How to turn MLM on its Head for Better Affiliate Sales

"You must use the Products"

In my multi-level-networking days long before mlm came to the Internet, all the networking programs urged distributors to “Use the Products”.

Seemed to make sense at the time. How could anyone recommend or promote to others a product they didn’t use themselves?

“Please buy this terrific product. I don’t use it myself but it’s really great – you try it”.

Wouldn’t work would it? And it didn’t - so networkers were urged and urged by their upline to ‘buy their own products’.

Some networkers didn’t like the products, but they liked the compensation plan. So they bought the products anyway and just stored them. Hence the joke about networkers having huge garages – they needed them to store all the products they ‘had’ to buy’!

Another reason they ‘bought the products’ was to increase the group turnover. All commissions depend upon product sales – no sales- no commission. Only it was always the sponsors who got the commission – always the sponsors telling their downline to “Use the Products”.

It went like this:

Commission Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales

People liked to make the commission so they bought the products in order to be able to recommend them and to make the commission for their upline.

To quote one well known *Big A Diamond* “Who cares how much the products cost – if they cost twice as much I’d make twice as much money”.

Many people felt they were buying unwanted products at inflated prices – just to keep the network alive. Have you ever been in this situation?

Well to me this all sounds a bit like legitimizing the old Pyramid selling schemes, where people had to buy stock to ‘sell-on’.

Of course, many bought the stock but couldn’t sell it. Hence network marketing became tarred with the same poor image as Pyramid schemes. And it’s hard to shake it off.

Unfortunately on the Internet, there are a great deal of ‘money schemes’ which are basically networking schemes without products – chain letters – and pseudo-networks which have pseudo products, ‘informational’ products sold at huge mark-ups.

So people are very wary of joining even ‘legitimate’ Networking programs and everyone loses out on what is basically a very good idea.

Turning things around

But suppose this Commission Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales cycle could be turned on its head.

Well now it has. With this website.

This website was built from the outset to provide a real website to people who found it difficult to overcome the technical challenges themselves.

Having built the site and started to promote it the thought came – why not also offer the tools used to build the site in the first place. After all, if anyone needed the same kind of tool, then I had done all the hard work for them finding the best there was.

So the products come first!

Instead of :

Commission Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales

It's now:

Products -> Recommendation -> Sales -> Commission Plan

Products sought out to fill a need

These products, as I said, are the very ones I used to build and run the site. They are the best I could find at the time, at a price I was prepared to pay.

They are products sought out to fill a need, not products sought out with the best profit margin!

They include everything from website building – hosting – marketing - advertising – site automation.

Every product on this site is one I have actually sought out because that is the tool I needed at the time. The best tool for the job. I did not select these products on the basis of any commission plan.

They are all products I swear by. I won’t go through all the products here because this is not a ‘sales pitch’ but I would like to mention a couple just to illustrate my point.

Example Product 1

Take MailLoop for example, a really stunning product:

This handles all my email automatically. I have only scratched the surface of its features, but here is what it does for me:

But the point is - I sought it out. I went on the hunt looking for email automation software. I looked at all the other well know products and in the end settled on MailLoop. It does what I want very well indeed and I recommend it to everyone who wants a serious online business.

Oh! Do I get a commission by recommending it? Yes, but that is not why I bought it and that is NOT why I am recommending it. I recommend it on the basis of being the best tool for the job at the price I want to pay.

Now can you see?

Can you now begin to understand why The Affiliate Website Company turns the old mlm model on its head?

Instead of :

Commission Plan -> Products -> Recommendation & Sales

It's now:

Products -> Recommendation -> Sales ->Commission Plan

The same applies to theaffiliatewebsite.com website itself. I built it to help people who wanted a website but were put-off by the time and technology involved.

I did not start out with the thought ‘how can I make a ton of money selling websites’.

My goal was to make a website that people could own and use to build their own business.

Example Product 2

So I recommend that people buy the product, the theaffiliatewebsite.com website, because it is the best product for its purpose.

And I believe it is the best. In fact it is unique.

There is not another website out there like it.

Let me prove it to you. (Then I will get back to turning mlm on its head!)

You can buy, or obtain ‘free’ a website from many places on the Internet. I’ll even tell you where to get them! But just for now, believe me when I tell you where these other sites fall down:

In fact, this product was developed for that very reason, because there was nothing suitable available! I developed the website to suit my own requirements, also mindful that it would suit other people's needs also.

So what better recommendation is there? I am not recommending it because it makes great Affiliate profits for me, but because it is a product I had to develop to fulfill a need and it is a product that I know people want - because they just keep buying it.

Example Product 3

AdMinder is an ad and sales tracking product.

I am now tracking all my ads using AdMinder. This is essential to anyone who wants to know which ads perform. Its throwing money and opportunity away if you don't track your ads.

I used to use Roibot. That's not bad, but near the end of last year they accidentally deleted my records, so I discontinued. That was a once-off server problem, so I have no problem recommending ROIbot, its just that AdMinder is more sophisticated. 

It tracks ads and sales. AdMinder is just a single program, ROIbot is bundled with other useful stuff. You can get a 1$ trial with ROIbot, so if you are placing ads there is no excuse for not tracking them. All the info on ad tracking and ROIbot is on your site.

But AdMinder not only tracks ads, it tracks sales also. On the control panel you will see the performance of each ad in terms of clicks and also you will see the number of sales each ad has made.

It also calculates all the metrics, such cost per click, cost per sale and so on. Truly an awesome piece of software that anyone who takes online marketing seriously cannot be without.

Without doubt, I would not be without it.

A true endorsement.