A Few Words on Affiliate Team Building

 by: Robert Thompson

It might have been Vince Lombardi or some other famous coach who said, "There is no I in team." ( I was too lazy to look up the source of the quote;) I think that this is as true in business as it is in sports. Especially in a business like ours, where we recruit many affiliates who are new to the internet, new to business, new to computers....... You get the idea. And yet due to the nature of what we do, we must rely heavily on these new folks, or our stay at home jobs will definitely fail.

As a result of this, we must all reach out to our new affiliates and work with them to become successful. I have always loved business in general, and when I learned how to make a sale or earn a profit, I guarded what I had learned and kept it as a closely held secret. In the affiliate marketing business, that type of mindset is a deadly mistake.

Remember, that we rely on our downline affiliates for our income in many ways. When one of our affiliates makes a purchase, we earn a commission. If you are the Team Leader, you also earn a small commission on the same purchase. So, if an affiliate never earns a commission, how long do you think they will remain in the game? They will get discouraged and quit!

We learn things from our leaders about how to make a sale, how to generate traffic to our gateways, how to build a successful stay at home jobsite, etc. Unless we share what we have learned with those who rely on us, how will they ever succeed? Why would they be motivated to remain active or to make a purchase or sale?

Give your knowledge freely to your affiliates, and they will strive to emulate you in many ways. You may be modest, and feel unworthy of this emulation, but you are worthy! When you share your knowledge, your affiliates will not only become more active, they will become your friends and colleagues.

This concept of sharing knowledge is contagious. It wont take very long for you to begin reaping the benefits in the form of increased participation within the team and larger commission checks for everyone involved.

Here are a few of the areas that you should concentrate on. They apply equally regardless of the affiliate program that you are trying to promote.

1. Communicate Effectively

All written communications should be short and concise. Once you learn how to write an effective sales or followup letter that gets results, share your findings with your team mates.

2. Organization

With the massive amount of Email that we receive, it is important to learn how to keep things organized. A lost message can easily cost you a sale, and it is the same with your affiliates. Once you have an efficient filing system in place, pass it along to your team mates.

3. Motivation

In my stay at home job, I offer several rewards to stir interest and promote activity on my team. This is something that I learned from my team leader, and it is one of the things that pushed my business into the profit mode. I teach this technique to any affiiate who wants to learn. Free Ebooks and newsletters are a terrific way to reward someone. I also help them to build their downline directly, by assigning prospects to them when they take a positive action. This keeps them interested, and helps to stabilize their income a bit.

4. Marketing Strategy

Many new affiliates jump into the stay at home job market without any knowledge of what it takes to build a business. At one time, I was in the same boat, and it was very discouraging. My Team Leader was extremely generous with his knowledge and experience, and taught me how to build a Website, how to exchange links, how to publish an article and a mountain of other things that I had no knowledge of when I started. I do the same things for my team mates.

If they decide that they want to use a different strategy than me, I support them in that, as well. That means that I had to get a quick education on other methods of marketing so that I could steer them in the right direction.

There many other facets of my business that I share with my team mates. I always hated the "I've got a secret" mindset that I ran into in the business world. By avoiding that mindset, and actually doing the exact opposite, I have been able to build a successful stay at home job, and help a lot of new friends to do the same thing.

By Robert Thompson (c) Oct. 2004