There’s no doubt you have a powerful message to get out to the world. You have great ideas spurring all the time even. But are you strategically positioning yourself to gain faster success and make more income?
Brendon Burchard is right when he says people are uncomfortable talking about making money – especially off of their message. They WANT to do it and NEED to do it, but they’re uncomfortable talking about it. I am too, but it’s natural and necessary. We need to put income in our pockets to sustain the message.
One way to “make money more quickly” online is with promotional partners. This can be an affiliate who registers to sell your product for a commission. A promotional partner can also be someone you joint venture with where you combine forces to sell a product or service – anyone that has an audience, that aligns with your message, that can help promote you. Collaboration is KEY and there are a few things you need to be educated about to make the most out of gaining these promo partners.
I’m laying out these insights below under the assumption that you are to do one of two things:
- You have a product you want others to sell and once it’s ready, you’ll ask people to support you. (affiliate)
- You have an IDEA for a product and you are going to invite someone to partner with you to make it a success. (JV partner, joint venture partner)
Insight #1 about Promotional Partners: Make the Product (or Idea) Count
You can’t just create a product in a day and expect people with big email lists to want to promote it. I know that I will only ever tell my audience about something that I truly believe in and know would make a positive impact. Spend the time to make the product the best you can – insane value and professionally packaged. If you want to collaborate and build a product with a partner instead, then do your research and flush out your ideas first, THEN approach your desired JV partner. Show your promotional partners how badly you want this, and how much you deserve their help.
Insight #2 about Promotional Partners: Your Message must Align with Theirs
If my whole business is about generating income off of Google AdWords and you are offering meditation CDs, we are not in alignment with each other’s messages. You could approach me because I have a loyal and big email list to promote to, but I still wouldn’t promote you because your CDs don’t align with my message. It’s important to connect with industry leaders that can relate to what you are promoting. It must align naturally with their products and services and message.
Insight #3 about Promotional Partners: How to Ask?
This is the biggest question I get and the answer is mostly, “Just Ask!” … but there’s a touch more to it. First, know this will be a numbers game like anything else. You can’t target one person to help and if they say no, you give up. Make a list of 50 people that might align with your message and product (idea). Then do your due diligence and see the way they speak to their audience; what are their key points, how do they ask for the order with their audience (soft, hard, etc.), and so on. Then use that information to your benefit and create a strategy around it. Email the potential promo partner and follow this type of sequence:
- Compliment them and let them know why you are excited about what they’re doing
- Explain that the more you read and researched them, the more you felt in alignment with their message
- Briefly explain who you are and what your message is
- Unveil your product or product idea
- Ask for the order in a way that is mutually beneficial: “I think that if we work together we can get our message out there in a bigger way and help more people. Can we set up a time to discuss my ideas?”
The whole email should NOT be long. You’ll have to work on refining your message so it’s short, concise and to the point (not in a pitchy way but in a super genuine, want-to-help-the-world way).
Insight #4 about Promotional Partners: How Much Is Too Much?
We are all extremely busy. When you look at the people you target, expect them to be 2-5 times busier than you. They have been building their empire, they have dozens of products, and tons of people contacting them all the time. They will not be excited to do MORE work just because you need help and have a nice message. You want to make it as EASY as possible for them to help you. For example, one key to success for an Amazon Bestseller Book Campaign is to write ALL marketing materials for the promotional partners so they just have to copy/paste on the book launch date. We write multiple emails, dozens of Facebook posts and Twitter tweets, etc. We want to make it super easy for people to share our message and then our chances for success increase!
Promotional partners ARE the way to do business this year. I’m telling you… Promo partners and guest blogging (more to come later) should be a constant priority for you. Above Facebook – above it all. This is the way to MUCH faster results.
Your Challenge:
Start today by doing 1-hour of research online. Open an Excel spreadsheet and start keeping a record of interesting websites that could be potential avenues for you. Look at how often the website owner is blogging, how active are they on social networks, if they’re consistently building their business, whether they have great testimonials, etc. Just keep making a record of all the websites that are in alignment with you and look to be doing things right. Then the next time you can carve out an hour (ahem, make this a priority) you can go back into each site and study the website owner even further to carve out their message and see what their interests are. You’ll basically just keep building your case until you’re ready to take action and ask for the order.
Today is the day though… it’s time to take action!
