.

Google Adsense will play some part in monetizing some parts of the site, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the main goal of promoting local business owners who deserve it. Anyone can buy ads on Google Adwords and I don’t have much control of that, so I’ll only be putting Adsense ads on some of the pages. I don’t yet know exactly which pages that will be and it’s going to take some testing.

On other sites, such as Act On Your Dream!, Adsense and affiliate links will play a bigger role. I’ve been developing a new blueprint for that site and it will be reorganized and revitalized as I have the energy. It’s never been a huge monetary success, but it’s about a topic in which I’m extremely interested and I have some ideas on how I want to proceed with it.

Other sites will be taken down, including GeorgiaDragRacing.com, which I built for my brother. It has been a very profitable site, but his health problems have gotten to the point where he can no longer go to the drag racing events and publish the photos and information he once could. So, he wants me to burn it to a DVD and take it down. It’s his site, and I’ll do what he wants as soon as I can. (I have some technical problems involving old software and new computers to solve before I can get the database to generate a complete local copy of that site and burn it to a DVD for him.)

Over time, most of what’s in JohnDilbeck.com, MurphyNC28906.com, and other smaller sites will be moved into AYearFromNow.com or MurphyGold.com. Part of my focus is to keep the best and toss the rest. I’ll be consolidating information from my blogs and some of my websites into sites that are powered by SBI, because it works best for me.

Eventually, I’ll be off the blogging treadmill, too.

In the short term, I’ll lose some income as I take down sites that have lots of visitors and make money. In the long term, I’ll be able to focus more on what I’m doing and to implement the plan I’ve developed.

If you’re still reading this, you’re one of the few who have a reasonable attention span and I applaud you.

I know that I’m moving in a different direction than most affiliate marketers and I’ll probably move some of the information from here into AYearFromNow.com and take down this blog, too. I’ll miss some of the social interaction that comes from the comments on this blog, but — again — I’ll be able to focus more on my new business plan.

Affiliate marketing has been good to me for over a decade and will continue to be one of the larger streams of income, but it is going to change and I’ll only be promoting products and services that, get ready for it, here it comes…I’d recommend to my Mom or daughter.

I learned a long time ago to write a page with one main objective. Simple pages that offer quality information and which lead to a desired action step or alternative backup action that I want the reader to take.

Some pages are purely informational. Google Adsense is a good way to monetize them (as long as someone is advertising using the keywords for which the page is built).

Some pages are designed to get people to drive to a business, get out of their car, and go inside a store. I won’t have anything competing with those.

Some pages are designed to promote things to do in surrounding cities and they’ll have Adsense and some affiliate links on them.

For each page, I’ll have one thing I want the reader to do. Failing that, I’ll link to other pages on the site.

Keep it simple. Reduce distractions. Make it easy to read, tightly focused, and easy to navigate.

Will I be the best at doing this? Probably not. In my heart, I’m a techno-nerd, not a businessman.

I’ll do my best and continue living in a place I love and telling the world more about it.

Hopefully, it will provide a comfortable income, too.

What about you?

Have you planned your business and decided what you want to accomplish?

What is it?

Do you agree or disagree with my belief that what I promote on my site (other than Adsense ads) is a personal recommendation?

I’m interested in your thoughts about focusing on your business and achieving your goals.

Act on your dream!

JD

Some of these points are just as valid today as they were then.

I have learned several lessons that I think may be valuable to anyone who reads this. You may agree or disagree, but at least give it some thought.

1. Anything that is a good value today will be a good value a year from now.

2. The more the hype, the less the value or longevity.

3. If it has a deadline, run away, don’t walk, run – in a zig-zag pattern.

4. Don’t send your valuable prospect away on first contact. Try to get their contact information so you can follow-up – yes, build your list. (I wish I’d done more of this.)

5. If you can’t understand the compensation plan after reading it twice, you may never understand it, so maybe it is best to avoid it.

6. Always try to get residual income rather than one-off commissions.

7. Try to get life-time customers.

8. If more than five people email you about something the same day, avoid it.

9. Spillover is a myth. It may happen now and then, but don’t depend upon it.

10. Earning money – no matter how you do it – is work. It takes longer than you think and it takes more creativity and effort. Nobody will do your work for you.

11. Don’t spend more than you can afford. Define your budget and stick with it. If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.

12. Don’t go into debt to try to make more money. Pour a percentage of your revenue back into tools and marketing. As a result of this, I’m spending more on marketing every month than I made the first two years of online marketing. But, it’s all a percentage of income. I have no debt and I intend to keep it that way.

13. It takes a long time to start earning money with online marketing (unless you are very lucky or very good at what you do). It took months for me to earn my first commission check, and several more months before I got my second one. Now, I get checks from several companies every month. It did not happen overnight, but it can be done with perseverance, even if you make a lot of mistakes along the way.

14. Don’t pay attention to how much money someone is claiming to earn. There is a huge difference between gross and net.

15. Help others grow and advance, don’t take advantage of them just to get their money.

When I originally wrote this, I was doing a lot of testing with traffic exchanges and downline builders. I was actively promoting two MLM companies. Today, I’m doing none of those things.

So, the comments about spillover really have nothing to do with affiliate marketing, because they’re more appropriate to anyone involved in network marketing. I got so tired of getting emails telling me that some “big-hitter” was going to start promoting to his “massive” list and there was only so much time to get involved in his program if we wanted any spillover. To the best of my recollection, from testing several different programs, I think I received half a dozen people in my downline from spillover and never made a penny from it.

In every case, I lost money in the process. That’s why I no longer do any of that.

In regards to #14, it’s not just a difference between gross and net. Some people will actually lie to you! (Surprise!) Anyone with a graphics program can dummy an income statement.

I’m not saying that all of them are dummies or lies, but I know that some of them are. Don’t believe everything you read or see. Caveat emptor.

What do you think?

Agree? Disagree? Let’s talk.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’ve gone back through the posts I made to the SFI category and deleted all my affiliate links, but that’s just a start. I’ve been promoting SFI far and wide for over six years, so I don’t know how long it will take to find and remove all the affiliate links to their sites.

Fortunately, many of them are redirects and top-level domain names, so I’m going to redirect them to this blog post.

If you’ve come here thinking you were going to see a product sold by SFI, I hope you won’t be too confused.

I like many of SFI’s products

As I’ve said before, I really like many of their products and I’ll continue to buy them, but from someone else’s affiliate links in the future.

Not getting the results I expected

After six years of seriously promoting SFI Marketing Group and their products, I expected to see a larger return on my investment of time and effort.

Too many changes

Just last week, SFI introduced a whole new approach to their program and I think I’m just too old and tired to learn another completely new system. What is this? I think this is the third or fourth major change in their affiliate program in the last few years, and I haven’t seen any positive results from it — at least not in terms of income.

Getting off the treadmill

I admit that I have not taken the time to fully study and learn the new VersaPoints system, and I won’t be doing so.

My initial impression, however, is that affiliates may be more active, but much of that activity will be running in place on the treadmill to acquire points every month.

No, thanks.

Trying to Opt Out of SFI

I had a heck of a time finding a link for opting out of being an SFI Marketing Group affiliate. After looking at the pages for my account, the FAQ help file, the complete help index, and other pages, I finally put “opt out” in the search box and found the page for leaving SFI.

I’m sure there used to be a direct link on the menu, but maybe that was overlooked with all the major changes they made this month. I don’t know.

Canceling my standing order

There was a warning on the opt-out page that this would not cancel any standing orders I may have with SFI.

I canceled my standing order a couple of months ago, but I clicked the link just to check and be sure.

I’m a little concerned that it showed my standing order was still active, even though I’m pretty sure that I was not charged for it last month. I’ll double check my records to be sure.

Either way, I canceled my standing order (again).

Then I went back to the opt-out page.

There’s one last step to do. I need to check my email and click the verification link to complete opting out. That should do it.

Goodbye, SFI.

Act on your dream!

JD

FTC plans to monitor blogs for claims, payments

I’m all for this monitoring and oversight by the FTC. I think it’s time that bloggers and others be held accountable for the veracity of their claims. We need more truth in advertising – especially as it relates to the GRQ (“get rich quick”) crowd.

But, what worries me about this, is how will the FTC go about doing this? What will trigger warnings and what will trigger lawsuits.

Done right, it can help clean up the blogosphere. Done wrong, it can hurt innocent people who haven’t done anything wrong.

I’d love to see the FTC jump all over the websites, and their owners, who knowingly make claims that are not true. We don’t need that trash confusing people.

On the other hand, I’d hate to see someone who earns a few dollars by linking to an affiliated merchant be hurt because they didn’t adequately disclose that they earn an income from someone who purchases from one of their affiliate links – or when someone clicks on their Adsense ads.

What will the FTC require?

Right now, I don’t know. If you find something about this from an official source, please share it with us.

Will a single page on a site that discloses how we earn income from the site be sufficient (probably not), or will we need to post a notice on every page or near every link from which we may earn income?

For those of you who are receiving coupons, special offers, and/or payment from advertisers, how will you be required to disclose that when you post your review and/or talk about your experiences with a particular company or product?

Dammit Jim, I’m a marketer – not a journalist!

I try to make it clear that I am not a journalist. I don’t pretend to write objective news articles.

I’m a marketer. I earn my living from affiliate marketing, and a smaller amount from Google Adsense Ads (although I’ve removed them from this blog).

Some links are direct links to companies and/or products and I don’t earn anything if you follow those links and purchase something.

Most, however, are affiliate links and I’ll earn a few dollars (or a few cents) if you purchase as a direct result of following my link.

Do I have to disclose that for every single link?

Will I be grandfathered in, or will I have to go back and find every affiliate link on all of my sites and inform readers that I may (but probably won’t) earn something if they click the link and then purchase?

Will affiliate links be considered advertising or endorsements?

Many blogs receive compensation for advertising, either through Adsense ads, something similar, or privately-sold advertising. How will these be seen by the FTC review.

If I tell you that you should purchase something, will that be considered a personal endorsement? What are the differences in responsibility between paid ads and personal endorsements?

I think these are important questions, and I’ll be following this issue closely.

In the meantime, I want to make it clear to you that I earn my living by selling products and services to you, if you click on my affiliate links and purchase.

Does that mean that I’ll promote everything that earns me a buck? No, it doesn’t. The longer I work in affiliate marketing – and marketing, in general – the pickier I become concerning the products and services I recommend.

What do you think?

Are these legitimate concerns, or not?

Act on your dream!

JD

I am really conflicted about SFI Marketing Group.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

I’ve been an affiliate with SFI since late 2002. I’ve put a lot of work into promoting the company and products, despite all the changes – some of which made months of work obsolete.

That’s one of the downsides. They’ve changed direction several times over the years, but – for the most part – I think they made the right decisions, even though some of them were particularly bothersome for me.

For example, I spent months promoting NiceOffers and had a pretty good thing going. But, when the program was put on hold, I was stuck with a complex blog, about 50 Squidoo lenses, and I don’t know how many promotions that were suddenly obsolete.

What could I do?

I took down the blog, deleted or converted the Squidoo lenses, and moved on – though not with the same enthusiasm I had before this happened.

This was about the time that the CEO of SFI, Gery Carson, announced that they would be opening the TripleClicks store to sell their products and to make it easy for people around the world to sell their own products.

The store was months away, but it did open and, despite some early flaws, has improved over time. Now, there are thousands of items on sale there.

In some ways, I think of the store as a different kind of eBay. There are lots of people promoting the store, so that means a lot of traffic. The current Alexa ranking is just under 34,000, so that’s a pretty good indication that they are receiving lots of people on the site.

I don’t have any information about how well the products are selling, however.

Still, even though it is taking a long time, the store is progressing and seems to be living up to the promises of several months ago.

Most of the products in the store are either SFI’s own products or products being sold by private sellers. There are quite a few other items in the store and I don’t really know how they fit this picture.

Eventually, the TripleClicks store will have more retailers offering their products, but I don’t have a timetable for that.

You see, this is part of the problem. There is so much uncertainty around everything that it is hard to know what to do to generate sales.

I like some of SFI’s products, but I’m not too wild about others.

I was a member of the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs (IAHBE) since it opened, but I canceled my membership last month. I realized that I wasn’t spending nearly as much time on the site as I used to and I haven’t been taking advantage of their free books and free magazine subscriptions as I used to. (The books and magazines are free, but you do have to pay a small processing fee.)

So, without this subscription to IAHBE (called a standing order), I may, or may not, remain an EA (executive affiliate) with SFI in the future. This is a major change for me.

For years I was MIQ (multi-income qualified) before they changed that to EA. I’ve been either a team leader or EA ever since, until this month.

Why did I make this change?

Primarily it was because my income from affiliate marketing has plunged since last September, although it is showing signs of starting to grow again. I went from earning a pretty good income from all the businesses I promoted to earning between 25% – 35% of that amount, practically overnight.

After having that kind of revenue decline, I had to make some hard choices to protect my cash flow. So, I canceled everything that wasn’t critical to my marketing. Hopefully, my cashflow will rise again and I’ll be able to restart some of the things I dropped over the last couple of months.

On the other hand, I’m using this as an opportunity to re-examine what I’ve been doing and I’m making some big changes to my business plan.

I am not a fan of MLM (network marketing).

While I like the theory of multi-level marketing, the reality does not match the promise.

Over the years, I’ve introduced hundreds of people to SFI, but the great majority of them never did anything that I could see. There were a few who worked hard for awhile, but eventually they all slowed and stopped.

Some joined and were never communicative.

Now, I’m not going to blame all of them. It’s not that simple.

People sign up for affiliate and network marketing opportunities because it looks like easy money. It’s not. It takes a lot of work and creativity to earn decent income through online marketing.

Some people find it much easier than others. Some find it so confusing that they never really get started.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m too stubborn to give up, but I find a lot of inconsistencies and some things still confuse me.

I also find that I’m getting much “pickier” when it comes to what I’ll promote. I promoted lots of things a few years ago – when I was first learning – that I would not promote now.

This year, I’m pruning back even more. If I am not a happy customer of the products and services a company provides, I’m not marketing for them.

So, what do I buy from SFI?

I really like IAHBE, but it doesn’t offer the value for me that it once did. I like their non-toxic cleaning products, especially the orange cleaner and all-purpose cleaner. They are inexpensive and work very well.

Some of their other products are over priced, in my opinion. Even though I could earn a good commission when someone purchases them, I’m not comfortable with promoting them.

This brings us back to an earlier discussion on this site that related to reviews and personal recommendations.

I’m looking at my marketing efforts less as advertising and more as personal recommendations these days.

That’s a big change in how I see all of this and it’s the main reason I’m re-examining all I’ve been doing.

(I’m so far behind on getting things done that I have several websites that are sadly neglected, out of date, and need to be revised. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day or enough energy to do all that needs doing.)

I’m rambling. Let’s get back on topic…

I’m not a fan of network marketing. The idea of leverage sounds really good, but the idea of easy duplication by hundreds or thousands of people in your downline rarely ever develops.

In my experience, there is a lot of churn. People sign up, people quit. It’s an endless cycle.

I’m going to accept my part of the responsibility for this.

I am not a social person. I’m not a team builder. I’ve tried, but it just isn’t part of my personality.

I’m a loner who prefers to work by himself and get paid for his own efforts. That’s why I like affiliate marketing better than network marketing. I can accomplish much more in the same amount of time by talking directly to prospective buyers than I can trying to build a network.

So, MLM just isn’t for me.

Now that I’ve realized that, is it worth my time to promote SFI and TripleClicks.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’ve been getting checks from SFI just about every month for years. Some have been large and some have been small. I made a profit most months, broke about even some, and lost a small amount a few times. Overall, it has been a profitable venture.

But, profitable and worth doing are two different things.

I’m getting tired of working hard for meager pay from some companies. With SFI, the pay I receive from my downline’s efforts has been meager. On the other hand, the commissions I receive from sales to non-affiliates have been excellent.

Therein lies the dilemma.

So, now I’ll respond to people in my downline who contact me and I’ll give them my best advice, but I’m not going to tell anyone that it’s easy to earn a full-time income from online marketing.

Some people do very well, some never earn anything.

I’ve been lucky in that I have earned enough to meet my needs and to have some additional spending money left over. So, I consider that a successful venture. On the other hand, I could earn a lot more if I went back to full-time consulting or got a good job.

So, this year, I’m combining the two. I’ll continue affiliate marketing, but I’m also doing consulting in the real face-to-face 3D world. I’m hoping the combination will be more successful, and I’ll still be able to do most of my work from home.

So, I’m going to continue doing limited promotions for SFI and some of their products, but not to the extent I did in the past.

I’m not going to quit, because I really think Gery Carson is doing all he can to make the company more successful for its affiliates, but it’s an uphill climb.

I also don’t believe in quitting. Once I start something, I’m stubborn enough that I’ll face the difficulties, weather the storms, and find a way to solve any problems I encounter.

Whether that’s a good thing or not is debatable.

So that’s a long overview of some of my thinking on this topic.

I’m planning to revisit this topic later this week and address specific things rather than repeating this rambling monologue.

I would love to hear your opinions on affiliate marketing, network marketing, SFI Marketing Group, and similar topics.

Share your experiences and thoughts and maybe this will develop into a good discussion.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’ve been waiting for that date, because I planned to make some commitments to marketing SFI based on what I saw when the store opened.

That date has come and gone, and I have a lot I want to say about all the changes. In fact, I have so much I want to say that I’m not going to be able to put all of it into one post, so I’ll be addressing the changes in several posts over the next few days. Today, I want to talk about the new TripleClicks store.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

True to Gery’s word, the store opened on Monday, January 5, 2009. It opened a couple of hours late and there were some issues when it first went public, but by the end of the day most of those issues were ironed out and the store was performing pretty well.

Some of the problems people experienced were related to propagating the new domain through the Domain Name System (DNS), the world-wide database program that links domain names to specific IP addresses. Depending upon a variety of factors, it can take from a few minutes to a few days for a new domain to propagate worldwide. This is totally outside of a domain owner’s influence, so we just have to wait when a new domain goes public.

It’s been almost four days since the new TripleClicks store opened on Monday, and I’m seeing fewer people reporting problems with accessing the site, so I now feel comfortable talking about it and marketing the products in the store.

New TripleClicks lens on Squidoo

To start with, I just published a lens at Squidoo: SFI Marketing Group Store – TripleClicks. Come visit the lens and join in the duel and/or leave your comments. (That lens has been deleted.)

As always, I hope you’ll rate the lens and tell your friends about it.

Thanks!

SFI’s Veriuni line of products

As you may, or may not, know, SFI has a proprietary line of Veriuni products that include all-natural cleaners, dietary supplements, weight-loss products, personal grooming supplies, pet products, and probably some items I can’t think of right now.

The products you’ve come to love are available in the new store, but there is no Veriuni department. The products are shown in the departments in which they best fit. The cleaners are in Home & Garden; supplements and vitamins are in Health & Wellness; hand soaps, shampoo, and conditioners are in Personal Care; pet shampoos and supplements are in Pet Care, and so forth.

One way to find all the Veriuni products is to search for “Veriuni” on any page of the store.

You can find the Purjava products by searching for “Purjava” or “coffee.”

I’m getting better results by searching on just one word rather than a phrase. What’s your experience?

I am a real fan of the Veriuni line of all-natural, nontoxic cleaning supplies. These come in one quart or one gallon sizes and are concentrated cleaning products that you can dilute with water to obtain the correct solution for your cleaning needs.

For example, if you look at the price of a quart of Veriuni All-Purpose Cleaner, it may seem expensive to you, especially when you factor in the shipping costs. You have to remember, however, that after diluting the concentrate, you have actually purchased up to 32 gallons of cleaner. I think that makes the price much more acceptable, and that’s before you factor in all the benefits related to health and the environment.

New products

There are many new retail products in the store that we can promote.

For example, there are 53 new Dessert Essence beauty products available. Just go to the new TripleClicks store and search for “Desert Essence” to see the full list.

That’s another group of items SFI affiliates can promote and earn SVP and commissions on whenever a customer buys after following one of your affiliate links.

And, they’re even easy to promote. As an SFI affiliate, you’re already registered at the store, so just sign in with your SFI ID and password. When you do that, you’ll notice some changes. One of the most significant changes is when you look at a product’s page.

For example, look at the page for Baywood Lip Maximizing Formula, 3g. (Be sure you’re logged in.)

At the bottom of the page, affiliates will see a link for promoting the product, and your affiliate code is already built into the link. Additionally, you’ll find information related to SVP, CV, and the commission you’ll earn based on your rank as an affiliate, EA, or team leader. How much more convenient can that be? It’s one of the features I really like about the new store.

I mentioned that there are new products. In the Personal Care department, alone, there are now 186 products we can promote. Part of those products are retail products and we earn SVP and commissions from sales of them. Some are products that are being sold by private sellers – people like you and me – and we earn SVP on sales of those products, but not commissions.

If you haven’t taken some time to look at the new SFI TripleClicks store, I urge you to take some time and study it.

If you’re an SFI affiliate, you now have lots of new ways to earn commissions. If you’re not, you can join SFI for free and get started.

International Affiliate Concerns

One of the biggest concerns for international affiliates (anyone who lives outside the United States) has been the high cost of shipping to other countries.

I don’t think this first release of the store has addressed that concern. If I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me.

On the Welcome to the new year and SFI 3.0! page, Gery Carson addresses this issue, by saying:

Special note on shipping costs: One of our key objectives with the new store was to reduce shipping costs (especially for international affiliates and customers). To achieve this goal, we completely overhauled our shipping programming and installed all new software and hardware in our shipping center. We expect that this will have a positive impact.

Additionally, with TC’s Private Seller Program (more on this in a moment), products will be available for shipment from all over the world. This will also help reduce shipping costs since the product can literally be coming from within your same country, region, or city.

The biggest impact item, however, will be our alliances with dropshipping companies that will ship to you from around the world. Unfortunately, we were not able to get this component completed in time for our launch today. But rest assured, this IS coming. Watch for updates on this topic.

I’m hoping that these changes, when they are introduced, will make it much easier for all of us to sell products worldwide.

The TripleClicks Private Seller Program

This is where the new store starts to get really interesting.

Although it is unfair to compare the brand new TripleClicks store to marketing behemoths such as eBay and Amazon, I think you should pay some serious attention to the Private Seller Program.

It’s true that the features related to this are very basic at this time and don’t have the bells and whistles we have come to expect from sites such as eBay, but you can sell your stuff on TripleClicks right now.

That’s right. Take the stuff you no longer want and sell it to someone else.

Most SFI affiliates were given three credits for listing items and additional credits can be purchased inexpensively.

Anyone can buy credits to sell their stuff on TripleClicks.

For example, you can purchase one TC Credit for $1.99 or a pack of 250 TC Credits for $47.50. There are other packages of credits, too.

This means that you can sell one item for only $1.99 or buy a pack of 250 credits and sell your items for only $0.19 each.

If you have a lot to sell, you can purchase the credits you need and earn SVP. You can become an EA by buying credits and selling your stuff. Or, if someone else buys credits from your link, you can earn both SVP and commissions. This has the potential for becoming a profitable income stream.

But, don’t buy more than you need! Credits expire one year from purchase and you don’t want a bunch of expired credits.

SFI has provided marketing materials to help you promote the TripleClicks store and the Private Seller Program.

Already, a number of items have been put up for sale by private sellers on the store and more are being added daily.

Although you don’t earn any commissions when people buy from a private seller, you can earn a commission by promoting the store in your local area when the people you refer purchase credits to sell their stuff. Depending upon how well you promote it, and how well SFI implements it, this can be a good way for international affiliates to build an income stream.

At the moment, however, there are some drawbacks to doing this, but Gery says they will be addressed soon.

For example, even on the advanced search page, there is no way to search geographically. In order to reduce shipping costs, it is important that sales can be made relatively locally, especially if we’re going to consider this an online garage sale.

This is being addressed. In a recent update, it was announced:

2:09 p.m. 1/7/09 – We are busy fixing a few things that “broke” during our transition (such as Standing Order management) to SFI 3.0. Everything is coming along VERY nicely. We’ll also soon have in place some of the items that were not operational at launch, such as the “On Sale” and “Top Sellers” menu tabs. We’ll also soon have several additions to the Advanced Search so that you can search geographically, by date entered in TC, and more. We appreciate your patience while we complete these components.

So, we need to exercise some patience and see how the store develops.

In the meantime, however, I feel comfortable promoting it and look forward to it being a big success.

Sell Your Stuff

So, what do you have stashed away in your closet or garage that you no longer want? Sell it on TripleClicks.

I’m going to have to dig around and find something to sell so I can test it.

A few years ago, I had an eBay store and made some pretty good money selling my Steel Roses That Never Wilt. If I were still able to do the blacksmithing I love, I’d start selling my roses on TripleClicks. Unfortunately, I injured my left hand and can’t do any smithing right now, but I’m hoping I’ll get better.

If you make handmade arts and crafts, you may want to consider listing some of them on TripleClicks to see how it works for you.

There is a lot more to say about the changes at SFI and the new TripleClicks store, but I’m going to stop here. I’ll have more to say in later posts.

What’s your opinion?

So, what do you think?

Are you more or less interested in SFI now that you know a bit about the new store?

I look forward to discussing it with you.

Act on your dream!

JD

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

OFFICIAL LAUNCH DATE FOR NEW SFI STORE ANNOUNCED!

An official launch date has now been finalized. The brand new SFI store will be unveiled at 11 AM CST on MONDAY, JANUARY 5TH.

Also launching on January 5th will be an array of major, new SFI system enhancements, including:

* Dramatic simplification for getting started, becoming an EA, and more
* New training program for new affiliates
* Tons of new marketing and business-building aids
* More “internationalization”
* New and improved EyeEarn
* An improved compensation plan with five exciting new bonuses
* More incentives for becoming an EA and maintaining EA status
* More incentives for advancing through all the Team Leader ranks
* A more powerful and lucrative Executive Bonus
* Affiliate Center facelift (new, simpler navigation and menus, etc.)
* MUCH, MUCH MORE!

Stay tuned for further updates and get ready for the new year and “SFI 3.0!”

So, it’s official. We now have just over four weeks to make our plans on what we want to do to promote SFI, the new store, and the other changes we’ll see in 2009.

For the latest information on the store, including FAQs and many screenshots, see:

https://www.sfimg.com/NewStoreUpdates.sfi

(The page, above, is only viewable by SFI affiliates. If you’re interested in what’s coming down the road and you’re not an affiliate, you can join for free and learn more about the features of the new store before it is announced to the public. This new store should help all of us earn more commissions, if it lives up to its potential.)

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

I’m not going to repeat what I’ve already written about SFI. You can see more of what I’ve said by browsing the SFI Marketing Group category on this blog.

I have mixed feelings about SFI. I believe it is a great company and that they’re trying to help us all earn more in an ever-changing environment. They’ve tested a number of things in the last few years and not all of them worked out as expected. The announcement of this new store and the new system enhancements offer hope for the future, but I’m not going to gush about it. I’ll wait until the store opens and the new site bugs are worked out before making a decision.

I think SFI offers some great training for people new to affiliate and network marketing, and you can get this training for free. That’s one of the best things about the company; they’re working hard to help their members succeed online.

Still, even though I’m earning ongoing commissions from my marketing efforts, it’s not as much as I’ve expected, based on the length of time and the amount of marketing I’ve been doing.

I’ve put SFI on my probation list, as I’ve previously discussed. I’m giving this new program until July 1, 2009, to prove itself. If I see a substantial increase in my commission checks – and if the promise of the store lives up to the expectations – I’ll continue with the company. If not, it will be time to move on.

I respect Gery Carson and all he does at SFI, but it’s time to see more return for my efforts.

In anticipation that the store may become a huge success, I’ve started a Squidoo lens for SFI Marketing Group Store where I’m posting a teaser for now and will add relevant information after the store opens in January. (That lens has been deleted.)

I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to do it, but I’m planning on promoting the store on multiple sites and I’ll be helping all the affiliates in my downline who are EA and above by using their links in some of the ads.

What do you think? Select any of the choices in the poll, below, that apply to you, or add your own in the Other section, by typing it into the gray box at the bottom, above the Vote button. The answers appear all mixed up because the poll is set to randomize the answers in an attempt to reduce bias. You can select one or more of the answers; please check all that match your opinons.

What do you expect from SFI in the coming six months and what are your plans to promote the company and the new store?

I’m looking forward to your comments.

Act on your dream!

JD

I believe it is one of the very best companies for people who are brand new to affiliate marketing to learn how to promote online. They offer lots of training and good support. There is an active forum for members.

I am not a fan of multi-level marketing

One thing I don’t like about SFI is that it is a multi-level marketing (also known as mlm or networking marketing) company. I am not a fan of mlm, even though I’ve had good results with SFI.

Why?

Because, I’m tired of sponsoring people into the company who then do nothing, including replying to a simple email welcoming them to the company.

On the other hand, I’m happy to meet new people who have joined in my downline and I’m always happy to answer questions and offer advice based on my experience. That’s more than I can say for my sponsor, who has never replied to any emails I’ve sent him.

In theory, multi-level marketing makes a lot of sense. The opportunity to leverage income and efforts by enlisting others into your marketing team is very attractive. Some people seem to do well with this, but, in actual practice, most do not.

You can learn more by downloading Ann Sieg’s free ebook: The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing.

What I like about SFI

What I like about SFI is the ability to earn commissions for selling their products and services at retail. I think their line of non-toxic, natural cleaners are the best I’ve used and I’m happy to have alternatives to the chemical-soup cleaners available elsewhere.

I enjoy getting that email that tells me I’ve made a sale. SFI is generous in their commissions, and I’m happy to get my monthly commission check.

I also like the fact that Gery Carson, president of SFI, is always working to find new ways for us to earn money by promoting an array of products and services. He’s a very innovative person and regularly responds to questions on the company forum.

What I don’t like about SFI

Unfortunately, the list of things I dislike about SFI is growing faster and longer than the list of things I do like.

For example, I really like the non-toxic, natural cleaners, as I mentioned above. What I don’t like is that there is no way to market them right now, and it’s been several months since I was able to do so.

Well, that’s not exactly true, but the explanation is rather confusing.

I can still offer you the opportunity to buy the non-toxic all natural cleaner by linking to the old Veriuni store. I still have links to this store on a number of my sites.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

However, new affiliates don’t learn about this, because the training – as far as I can tell – no longer informs them about the Veriuni store.

There used to be a simple gateway page that affiliates could direct you to if you wanted to purchase the natural cleaners, but it no longer is available.

Here’s an example of a simple gateway page that links to the Veriuni Liquid Nutrition product and another one that links to the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

Why is this important?

The great majority of new affiliates joining SFI have no experience in marketing online. Therefore, it makes it much easier to promote something if they can send visitors to well-written, easy-to-understand gateway pages and make some sales as a result.

The whole point in joining SFI is to make more money than you spend. Right?

We’re here to earn a profit.

Now, I want to emphasize that you can remain an affiliate of SFI as long as you want and never spend a dime. A lot of people don’t understand that. As a free affiliate, you can still earn a very nice commission for any sales you make, and these commissions are several times as much as you would earn if you sold something through your Amazon.com store, for instance.

As a free affiliate at SFI, if you sell any consumer goods to someone who is not an SFI affiliate and doesn’t live at the same address as an SFI affiliate, you’ll earn 30% of the commission volume (CV). Let’s use the All-Purpose Cleaner as an example…

All-Purpose Cleaner costs $9.85 per quart with a CV of $2.21.

A free affiliate would earn 30% of this $2.21 for each sale, which amounts to $0.66. Now, I know that’s not a lot of income, but it grows as you sell more product.

An Executive Affiliate (EA) would earn 60% of the CV, or $1.32. To become an EA, you either need to sell retail products that add up to 10 SVP or more. (I won’t go into SVP at this time.) The other way is to purchase products with 10 SVP or more every month.

A Team Leader would earn 80% of the CV, or $1.77 per sale.

It’s not much earning less than a dollar or two, but this amount can grow rapidly as you do a better job of making retail sales.

As with every other sales and marketing job where you’re working on commission, the more you sell the more you earn.

The main point I’m trying to make is that SFI isn’t making it easy for us to sell things. While many gateway pages remain, some of the products I want to sell no longer have an easy way to link to a sales page, especially if I don’t know how to link to the Veriuni store.

A marketing organization lives and dies based on selling things. We earn our commissions based on how much we sell every month.

Let me give you another example.

I am a happy member of the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs and SFI offers a good gateway page for recommending it to you and others. Even if I weren’t an SFI affiliate, I would continue my IAHBE membership because I get more from it most months than I pay to be a member.

Now, let’s look at IAHBE from the perspective of an SFI affiliate…

As a free member, I would earn 30% of the Commission Volume (CV) of $19.00, which equals $5.70.

An EA earns 60% of the CV, or $11.40.

A TL earns 80% of the CV, or $15.20.

These amounts are for selling an IAHBE membership to someone who is not an SFI affiliate. The amounts you earn if someone in your downline joins IAHBE are less than these numbers.

Now, what gets interesting is that these are not one-time commissions. They are recurring commissions that you’ll earn every month that someone remains a member.

So, as a Bronze Team Leader, I’ll earn $15.20 every month that someone who is not an SFI affiliate remains a member, if they originally joined from one of my links.

It doesn’t take many of these to start earning some decent commissions.

At least, in theory.

In practice, I haven’t sold any IAHBE memberships to someone who is not an SFI affiliate. Several of the people in my downline have joined IAHBE and I earn some from that, as well as advancing in the leadership ranks, but it’s not as much as I would earn if I were selling these memberships to non-affiliates.

I think IAHBE is a good deal, but apparently the hundreds of people who have followed my links to the gateway page don’t agree.

SFI has been inconsistent

Lately, SFI has been advancing and retreating in about equal amounts.

Nice Offers discount coupon program suspended

A few months ago, SFI suspended the NiceOffers program and I had been working on promoting that with some diligence. I had created three blogs and almost 50 Squidoo lenses to help promote the NiceOffers program and the merchants who were offering discount coupons through the service.

I was syndicating my blog feeds on a variety of websites and I probably haven’t found and deleted all of them, even after a few months.

OK. I recognize that everything we try doesn’t succeed. So, suspending something that wasn’t working as expected makes good business sense, even though it impacted my efforts negatively.

Still, to do so suddenly after making it one of the primary marketing efforts of SFI came as a jar and I was very disappointed as a result.

Closing the Merchant Service program

This morning, I found this on the SFI forum:

Effective 8/28/08, the Merchant Services program has been discontinued due to continuing issues with the third-party company on which the program was based and over which we have no control. We apologize for any inconvenience the termination of this program may cause.

I have been watching this program for some time, and while it was very attractive, I was aware that there were problems with it, so I wasn’t actively promoting it, even though the commissions could have been very lucrative.

Now, I’m sure that a lot of affiliates are very disappointed about this.

It takes money, effort, and time to market something, especially when there are so many competitors. After spending months trying to build this part of your business, you have to be disheartened to hear that your efforts have been wasted.

The worst part of this is that we, the affiliates, are taking the risk in advertising and promoting these other companies. It costs money and time to promote through affiliate marketing, and we only realize an income when we make sales. If the merchants, both SFI and the third-party company they mention, fail in their part of closing the sale, then we are very negatively impacted.

New products that I don’t plan to promote

Recently, SFI introduced IAB Benefits which apparently offers health, dental, medical, and other services.

Even after reading all I could find about it, several times, I still don’t understand this company and what it offers. I’m a fairly bright person, but I’m still confused.

Before SFI affiliates began promoting it, when I searched for “IAB Benefits” on Google, I found more complaints than good reports about it. Are the complaints valid? I don’t know, but I don’t like promoting anything when complaints are so visible.

IAB may be a very good company that offers great products, but if I don’t understand it, I’m not going to promote it – no matter how lucrative the compensation plan may be.

I don’t want to mislead someone who is looking for medical insurance and who may sign up for IAB Benefits by mistake. Some of us just don’t have any money to waste, and from what I was able to learn, IAB Benefits doesn’t do what I would expect if I wanted medical insurance.

The SFIMG website logs me out while I am working on it

I was just reminded how much I dislike it when I’m researching something on the SFIMG.com website and it logs me out. I just had five pages open on the site and now I get a session expired message on each of them. When I log back in, does it take me to the page I was on? No. Now, I have to waste the next few minutes navigating back to where I was.

Sigh…

The not-quite-ready ecommerce store

We’ve been hearing since early spring that SFI will be introducing a new ecommerce store that will make it easy for us to earn higher commissions. A few months ago, I was excited about this, but I’m starting to lose interest.

Will this store do everything that is projected?

I hope so, but with a schedule that keeps slipping, I’m inclined to believe that it is more difficult to create than was originally projected or that there are problems with the programming and implementation.

I don’t know either way, but my gut is telling me to be careful about this one.

Here’s the latest update, posted by Gery Carson on August 29, 2008:

More new store features revealed:

For our many affiliates anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the new SFI store (and for brand new affiliates who may not have heard about the coming new store), here’s an update of some of the exciting features everyone will be enjoying soon:

• ONE store for everything. The new store will service both SFI affiliates and retail customers alike. Everything from nutritional products to Internet services to SFI promotional materials.

• Thousands (soon tens of thousands) of new products in dozens of new categories, plus closeouts, collectables and hard-to-find items available nowhere else.

• Earn instant SVP on EVERY product in the store…including all SFI promotional materials like X-Cards, postcards, business cards, etc.

• Exclusive, money-saving daily deals (“Deal Of The Day”).

• Special weekly/monthly sales with special discount prices.

• New products added daily.

• You can promote the store as a whole, or any individual product in the store, or any department, or any selection of products of your choosing.

• No longer do high shipping costs need to get in the way of becoming EA or making sales internationally. This is because the new SFI store will be utilizing new partner companies who will be shipping to you directly from outlets around the world. Additionally, through the store’s Private Seller program, you can locate sellers and products located in your same country—even the same city!

• Because of how it’s being built, virtually anything can be added and sold in the store. Goods, services, downloadable software and media, you name it! The sky’s the limit!

• The new SFI store also allows you to sell YOUR stuff. Through the new store’s Private Seller program you can quickly, easily, and cheaply convert stuff you no longer want or need…into stuff you do! List your stuff at the new store, and sell for cash….or for any product in the store. You can even earn EA status each month selling unwanted items around your house! Use the new SFI store as your online garage sale to clean out your closets, attics and garages! List and sell dozens or even hundreds of miscellaneous items easily.

• Hot, new marketing program will allow you to easily generate lifetime retail customers by the hundreds! And earning EA status though retail sales will have never been simpler or easier!

• Standing Orders, on thousands of products, will be available both to affiliates AND retail customers. When an affiliate or customer places an order containing any Standing Order-Eligible product, they’ll automatically be alerted how to set up a Standing Order for that item in seconds.

• More payment options.

• Product shipment tracking.

• Express Checkout feature allows you to make purchases in seconds.

• Wishlists

• Store multiple shipping addresses and multiple payment methods –which can be instantly accessed via pulldown menus during checkout.

• Seamless integration with VeryVIP. If you are a VeryVIP subscriber, you’ll have powerful additional tools to promote the new store and generate customers.

• One-click sitewide currency conversions for 17 major world currencies.

These are just SOME of the amazing features the new SFI store will come with. And there are many, many, many more. Not only that, the new store is also going to usher in some powerful new enhancements to the overall SFI program including substantial simplification, bigger bonuses, and more incentives to become and remain an EA.

Stay tuned for further details!

Several people posted some replies to the announcement, and Gery responded with the following post this morning, August 30, 2008:

Good morning,

I’d like to address some of the comments in this thread:

1. My apologies if you’ve perceived our launch date estimates published to date to have been “evasive.” This was certainly not our intent. These are the facts: Since beginning this project several months ago, the scope has grown enormously. What started as “just a new e-commerce store” has become something that will be seamlessly integrated directly or indirectly into every aspect of SFI. And what’s key here is that doing so closes a number of “holes” in the overall SFI program.

That is to say that we expect this project to have potentially explosive positive impacts on registrations, opt-in rates, shipping costs, EA upgrades, and much more. All those things you’ve been wanting to see out of SFI…we believe are now within our reach…thanks to this project.

Of course, making all this goodness happen has added some time to the project. And, yes, we definitely want to have everything significantly tested before we launch so that the growth explosion we anticipate can begin immediately upon the launch. We sincerely appreciate everyone’s patience; when we launch I am 1000% certain you will agree that it was worth the wait.

2. So when WILL the new store launch? There is still MUCH to do and it’s impossible to foresee every potential “speedbump” that could come up between now and the launch date as it’s not only our editors, designers and programmers involved, but also other software companies, banks, payment processors, shipping companies, etc. Therefore, it would not be wise for me to give out an exact date. There are just simply too many things that COULD cause us to miss the date. My hope is that we can unveil everything on November 1st, but that is only an estimate and could change. I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do at this time.

3. At least one person in this thread has envisioned a “sky is falling” scenario based on some recent SFI events. What I will say to this is that there are many pieces to the puzzle of what we are putting together. What may look like negatives now aren’t necessarily so, but rather moves and pieces of the bigger puzzle that will be come clear to you after the launch.

Also, for the record, companywide, SFI continues to steadily grow. We have now seen nearly two years of continual monthly growth. Total EAs have nearly doubled in the last two years and we are up, up, up in virtually every key category. So you can imagine why I can hardly sleep at night thinking about what we’re going to see in these numbers later this year after the new store has arrived!!

So, have faith, the future for SFI affiliates is brighter than it’s ever been.

Thanks, everyone! I hope I’ve helped with your concerns.

Gery Carson
SFI President & Founder

Benefit of the doubt

I’ve been reading what Gery Carson has to say for the last five years and I’ve never known him to mislead his affiliates. I’ve watched him introduce innovative products, marketing methods, and compensation plans to adapt to a changing world.

So, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt in regards to the new ecommerce store.

I certainly don’t have any secret information or behind-the-scenes insight into all that is being done to make this a reality.

Part of me want to just throw my hands up and quit.

This has been a very rough month for me personally and I’m not feeling very enthusiastic about anything at the moment, so I’m not going to make any big decisions until I’m feeling better.

I recognize the part of me that wants to quit, and I tend not to pay very much attention to him. He’s a whiner and can always find the gray cloud behind every silver lining. He’s a manifestation of all the naysayers and doubters I’ve encountered who tell me things won’t work and who think I’m crazy for even trying.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of people who quit just before they would have succeeded.

Napoleon Hill, in his best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich, tells a story about R. U. Darby, who quit three feet from finding his fortune. He quit mining for gold when the vein ran out and he sold everything to the junk man, who hired a mining engineer to study the mine. He predicted that the vein had shifted just three feet because of a fault. The new owner ordered his employees to dig to where the engineer predicted the vein would be, and that’s where they found the gold. The junk man continued to mine gold from that vein for years and earned millions of dollars because he sought expert advice before quitting.

Russell Conwell, the founder of Temple University, tells the story in his Acres of Diamonds lecture, “about a man who wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property and went off in futile search for them; the new owner of his home discovered that a rich diamond mine was located right there on the property.”

While that tells the basics of the lecture, I urge you to click the link and read the entire Acres of Diamonds lecture for yourself.

Sometimes we’d do much better by doing a little more digging, learning a bit more, and digging in our own back yard before quitting and moving on to something new.

I’ll wait and see

As I have said before, I earn a commission from SFI every month and it’s usually profitable for me to promote SFI, so I don’t want to cut off an income stream unless it becomes necessary.

But, I don’t want to just keep on going indefinitely as I wait for a higher income from SFI, as I should be receiving after 5 years of effort.

Most months, I spend about the same time, effort, and money promoting Gery Carson’s SFI Marketing Group as I do Ken Evoy’s Site Build It!

I earn higher commissions and true, recurring, residual income from promoting Site Build It! and I’m seeing a nice upwards trend in my income from them. On top of that, I’m a happy SBI customer and, a couple of days ago, I renewed my subscription for my SBI-powered Act On Your Dream! site. I never once questioned my decision to renew that subscription and I did it about six weeks before it was due.

So, it’s interesting to compare my relatively-flat income from SFI to my growing income from SBI.

I’m going to give SFI almost one more year. If the new store is released and performs as Gery hopes, and if my commissions from SFI grow faster than they have in the past, I’ll remain an affiliate and continue promoting the company and its products.

On my birthday, July 1, 2009, I’m going to decide one way or the other. I’ll continue to do my part, but SFI is going to have to improve substantially for me to continue promoting it.

I only have a limited amount of time, effort, and money and I intend to refocus on the very best affiliate programs. I hope SFI makes the cut.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback about SFI Marketing Group.

Act on your dream!

JD

(Update August 2009: Affiliate links removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

Here’s what Lori had to say:

For our many affiliates anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the new SFI store (and for brand new affiliates who may not have heard about the coming new store), here’s an update of some of the exciting features everyone will be enjoying soon:

• ONE store for everything. The new store will service both SFI affiliates and retail customers alike. Everything from nutritional products to Internet services to SFI promotional materials.

• Thousands (soon tens of thousands) of new products in dozens of new categories, plus closeouts, collectables and hard-to-find items available nowhere else.

• Earn instant SVP on EVERY product in the store…including all SFI promotional materials like X-Cards, postcards, business cards, etc.

• Exclusive, money-saving daily deals (“Deal Of The Day”).

• Special weekly/monthly sales with special discount prices.

• New products added daily.

• You can promote the store as a whole, or any individual product in the store, or any department, or any selection of products of your choosing.

• No longer do high shipping costs need to get in the way of becoming EA or making sales internationally. This is because the new SFI store will be utilizing new partner companies who will be shipping to you directly from outlets around the world. Additionally, through the store’s Private Seller program, you can locate sellers and products located in your same country—even the same city!

• Because of how it’s being built, virtually anything can be added and sold in the store. Goods, services, downloadable software and media, you name it! The sky’s the limit!

• The new SFI store also allows you to sell YOUR stuff. Through the new store’s Private Seller program you can quickly, easily, and cheaply convert stuff you no longer want or need…into stuff you do! List your stuff at the new store, and sell for cash….or for any product in the store. You can even earn EA status each month selling unwanted items around your house! Use the new SFI store as your online garage sale to clean out your closets, attics and garages! List and sell dozens or even hundreds of miscellaneous items easily.

• Hot, new marketing program will allow you to easily generate lifetime retail customers by the hundreds! And earning EA status though retail sales will have never been simpler or easier!

• Standing Orders, on thousands of products, will be available both to affiliates AND retail customers. If you place an order containing any Standing Order-Eligible product, you’ll automatically be alerted how to set up a Standing Order for that item in seconds.

These are just SOME of the amazing features the new SFI store will come with. And there are many, many, many more. Not only that, the new store is also going to usher in some powerful new enhancements to the overall SFI program including substantial simplification, bigger bonuses, and more incentives to become and remain an EA.

Stay tuned for further details!

L. Robison

Needless to say, this announcement continues to pique my interest.

Ever since Gery Carson, President of SFI, announced this new, not-yet-opened ecommerce store, I’ve been waiting with bated breath to see if it lives up to my expectations.

Lately, I haven’t been doing much promotion of SFI products, because I don’t want to get things in place and then have to change everything when the new store opens.

So, instead of advertising for retail sales, I’ve been working on building a larger downline of affiliates so we all can promote more when the ecommerce store opens.

If you like, you can subscribe to a short email series about how you can promote SFI Marketing Group using the Private Success Team downline builder.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

Originally, the store was supposed to open in late spring, 2008, but it has been delayed.

When asked about it, Gery Carson responded:

We’ve added many powerful features since originally announced so there is still a substantial amount of design and programming yet to do. Hence, an estimated arrival date is difficult to predict. It is well worth the wait I can assure you however.

When an affiliate asked if the new store will be open by Thanksgiving so we don’t miss the Christmas shopping season, Gery Carson answered:

Everything is progressing very nicely. So long as that continues, it should arrive well before Thanksgiving.

Now, anyone who has ever been involved in the development and implementation of a major ecommerce site knows that schedules can slip as new features are added and new problems surface.

So, I’m not concerned about a delay of a few months. I would much rather the new SFI store be opened when it’s ready, rather than being rushed to market just to meet an arbitrary goal date.

One of the things I find most intriguing about the new store is the increased availability of products and services that international affiliates can market. Shipping costs have made marketing SFI physical products cost prohibitive, and this includes the Veriuni line of health products, nutritional supplements, weight loss products, and all-natural cleaning products.

Many of these products are popular with customers in the United States, so I’m sure this has been frustrating for affiliates who live in other parts of the world.

I’m hoping there will be lots more products that can be marketed around the world as a result of the new store and the partner companies that will be shipping from many more locations than the current one in the United States.

I don’t mind recruiting new affiliates and building my downline, but that doesn’t increase my income nearly as much as promoting lots more products and services that can be bought by anyone at retail. I love making retail sales!

So, while I’m rather impatient and want to see this store, I’ll do my best to wait patiently until Gery announces the grand opening.

Then, if I like what I see, I’ll have a lot to say about the new SFI store as I explore ways to advertise and promote it and the products in it.

I hope you’ll come along for the ride. This might be a very interesting year for SFI.

Act on your dream!

JD

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

The EyeEarn co-op is active and already producing new affiliates. So far, I’ve had 9 new sign-ups through EyeEarn.

You can tell they come through EyeEarn by selecting the Key Codes format of your genealogy report. They will have a code of 1100 (which was also the code of the discontinued Eagle Co-Op).

I received my start up kit a couple of days ago and everything in it looks first class.

Now, I need to put the sticker on my car and upload a photo when the photo uploading link goes active today, or soon.

To remain a member of EyeEarn, we’ll need to requalify during the last five days of each month, so I just put a new recurring event in my iCal program to remind me.

I have a feeling EyeEarn will be a great recruiting tool for SFI.

After brainstorming for a bit, I registered WeAllEarn.com and redirect it to my affiliate link for EyeEarn. It will make it easier for advertising both online and offline.

Now, let’s promote EyeEarn and make it very successful.

I earn, you earn, WeAllEarn.com ™.

Act on your dream!

JD