Organized Assistant » affiliate programs

Seven Ways to Make the Most of Summer Downtime

Janet — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:29:59 +0000

Although some organizers are extra busy in the summer, for others, work seems to slow right down while their clients are in vacation mode. Fortunately, there are many ways to fill your time that will benefit your business in the months to come. If you don't already have a list of projects to work on when you have the time, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Start a blog. You’re good at what you do, and blogging is a great way to show the world what you know. In addition to being very search engine friendly, blogs allow website visitors to interact with you, making it more likely that they’ll return on a regular basis. If you're worried that you may not have time to keep it up when business picks up, take advantage of the summer lull to write posts you can keep on hand to publish at a later date. Check your website for broken links. Websites come and go, and pages may be deleted or moved, causing some of the links you’ve placed on your site to no longer work. Broken links make your website seem out-of-date and can cause visitors to move on very quickly, so it’s important to take the time to verify the links on your site. To save time, use a tool such as Webmaster Toolkit's Link Checker or the Broken Link Checker plug-in for WordPress. Learn something new. The lazy days of summer can be the perfect time to sign up for a teleclass, webinar, or live training event. If nothing is scheduled that tickles your fancy, check out the recorded teleclasses available from A Red Bench, or the webinars on demand offered by ProfessionalOrganizers.com. There is a world of information out there; why not take advantage of it? Add new content to your website. If your website hasn’t been updated since it was launched, you probably offer products or services that aren’t advertised on your site, and you may be missing out on potential business as a result. Even if you haven’t made any significant changes, it’s a good idea to update your site from time to time, as fresh content gives both website visitors and search engines a reason to return. Updates may include information about recent or upcoming projects, or new testimonials, awards or certifications you’ve received. Look into affiliate programs to supplement your income. There are hundreds of affiliate programs available that allow you to earn commission for promoting certain products and/or services on your website. You may already recommend books or other products to your website visitors and blog readers, so why shouldn’t you make a little extra money for doing so? Just make sure that you select programs that complement what you do, and don’t clutter your website with so many affiliate ads that it looks junky or that visitors are distracted from your main content. Write articles. Articles you’ve written can be an excellent addition to your website or blog, and can also be submitted to article directories such as EzineArticles.com, where they may be picked up by other websites, featured in newsletters, and sent out in ezines, creating additional traffic and more exposure for your business. This will also enhance your search engine ranking, by increasing the number of links pointing to your website. Take a well-deserved break. Try and get away for a week, a weekend, or even a day! Taking time for rest and relaxation is one of the best gifts you can give yourself, reducing stress and renewing your energy for the busier days ahead. If you never have time for these activities because your business thrives all year long, maybe we should talk! After all, even professional organizers need an Organized Assistant!

I heart Mabel’s Labels!

Janet — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:10:31 +0000

Isn't it rewarding to see your clients react to their completed organizing projects? Some may need a little time to get used to their new organizing systems, learning where everything is and developing the habit of putting things back where they belong, but you can make it a lot easier for them to maintain those new systems by labelling containers appropriately.

One of my favorite label companies is Mabel's Labels, who are located right here in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Their amazing range of products includes both preprinted sets (like the Crafter Pack, above right) and customized labels for everything from backpacks to trash and recycling bins, and exciting new products are being developed all the time. Rubbermaid totes and similar products are very popular for long-term storage of items such as out of season clothing, and the Custom Bin Labels are perfect for keeping track of what's in them. You or your client can choose a color and font and type in the text you need on each of the 30 labels – it could be names of family members, seasons, or clothing sizes (for future hand-me-downs). You even get to see on screen what the labels will look like, so you can easily spot and correct any spelling errors or make other changes before you complete the order. Fully customizable Canister and Spice Labels are also available. Mabel's Labels are fun and colorful and, even more importantly, they're designed to last - the Sticky Labels are dishwasher and microwave safe, and the Clothing Labels will withstand repeated laundering. Sign up for the Affiliate Program, and you can earn commission by promoting Mabel's Labels products on your website. (I am not an affiliate by the way; I just love the products!) Depending on your location, you may also apply to become a Buzzmama and receive free products in exchange for telling others about Mabel's Labels. If you haven't visited the Mabel's Labels website in a while, be sure to go and find out about their latest products. If you've never checked it out, what are you waiting for?

Grow Your Sales Team, Grow Your Income

Janet — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:26:16 +0000

I've blogged previously about the benefits of creating information products, whether they're related to organizing or to one of your other interests, but even if you've developed a product, unless you have a very popular website, you may have found that you're not bringing in nearly as much income as you'd hoped. Why not increase your earning potential by hiring a sales force?

Of course, I don't mean you should literally go out and hire sales personnel, but you can certainly expand your reach by allowing others to promote your products on their websites in exchange for a percentage of the profits. Don't be afraid to share! Would you rather have 75% of $1000 in sales, or 100% of $100 in sales? Practice Pay Solutions and E-Junkie are two of the online services that you can use both for selling products on your own website and for managing an affiliate program. When someone becomes an affiliate, they receive their own linking code which will identify them when a purchase originates from their website. The system will keep track of everything; you just need to pay out the commission each month, or at whatever interval you choose. Here are three things you can do to make it easier for your affiliates to generate sales on your behalf: 1. Create individual links for each product that you offer. If you offer a number of different products, and the affiliate can only link to your homepage, it's going to be much more difficult for them to promote a specific product. If bloggers can't easily send their readers to the appropriate order page, they might not feel it's worth it to blog about your product. 2. Offer an attractive commission. Affiliates are more likely to make an effort to actively promote your product if they feel it's worth their while. With digital products where you don't have high overhead costs, it's not uncommon to offer commissions in the area of 50%. If you're only offering 10%, there's a good chance that your affiliates will not be willing to do anything other than just slapping up a link somewhere and hoping it gets noticed. If you don't feel that you can afford to pay a higher commission rate, consider increasing the price of your product to increase your profit margin – just make sure that you don't charge more than your product is worth! 3. Offer a number of tools to help your affiliates promote your products. Different affiliates will want to display your product links in different ways. While some will be happy with a simple text link, many will want a 125x125 pixel graphic which they can place in the sidebar of their blog, and others might prefer a small, medium, or large banner ad. Successful affiliate managers go the extra mile to provide all of these options, as well as pre-written articles, blog posts, email campaigns, and even tweets. Keep in mind that I have only recently set up an affiliate program for my own information products, so I'm still learning myself. This is just my perspective, as someone who has been participating in various affiliate programs for a number of years now.

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed. William James

Thinking Outside the Boxes

Janet — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:58:07 +0000

As I've mentioned previously, there are many benefits to having multiple sources of income. Creating information products and joining one or more affiliate programs are two ways that many successful organizers supplement what they earn in their billable hours. But have you considered tapping into your knowledge from outside the realm of organizing? Stacey and Jane have!

Stacey Larocque is a home staging professional and mother of two. When it was time to wean her toddler son from breastfeeding, she was frustrated by the lack of helpful information available, and ended up developing her own method. After successfully implementing her system with her son and later with her daughter, she decided to help other parents in the same situation, and earn a little extra cash, by selling her solution online. Stacey hired Organized Assistant to take her written content and format it as an e-book, complete with appropriate clipart and an attractive cover. We then created a simple one-page website to promote and sell her e-book, It's a Bye Bye Boobie Party! Jane Woolsey is a Certified Professional Organizer, Past President of Professional Organizers in Canada, and an avid dog lover. Last year the Founder of An Organized Vision and her friend Paul had a different type of vision, where they would share information about alternative and traditional medical treatments for dogs through a blog called Our Dog Blog where they would answer questions submitted by readers. They hired Organized Assistant to design a customized WordPress theme, to research relevant affiliate programs and set up the blog in a way that would allow them to receive and respond to reader questions easily. They are not charging for their expertise, but hope to generate some passive income through affiliate marketing and pay-per-click advertising. I don't think either Stacey or Jane expects to get rich from their ventures, but they've both discovered the income potential of their passions and have done something about it. These are projects in which I've been personally involved, but I'm sure that many other organizers have set up equally innovative side businesses. If you'd like to generate some income from your own interests, How to Make Extra Cash From Your Hobbies: Three Easy Steps is a great post on Dumb Little Man that will help you brainstorm some ideas. If you've already started such an enterprise, feel free to promote it in the comments!

How to Choose Money-Making Affiliate Programs

Janet — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:02:14 +0000

As I mentioned in a previous post, affiliate programs can be an effective way to supplement your regular earnings. Because there is time and effort involved in locating and registering for suitable programs as well as creating and promoting your affiliate links, today I'm going to share a few questions to consider which will help you choose programs that are most likely to give you a good return on investment.

Have you personally tried and liked the products or services being offered? Many affiliate programs provide you with pre-written articles or other text to help you promote their products or services, but you'll get much better results if you use your own words and describe how you've benefited from using them. For starters, your blog readers and clients are more likely to purchase something that you personally recommend. Secondly, search engines are programmed to recognize duplicate content, so if you use the same old promotional material as all the other affiliates, you're probably not going to come up very high in the search results. What is the commission rate? Generally speaking, you can earn more by promoting digital products than tangible goods, because the seller is making a higher profit, which they can pass on to their affiliates. In addition, vendors who administer their own affiliate program usually offer a higher commission than those who are part of an affiliate network, as there are costs for being involved with such networks. What is the price? You can earn more on an item that sells for $100.00, even if the commission rate is only 10%, than on a $10.00 item that pays 50%. On the other hand, since it will probably be easier to sell more of the lower ticket item, either may be a good choice. What is the minimum payout? Some affiliate programs pay you every month that you have sales, but others will hold the funds until you've earned a minimum amount, which may be as high as $200.00. If you're not confident that you can generate sufficient sales in a reasonable amount of time, it is probably not worth your while to get involved with that program. Are there other restrictions? One of the most popular affiliate networks is Commission Junction, which provides you with access to thousands of vendors, including many organizing product companies. Unfortunately, they deactivate your account if you don't generate any sales over a six-month period, and you lose whatever commission you had on account. This happened to me on more than one occasion, but after deciding to give it one more shot, and even beefing up my efforts on several sites, I was shut down again, so I'm no longer recommending Commission Junction to my clients. If you've got some tips of your own to share, please leave a comment!

Doing Business Online

Janet — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:21:56 +0000

I have previously blogged about using PayPal for receiving payments online, and E-Junkie and Practice Pay Solutions for selling and delivering digital products. A reader has requested clarification of these various services, asking "As far as Practice Pay Solutions, why would I want to use that over PayPal?"

Let me start by explaining that PayPal is merely a way to accept payments online and that it does not automatically process your orders. When someone orders a product by clicking on a Buy Now button on your website, you receive an email notification of the payment, and it's then up to you to email the digital product to your purchaser. If you don't sell very many products and you check your email frequently, this may be a satisfactory solution, but as your sales increase, you may find that it's taking up time you could be putting to better use. In addition, some digital products, such as audio files, may be too large to forward by email. It is possible to create a "thank you" page from which your customers can download the product, and to configure PayPal to automatically redirect them to that page after their payment is processed. Unfortunately, it only redirects them to the thank you page if they click on Return to Merchant after completing their payment, and people often miss this step, even if you provide instructions on your website. You will then have to respond to emails from customers saying they didn't receive the product they paid for, some of which may be quite nasty in tone. That is where shopping carts come in. Shopping cart software not only captures payment information, but allows you to enter your product information into a database which automatically sends the purchaser an email containing either your digital product or a link from which they can download it. This saves you the time and effort of processing orders manually, and means that your customers receive their purchases immediately, which they are sure to appreciate. E-Junkie is a very affordable service, starting at only $5.00 per month, which includes a wide range of features, including an affiliate management system. Practice Pay Solutions includes even more options, but comes with a higher price tag. Both services offer a free trial, so you can check them out and see which one works best for you. Please note that even with a shopping cart system, you will still need PayPal or a merchant account in order to receive online payments.

Supplement Your Professional Fees by Offering Information Products

Janet — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:02:04 +0000

One of the downsides of any business based on fee-per-service is that your income is limited to the number of billable hours you can work. For that reason, you should consider a business model that allows you to generate income over and above your professional fees.

This may involve the creation and sale of your own products. Digital information products such as e-books or downloadable audio recordings are an excellent choice, because you don't need to worry about production costs, inventory, or shipping. Once you've created your product and set it up for sale on your website, your work is done, and your only ongoing expense will be the fees for your shopping cart system. For shopping cart services, I recommend Practice Pay Solutions. In addition to automating the sale and delivery of your products, you can use it to send out your e-newsletter or a series of follow-up emails to be sent to customers at regular intervals after they've bought your product. You can also use it to set up and manage an affiliate program, where you can increase your sales by having others promote your products for you in exchange for a share of the purchase price. As a Certified Shopping Cart Specialist, I'll be happy to help you select the package that best suits your needs, and to help you get things set up as well. If you don't require all the features offered by Practice Pay Solutions, E-Junkie is an excellent alternative. To generate ideas for your information product, take a look at what you've done already. Have you written blog posts or articles that could be worked into an e-book? Have you delivered teleclasses of which you could sell the recordings? If you've ever prepared a presentation, seminar, or workshop, how difficult would it be for you to develop that material into an e-book? In addition to supplementing your income, it's also nice to be able to offer a less expensive alternative to clients who can't afford to pay for your personal services. If you'd like to create your own information product but would like some assistance with the process, you should check out the new program being offered by A Red Bench. The Six Month Become An Infopreneur Program includes all of the following:

Monthly teleclass
Templates, checklists and launch materials
Personal coaching in a small group environment (the class is limited to 10 participants)
Monthly Master Mind sessions
Access to private Facebook group
Audio recordings and transcripts of each teleclass
Private weekly accountability journal
Special discounts on other Red Bench events
Promotion of your products on the Red Bench website

Be sure to register as soon as possible! Not only is the class size limited, but the price will be going up after October 1st. If you're not ready to develop your own product, you can still earn some passive income by promoting other people's products. Here are just a few products created by professional organizers who would be just thrilled to have you become an affiliate:

Neat & Simple – Paper and home office organizing guides by Ariane Benefit
Organizing Connection – step-by-step organizing videos created by Kim Eagles and Elaine Shannon
Get Organized Now - various organizing guides for the home and office by Maria Gracia

There are many others! Whenever you find a product you like and you think would benefit your clients, blog readers, or website visitors, check to see if they offer an affiliate program. You're probably going to recommend it anyway, so why not earn some extra income for your time and effort? Having multiple streams of income will not only supplement your earnings now, but if done successfully, can help fill the gaps when business is slow or you need to take some time off.