I have mixed feelings about SFI Marketing Group

This is difficult for me to write. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and didn’t really know how to approach it, so I decided to just start writing about it and hope that I can sort out my feelings with the help of some of my friends.

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!

Tags: MLM, Network Marketing, TripleClicks