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"What's In It For Me? What Support Will You Provide?"
Can it really get much better?
This sounds cryptic, and it shouldn’t when it concerns money. The truth is that I don’t know how this extra money will be used. I’m open to suggestions. But I’d like it to build a sense of community and be fun. I think both are important, so we can learn from each other and prosper more as a result. (If you’d just like me to put the extra cash into my own pocket, I shall be glad to oblige!) ;-) I have no intention of leaving our affiliates stranded with unpaid commissions. It may also be worth noting that EstateManual.com Publishing has zero debt and is privately and entirely owned by me, Sydney Tremayne, author of The Estate Manual and originator of THEMES™. There are no shareholders or banks to yank my strings. And, yes, arrangements are already in place for continuation of the company in the event something happens to me. That, I think, is what they call full disclosure! Here’s the bottom line: we need good affiliates with a professional work ethic. We have an excellent product that has been thoroughly tested. I think we have a straightforward site. And we have a dynamite email campaign that provides a series of short articles guaranteed to have your referrals pleasurably anticipating the next one. How many people can make such a confident claim? Not many, I suspect. We do everything we can You are the final essential piece of the jigsaw, and we have provided the very best of tools to help you. You are a very important partner in our firm’s progress, and I will treat you that way. Your task is to send us quality prospects in the right age group … I was going to say they will buy, but perhaps that’s a bit strong. There’s always a party-pooper in every crowd! But you can expect our conversion ratio to be extremely high – meaning more money in your pocket. Some may buy immediately, but the bulk will want to think about it – and our email campaign will not let them forget. My management style is collaborative. By that I mean I listen to every opinion and make decisions based on feedback and sound business sense. And I’m not always right – but then neither are you! Clearly it’s in my own self-interest to want what’s right for you, for the company, and for our clients. And so I will not only listen to your ideas, I will welcome them. I have been careful not to rush but rather to have all our tools ready and tested before announcing our affiliate program. Even so, I’m sure we will find more to add to it. If you think there are other things we need to make your job easier, just tell me personally. I don’t promise to follow your advice, but I do promise to give you an honest hearing. We will keep affiliate numbers low We are not interested in 10,000 affiliates. I am not interested in affiliates who sign up, stick a banner on their site (or don’t because they don’t understand how but don’t ask), and expect orders to flow from that. It won’t happen. And there is a fair body of evidence to suggest that not only do banners not work, they actually turn customers off. Marketing guru Ken Evoy says that even though a visitor may click through, that visitor arrives on the target site with an extra dose of sales resistance because of the banner. But a banner is reported to help get a higher click through from those sites that carry text as well, such as a personal endorsement, article or text link. We’ll get into some of that sort of stuff in the monthly newsletter. I have provided a few banners of different sizes and shapes to start with. I am prepared to work with you on specific banner sizes, but first I want you to work with me in terms of pre-selling our products. I want to see some commission checks coming your way before having a banner designed especially for you. Is that fair? Are you prepared to work If you are not prepared to work, to be creative, to enjoy being a well cared for partner, stop right now. Become someone else’s affiliate. But if you’re willing to treat your job seriously, whether part-time or full, I will work with you in every way I can. The company has a strict non-compete policy. Affiliates are the key to our business, expected to account for somewhere between 90% and 99% of our revenue. We are totally committed to your success. As a result, we will not compete in terms of search engine listings or pay-per-clicks or any other form of paid advertising. There is one condition and one exception to this policy. The condition is this: if affiliates don’t take advantage of the no-compete policy by actively promoting our products to earn commissions for themselves, we will review the policy. But we will give you fair warning if we have to change it. The exception to the policy is that we do plan to run small classified ads in the publications of both the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) and its Canadian sister, CARP. We will advertise a free report. These ads are more expensive than many affiliates may feel comfortable with. But, if we receive a request from you to stop because you intend advertising in these publications yourself, we will gladly do so and cheer you on. We think these publications can result in worthwhile business. We will not promote our products, We have not attempted to promote ourselves with the search engines or directories, though some have looked at our three sites and have sometimes placed them well. We would rather leave that field open for you and for our other affiliates. You have our total attention and commitment. Our target market is typically between 50 and 70-plus (although a 30-something may see one of our products as a great gift for her parents – and she’d be right). Those we target have income or investments to ensure at least a comfortable lifestyle, are reasonably intelligent, and are educated though perhaps self-taught. They tend to be conservative in outlook. They are the sorts of people who join AARP in the U.S. or CARP in Canada. You may belong to one of those two organizations. At very least, you will have an interest in the well-being of those who are retired or in those years leading up to retirement. Here’s our target market; Our target market also curls, travels, visits bookstores and reads books, reads newspapers and magazines other than National Enquirer or People, has hobbies, goes to the theatre or opera, and is on-line so they can use the Internet to get answers to questions and to use email. They are likely to prefer A&E, Discovery, and History channels on TV. They may take university or evening classes, art classes or classes in photography. They are not likely to be found in general on-line chitchat rooms (though you will find them on specialized bulletin boards), nor are they likely to be found in taverns, or the local pool hall. But there are always exceptions. (I thought I’d better add that to avoid getting my head bitten off by a championship billiards player!) As our partner, you bring to the table one of two things: a commercial web site that is directed toward the 50-plus age group, or you have significant personal contacts in that age group and the willingness to contact them. But hard and fast rules can exclude excellent people; rules that make sense when set can quickly become nonsense when examined in the light of day. So, if you don’t fit the arbitrary criteria but you think there’s a good reason why we should look a little more closely at your application, tell us why. Email me personally at tremayne@estatemanual.com. We want to work with good people. (But don’t make promises you can’t keep. That merely leads to disappointment for both of us.) I personally look at the websites I will personally and promptly look at your website before you are accepted as an affiliate – so if there is anything I should know that is not on your application, please send a separate email for my attention, or you can call my private line at 902.477.3848. If I’m not there, leave a message with your name, number, where you are calling from and what time zone you are in. I don’t want to find out I’m calling someone at 4 a.m! I can usually be reached between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern, Monday to Friday. In stating the qualifications that affiliates need, I run the risk of sounding like a Grumpy Old Man. (My wife would probably tell you that I am a GOM, but I hope she’d smile while she does so!) The fact is that you are most likely to be successful if you fit a certain pattern. Having said all that, I’ll give anyone an opportunity if they show they want it badly enough. We all know what raw enthusiasm can do. We are also looking for partners with access There is one other class of affiliate, or joint venture partner, I am interested in reaching. They have executive management contact with life insurance companies offering group benefits, with professional associations, financial planning companies or any organization that sells directly to large numbers of people over 50 – such as brokerage firms, Fidelity, Amway, even Wal-Mart. These affiliates will bring the right executives to the table, hungry for what we offer, so that I can negotiate the best deal possible and close the sale. This type of affiliate has the potential to earn a very large annual income … even from one deal. I’m not holding my breath, but if you’re out there please raise your hand. Leave the actual selling to us; your task is to do the pre-selling As an affiliate, you are our lifeblood; we promise to do everything in our power to provide you the tools you need to find potential customers to introduce to us. You will not be selling. Leave that to us on your behalf. You will pre-sell to qualified individuals. We’ll help you with that, and give you examples of what we mean. When you have done your bit, we will do our very best to close the sales for you, not only through our site, but also through a series of helpful follow-up emails and soon an informative newsletter. We will not let your prospects go unless they tell us not to send any more emails. And we don’t think many will do that, because the emails will be so helpful. I will share those emails with you over the coming weeks. You will start to receive them at the same time your first customer receives theirs. It is most important that you keep these emails to yourself. If you start using them in any way (on your site, for instance) we will all lose their extraordinary usefulness as a tool to turn prospects into customers. Your prospects will all receive these articles at carefully spaced intervals. If they read the same thing on your site, the collective power of these emails is weakened. However, there is no harm in reviewing one or more of them, or the series as a whole. The more you can tell people in your own words, particularly about the product, the more inclined they will ultimately be to buy. But please remember, don’t try to sell or you will lose some of your credibility. Just say what you think about the product and then do one of two things (but not both): depending on what you have written, give your readers a link to the executor article or the http://www.estatemanual.com. You should use the http:// at the start of the address if you want to make the link in some browsers. Free to join … but you should know the product Our program is free to join, but I strongly suggest you invest in a copy of the book or access to the software – preferably both – otherwise you truly hamper your ability to communicate with your prospects. How can you say something is “the best I have ever seen” if you have not seen it? Only when you have experienced the products for yourself can you be enthusiastic about them. Only if you are excited about them can you get a hungry crowd delivered to us. And several hungry people are more important to us both than a large crowd that has already eaten. Doesn’t that make sense? Get the book and access to the software program. You will be glad you did. And it won’t cost you a cent. Here’s why: Your investment in The Estate Manual and/or THEMES™ will be returned many times just by using the products yourself. But I have an even better idea. Earn one sale and we will refund in full what you paid for that item. Make just one sale for The Estate Manual and another for THEMES™ and your whole initial investment for both is returned. (Naturally, there’s a downer: these sales do not qualify for first or second tier commissions. Hey, you can’t have everything!) To make sure that is clear … buy one, sell one, and your entire investment is returned. Come on and join us. With your help we will become even better than we are now, offer you the very best program there is for affiliates, and perform a tremendous service for some of the hundreds of thousands of survivors every year. Sincerely Sydney Tremayne PS: The over-50 crowd is the fastest growing segment of the population. I heard the other day that half of the workforce is 55 or older. The first of the Baby Boom generation is now 56. Remember the economic impact that generation brought with each stage of its life? Whole aisles of baby food, new schools as fast as they could be built, skyrocketing housing prices. Now it’s condos as they shed the downside of owning their own homes: lawn care, snow removal, leaky roofs … you know the story; you’re probably there. And this generation is now facing its own mortality. This is why THEMES™ and The Estate Manual are products whose time has come. This generation has made fortunes all along its timeline for those who have had imagination and grasped the opportunities. This is one of those opportunities. |
