Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

McDonalds does things the McDonalds way – and gets lots of attention in the process.

See this wonderful and creative method that it used to draw attention to its stores, that appealed to a huge number of its prospects. It looks almost magical – and you can certainly learn a thing or two from it:

McDonalds does things the McDonalds way again, but this time it gets lots of attention for its “competitor”, the very entity it is trying to snuff out. Its “competitor” is McCurry:

McCurry’s owner is Suppiah (see video image above).

He’s one of my first students in my very first Boot Camp on Internet Business and Internet Marketing way back in 1999 (not many people even know about this Boot Camp). Shows you how long I’ve been doing Internet Businesses, which is way before most people – but there’s a more important point coming up.

The short of it all – McDonalds claimed that McCurry had no right to the “Mc” prefix as it’s part of the “McDonalds” trademark. Malaysia’s High Court agreed. McCurry appealed to the Court of Appeal, which reversed that decision. McDonalds appealed to the Federal Court, which upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision.

In short, McCurry took on the might of McDonalds, and won. And in the process, generated what Suppiah himself estimated is about $1 BILLION worth of positive publicity worldwide, for its McCurry brand. People all over the world who have never heard of McCurry, took notice and now know about McCurry.

All the media outlets in the world picked this story up, including CNN and major TV stations:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/08/mcdonalds.mccurry.legal.malaysia/index.html

(I was featured on CNN too, for my Blindfold Drive event – but Suppiah’s event has a bigger impact since a familiar corporate giant is involved.)

Suppiah and I actually discussed his stand against McDonalds about 8 or 9 years ago, when Suppiah started his McCurry restaurant. How do you deal with McDonalds’ might and intention to own the “Mc” prefix – which really isn’t for it to own?

“McCurry” is an actual Scottish surname, although in Suppiah’s case, it’s an abbreviation for “Malaysian Curry Chicken”. If McDonalds were allowed to own the “Mc” name – it means that no other business can use a “Mc” as part of its name.

Is that fair? No, not in our minds. Is that legal? This is for the courts to decide but our guts (you and I) tell us that the courts should decide against McDonalds – although our guts are really different from what the law might be.

Note that some courts in some jurisdictions have ruled in favor of McDonalds when some businesses tried to use “Mc” as part of their business name, even if that’s their actual name – but this isn’t a clear cut case for sure and different jurisdictions will have different judges sitting to decide on the issue.

Also McDonalds wasn’t suing McCurry for “passing off” which is where McCurry was trying to mislead the public into thinking it’s part of the McDonalds chain of restaurants, when McCurry clearly made no attempt to do so as it doesn’t offer any food that remotely resembles McDonalds’, nor did it follow McDonalds’ theme, colors or have a Ronaldo McCurry as its mascot.

And since “McCurry” the name clearly isn’t “McDonalds” the name either, this left McDonalds with just the “Mc” prefix that it tried to claim was part of its trademark which couldn’t be used by other businesses. It didn’t have the strongest case but it either could let things be – or take a chance to strengthen itself even more with a potential victory in the courts.

It chose the latter and lost.

While this loss isn’t going to affect McDonalds’ business much, it has the opposite effect on McCurry – which is the underdog going against an 800 pound gorilla. The media love such stories – and painted the town (or the planet) red with it – because the masses love such stories too.

This is business strategy executed at the highest level – and Suppiah truly deserves his victory for he had nothing to fear since he really didn’t do anything wrong. McDonalds started the “fight”. It was a calculated move on their part that simply backfired on them.

But how many other people would have given in just because a corporate giant threatened them with a lawsuit – even though the corporation may not have a solid case to begin with?

You can be sure there are corporations using lawsuits as a weapon to stifle competition which is in effect pitting the amount of money they have against the poor, small businesses who simply can’t afford to defend themselves in court.

This anti-competitive strategy being practiced by giant corporations isn’t discussed much but it’s happening.

But there’s another 800-pound gorilla story where you get a giant corporation to be on your side which provides BOTH of you with what both of you want.

That 800-pound gorilla is Google.

You want FREE, NEVER-ENDING, FRESH and HIGHLY-TARGETED Leads or Prospects for your businesses, websites or offers. Google wants their users to have the best experience in finding what they’re looking for.

It’s a match made in heaven.

Google will give you all the FREE, FRESH, NEVER-ENDING and HIGHLY-TARGETED leads you want – if you will just give it what it wants.

My Google Magic System shows you EXACTLY how to give Google what Google wants with the LEAST amount of effort on your part. In fact, you don’t have to life a finger to do anything!

I used to dread tackling Google because while the work to do it wasn’t difficult, it was tedious, repetitious and mind-numbing. This is so even if you used software or people to do the work for you because if it’s tedious, repetitious and mind-numbing, the people you hire won’t be able to do the work for long.

I’ve solved the above problems in more ways than one. And I’m proud to be showing it off to you so that you can see for yourself how doable everything really is, right now.

Note that Google can get you THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of free visitors for MONTHS, even YEARS on end, and you’re going to know how this is done in my FREE talk below. Register for it and be blown away by how easy it can be – NOW!

http://SenZe.com/googlemagic

If you’re in Singapore, I’ll be there next Monday, Sept 28th. Click below to register for your free seats in Singapore:

http://SenZe.com/googlemagics

Cheers!
Sen Ze

Phew! The baby’s arrival was lots of fun, and it’s true:

It’s SOO much easier this time around, now that we know just what to expect and do with him.

I remember being exhausted every single day when we were taking care of our first baby but that hardship’s a distant memory now…

Ok – I was discussing Affiliate Programs for Merchants and Affiliate Program software in my previous posts…

Here’s a recap, to bring you up to speed for the next discussion:

1. Affiliate Program For Merchants <--- Click for full story
In this post I talked about the Merchant’s limited ability to reach out to his target market on his own or even with a team of marketers on his payroll, since they all have only 24 hours in a day. He would be far better off if he has a team of “Affiliates” all over the world working hard marketing his products with him, and pay only for performance. This way, he can have thousands of Affiliates helping him out and he needn’t worry about paying them until his products are sold from their marketing efforts.

Thus an Affiliate Program should be considered by every Merchant with products that have good margins for commissions to be paid out from. This is particularly so in the case of digital products where his profit is over 90% of the selling price, but it can also apply to physical products as long as the profit margin is enough to make commission payouts attractive to the Affiliate.

2. Affiliate Program Software Essentials <--- Click for full story
In this post I talked a bit about the imporance of an Affiliate Program software in tracking the sales of the Merchant’s Affiliate. Some of the most essential features of an Affiliate Program software were discussed.

An Affiliate Program that is available on the Internet for anybody to join needs to have a robust and good Affiliate Program software running it. This post also highlights certain important features of such a piece of software, which can also act as an automatic Affiliate recruiting tool.

3. Software For Your Internet Business <--- Click for full story
This post discusses the 2 different types of software available for the Merchant to use. He can install the software on his own server and run it from there (and pay a one-off fee), or he can be a client of a 3rd party Affiliate Program software provider and run his Affiliate Program off the 3rd party’s Affiliate Program software on the latter’s own server instead (and pay a monthly fee).

The better option for the Merchant is for him to run his Affiliate Program off a 3rd party’s Affiliate Program software since he needn’t worry about upgrading, maintaining or fixing the software (when bugs occur) and just focus on his business. The minimal monthly fee shouldn’t be considered as an expense but more of an investment for the marketing of his product.

4. Clickbank <--- Click for full story
This post then introduces Clickbank, a retailer who will buy your digital product from you and resell it to their Customers using their own credit card merchant account. This arrangement is great if you have difficulty getting your own credit card merchant account from your bank and have it linked to an online payment gateway so that your Customers can key in their credit card details at their computers anywhere in the world.

The other reason is that Clickbank has an Affiliate Program software installed on its own server. Thus if Clickbank accepts you as its Supplier (with some exceptions), you’re in fact riding on Clickbank’s Affiliate Program software – which is what I recommend that you do.

5. Clickbank Issues <--- Click for full story
However, Clickbank comes with its own issues, chief among them is the fact that its Affiliates really aren’t your Affiliates, but Clickbank’s. Thus if you were to promote your product linked up with Clickbank to your list, they’ll become Clickbank’s Affiliates instead of yours.

On top of that, its Affiliates are also not linking to your web site to promote your product, but to Clickbank’s using Clickbank’s Affiliate Link format. This does not help your web site gain better positioning in the Search Engines from the Affiliates’ linking activities, which is a major benefit of having an Affiliate Program.

6. The MOACA <--- Click for full story
This post discusses the “Mother Of All Clickbank Alternatives” (MOACA) where you can get the benefit of your Affiliates linking directly to your domain for Search Engine ranking advantage and have the same Affiliate Program software running off a 3rd party’s server for the benefits of such an arrangement.

You become your own Merchant, and you will pay your own Affiliates. However, you can dispense with payment by paper checks completely using an inexpensive electronic transfer facility that is available online in most countries in the world. You will only spend a few minutes on a particular day each month doing commissions payout – thus just about matching the advantages offered by Clickbank in paying its Affiliates for promoting your product (where you are not a part of this payment process at all since they’re not your Affiliates).

You’re Up To Speed!
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The above brings us up to date with the discussion on Affiliate Programs, their issues and their solutions. Make sure you click on those links to have a deeper understanding of the discussion – because they’re important to your profits.

In my next post, you’ll discover the best Affiliate Program software ever created that will enable you to have the “MOACA Experience“.

Its benefits are so mind-blogging, it’s unreal. But it is real – as you’ll soon see.

Stay tuned!

Sen Ze

How much time can you have in a day?

24 hours, of course.

How much effort can you put in a day to market your web site?

This can be a lot, depending on your attitude and knowledge – but it’s usually not enough.

So how do you multiply your time and effort in a way that will make you more money?

Easy – you find others who are willing to put in the time and effort with you.

And why would they want to help you here?

They’ll do it usually for money or compensation of some kind.

But usually for money.

Which is good for you, since it’s usually very easy to send money to them.

So you’ll have to hire them to help you out without knowing if they’re as good or better than you are?

Well, you can pay them ONLY if they show some results, which is a measure of their performance.

What sort of results should they show you?

This is up to you, but my favorite type of results is for them to show me some SALES of my products as a result of their efforts.

Thus if I’m selling something on my web site as a Merchant, and they want to help me promote that product – then I want to see sales coming from their efforts before I pay them.

Fair enough?

Why would they want to put in all the time and effort to do something that only rewards them when a sale occurs?

Because:

1. If they do it right, the money they make from this arrangement can be a HUGE amount
This can be a whole lot more than being paid whether a sale happens or not, working for you as your employee. They would be paid for the same effort, but with more money as your Affiliate (if they do it right). The commission to them can range from 5% all the way up to 70% or more of the purchase price of the product, depending on what the product is. And prices for those products can range from $10 – $20 to thousands of dollars – so the compensation can be pretty substantial for some Affiliates who know what they’re doing.

2. They don’t have to be a Merchant with products to sell
They can simply represent those Merchants as their Affiliates. There’s no need for Affiliates to pack and deliver products to customers, or deal with customer support issues. That’s the Merchant’s job.

3. There are more “opportunities” for Affiliates
Since no special qualifications are required of the Affiliate other than a willingness to give it a shot following certain rules and policies set by the Merchant, Affiliates have more advantages over a “job”. Affiliates qualify themselves, and can choose from thousands of Merchants to represent.

Awesome Leverage Provided By Affiliate Programs
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The Merchant leverages on the time and effort of the Affiliates to reach out to more Prospects and only pays for performance. When a sale occurs, the Merchant has the money to pay the Affiliate off from the money collected from the Customer, so this is a risk-free arrangement for the Merchant in that he doesn’t have to gamble his money on a non-performing “employee” instead.

The Affiliates leverage off the time and effort of the Merchant in creating a product that others want to buy and in the Merchant dealing with support issues so that the Affiliates don’t have to. They simply focus on referring the Merchant’s products and services to interested Prospects, and they can get started right away.

Some Customers will only get to buy some really useful products and services when Affiliates are involved because the Merchant himself, even with a team of marketers on his payroll, cannot reach out to as many Prospects as compared to hundreds or thousands of Affiliates all doing their thing, being paid on performance. Customers will be thankful for products and services that add value to their lives in a way that they want which can be fulfilled by the Merchant – but they don’t necessarily know where to look for them without the Merchant’s Affiliates’ efforts.

This is a Win-Win-Win concept all the way, that involves the transfer of money from the Customer to the Merchant, and from the Merchant to the Affiliate.

Which is also the reason why many businesses use Affiliates to help market their products for them, and why there is no shortage of Affiliates willing to help out.

What’s Amazon’s role in Affiliate Programs?
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Contrary to what you may think, Amazon.com didn’t invent the Affiliate Program.

Affiliate Programs have been in existence longer than you think.

That house you bought was probably sold to you by a Real Estate company, represented by its “Negotiator”. This company was an “Affiliate” for the previous houseowner as it was only rewarded for its efforts in selling the house to you. It will then pay its Negotiator from this commission earned, keeping the balance.

That stock you sold last week was executed by your stockbroker. The company that he works for, the stockbroking firm, is your “Affiliate”, earning a percentage of the stocks’ selling price, only when you sold it. A part of this commission goes to the stockbroker for helping the company execute its clients’ trades.

That insurance policy you have was sold to you by the insurance agent of an insurance company. This agent is the “Affiliate” of that company who pays him a percentage of the yearly premiums you pay to the insurance company to keep your insurance policy in force.

That car of yours was auctioned of by an auctioneer some time ago with the auctioneer’s company getting a percentage of the winning bid as its commission. The auctioneer’s company is your “Affiliate”, and pays the auctioneer from the commission earned for the work done, keeping the balance.

The damages won for you by your lawyer in court against the defendant who injured you in a Personal Injury case can be paid from a percentage of the damages due to you, on a “contigency fee” basis. He’s acting as your “Affiliate”, although you would still call him your “lawyer”.

There are many more examples, but you get the idea.

Affiliate Programs work for all parties very well – and what Amazon.com pioneered wasn’t an Affiliate Program, but an online tracking system for Affiliates who want to refer customers to them via the Internet for monetary reward.

Today, there are Affiliate Programs for all sorts of products and services, because of the leverage provided by an Affiliate Program software that tracks Affiliates’ efforts and sales that also doubles up as an “Affiliate Recruiting” software.

We’ll take a closer look at this powerful piece of software in my next post, that added tons of value to every party to a sales transaction.

You’ll discover how it can help the Affiliate and Merchant in ways you’ve never known – even if you currently run an Affiliate Program yourself.

As usual, I’ll serve up something surprising for you to devour.

Stay tuned.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://SenZe.com/business-blog/affiliate-program/affiliate-program-for-merchants.htm

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Program, Leverage, Amazon, Amazon.com, Affiliate