Online Business Manager

Starting an affiliate program is an awesome way to build a sales team that you don’t pay until they sell for you. However, it’s not that easy! Setting up an effective affiliate program takes time and hard work.

1. Don’t Skimp on the affiliate center setup. Have all the rules, promotional materials, creative ads ready to go. This makes it easy for your affiliates to get in and get out. This is probably the most overlooked steps by business owners because quite simply they don’t understand how to actually set it up.  I suggest business owner’s sign up for relatable affiliate programs and do a bit-o-homework to get some ideas on how other business owners motivate their affiliates. Having a great affiliate center DOES require you to do more than just have an affiliate link. It involves:

- Creating affiliate links directly to each of your products
- Hosting your products on individual pages
- Offering a great training guide—when creating an affiliate how-to  guide assume all of your affiliates are new to this rodeo!
- Having great promotional content ready to go, such as: pre-written emails, blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates. (This may require the use of a creative designer for ads)
- Establishing easy to understand rules and have them easily accessible. *Don’t forget to mention spamming and false endorsements are no-nos per you and the FTC
- Customizing your initial welcome letter to your affiliates. The welcome letter is your affiliate first impression of your time and effort into making them feel valued

2. Personally contact people who you would like to see promote your product. Write down your Dream Team of Affiliates and begin doing your research on them.  Follow them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and subscribe to their newsletter. Comment on their blog and then once you see your opening—a related blog post, their own upcoming product launch, an interview, etc., send them an email and say that you are impressed with their product or service. Point out exactly how your product fits in with their audience. Let them know what you find interesting about them and give details on commissions. You could even ask them to review your product. If they are doing a launch, offer to include your product and promotion on their thank you page for their orders.

 

3. Offer interviews and freebies bonuses to key affiliates. In additions to letting everyone know you are “interviewable” by setting up a media page so that you can easily be contacted; be sure key partners know your areas of expertise and they will welcome you to speak on your topic-of-choice to their list.  Offer reductions of your products for key affiliates, as well. There are many people out there that make a living reviewing other’s people products, be sure to reach out to them and sweeten the offer by giving them your product in exchange for an honest review and some exposure on their blog/email campaign.

 

4. Be respectful of your affiliates own promotional calendar and be sure to give them a quick heads up (insider’s scoop) on what is on the horizon for your business, well before the official launch date.  This  allows your affiliate to mark their calendar and ensures they have ample time to set up their affiliate promotional activities. Your affiliates will be grateful for the content with benefits you eagerly share with them. Also, your affiliates are given the opportunity to become your eyes and ears with their own audience and will let you know if they have someone they think you can connect with, in order to help you have greater success. Be sure your “heads up”  includes:

- How excited you are to be offering this product
- What issue your product/service solves
- Official launch date
- Any special pricing

5. Keep in Touch and be responsive! You must take the “following up” with your affiliates as serious as you do with your own list of potential buyers. Send reminders, extra promotional material, encouraging words, thank you messages, success stories and offer to help in any and every way you can to ensure your affiliates have success with promoting your product. When you receive a question from an affiliate place on your customer service hat and resolve the issue quickly and thoroughly.

 

6. Consider additional incentives to have extra fun with your affiliates.  How about offering seasonal promotions, such as an iPad for your highest earner during the holiday season? Also you can create a newsletter and openly dote on your best earners with case studies and links to their own products. Your affiliates will be eager to learn how others are doing so well and truly appreciate the extra gifts of gratitude!

 

7. Hire an affiliate manager to ensure your affiliate center offers much more than just a cookie capturing link. In my opinion, the only affiliate work that a business owner needs to be directly doing is making personal connections with key affiliates. The rest of the work is best left to someone that understands affiliate set-up and can save the business owners time by managing their affiliate system for them. Your affiliate manager, ensures all the pieces are in place so that you achieve your goal for having affiliates: raising your exposure and profit line by creating a group of people who are compensated for selling your products/services to their audience.

So there you have it–7 Secrets to Jumpstarting Your Affiliates Desire to Sell for You. Remember setting up an affiliate system take stime and effort, but the more planning you do know, the better chances you have of putting together a winning affiliate program that will serve you long into the future.

If you have any comments, I invite you to share them here or email me directly!

As a business owner, your main goal is to get paid by positively impacting your target audience. That is what it boils down to. You have a message, an idea, a product, or a service to offer and you are in constant pursuit of ways to share it faster, further and for the most profit.

No doubt in your businesses’ early stages, you learned that you can’t be Ms. All Knowing and All Doing! This may be, SHOULD be, a point of initial relief. Reaching out to a web designer, a marketing company, a copywriter, a shipping company, a virtual assistant will help you achieve more impressive results, in less time. (YAY!)
However, as they contribute to the success of your business, you become stymied in the day-to-day operations of being the only one to manage your team.

• You spend huge chunks of your energy delegating.
• You oversee the progression of tasks and projects.
• You must determine what goes where, to whom, and when.
• You are thwarted by a MIA team member and must desperately search for a replacement and (GASP!), re-teach her on the way you like things done.
• You’re alone in keeping your ship sailing.

This is the time that you need a business manager, someone to oversee the company’s procedures, operations and team so that you can once again focus on growth.
Yes, your online business manager keeps the business bus moving! Your Online Business Manger not only understands the sum of all tasks, we are responsible for the results.

• My job is to proactively take operations off your plate and to streamline the journey to completion.
• I am committed to seeing the owners’ business hit higher profit margins by possessing a “marketing mindset”.
• I make decisions to make the clients life easier.
• I coordinate the team’s efforts in achieving the business owner’s goals.
• I make sure there is a Standard Operating Procedure Manual in place so that everyone understands the process of tasks.
• I establish an online system where projects are easily managed, therefore making sure all files, tasks and communications are kept in a centralized location.
• I seek the answer to the question, “Is there a better way to do this?” when looking at your business procedures.

Knowing that an Online Business Manger will take over the day-to-day operations and allow you to continue growing your business, is no doubt a relief.  But handing over the reins to your company can seem scary, if not impossible, for you to do. It Is OK! When searching for your OBM, I suggest looking for someone that will compliment your best qualities while balancing your sub-par aptitudes.
When you do find someone that seems to be a good fit for managing your business, do a trial-run before committing! Tina Forsyth, the CEO of OnlineBusinessManager.com (and my trainer), says, “You’ll never know if it’s a match until you get into a working relationship…” 

• Do you want to launch a new product?
• Do you need to create an effective social profile for your brand?
• Are you needing to set-up a shopping cart that can effectively handle your internet marketing dilemas? 
•  Is your business desperate for some organization?
• Maybe you just need an overhaul of your current customer relations procedures?

 These are all great initial projects for your Online Business Manger to take on! I would love to hear about your next move as a business owner, please contact me so we can arrange a chat.

I am transitioning from a Virtual Assistant to Online Business Manager. I have been working in this role since the fall of last year, I just was too busy to realize it. Far gone are the days where a client simply sends me a “to-do”.  Nowadays, I plan and implement with my clients. I oversee their entire online business. I take their business success and their loss as my own.

The first time I heard the word ‘Online Business Manager’ was when I applied for Heike Miller’s, PA Excellence team. She needed multiple Virtual Assistants to help her take care of her clients tasks. I submitted a proposal for her shopping cart needs, but my mind wondered, “Is this the only task that I would be doing for a client!?”

As an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant, I was- and still am-used to taking care of all my clients’ needs. Yes, it got hairy when they all were launching, yes there were elements I was more comfortable with then others, but I thought that was just the way it was. I trained and learned a multitude of different tasks and enjoyed growing into a comfortable relationship with each of my fabulous clients.

However, I must admit, there was times I could have used an extra set of hands, or a well deserved nap for that matter! I haven’t had a full day off since I started as a VA in 2008! There simply was no one that knew my clients business like I did. In short, I had built my business so that I could be the only person to satisfy my clients. My clients often state, “I don’t know what I would do without you Raven.”

Even though I was only responsible for the shopping cart part of the PA Excellence’s clients needs, I am a “big picture” person and so, I asked Heike to allow me to sit in on her new client consults. WOW! Talk about an eye-opening experience. I listened to Heike and her client discuss every last detail of the clients business, the goals they wanted to accomplish and the strategies that we would implement to reach our clients goals. Most importantly, Heike explained, which member of her team would oversee each tool we needed to get the job done! One- by-one Heike ticked off our clients’ needs into smaller sections and delivered them to the team! Talk about done and done!

The system worked, even with so much to do, there was so many EXPERT hands in which to get it done. As time went on, I enjoyed playing “sit-in” for Heike when she was away on vacation. Oh how I was envious. Things were still getting done, the client’s needs were being met, all while Heike enjoyed some R&R.

At the start of this year, Heike asked me to become her Project Online Business Manager. I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to do it because Heike lives in New Zealand and so, at times, she can’t be readily available to her clients. I also had just learned Tina Forsyth’s Online Business Manager certification course would be starting in February. This was the course that Heike completed in order to build her PA Excellence business.

The price tag of the certification is mind boggling, but it’s an investment in mine and my clients’ future success.

However, before I committed to it, I bought Tina’s book: Becoming an Online Business Manager and laughed out loud. I felt like she was writing about me. Most of the requirements that she stated a Online Business Manager needed to be comfortable doing, I was already doing or wish I had the “ok” to do. I was operating as an Online Business Manager, I just hadn’t made it official. Now I am. With my enrollment, I state firmly, I am serious about mine and my clients business.

So how is my business changing and how is it staying the same?

•  As I step into this larger role for my current and future clients, I do it with the notion that I am going to be the driving force for the business. We will discuss their strategy and what it will take to accomplish their business goals.
•  No longer will my client have the headache of finding all the hands to complete their puzzle, I will oversee that. I will gather together the contractors and sub-contractors my clients needs to get the job done efficiently and effectively.
•  No longer will my client have to wait their turn, while I focus on another clients’ needs. By having a team readily available, we will be able to deliver more work, in less time.
•  I will have the ability to do the tasks that I do best and share the load with trusted associates to take care of the tasks that they are best at accomplishing.Stepping into the role as an Online Business Manager is a “win-win” for me and for all of Virtual Raven Marketing clients. Certification training starts in a mere 2 weeks, I look forward to embracing my role as an Online Business Manager and can’t wait to see what the future holds.