Why the overly-dramatic title? Well quite frankly… because I believe it’s true. And here’s why…

BRIEF VERSION:

I’m helping promote a new course on being an Amazon seller (not an affiliate).  I like it a lot and I think you might too.  If you buy it through this page you’ll get to choose from some pretty awesome bonuses.

FULL VERSION:

When you’re an affiliate, you’re being paid for bringing leads and customers, to someone else’s business. That’s all fine & good when you’re being well paid for what you do. But the fact is – you carry all the risk, and receive only SOME of the reward.

If the product you’re promoting is discontinued, or they change their landing page, or the company disappears, or Google looks sideways at you, or any one of a myriad of other things happens – your income will go to zero overnight.  (believe me – I’ve experienced every single one of these things and more)

And what do you have to show for it other than a bit of short-term cash?

Unfortunately the answer is… not much! You didn’t build a list, you don’t have customers to sell other products to, and you’re out in the cold and starting over with some other product or service to promote.

Now please don’t misunderstand me – I’m a big big FAN of affiliate marketing, both as a product owner and as an affiliate! I believe strongly that being an affiliate is probably the absolute fastest way to learn a ton of valuable skills you will need, when trying to make your living online.

But I’ve said for quite some time to many of my customers, that they need to focus on not having to be an affiliate. I’m all for affiliate marketing being a part of your overall income strategy, but it absolutely shouldn’t be your only method! I strongly advise creating your own products or services, or otherwise figuring out how to *control* a product so that you can reap all of the rewards rather than just a portion.

Now that’s easy to say… but creating a product can be a LOT of work! Trust me on this one.   That’s not the only option though, there are other approaches such as outsourcing, dropshipping, public domain material, JVs, and more. But even if you’re able to figure those parts out, what about getting an audience for your product? You’re back to the usual affiliate game of fighting over PPC, SEO, or other forms of traffic in a desperate attempt to get noticed and get sales.

Frankly… it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds at first! Still, I’ve seen some friends make a lot of money doing dropshipping and others make a ton of money by outsourcing basically every single aspect of their online business.

OK so where am I going with this? I just got done explaining why it was a bad idea to be an affiliate, so now I’m going to promote something as an affiliate. Isn’t that a contradiction?

No not at all… I said it’s a bad idea to be only an affiliate.  But the real long-term strength in affiliate marketing is in using it to augment your other business.  In fact there are even situations where you can get the best of both worlds – being an affiliate for your own product!

Possibly the largest single way to do that, is to understand selling on Amazon.  I’m not talking about being an affiliate for Amazon and collecting a tiny little commission.  I’m talking about being the product seller, and keeping as much as 85% of the revenue (or even more if you’re clever enough to be your own affiliate!  )

And that’s where the Amazon Money Machine enters the picture.  It’s a new course being launched today, that goes into outrageous detail about how exactly to source products (or get them created), get them placed into Amazon, promote them to the top of the listings on Amazon, and even get Amazon to handle all the fulfillment, customer service, financial transactions, refunds, chargebacks – the whole nine yards!

You don’t even need to have a website or do any paid advertising of your own because Amazon does it all for you.

You’ll probably be hearing about it from everyone and their brother today, but stay with me because I have something totally unique to offer you.

I found out about this product and the fact that it was launching totally by accident, but I liked their message so much that I asked to be invited as a JV.  I don’t promote a lot of launches (in fact almost none) but this resonated so well with me, I just had to check it out.

I was given access to the course a few hours ago and have been devouring it as fast as my mind can absorb it, in order to make sure it meets my personal standards for promoting.

And frankly – I think there’s some great stuff here.  To break it down, here are the things I like most about this course so far (not really in any specific order):

1. It’s quite deep.  There is a HUGE number of videos that go into a lot of detail about exactly how to implement these strategies, and cover everything from how to sign up as a seller (not the same as being an affiliate), to how to get a Kindle book written for you, to how to source products for Amazon fulfillment, to private label & dropshipping, to strategies for completely dominating the Google rankings for high-value and high-dollar keywords, and a whole lot more.
2. It’s well organized and presented.  The Author, Matt Clark, does a pretty good job of articulating everything.  He’s not a super-smooth trained presenter, but he’s easy to listen to and speaks clearly.  The videos are organized in fairly logical sections, and it’s easy to jump around to what interests you if you’re a non-linear thinker.
3. The strategies are pretty wicked smart.  I’ve gotten some big ideas from what I’ve seen so far, and I’m not even 1/4 through the material yet.
4. It will require real effort and work to reap the rewards.  At first glance this may seem strange – I like something because it’s going to take hard work??  But yes I do, because that’s a barrier to entry.  In my experience, most people aren’t willing to do the work required to succeed with something like this.  So the fact that this requires time and effort, is an advantage for those who will do what’s required.  Due to the nature of the whole process, you can’t even get paid anything for at least 60 days when you start – so this is not “overnight easy money” by any stretch.  But I do see it as sustainable long-term income fairly quickly.
5. Matt is using these very techniques right now, today.  These are not worn-out techniques that he used last year and stopped working.  He shows some of his live Amazon accounts from as recently as 2 weeks ago.

Now all that being said, what don’t I like about it?

1. Almost all the videos are in .ogg format.  No big deal except that Enounce MySpeed doesn’t seem to support that format, so I can’t play the videos at faster-than-normal speeds.  I’m having to download them completely first in order to do that (thank goodness I have a REALLY fast net connection).
2. The Amazon Money Finder Software is an Adobe Air Application.  This is really a personal preference, but I just don’t care for Air apps.  I don’t like the way they look & feel, I don’t like the way they install… just not an Air fan.  Also the software isn’t available to me yet so I only got to watch the videos about it.  Drag.  =(  I just got access to the software but need to go through the videos still to learn how to make the most of it.
3. There is no number 3.  (What can I say, there isn’t much to dislike!)

OK so, let me cut to the chase at last.  I’m an affiliate for AMM (duh) and so I’m going to offer a bonus for those who purchase through this page.  This is a fairly high-ticket product, and so I want to really earn my commission.  To that end…

If you purchase Amazon Money Machine through this web page and send me a copy of your purchase receipt, you’ll get to choose one of the following from me:

• A full lifetime license to my WPGen and LPGen dynamic landing page generation systems ($399 value)
• 2 months membership in my Skype personal coaching program (starting when you’re ready), so you can get my help with anything right when you need it ($398 value and not publicly available)
• 1 hour private phone consultation at your convenience ($500 value)

Additionally, all buyers through this page will get a full license to my newest upcoming product, WP SneakyLinks ($??? value… just you wait & see )

And on that note, I want to share a few words of caution.  This is not a small course, nor is it something you’re going to devour and implement in a weekend.  There’s a lot of material to absorb and most of the techniques are probably pretty foreign, since they’re so different from what most of us have focused on for years.  Also as mentioned above, you’ll have a bare minimum of 60 days before you’ll see any income even if you started today.

This course is for people who want to be more than just an affiliate, and are going to truly dedicate themselves, their time, and their resources to implementing and executing an Amazon selling business.  If you’re going to buy this and then a month later have moved onto the next shiny object – please just plain don’t buy it in the first place.  I think there is tremendous potential in this (so much so that I’m going to ask my better half to check it out) but it’s going to require a serious commitment and total focus.  This has a very real potential to become an extremely lucrative, very hands-off business, but it won’t start out that way.

So for those who can heed the above and put in the time & effort, I look forward to sending you your bonuses!  Just please remember to send me your purchase receipt after you place your order.

EDIT: Helps to know where to reach me doesn’t it!? support@tooltrainer.com

And on that note, it’s past 2am for me so it’s time to begin winding down.

Make great things happen!! 

Jonathan

I’d love to be revealing that I have a new awesome viral promotion plugin for WordPress.

Fact is, I’ve had one in mind for quite some time, and even started on development of some of its features last year.

But as so often happens, other things came along and got in the way, and it hasn’t really progressed terribly far.

Well… I guess I shouldn’t be at all surprised that the old saying “you snooze, you lose” has proven to be true.

Welly Mulia and his team – the ones behind ProfitsTheme and Premium List Magnet – have just finished a new very slick viral promotion plugin that they’ll be launching in a little less than 24 hours from this post.

At first glance, it looks like it’s “just another squeeze page plugin”, and in fact looks very similar to his existing Premium List Magnet plugin. But scratch a little deeper and it’s clear just how different this new plugin actually is.

It’s sortof a combination of a squeeze page generator, Facebook optin manager, and viral rewards system all rolled into one. All in all, very slick and looks to be another fine product from Welly and crew.

During the launch he’s offering it at a pretty huge discount too, so if it resonates with you, grab it while it’s cheap.

Check out the demo video and see if it’s something you might be able to use in your business. I’m guessing for most of us that answer will be an easy “yes!”

JVC

Wow… just saw this and was a bit shocked:

According to affiliates and various insider forums, Epic Media Group’s Affiliate Division, formerly known as Azoogle, has not been paying their bills to affiliate publishers. The rumors of theseissues have been popping up since last summer, with some affiliates on message boards pointing out that in their opinions that there has been excuse after excuse on why they haven’t been paid. As one of the top networks in the industry, any financial problems that they are facing, could be a bad sign for the industry as a whole and have a significant impact on the financial stability of companies that depend on their payments.

via …source….

I personally never did a lot with azoogle even “back in the day” as the big stuff was ringtones and rebills and I couldn’t stand promoting either. But I certainly knew a lot of people who did a lot of business with them and they seemed like one of the bigger, better, more reliable companies out there. Definitely sounds like things have changed. What a shame, and what does that portend for CPA marketing in a broader sense, I can’t help but wonder?

Jonathan

Last year I was looking to get a Marketing Theme for use with WordPress, for easy creation of sales letters, maybe membership sites, secure download pages, and all that fun stuff.  I hadn’t realized at the time that there were actually quite a few of these types of themes out there.

After much web surfing and comparing of features, it came down to a choice between two themes – OptimizePress, and ProfitsTheme.  Both were very impressive, with all kinds of features I wanted (and some I hadn’t really even considered!)  They were the same price, and generally had the same capabilities.  Finally I had to pull the trigger, and PT came out the winner.

Why?  Well for me what truly clinched it was the drag & drop layout capabilities for structuring the content of the page.  I just love how easy it is to move elements around from the left side, to the right side, or the top or bottom, or to add custom headers, graphics, buttons – whatever.  I’ve even used it to create complete members-only sites and in fact PT is now the basis for all of my “product download & licensing” areas.  I even used it for the sales page I put up for WPGen, for my VanCluteSolution.com membership site, and it’s typically my go-to theme for general testing of WordPress.

One feature I use quite a lot is the custom script meta-boxes.  These are present on every page and allow you to easily insert your own code into the header or footer of the page.  Now that might not seem like a big deal, but this isn’t just for HTML or Javascript.  I can actually stick PHP directly in these boxes too and it JUST WORKS.  I can detect a cookie, do something based on that, set another cookie, do redirections, or whatever I need to do.  This is super handy if you do more technical types of marketing.

It can also handle membership sites with drip-fed content, will integrate to Paypal, Clickbank, and some other payment systems, and is extremely well supported by Welly Mulia and his team.  I hadn’t heard of Welly before buying ProfitsTheme but have since become a big fan of his products, and his way of doing business.  He responds promptly to emails, and always forwards things to the appropriate technical people if any question is not something he can personally address.  All around 5 stars for Welly and his products.

So if you don’t already have a solution for making these kinds of pages & sites in WP and you could use one, PT can’t get a higher recommendation from me.

Now to sweeten the deal… he’s doing a 1-day special deal for today, Valentine’s day, Feb. 14th.  Why Valentine’s day?  Apparently this is the 1 year anniversary of PT’s release, so Welly has decided to celebrate!  It will take $30 off the price, making it just $67 but ONLY for this 1 day.  So until midnight Eastern time on Feb 14th, you can save a few bucks and get yourself an extremely powerful and useful WP marketing theme.

You must use this code at checkout, to get your discount:

pt1year

Already got ProfitsTheme?  How do you like it?  Got any tricks you’d care to share?  Comment below!

Jonathan

Well, here we have another perfect example of what I love most about WordPress. It seems there’s a plugin available for basically every imaginable task!

One of my consulting club members pinged me the other day to talk about an SEO trick he’s been using for a while.  Nothing blackhat or anything, just something simple & smart, but tedious and annoying to do by hand (so therefore, who’s really going to do it consistently?)

The basic idea is something you’re undoubtedly already familiar with if you’ve ever done any on-page SEO:  using <h> tags in order to indicate the important keywords, to a search engine or other bot.

The problem of course is that just assigning h1, h2, h3, etc. to various words throughout your page, tends to result in a totally messed up and broken page, from a human-readability perspective.

The solution is really quite simple… just use some CSS to format the h tags so that they still look normal to the visitor, but the bot sees the tags in the code and treats those keywords appropriately.

It’s not rocket science by any means, but it is tedious to have to set up in your theme, and requires you knowing how to hack the CSS in the first place.

Enter – Stealth Header Tags!  A nifty little plugin that does one thing very well.  It makes it incredibly easy to format your header tags so they visually have no difference from the rest of your content, but the tags stay in your code for SEO purposes.

And it’s super cheap.  I love plugins like this, that do something genuinely useful, save me some time and hassle, and are incredibly affordable.  Sure, super-sophisticated plugins that cost a fair amount have their place too, but I’m a sucker for little “utility plugins” like this one.

Anyway it’s releasing in a WSO for a whopping 7 bucks for a Personal License, or 12 if you want the “developer Version” which allows you to include it on sites for clients, or that you resell, etc.

A nice, simple little plugin that solves a common problem at little cost.  What more could I ask for?! 

Jonathan

In preparation for the webinar I’m holding Tuesday on creating affiliate landing pages, I thought I would share this video which shows in under 3 minutes how you can create your own landing page from nothing more than the offer page itself, and a free Paint tool.

You can download paint.net for free (Windows only, Mac users will have to use an alternative like Gimp) and give it a spin.

Enjoy!

Jonathan

One thing I get asked about quite often, is various aspects of actually creating a landing page.  People get stuck on all sorts of things when really they’re just making it more difficult than it needs to be.

I’m holding another webinar for my marketing community on this very topic, and I’ve decided for the first time to let non-members in as well, for a modest price.

For just $49 you can attend this webinar live, and will also receive access to the playback after it’s done.  This will be your chance to learn some of my tricks & techniques for building affiliate landing pages quickly and easily, without wasting huge amounts of time, using expensive software, or paying a designer (and trust me – I’m no designer myself!)

WEBINAR IS OVER BUT THE RECORDING WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON

Among other things I intend to discuss:

• Test quickly by swiping design elements from existing pages and making them your own
• Quick & dirty image manipulation without Photoshop
• Simple HTML tricks without using any fancy HTML software
• How to clone nearly any web page in seconds
• Ways to use WPGen to get the best results
• Whatever else you bring up!

Join us and have your microphone or telephone ready if possible, as I love interacting on my webinars.  I plan for this to be 1 hour long but if you’ve been on any of my past webinars, you know that I generally will stay for as long as people have questions… my record so far is 3 hours straight without a pause! 

Register now so you don’t miss out, I look forward to showing you some things and answering your questions!

Jonathan

There’s a relative newcomer to the IM world, and they’re adopting the “Group Discount” model ala Groupon, but for Internet Marketing related tools and other products.

My KWBot keyword tool was featured there recently, and I allow other products of mine to be featured there at some point in the future.  They call themselves “the Daily Gangster” and while I’m not crazy about the whole “Gangster” motif personally, I can see that they’re having some fun with it.

Anyway, check it out and see if anything grabs your fancy.  If you don’t have to pay full price for stuff… don’t! 

Jonathan

OK all you closet Dungeons and Dragons players! Now is your time to shine!

Wait… what??

Sorry… let me explain.  Based on looking over the recent Google Quality Rater Guide that was leaked out, I believe that for marketers, this is the “Age of the Persona”.

Now it’s not exactly a new concept to use a pseudonym, or even an entire other persona, when marketing online.  But Google has very clearly stated that they want to see “experts” delivering useful information and opinions on web pages.  And that their raters have been instructed to see through the “thin affiliates” and all the other games & tricks, to determine who is REALLY an expert, and who isn’t.

So, does this mean you have to go become a leading expert on everything you want to market?

No I don’t believe so.  But you better LOOK LIKE ONE!

This is where the RPG reference in my title comes in.  If you’re going to market something and don’t want to put your personal name on it (which often makes total sense to do), then you better make sure that whatever name you DO use, appears to be a genuine expert in the field.

So if you’re a man marketing fitness products for women, you’d better create a female “character” and really flesh her out.  Figure out her stats… give her a backstory.  Create profiles for her on social networking sites, business sites, etc.  Make it so that if someone looks her up, she’s real and “out there” and has the appearance of credibility.

I think that now more than ever might be the time to really dive deep into your “alter egos” and let them shine.  Give them a Flickr album of personal photos, an active twitter feed, friends who actually write to her on her Facebook wall… etc.

This should go a long way towards pleasing the quality raters if they come to her product site and decide to look her up to help determine if she’s truly an expert on women’s fitness.

So no matter who you really are, learn to create believable characters and portray them as fully as you can.  Doing so shouldn’t really take more than a few hours to set up a few accounts and post some content… and could provide you some long term benefits!

Jonathan