how to get less time it takes you to reach a larger audience?

Extended Reach

I’ve tried to give you many ways to expand your reach, supercharging your website, selling stuff
online, but now I want to concentrate on how partners can stretch your market just a little bit
further.

Consider the value of having another “salesman” reaching out to your customers. At Infusionsoft,
we work closely with several marketing and business gurus (like Michael Gerber, Dan Kennedy, and Rich Schefren). When one of these gurus takes a few moments to promote our product, people listen and come running in our direction to see what we have to offer. Time wise, it took perhaps two minutes for the guru to promote our product. But that two minutes just saved us from having to implement the whole sales process in order to obtain this same customer.

The more affiliates and partners you have, the less time it takes you to reach a larger audience. All in all, it’s quite the simplest way to drive qualified leads to your small business so that you have time for more mastery moments.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

 "keywords" content="Employees ,business ,building blocks,reach a larger audience, audience,salesman, expand your reach"

How To Use Technology to the Partnership Rescue?

I don’t think I can state nearly enough times how much I love technology.

Managing your partnerships does not need to be tricky. Sure, you need a way to track your affiliate
referrals, whether or not they’ve even sent any and then get checks to your affiliates on
time. But, as is true with financial overhead, software programs can make affiliate management
a snap.

Commissions can be determined on an individual basis. Multi-tiered structures can be set up to
manage individual affiliate agreements. Communication lines can be open and freely reviewed by
ALL parties. And, best yet, your relationships will be strong and valuable.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

 "keywords" content="Partnership Rescue,technology,track your affiliate,affiliate agreements"

Employees will never care about your business like you do

Affiliates Provide the Referrals

All day long, I listen to small business owners complain about apathetic employees. Though the
employees do their job as far as their job description is concerned, they don’t usually take the
initiative or go the extra mile.

Employees will never care about your business like you do.

When someone becomes a affiliate, suddenly there is an interest by both parties to ensure the
small business succeeds. It becomes a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship. The affiliates
send in the referrals, in return they are paid for their efforts. Since they profit when you profit,
you can bet that they are going to be doing everything in their power to help you out.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

 "keywords" content="Employees , marketing capabilities,building blocks,partnership,Affiliates Provide the Referrals,small business owners"

3 Challenges of Managing Referrals

How are payment agreements managed?

How do you track affiliate payment?

What if the affiliate doesn’t do anything?

How Do You Manage Them All?

Alright. So you’re convinced that you need partners and affiliates. But managing those relationships can be daunting on its own. The last chapter reviewed the pains of financial overhead. Now we are going to address the complexity of trying to manage affiliates, vendors, and partners.

affiliate referral system

First, how is payment determined? The value of each of your affiliates or partners is going to vary. Partnering with a slightly larger vendor down the street is beneficial. However, that partnership is not as likely to bring in the large quantity of buyers that a guru in your industry can produce. That being the case, the guru deserves more from you because they are offering you significantly more business.
Secondly, how do you know if the affiliate is truly increasing your business? At Infusionsoft, we grapple with this issue on occasion. Someone partners with us, anticipating the affiliate check they will be receiving for their referrals. However,

several months may pass by where their “partnership” appears to have failed. If I have offered
them a free copy of the software, expecting them to spread the word, their lack of production is
actually hurting my business. But, if you have no way of tracking that information, it might be
some time before you are made any wiser.

Finally, how do you track the payment of your affiliates? As I mentioned a time or two before,
manual systems don’t work! Faulty financial management can cause unpleasant situations to
arise. The partnerships you build can be easily destroyed if you are unprepared for the management of such partnerships.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

 "keywords" content=" marketing capabilities,building blocks,partnership,payment agreements managed,affiliate payment,affiliate,partners "

why there aren't any No Growth in your own business?

I want to move away from the referral program issue and discuss the lack of growth that companies without partners tend to experience. Once you have reached out to your entire customer base and all your leads, where do you go from there? In the networking game, you’re stuck.

So your next option is to rely heavily on your marketing capabilities. Marketing is an unbelievably powerful tool--if you’ve adopted the other building blocks. Nevertheless, this book is designed to help you double, if not triple your sales, so we need to squeeze as much value out of every business venture that we can. Therefore, small businesses need to extend their reach as quickly, easily, and inexpensively as possible.

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Another reason growing on your own is difficult, is the time it takes. As much as you might like
to, you don’t have the luxury of simply promoting your product and watching the cash come
rolling in. You’ve got other things to manage…like your company.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

 "keywords" content=" marketing capabilities,building blocks,product ,referral programthe networking game,stuck"