Click Here to Download the WSO Mind Map (get Xmind here).

Please Like this video after it finishes playing. Then leave a comment below, okay? Thanks!

Click Here to Get the Next Video

Click Here to Download the BB Code for the Thread

Please Like and Share this video after it finishes playing. Then leave a comment below, okay? Thanks!

Please Like and Share this video after it finishes playing. Then leave a comment below, okay? Thanks!

In this article, I want to show you the most common methods of making money online and discuss their pros and cons. Then I’m going to give you a step-by-step blueprint designed specifically for people who are just getting started online and want to build a business that generates consistent, reliable income.

The three main methods that everyone talks about are:

1. Affiliate Marketing: Drive traffic to other people’s sites and earn a commission if you make a sale. Commissions are usually paid once or twice a month through PayPal or ClickBank.
2. Product Creation: Develop your own product and sell it online. In most cases, people start out creating digital products such as an ebook, software, or a membership site.
3. Resell Rights: Purchase rights to products that have already been created. These packages usually come with a salesletter, graphics, and a download page.

While these are all great ways to make money online, the question is, which one is best for people who are just starting out?

Affiliate Marketing – The Easiest Way to Make Money?

On the surface, affiliate marketing seems to be the ultimate business for people who are just getting started and want to make a few bucks online.

You’ve probably seen claims like these before:

• You don’t need to create your own product
• You don’t need to build a website
• You don’t need to build a list
• You don’t need to take orders
• You don’t need to handle customer support

“All you have to do is DRIVE TRAFFIC to your affiliate link and the sales will start rolling in…”

Unfortunately, traffic generation is where most people fall short. They get discouraged and eventually give up.

Generating traffic is not as easy as most of the ‘Gurus’ claim…

1. Advertising costs have gone up and Google has made it harder for affiliates to get traffic without paying a premium price.
2. SEO tactics that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow because the search engines can and will de-index your pages without warning.
3. Web 2.0 is the latest rage, but it takes WAY too long!
4. Traffic exchanges? Safe Lists? Surfing for hits? Guaranteed traffic? Don’t make me laugh… They’re all about as worthless as FFA links.

It seems that every time a new traffic strategy comes along, everybody jumps on the bandwagon and it eventually stops working.

And even if you do eventually figure out how to generate consistent traffic, there’s another problem with affiliate marketing…

It’s not a stable source of income because you’re dependent on forces beyond your control.

The fact is, if you leave the sales process up to someone else, your success will always be dependent upon what that merchant does or does not do.

Product owners can change their affiliate links without warning, sell out to a competitor, or even drop their affiliate programs and refuse to pay their affiliates.

I once promoted a membership site (I won’t mention the name) that paid monthly recurring income. I built up over $1000 in recurring commissions and never got paid a single dime for my efforts!

She said the database was corrupted and there was no way to figure out who she owed. So she just shut down the site and kept all the money.

There was nothing I could do about it. Even if I hired a lawyer, there was no way to prove how much I earned.

And then there are the ClickBank merchants who leave commission leaks all over their site. They make it too easy for people to steal your commissions.

There are ways to prevent commission theft. But the merchants don’t care because after all, they just want the buyer leads.

And if you’re sending traffic to a merchant’s website and not building a list, you’re not creating any leverage in your business.

Product Creation – How hard could it be?

Since affiliate marketing has so many flaws, creating your own products would seem to be the solution…

You have more control over the sales process,  high profit margins (especially on digital products), and you can get affiliates to promote you.

The problem is, the process can be frustrating – especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Choosing a market, writing the content, designing the website, and then hoping that it will sell…that’s a lot of work with no guarantee of a return on your investment.

And let’s face it, most people either can’t or don’t want to write a 60-page ebook. I’ve done it and it’s a lot of work!

Of course, you can hire a ghostwriter. But good writers are expensive and you would still have to get someone to compile the book for you, write your sales letter, and design your website. The whole process could take months and if you’re a newbie, it may never get done…

Creating your own product is a great idea if you’re already making money online. But when you’re just getting started you can’t take the risk of going through all the work, effort and expense when you don’t even know if your product will sell.

Resell Rights – The Ultimate Shortcut?

So, if developing your own product isn’t the answer and affiliate marketing alone is unpredictable…then resell rights must be the best solution. Right?

You’re still in control over the sales process. You have high profit margins on digital products. You can still get affiliates to promote you. And you can skip the whole product creation process!

Well even though this business model seems like the perfect fit for newbies, it also has it’s flaws…

I’m not going to get into all the different flavors of resell rights in this report. But I will say that there are basically three ways to buy a resell rights license.

1. You can buy a package of products that everyone else is selling.
2. You can buy rights to a product that is limited to a certain number.
3. You can buy exclusive rights to a product that no one else will be selling.

You’ve probably seen those packages or membership sites full of resell rights products that you can buy for pennies on the dollar. Most of them are pure junk. But you can find quite a few diamonds in the rough that are worth selling.

The problem is…everyone else and there dog is selling them too (especially in the IM market).

If you buy exclusive rights – even limited rights – you’ll have less competition. But it can be expensive (up to $1,000). And just like creating your own product, you have no guarantee it will sell. Again, not the best choice for newbies…

So what’s the best method for newbies?

Here’s the answer you’ve been waiting for…All THREE!

What you may not realize is this: you’re not limited to just creating products, selling resell rights, or promoting other people’s products.

Internet marketing is not linear…it’s a progression. When you’re first starting out, you need a plan that will generate quick cash. But over time your ultimate goal should be to develop a REAL business that brings in a nice monthly income.

Now we’ve already determined that promoting affiliate programs from scratch is not the answer. It takes too long to generate free traffic and buying traffic is risky when you don’t know what you’re doing.

You want to make quick cash that you can inject it back into your business and make it grow. So here’s the plan…

1. Start out selling low-cost resell rights products ($7 – $27). If you can get private label rights, that’s even better because you can modify the content and add your own affiliate links.
2. Pay affiliates 100% commission to promote for you. This will be the leverage you need to get other people to send you traffic and build your list.
3. Build a list of buyers and sell them high-quality affiliate products. Concentrate on just a few good products that you truly believe will help your subscribers succeed.
4. Re-invest your cash into exclusive rights or create your own product. You can command higher prices for exclusive rights to quality products. Creating your own product is optional. But it will brand you as an expert in your field and gain the respect of your customers.

Obviously, there are many variations of this business model. For instance, you can add an opt-in box (popover, inline, etc.). You could use a squeeze page. You could add an up-sell, a down-sell, or a one-time offer…

But the main objectives remain the same: Give away your front-end profits and other people to build your list while you make money on the back end.

And once you set it in motion, it keeps churning out cash like clockwork. And you can go on to build another one.

I hope you enjoyed this article and take action on what you’ve learned.

Best regards,
Derrick Van Dyke

Now you may be wondering why you need a list in the first place. Well it may seem obvious, but here’s the simple answer…

You can sell more stuff to the same visitors if you get them on your list first, instead of just sending them to a sales page. I mean, once they’re gone…they’re gone, right? And you can’t sell anything else to those people whether they buy or not.

But there’s more to it than that…

If you follow up and build a relationship with your subscribers you can drastically increase your conversion rates for the affiliate products you promote. In other words, you make more money from the same number of subscribers.

How do you do that?

In a nut shell, you make money by helping others achieve their goals.  You make money buy giving away quality information and then offering top-notch products and services that will help solve their problems and get them where they want to go.

Now, to build a list, you need two things:

1. A way to capture leads
2. Targeted traffic

In the past, I’ve always advised affiliates to create a squeeze page and concentrate on ONE traffic generation strategy at a time to get visitors and build a list. That’s still a viable method for building a list.

But there are two major flaws…

1. Pay per click advertising is risky and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can lose a lot of money before you ever see a return.
2. Free methods like article distribution and social networking take way too long unless you can outsource the work and quickly build a vast network of content. And of course, you have to know what you’re doing before you outsource the work…and that takes money too.

I’ve found that many of my affiliates run into a brick wall trying to generate traffic because they’ve been misinformed. They’ve been told that it’s easy to make money online without a website or a product. How many times have you seen that headline?

While you certainly can build a list by generating traffic on your own, there is an easier way…

You see, when it comes to getting traffic, you really only have three choices:

1. You can buy it
2. You can build it
3. You can leverage it

I’ve already discussed the first two methods. The third method is what I’ll cover now. And that is to use leverage to get other list owners to send you traffic and build your list.

This method eliminates risk and multiplies your own efforts to build a list ten times faster than you could do it on your own. It’s the absolute fastest way to build a list. And compared with most of the free traffic methods, it’s a lot easier than you might think.

Here’s how to build a list fast and make more money from even a small list of subscribers:

1. Develop a self-liquidating offer
2. Create a simple sales page
3. Set up an affiliate program
4. Recruit affiliates
5. Build a quality list
6. Nurture your list
7. Sell affiliate products

At first glance, that may look like a lot of work. I’m not going to lie to you…it is. But you only have to do the work once. And then you can use leverage to grow your business by leaps and bounds.

Now what do I mean by leverage?

First, if you sell a product that people are willing to pay for, you can get affiliates to promote it and send you their customers. And as you may already know, a customer is worth at least 10 regular subscribers.

Second, you can also get your customers to promote you because you already have an affiliate program in place. So your affiliates are really sending you customers and affiliates, which will have a snowball affect on your backend profits.

Third, if you nurture your list with free quality information, you can repurpose that content as articles, reports, videos, audios, and build a network of content that drives traffic back to your site and the whole process starts over again.

Look at these three different scenarios:

1. Drive traffic to an affiliate product, have one chance to make a sale, and make a little bit of money
2. Drive traffic to a squeeze page, build a list, follow up with multiple offers, make more sales and make more money
3. Create a self-liquidating offer, get other people to generate traffic, build your list and make a ton of money selling affiliate products

In the first two scenarios, it’s YOU who is generating the traffic. At least scenario two uses the leverage of a list to make more sales. But I think you’ll agree that scenario three looks much more profitable. And the best part is, you don’t have to slave away generating traffic or paying for much up front.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering what a “Self-Liquidating Offer” is, and that’s what I’ll cover in the next article. So keep an eye out for my next email.

Until then, keep on truckin’

Derrick VanDyke

Critical Mistake #1: Not Building a List

The biggest mistake that affiliates make is sending prospects directly to a merchant’s website. If you do that, you’ll miss out on the chance to build your own list, and that list is the basis of your long-term profits.

Think about this…

If you spend time and money to drive traffic to a merchant’s website, fewer than 5% will buy. So what happens to the 95% who don’t buy? If you aren’t capturing your visitor’s email addresses, you’re throwing money right down the drain.

Why drive traffic to a merchant’s website and hope for a sale, when you can get them on your list first and have more control over the conversion process?

If you get people to join your list first, that gives you a chance to build rapport with your subscribers and they’ll be much more likely to buy the products that you recommend.

The long-term profit potential of your business will rely on repeat sales from the same customers. If you have a list of subscribers who trust you and believe the products you recommend will truly help them succeed, then you can sell multiple products to the same people and maximize your income.

Can you see why it’s so important to capture leads? That ends up being the most critical skill in affiliate marketing, and many people neglect it entirely.

If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer, you simply have to capture leads and build a responsive list of raving fans and repeat buyers.

Critical Mistake #2: Focusing on Short Term Profits

Most of the “How to make money products” focus short-term profits. Because that’s what the market wants! It’s like illegal drugs: if there were no demand, the supply would dry up and go away.

The problem is that once the techniques stop working, your income stops and you have to scramble to find the next shortcut.

When AdSense was hot, I bought some software that created hundreds of pages that were picked up by Google and I was making $50 to $100 every day from one site. So I thought I was going to be rich practically overnight! All I had to do was make hundreds of these sites and watch my income skyrocket…

Shortly after, Google “slapped” the whole industry and I watched my income dry up overnight. Thankfully, that wasn’t my only source of income. Short cuts don’t give you the consistency or confidence you need.

What you really need is a business that produces consistent income that grows over time and is impervious to Google or any other factors.

Critical Mistake #3: Choosing the Wrong Niche

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Well I say, “Follow the money and then you’ll have the time and freedom to do what you love.”

You don’t want to waste your time promoting products that won’t make you any money. So you need to select a market in which there is already money being made.

Many new marketers think you need to find untapped niche markets to be successful. But markets with high demand and no competition are rare. You might be able to make a little money in a niche market where there is little competition. But you can’t build a business in a market with low demand.

You want a passionate market of people who will do anything for a solution to their problem. And you want a competitive market where a lot of money is already being spent.

There will always be room in a market of cash-in-hand buyers. All you need is a small slice of the pie.

Critical Mistake #4: Promoting Too Many Niches

When I talk about niches, I mean categories and subcategories within the same market. For example, let’s look at the “Make Money” niche.

There are many ways to make money like Forex Trading, playing poker, and betting on horses. So “Internet Marketing” is actually a niche market and “Generating Traffic” is sub-niche of that market, and “pay-per-click advertising” is a sub-sub-niche of that market.

That may be confusing, but stay with me…

If you promote a Google AdWords product to your list one day and then a Twitter product the next day, your readers will just get confused. Instead you should survey your subscribers, find out which traffic generation technique that their most interested in learning about, and then get those people onto a sub-list.

Then you can provide them with the content they really want and will be more likely to buy the niche product you recommend.

Critical Mistake #5: Promoting the Wrong Products

The products you promote to your list will reflect on your character and your marketing ethics…and will eventually affect your income. If you promote the latest, greatest product launch just because everyone else is, or you promote products that you haven’t purchased and evaluated, you risk losing the respect of your subscribers. You may a sale, but you won’t sell anything else to a person who bought the junk you recommended.

If you don’t truly believe that the product you’re promoting will help your subscribers succeed, then you shouldn’t recommend it.

I know that’s difficult to accept, but it’s true. When you believe in the product you’re promoting, it’s be so much easier to sell and you’ll make much more money in the process.

Critical Mistake #6: Promoting Too Many Products

Have you ever been to a web page or blog where there are dozens of flashy banners and affiliate links? It’s scary, I know. That type of “shotgun” approach is another huge mistake that most affiliates make.

But it’s not their fault…they’ve been fed the wrong information by “me-too” marketers who don’t know what the heck their talking about. And it’s not their fault either. They just regurgitate information that they were fed by someone else!

Let’s set the record straight…More is not better! And the sooner you realize that, the sooner your income will start to grow.

Focus on one product at a time. Learn everything about it and develop unique marketing materials to promote it. Create a free report, set up a squeeze page, and add multiple followups to your autoresponder. Once you have consistent sales, then you can repeat the process with another product.

Critical Mistake #7: Only Promoting Front End Products

The most expensive cost of any business is the acquisition of a customer. And even if you’re promoting as an affiliate, it still costs you time and money to get people to buy.

If you just focus on front-end sales, you’re missing out on the life-time value of your customers. You need to focus on converting front-end customers into life-long buyers and make more money on the back end. And if your market doesn’t have a back end, then you’re in the wrong market.

You also want to make sure that your front-end product has massive value, because customers are more likely to buy additional products in the same niche if they had a pleasant experience with the initial sale.

Critical Mistake #8: Trying to “Sell” Your Prospects

Have you ever been in a store and you know exactly what you want, but you can’t find anyone to sell it to you? It’s very frustrating. On the other hand, it’s annoying when you walk into a store just to browse and you’re hounded by relentless salespeople!

The only time I like to be sold is when I’ve already made the decision to buy. I’m sure you feel the same way. You want to make an informed decision and not be rushed into a purchase.

Your job as an affiliate is to be a trusted advisor because people buy from people they trust. And if you only promote high-quality products that over deliver, then your subscribers will look forward to your next promotion.

That doesn’t mean you have to wait weeks to promote anything to your subscribers. In fact, you should promote your front-end product right away. It does mean that you should give first and sell second.

Give your subscribers valuable content to that’s good enough to sell. And don’t ask for anything in return. Then give them a special offer that they’d have a hard time turning down. You’ll be amazed at the results!

Critical Mistake #9: Believing in the Easy Button

I’ve always been told that the word “work” is a “four letter word” when it comes to writing sales copy, and that it should be avoided at all cost. The reason is because most people truly want to believe that there is an “easy button” somewhere that they can just push and money will come flying out of there computer.

Does this sound familiar? “Make money online without a website or a product working just 15 minutes a day in your pajamas!”

The sooner you acknowledge that the “easy button” doesn’t exist the faster your business will grow. Once you accept that you have to build a real business to make money online, you’ll see more success that 95% of all affiliates.

As long as you believe or even think that there might be an easy button out there somewhere, you won’t invest in yourself and you won’t have the drive or determination to build a real online business.

I don’t mean to scare you, but it will take some work. But compared with starting an offline business or getting a college degree, this is easy and you can get started with just $100 or less!

Critical Mistake #10: Not Believing in Yourself

Have you ever tried to explain what you’re trying to do online to a friend? Did your friend think you were crazy and tell you not to quit your day job?

That’s the same reaction I got when I first started and I know it’s not easy to stay motivated and committed when people are telling you that you’ll never make any money at this and you’re wasting your time.

Here’s the cold hard truth…

If you don’t believe in what you do, then no one else will believe you either. And if you don’t believe in the products you promote, then no one will buy from you.

If you’ve tried and failed, you can’t put the blame on anyone else. You and you alone are responsible for your success and your failures.

Stop looking for excuses and accept your results. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Make the decision to succeed and keep taking action until you reach your goal.

If you believe in yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish, you’ll open a new door that leads to an abundance of wealth.

I hope this article inspires you to make some big changes in your marketing that will help you prosper in 2010!

All the best,

Derrick VanDyke

Click here for more affiliate marketing strategies.

=> http://instantlistbuildingsystem.com

Here’s what you get:

• My step-by-step system for adding 100 leads or more to your list every single day
• Branding rights to this report – add your own affiliate links and make money by giving the report away
• My high-converting squeeze page with professional graphics and audio
• My step-by-step guide for setting up your own lead-generating Instant Listbuilding Squeeze Page System!

=> http://instantlistbuildingsystem.com

This may be sold for $47 very soon, so grab this it you can…

All the best!

Derrick

)

If you just send your prospects to an affiliate page – then the person who’s selling the product ends up getting all those leads – and gets to sell other products to them – and they’re lost to you forever.  So what you want to do is create your own list so you can continuously make money – day after day, month after month.

The purpose of your squeeze page is to promote your free report, audio, or video – and to collect the visitor’s name and email address.  It’s called a squeeze page because the visitor can only take one course of action – give you their name and email.

Your biggest challenge is to make your offer unique and irresistible. Here are three tips to make your lead magnet stand out from the crowd and get more subscribers…

Tip #1: Be Unique

A few years ago, offering someone a free report for signing up at your squeeze page was brand new and worked like gangbusters.  Then everybody jumped on the bandwagon and as it became a regular “offer” it started losing its effectiveness.  Then audio files were hot.  These days it’s videos.  Who knows what it will be tomorrow?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t offer free e-books, audio files or videos – they’re still effective methods for encouraging people to sign up for your newsletter or other offer.  What I am telling you is that whatever your offer is, you need to position it so that it’s different from the rest of your competitors.  Otherwise, you’re going to look like everyone else, and your prospects are going to pass you right by.

Tip #2: Offer REAL Value

Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to make money online. But you need to offer good incentives to your prospects to encourage them to subscribe to your list.  You need to give away high-quality content such as software, online videos, access to exclusive services and other freebies that are perceived as helpful and valuable to your prospects.

Tip #3: Use a Simple Design

My best-converting squeeze pages are super basic with no graphics. You just need a headline, a few bullet points and a call to action. Don’t over complicate things with too many graphics or long copy. If you split-test your pages, you’ll find that short copy with a great offer will win every time.

I hope you take this advice to heart and start building a list that will make you money for years to come. Any time you need cash, just take a few minutes to craft an email and then click the “Send” button. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can have money in your bank almost on demand!

Leave a comment below if you liked this post!

Derrick

1. How long have you been online?
2. How much money have you made?
3. Have you ever bought a program that promised traffic and/or money at the push of a button?

If you haven’t, you’re in the minority. Either you’re smarter than most or you haven’t been online very long.

It seems like there’s a new product launch every day and everyone’s got the latest, greatest gizmo that magically creates instant financial freedom.

But before you waste your time again, ask yourself this question, “If it’s soooo great, why the heck are they selling it?”

I’ll tell you why…

Because there’s more money to be made selling products than actually using them (even if they do work).

So if you’ve been trying to make money online and you’re not exactly where you want to be (or even close), here’s what you need to do…

First, stop looking for a “magic bullet.” Short of winning the lottery, it doesn’t exist. Just like everything else in life, hard work and determination pay off in the long run.

Second, understand that this is a real business and you need to learn how to run it. You need to learn how to manage your own website, generate consistent traffic, use an autoresponder, and deal with bookkeeping and taxes.

Third, set up a lead generation system. You can create your own lead magnet or borrow one from somebody else. But you need a way to generate consistent leads.

Fourth, focus on building a list of buyers. It doesn’t matter how big your list is if nobody buys anything. People buy from people they know, like, and trust. So make sure you only promote products that you’ve actually used and can stand behind 100%.

Fifth, do as they do, not as the say. Marketers tell you what you want to hear and then they sell it to you. Don’t you wish there were an easy way to make money? Of course you do… and marketers prey on anyone who actually believes that.

Don’t be a victim.

Stop buying stuff and start selling! The product owner is the one with ALL the leverage…

When you have your own product:

• You control the sales process
• You can get other people to send the traffic
• You can get other people to build your list
• You get all the buyer leads
• You make a LOT more money

And you don’t need a ClickBank best seller. You can buy rights to a product and set it up in a day. Selling your own product gives you leverage to get affiliates to promote and set up joint ventures with other product owners.

Even if you give away 100% of your sales to affiliates, you can still make a ton of money. Here’s why…

Let’s say you set up an offer for $7 and pay affiliates 100% instant commissions. You can install an exit opt-in page with a tempting free offer to capture leads. And you can create a customer registration page to collect the buyer leads after the sale.

Affiliates send you traffic and build your list for free. And you can funnel those leads into a continuity program as an affiliate to build a residual income.

That’s just one business model that ANYONE can use to make money online and you don’t have to be a genius to set it up. In fact, you can get someone else to do the tech stuff… IF you know how it works.

Let me rephrase that…

If you fully understand the business model, you can pay someone $20 – $30 to set it up for you. But you have to know how to explain what you want.

Now regarding my original three questions…

If you had set up the business model that I just described when you first started out online instead of looking for a “magic bullet” and buying gizmos that don’t work, how much money do you think you’d be making right now?

Read that question again and then post your answer below…

Thanks,

Derrick