This is because an Internet Business promises the things that we all want:

1. Leverage
There are close to 2 billion Internet users now with many millions more joining every single month. If we’re doing business on the Internet, the entire world is truly our oyster. We can reach out to many more people we never could otherwise.

2. Freedom
Anybody can now use the Internet to start their own business and make money doing so, in the comfort of their homes. We answer to nobody but ourselves and all we need is a computer, an Internet connection and the desire to do so.

Of course, we’ll also need some know how, which we can acquire along the way.

3. Cost-Effectiveness
It’s cheap. A domain name costs only $10/year, and hosting can be lower than $5/month. There aren’t many businesses we can start and maintain with that sort of investment. It’s truly easy to say goodbye to our bosses, although we want to be making our money first before doing so.

4. It’s A Part Of Life
That’s because the Internet links us to the latest information, and we all need to be updated all the time. It’s also a huge libary of knowledge and the vast majority of the information we want can be found for free. It’s also an entertainment outlet with millions of channels in the form of videos, created and uploaded for all to see by fellow Internet users. As such millions and millions of people use it every single day.

The Reality:
1. Many of us in fact have become successful Internet Entrepreneurs, in one way or another.
I have documented those ways in my classic Mini-Encyclopedia of Low-Cost, High-Profit Internet Business Models:

2. Many of us also failed to succeed as Internet Entrepreneurs
This can be due a number of factors. One of the main factors is the lack of knowledge or guidance. The other is the lack of proper IMPLEMENTATION of the things required to succeed.

In fact, I would rank the lack of implementation or improper implementation of best Internet Marketing practices as the main cause for failure, over and above a lack of knowledge since all the knowledge or guidance in the world is useless without the correct actions being taken.

The Success Factors For Freedom With An Internet Business
Note that we don’t just want to have a successful Internet Business – but one that gives us TOTAL FREEDOM from having to run, manage and maintain on our own.

Otherwise it’s no different from having a JOB – and that’s the very thing we’re trying to get away from.

There are many successful Internet Entrepreneurs who are tied to their Internet Business 24/7. They can’t take a vacation or even go to the movies during their waking hours for fear of missing a sale.

Or they’re overwhelmed with the multitude of roles they have to play that they get nothing done properly.

This isn’t how an Internet Business should be.

At the very least, not for me.

We should get leverage not only in how many people we can reach, but also in NOT having to do everything that is related to our Internet Business, on our own – and still make a handsome profit in the process.

With FREEDOM as the goal, let me now show you the essential elements of an Internet Business so that you know what’s involved to make money online, with the lowest amount of our money and with the least investment of our time.

To do this, I have to bring you back in time and see what are some of the most essential tools that we HAD to use to create a succesful Internet Business.

Then I’ll show you whether anything has changed along the way and if so, what we can do to adapt to the new Internet Business landscape – AND still maintain our freedom with our Internet Business working for us 24/7, instead of the other way around.

Let’s begin.

1st Generation Internet Marketing System
These are the components required:

Website + E-Mail

A website is basically our “permanent” online presence. We got a domain name and hosting account and we then uploaded whatever design and layout we wanted for our website on that domain’s host.

If we were selling products as a Merchant, we could also integrate an online payment system with our website so that we could accept payments directly from our customers via their credit cards, at the point when they decided to buy it after looking at our products.

If we were Affiliates for Merchants, we could set up a website providing useful information on topics related to the products sold by the Merchants, before recommending that they checked out the Merchants’ websites through our Affiliate Links or banners.

This would be our basic setup. We could get by with nothing else if we had lots of marketing money to spend on TV ads, newspaper ads and other places, to publicize our domain far and wide.

But we thought of using the Internet to market our websites too, since it was already being used by millions of people around the world.

The 2 Pillars
We knew Internet users then mainly used the Internet to check out:

1. Websites

2. E-mails

And because of that:

1. On Websites:
* Search Directories (like Yahoo.com, which started off as a Search Directory and later morphed into a Search Engine) and Search Engines (like AltaVista.com) were created to make the process of searching for information found on webpages much easier and quicker;

* Web Page Creators/Editors became an essential piece of software for Internet Entrepreneurs to create their own websites from scratch without needing to know HTML;

* Specialized FTP software to upload webpages to our host server became an essential tool for making our webpages seen on our domain;

* Web design and maintenance services were much sought after since most people didn’t have design skills even if they were willing and able to create the webpages themselves;

* Domain Names became hot assets to own since each one was unique and nobody else could register the same name once it was already registered by someone else

* The web hosting industry exploded and generated billions in recurring revenue.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization
Since search engines got millions of visitors per day looking for all sorts of information found on webpages throughout the world, and the engines didn’t want to create their own content but rather used software to find, index and show our webpages (without paying us a single cent to do this) to display to their visitors, who could see the results for free – we could tap into the Search Directories/Search Engines’ own traffic to get free prospects to our webpages.

And so SEO (Search Engine Optimization) became a popular topic ever since with the entire focus being on getting top rankings for our webpages for searches on keywords we wanted to target. The higher our webpages appeared on Search Engines’ results, the more free traffic we could get since Search Engine users checked out their search results starting from the top listing and moving down.

SEO companies started forming to offer SEO services to website owners who didn’t have the time or knowledge or desire to do SEO activities and tasks on their own.

Banner Ads
We could buy space on other webmasters’ websites too. We could put a banner that linked back to our webpages, and tap into the existing traffic those other websites were getting.

This marketing method required us to invest some money and while some of us did it, there were more of us who didn’t, preferring to rely on free Search Engine traffic and other free marketing methods instead.

2. On E-Mail:
Webmail services like Hotmail.com and Rocketmail.com were created to make the checking of e-mail possible through the same browser used for surfing websites instead of a separate e-mail software like Microsoft Outlook running on our computers.

This sort of simplified things for the Internet user and made things even easier for them to use, which in turn helped even more users to go online.

Mailing List Software
With e-mail being the first thing users checked when they were connected to the Internet, and being free to use, it became obvious to Internet Entrepreneurs that they needed to get their message into their visitors’ e-mail inboxes somehow.

We started asking for our website visitors to join our mailing list so that we could e-mail them offers to buy stuff, again and again. But of course, unless we were a big retailer of a range of products, nobody on our list would enjoy receiving offers from us in their e-mail boxes all the time.

And so we promised a free Special Report and tips on doing something better in our e-mail communication with them, so that they would continue to receive our e-mails. And we then interperse those e-mails with offers for our products from time to time.

This worked very well. Every time a promotional e-mail was sent out, there were bound to be sales made.

E-Mail Broadcast And Sequential Autoresponder Systems
Because of the need to constantly use e-mail, mailing list software became more and more sophisticated.

Rather than e-mailing our Prospects manually, we could use a special mailing list software called a Sequential Autoresponder System to AUTOMATICALLY e-mail our Prospects for us, with a series of pre-written e-mail messages uploaded to the Autoresponder System in advance.

So someone who just joined our mailing list would automatically receive an e-mail from our Sequential Autoresponder System, thanking him for being on our list and telling him what e-mails he could expect from us in the future.

We could also automatically send out a tip for helping him do something better (related to our topic) exactly 2 days later, and another tip on something else could be set to go out to him automatically exactly 5 days after this second automated e-mail had been sent to him.

We could also greet them by their first name in our e-mails (if we had their first name information in our database through their filling up the name field on our optin form), or have them remove themselves from our mailing lists via a single click on an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our e-mails (which saved us from having to manually remove them).

We could also broadcast e-mail messages at any time to the same list, even as they were going to receive those pre-written e-mail messages from us as scheduled in the Sequential Autoresponder System. This would be useful where we had some new offer to make to our list or we wanted them to have information we didn’t have earlier.

Thus all Sequential Autoresponder Systems will usually come with a standalone Broadcast function as well – giving us the ability to both send out pre-written e-mails to everyone who joined our mailing list, and newly written e-mails on an ad hoc basis.

If we were Affiliates, we spent the time looking for new Merchants to represent so that we could refer the same Prospects we had on our lists to many Merchants selling complementary products – thus increasing our commission earnings even more.

The Affiliate Program

Then Amazon.com came onto the scene and brought with it the concept of the Affiliate Program.

Amazon wanted Internet users to be rewarded for referring customers to its online book store. So they programmed an Affiliate Program software that could create unique Affiliate Links for each Affiliate they had in their program.

Anybody could join Amazon.com as its Affiliate for free. And all the Affiliate had to do was to put up banners that linked to their unique Affiliate Links which in turn would redirect the visitor to Amazon’s bookstore, bringing information about the unique Affiliate Link with it. Thus Amazon would know who referred the customer and reward the right Affiliate accordingly. The reward would be a percentage of the selling price.

This masterstroke of an idea resulted in Amazon.com getting millions of Affiliates all working for it for free, until a sale occurred. By then the money was already in Amazon’s bank account and Amazon could pay its Affiliates their commissions from money it had already collected – thus making this arrangement an entirely risk-free one for Amazon itself.

Amazon’s Affiliates in turn set up their own webpages and relied on Search Engine traffic and other marketing methods to draw in the Prospects. With millions of Affiliates all over the world promoting Amazon’s products, Amazon ended up having a huge referral army it didn’t need to pay to maintain.

Smart Internet Entrepreneurs then started copying Amazon’s Affiliate Program system. Affiliate Program software then became all the rage among Merchants for the benefits it would bring them.

The Affiliate Program software became another important component for a Merchant selling products online and soon many of us had either installed a similar off-the-shelf system on our domain, or used a 3rd party Affiliate Program software provider where we run the Affiliate Program off their server.

To make things easier for Affiliates to market for us, we could create ready banner ads for them and as well as ready promotional e-mail messages that they could load up into their own Sequential Autoresponder System or simply to broadcast to their lists.

To get Affiliates to join us, we could also get our website visitors to sign up as our Affiliates right on our website itself. We would also register our Affiliate Program with all the Affiliate Program Directories we could find.

To serve our Affiliates with a minimum of effort, we would have an Affiliate login on a restricted area of our website where our Affiliates could go to get their marketing materials and check their statistics and sales.

The Affiliate Program could also be automated as we could use a Sequential Autoresponder System to train our Affiliates on what steps to take to properly market for us, including how to copy and paste the banners we had prepared for them to show up on their webpages, and how to link from those banners to our websites using their own unique Affiliate Link our Affiliate Program software had automatically generated for them.

This was in addition to putting up the steps within the Affiliate login area which could be seen all the time by Affiliates who were looking for some guidance.

From time to time, we could run contests for the best Affiliate to win something valuable, to create a spike in sales when we needed extra cash to come into our business quickly. We would broadcast an e-mail to our Affiliates (they would sign up to a separate mailing list for Affiliates) to let them know about the contest – and serious Affiliates would then do whatever they needed to do to get the sales for us.

So the 1st Generation Internet Marketing System for the Merchant looks like the following:

Website + E-Mail + Affiliate Program

With a website that didn’t require any updating, Search Engine traffic, banner traffic, an automatic e-mail system, an Affiliate Program and automated Affiliate recruiting and training systems in place, we had everything we needed to make lots of money with online – practically on auto-pilot.

And many of us did.

All we needed to do as Merchants was to focus on our product range, offers, Affiliate and Customer support.

All Affiliates needed to do was to look for more Merchants to represent. (Note they wouldn’t install an Affiliate Program on their domain as Affiliates wouldn’t be selling anything themselves.)

For years, life was good.

Until something else came along that sort of messed up the good life that we had.

Which led to something that I called the 2nd Generation Internet Marketing System.

More on that in my next post!

Cheers
Sen Ze
P.S. Click below to book a seat to my FREE talk on Automated Internet Marketing Systems. I’ll be revealing the 4th Generation Internet Marketing System and what its components are. You really don’t want to miss out on this, because nobody else talks about them the way I do!

As you enjoy the extreme creativity of the people who shot the ads, you may share my view that Amazon has truly wasted its money on them:

The reason for the futile attempt? Here’s just ONE reason out of many:

See how rich and moving the experience really is with an iPad?

At $499 for the 16GB iPad which does a zillion things in full blazing color, which is just $10 more than the Kindle DX which only lets you read ebooks in black and white, would you bet on the Kindle being around much longer, in its current form?

With over 2.5 million users having bought the Kindle over the past 2 years it’s available just to read books on a black and white screen – what’s your guess that there will be millions more who’ll prefer the iPad over the Kindle for reading as well, from this point onward?

Amazon should save its money on ads and funnel all of it into developing an IMPROVED Kindle that is better than the iPad in terms of looks, feel and experience (not just MATCH the iPad – because what’s the point?).

But it’s an uphill battle because Apple has set the bar so high that it’s really difficult to see how much better ANY other tablet can be.

And even assuming that Amazon can create a “better iPad” – by the time it could come up with that alternative, it really wouldn’t matter much anymore.

So the EASIEST AND LEAST RISKY strategy for Amazon to ensure that the Kindle still has a role to play is to simply slash its price.

Even making a loss from each unit of Kindle sold (* gasp *) – so that it can earn from the increased sales of its ebooks (as more users will now own a Kindle due to its cheaper price).

Or Amazon can let it die a natural death and rely on its just-released Kindle for the iPad app that iPad users can use to purchase books from its ebookstore.

At least until Apple decides to only allow ebooks to be purchased from its iBookstore only – assuming this isn’t against any anti-competitive laws in existence…

Sen Ze

This isn’t to brag, it’s simply a lot of common sense coming together (and a lot of fun too), to guess the features of the IT gadget of the decade.

And so the Apple iPad will be available to the public on April 3rd – this Saturday.

Is it going to be a hit or miss?

Nobody on the Internet (at least, on many of the technical blogs that I’ve been to) dared to commit to the iPad being a success.

Well, here’s my prediction:

It’ll not only be a hit, it’ll be a MASSIVE HIT.

So who cares if it doesn’t come with USB ports, camera, or Flash support?

Only the geeks, and Apple haters would care.

And even then if the iPad came with those, they wouldn’t buy it anyway, since it’ll still be “inferior” to their notebooks or laptops in their minds.

My Mom couldn’t care less. Nor my Dad, nor my sons – nor many people who still don’t use a laptop everyday – and they’re the very people Apple is really targeting, with many BILLIONS more of them than the geeks in the first place.

I could picture my Mom and Dad, both computer dinosaurs, having a whale of a time with the iPad. They could FINALLY now surf the Internet without having to sit in front of a desk, or learning how to use a mouse.

They may need help to type in the URL for the very first site they want to visit – and I can do it for them – or they can select from a list of important websites that the Safari browser will surely come with. From then onward, they’ll get by with tapping on the screen all the way.

In fact, my Mom had so many problems with her desktop computer (she could never remember how to log into the net, or even which icon to click on to start the browser, or even control the mouse properly), she gave up on it after using it for a few weeks. I got extremely frustrated teaching her again and again some of the things she had to do to use her computer properly – like a “double click” here, a “single click” there, and to click on the “Start” button if she wants to look for some programs to start, and again to click on the “Start” button to shut the computer off.

“Hmmm…click on the ‘Start’ button to end my computer session? Makes a lot of sense to me.”

My Mom will be 75 this year – and she’ll be getting the iPad when it’s available, and she’ll be able to use it almost as soon as it’s out of the box.

To view photos with.

To read books with.

Even to send and receive e-mail (finally, with her fingers tapping directly on the screen) with.

And of course, my Dad, to read the newspapers with.

And magazines with.

And my sons.

To play games with.

To learn new things with.

And me, to create products with.

And do some business planning with.

And do some slide presentations with.

What’s there not to like about the iPad, for any of us?

The Business In Your Pajamas Lesson
=======================

Apple has redefined computing in the past, and it is now redefining it for the present and future.

It has created a massive hit in the iPhone and iTouch – and the iPad takes the same approach to computing, but into a much bigger space in our lives. Many of the things that we do everyday with paper or the usual laptop or the tube – are all now going to be in a 9.7″ screen that we can hold comfortably in our hands, or rest on a table, depending on our preference.

So Apple simply took a winning concept – the user interface in the iPhone and iTouch – to create the iPad.

It isn’t a sexy approach.

It isn’t a “ground breaking” concept – like the iPhone was.

And it IS a bigger iTouch.

But so what if it is?

If you liked the iTouch (and the iPhone), you’ll likely LOVE the iPad, because it’s essentially the same thing, only bigger, with even more possibilities for enjoyment that the iTouch and iPhone couldn’t provide due to their smaller screens.

And that’s all that matters – isn’t it?

Apple has smartly taken what is already working like gangbusters on a small screen, put it on a bigger screen, and lined up even more good stuff and applications to be shown and used on that screen, so that even more people can enjoy what millions of iTouch and iPhone users are already enjoying.

Think about it:

1. Current iTouch/iPhone users will likely buy the iPad if they’ve enjoyed their smaller experiences.

2. Non-iTouch/iPhone users will also likely buy the iPad if they like what the iPad can give them that they cannot already get from their existing notebooks (if any) – and there are already many applications available for it (apps ported from the Apple store which will work for both iPhones and iPads)

3. Existing notebook users who are sick of the weight and bulk of their current computers or their slow boot up time or the Windows OS will likely find the iPad a wonderful alternative.

4. Those thinking of buying a notebook but are put off by its price, or simply couldn’t figure out what features they need or don’t need from a notebook from among the many available.

5. Those who are never notebook Prospects (like my parents or my sons) are not necessarily never iPad Prospects. In fact, the iPad will attract new target markets all in one fell swoop – the ebook readers, the simple computer game players, and the occasional computer user.

This simple approach of taking what works, and then SCALING IT UP to work on a bigger scale, is what puts lots of money into Apple’s bank accounts.

It couldn’t care less if this product isn’t “ground breaking”, if it’s going to sell hundreds of millions of units of it nevertheless.

Would you?

All the naysayers want to see “ground breaking” stuff, because it gives them lots of materials to fill up their blogs with.

But you and me – we just want a good alternative to the notebook/laptop – and a way out of Microsoft’s incredibly badly-written OS (Operating System) and its definition of computing for the past 3 decades or so.

The future of computing is as exciting as ever – because it’s getting simpler than ever.

Simplicity is good.

Sen Ze

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

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!
==============

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

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
==================================

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?
=============================

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

Click below to join now:

The SOLOBIS Affiliate Program

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the joining link, but be sure to read all the benefits a SOLOBIS Affiliate gets.

SOLOBIS will soon be releasing some awesome unique products for the Internet Entrepreneur in the weeks ahead, so you’ll want to get ready for them…

When I say “awesome”, I mean AWESOME…I couldn’t believe what I’m seeing myself, even though I’m deeply involved in their development.

You’ll see.

Sen Ze

Technorati Tags: SOLOBIS, Affiliate Program, Internet Entrepreneur

There are many types of complexities in business.

There is technical complexity.

There is conceptual complexity.

There is implementation complexity.

There is management complexity.

Just to name a few.

They’re bad because by being complex, it’s hard for you as the business owner to start a business that has them for company.

They’ll cost you a lot more money, time and effort than a simpler business that you can do.

And as with any business, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to overcome them all.

Complexity is bad.

But then again, if you’re looking at a business full of complexities that you would like to emulate but couldn’t because of all the hurdles you must go through – one thing start to come to mind.

Complexity is good.

It’s good because if you’ve gone out to overcome those hurdles from the beginning and you succeed, you will have few, to NO competitors.

Just like Boeing and Airbus - the world’s 2 main competitors for commercial airplanes.

Between the 2 of them, they get the lion’s share of all aircraft orders from around the word – totalling trillions of dollars.

Just like Intel and AMD - the world’s top 2 main competitors for computer chips.

And Search Engines, like Google and Yahoo.

Google’s algorithm is very complex and it gets more and more complex by the day.

Google’s quest to return very accurate search results to keep its users happy means that it’ll need to add all variables that will affect the accuracy of those results.

And there are hundreds of such variables, with many more being discovered and added all the time.

Even Yahoo isn’t quite close to Google in terms of the complexity of its search algorithm – thus you’ve seen how Google has slowly but surely pulled itself away from the pack.

Complexity is good in ensuring you get to protect your turf for a much longer period of time – sometimes for decades – before you need to share any customers with another competitor.

And if you constantly innovate and add even more value after having been successful with complexities in your business, you’ll be sitting on your throne literally forever.

Complexity is good.

Here’s the “business holy grail”:

Complexity in implementation and creation of a SIMPLE product that your Customer can easily understand, use and want is the best combination of all.

You’ll have lots of Customers and few to no competitors, for a long time to come.

Just like Walt Disney experienced with his hand-drawn animated full-length cartoon movies – before computers came along and made the process more accessible to his competitors.

But he was the king of animation for DECADES before Pixar Animation, Dreamworks and the others could even try to compete.

And what about IKEA - the furniture retailer?

Without knowing exactly what’s involved – you can SEE the sheer complexity of their operations and business in selling you flat-packed furniture with modern, functional designs that don’t cost you an arm and a leg to get.

Even thinking about being their possible competitor hurts.

Right?

Complexity is good.

Sen Ze

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

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/complexity/complexity-is-bad.htm

Technorati Tags: business, business complexity, Airbus, Boeing, Intel, AMD, Yahoo, Google, Search Algorithm, business implementation, Walt Disney, cartoons, IKEA

Prince is currently doing 21 days in London alone!

And most of those dates have been sold out. In fact, at one point his tickets were selling at 1,000 per minute!

Why?

Because Prince:

1. Is a musical genius
He composes all his songs, writes the lyrics to all of them, sings them as lead vocal AND backing vocals and plays all the musical instruments used for those songs (up to 25 different instruments for one song)!

2. Is a prolific composer
He has composed hundreds of songs in his entire career, including hits for Celine Dion, Sheena Easton and The Bangles. He has released some of those songs on 46 albums so far – with many more yet unheard!!

3. Sells records
He has many hits from his albums and he has sold millions of them all over the world. The Purple Rain album alone (released in 1984) sold 20 million copies worldwide.

4. Is a great performer
If you’ve seen his Superbowl XLI halftime performance, you would have experienced an unforgettable musical performance.

I’m not a fan of Prince, by the way. Not of his music, nor his style – but I do appreciate genius when I see one.

His London concerts were originally supposed to run for 7 nights but when all 140,000 tickets for them at 31.21 pounds sterling (about $63) sold out in 20 minutes (!), he extended it to 15 days.

And when tickets to those extra 8 days started selling out, he extended it a further 6 days – making a total of 21 days!

He grosses an average of $1.2 million per concert ($63 x 20,000 seats) for this current tour if all tickets are sold out. By the time it’s all over, he would have grossed $1.2 million x 21 days = $25.2 million.

Give or take a few million.

Not bad for less than a month’s work.

And there’s still the US Tour to come.

How did this 21-date London concert come to be?

Here’s a combination of factors:

1. Prince’s an established music star whose concerts are a great spectacle
There’s plenty to see and hear. Prince is known for his flashy performances and he’s backed by some of the most talented musicians in the world, all hand-picked by him.

2. It’s summer time in London
Summertime means time out in the park, and concerts to attend!

3. London is home to about 8 million people
The bigger the population, the bigger is Prince’s number of prospects interested in his songs. 8 million is a big number for a city by any means.

4. London is a popular tourist destination
Millions of people visit London every year. Tour companies usually offer special packages that include free concert tickets as well. Prince’s audience will definitely include many foreigners especially when he’s not performing outside of the US and UK.

5. He has announced that this Planet Earth Tour is “The End” of his live concerts
There’ll be no more Prince in person after this, so this is his fans’ last chance to watch him live. Well, there may be a “Comeback Tour” or “Encore Tour” many years later but they don’t know for sure. In case he isn’t planning any in the future, this is all they have.

6. His latest album, “Planet Earth”, was given away for free by the UK’s Mail On Sunday
They distributed 3 million copies of it on July 15 2007 alone. The newspaper paid Prince a rumored 300,000 pounds for the rights to do this. This generated lots of additional publicity for his upcoming concerts in August 2007 (and sold lots of extra newspapers).

7. All ticket holders get a copy of his latest album, “Planet Earth” as well
This makes his 31.21 pounds ticket price a real bargain since the album sells for about 10 pounds in stores. Not only that, the distribution of CDs in this manner counts towards his final album sales as well – which will help it in music charts tracking album sales.

Since there are music lovers who buy albums according to their ranking in the music charts – this will help push sales of the album further.

8. He’s opening up his songs vault to present 150 of them during his London run
Yep, that’s right. He’ll be playing over 150 songs over the course of his 21-date London concerts. He performs only about 23 songs at each concert, which would leave plenty left over for the remaining dates.

Thus many of his hard-core fans will show up for the concerts multiple times over the next few nights just to hear more of those songs, many of which they’ve never heard before!

How’s that for repeat business?

You can do that only if you’re as prolific a composer as Prince…

The combination of all of the above factors – but especially “The End” of Prince’s live tours – makes for an irresistible series of events that hard-core Prince fans find hard to resist.

The US Tour should be even better. There should be one, because Prince grossed over $87 million the last time he had one in 2004 with the Musicology Tour that went on a run of 96 performances.

Talk soon.

Sen Ze

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

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/prince/prince-and-the-new-marketing-generation.htm

Technorati Tags: Prince, Planet Earth Tour, Earth Tour, UK Earth Tour, London UK Earth Tour, music industry, music, tours, innovative marketing, marketing, Mail On Sunday, business profitability, recording industry

I went to a bookstore about 2 months ago and bought 2 books that I had no intention of reading anytime soon.

They’re still on my table and I still haven’t found the time or urge to go through them yet.

I’m not saying those 2 books aren’t worthy of my time. They’re both updated and revised editions, which means that they’ve already gone past their initial print runs, and therefore are doing very well indeed.

The reason for my lack of “involvement” with those 2 books is simple.

I was finishing up on another book of mine with my co-author that would complement the 2 books I’ve found perfectly.

Buying those 2 books simply spurred me on to finish the endless scanning of the text for mistakes so that it could be published.

Otherwise I could go on forever, trying to make a good book as perfect as it could be.

Thus after about 8 months or so from the time the idea was conceived with my publisher and co-author, it’s finally published!

Here’s the third book in the “series”. No prizes for guessing which 2 books have been sitting on my table unread, and which one has been taking up my time for the past few months:

Yep, “The AirAsia Story” is my 3rd book in print format. It’s a book that had been begging to be written for quite a while.

And together with my wonderful co-author Jayne Ng, it’s finally done.

I was involved in almost every aspect of its production including coming up with the title and sub-title, back cover description, conceptualizing the cover design, overseeing the layout, discussing with Jayne on the content we would like to present, proof-reading and editing – in addition to writing parts of it.

We have an Editor to edit our work too, but there were quite a few last-minute additions that we simply had to fit in that resulted in some editing being done on our own as well.

It isn’t the way other publishing companies would follow – but it is ours’. Our publisher, Adrian (of Kanyin Books) gave us full creative control with some awesome ideas of his own to boot – and the result is a book we’re proud to be associated with.

We timed it to coincide with the launch of the last Harry Potter book 2 Saturdays ago (this is another Pajamas marketing lesson for you), but some last-minute delays ensured that it was not to be.

Nevertheless, it hit the bookstores just a few days ago.

And word has it that its sales are making Adrian a very happy puppy.

Here’s what the back cover says:

Since bursting onto the scene in 2002, AirAsia has become one of the most successful budget airlines in Asia today.

The book traces AirAsia’s eventful history from its humble beginnings as a small-time player with only two aircraft to its credit and $40 million in debt from Day 1 of its operations, to its present-day success as THE trendsetter among Asian low-cost airlines. It now carries millions of passengers every year, making millions in net profits in the process.

This happened in the aftermath of 9/11 and despite very stiff competition from many other budget airlines in the region as well as leadership from a CEO who was unfamiliar with the airlines industry.

Yet AirAsia’s journey to success has been anything but smooth.

This book reveals its challenges, hurdles, bumps and how it overcame them all in more detail for you to have a fuller understanding of just how remarkable its achievement really is.

Get ready to be blown away by the resilience, daring and imagination of its founders who all bravely took on the brutal circumstances they were in (and still are) that resulted in AirAsia becoming THE brand on the lips of budget air travellers all over Asia in just a few short years.

You’ll also discover some of the people behind AirAsia who you don’t normally hear of, and what their roles are. It’s a fascinating read that takes you into the realm of a real business with real challenges.

AirAsia fully practices Pajamas business and marketing principles to reap its millions of dollars in revenue every year – starting from year 1 of its operations.

It’s a sexy overnight success story that is quite irresistible to not just me, but anybody who has been exposed to parts of the AirAsia story these past few years.

Go to any major bookstore if you’re in Malaysia and look for it.

If you’re living outside Malaysia, click below to order it and have it delivered directly to your doorsteps within a few weeks:

Quantity 2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by All Net Profits Center.

Postage and handling costs have already been included in the price. While this will cost you more than if you were to buy from a bookstore, I’ll make it up to you by giving you a head start over everybody else with a NEW, yet-to-be-released Special Report of mine that covers some of the most interesting and profitable online business models you may have come across without realizing their significance in terms of generating millions of dollars in revenue – with the least amount of work possible.

It’s a brand new Special Report, but you’ll get it first even before I officially announce it to my list.

Completion of this Speical Report is only a few weeks away at most (probably within 2 weeks or so).

This Special Report may make you a millionaire many times over as it will generate BIG money-making ideas for you that you will never be able to come up with on your own. Those business models certainly have made their owners very rich indeed. Put your own twists on them, or combine a few together…

This Special Report is different from my classic Mini-Encyclopedia Of Low-Cost, High-Profit Internet Business Models that has been selling very well over the past few years now. There are an additional 20 examples of just ONE type of Internet Business Model which I have not included in the Mini-E yet (the Mini-E itself contains 19 other different Internet Business Models with numerous examples of their applications in the real world. It’s a MUST for your Internet Business and Internet Marketing library!).

Some of those 20 examples require sophisticated programming and infrastructure capabilities, while others are so simple you’ll laugh yourself silly as to why you didn’t think of them or do them on your own first.

To get the new Special Report (when it’s ready) before everybody else does, order “The AirAsia Story” from the link above.

Now that this is done, there are quite a number of other print and electronic books in my head that I need to give life to in the months ahead, some of which will absolutely delight you.

For sure.

Talk soon!

Sen Ze

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

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/AirAsia/the-flying-trilogy-of-profits.htm

Technorati Tags: Air Asia, Tony Fernandes, Ryanair, Easyjet, MAS, airlines, aircraft, travelling, Kanyin books, profitable business model, internet business models, internet marketing, Sen Ze’s Mini-Encyclopedia Of Low-Cost, High-Profit Internet Business Models, Mini-E