Okay, so you’ve got a lot of affiliates signing up to sell your products. How can you make it easy for them to succeed? The fact is that if you don’t do your part in assisting them, they probably won’t do much at all. You have to equip your affiliates with the tools necessary for them to be successful. Here’s what I do and how you can learn from what I’ve done.

The first thing you need to do is give them sample ads. I like to give my affiliates three different ad formats. I give them a

• a four-line classified ad,
• a five-line classified ad and
• a ten-line classified ad.
• solo email ad
• and I give them an article they can use immediately

The second thing that you should do is provide your affiliates with Google AdWords examples. To give you an example, a few months ago I called my affiliate manager Stu McLaren and told him what I wanted.

I wanted pre-written AdWords for every single one of my products. I explained that I wanted two to four AdWords ads for each and every one of my products. What that means is that he has to write like 80 AdWords ads. AdWords are great because people can advertise via pay-per-click, and they can use them not only for AdWords but they can use them for any pay-per-click search engine that exists out there in the marketplace.

The third thing I supply them are banner ads. Go through and make a list of the various banner ads for each one of your products. Don’t just give them one banner for each product, give them a whole slew of banners. I give people about six different sizes of banners for each one of my products.

• 125×125
• 120×600
• 468×60
• 120×60

The next thing to help with affiliate successs is blog posts, blog reviews or whatever they can post to their blog about your product. Giving affiliates pre-written blog posts allows them to manage their own blogs, as well. If you just did that one tactic alone, that’s more than enough to give your affiliates a way to get started on the right track.

These are the various things you want to do to become successful with our affiliate program. Let them know you are not just looking for a one time promotion. This is an on-going promotion. Marketing your product is something they should do all the time, because your products don’t just sell today, they sell every day. Explain the process of using the tools you gave them in a very step-by-step format. That way they will understand how they can be most effective in selling your products.

Every Monday, my Affiliate Manager, Stu McLaren holds FREE training calls for all of my affiliates. You can jump on these calls absolutely free if you are part of my affiliate program.

You want your affiliates to be active and successful. The more products they sell, the more money you will make. You can bet on one thing for sure, if you don’t give your affiliates the tools to work with and the explanation on how to use those tools, chances are they won’t do much on their own. So, spend a little time to equip your affiliates with both the tools they need and the knowledge of how to use them effectively.

In 30 days from today, on October 5th, 6th and 7th, hundreds of people from all over the world will gather in Atlanta, Georgia for the premier Internet Marketing Seminar in the world, the BigSeminar. One of our featured speakers this is year is the legendary Jay Abraham.

The World’s Highest Paid Marketing Consultant Finally Reveals His Lifetime of Joint-Venture and Business Growth Secrets Anyone Can Use to Create a Windfall of Profits LIVE at the BigSeminar. Even if you have no money, no product, and no list!

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Many people ask me how they can write better copy for their sales letters. One of the first things that always come to mind is to be more descriptive. Now, I don’t necessarily mean that you need to do a better job describing your product. What I mean is you should try to paint a picture for your reader so they can visualize what their experience with your product or service is going to be like.

As I write this, I’ve got a newspaper ad in front of me. I have actually saved it as an example of great descriptive copy. It is out of USA Today from September, 2003. I was at a hotel speaking somewhere when I saw this ad for tempurpedic mattresses.

It has Dick Clark and his wife pictured in this ad, and it says,

“Ask Carrie and Dick Clark, they’ll tell you that tempurpedic’s high tech, weightless comfort bed provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.

The kind of re-energizing sleep all of us took for granted when we were very young. Tempurpedic’s amazing tempur sleep service uncannily molds itself to your every curve. Its visco-elastic thermal plasticity reacts selectively to your body shape, body weight, body heat and it actually defies gravity and neutralizes pressure points.

Our sleep technology is light years ahead of any other mattress manufacturer. The media gives us rave reviews and well over 25,000 medical professionals worldwide recommend our legendary weightless comfort bed to their patients. No wonder why more than nine out of ten enthusiastic owners also recommend tempurpedic to their family and friends.

One toll-free call brings you our free demonstration kit. It contains an actual lab sample of tempur-pressure relieving material, a better sleep video, a consumer guide book and low factory-direct prices.”

That’s the entire ad. I have saved it for years because of how well crafted this short message is. Where it says, “ask Carrie and Dick Clark, they’ll tell you that tempurpedic’s high tech, weightless comfort bed provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.” Notice how they describe the bed. They don’t just say their fantastic or amazing bed, but instead, “their high tech, weightless comfort bed provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.”

In reality, they’re just talking about a bed and that you’ll get a great night’s sleep in. If they had just told you that tempurpedic’s amazing bed allows you to have a deep sleep, it wouldn’t have the same impact as “a high tech, weightless comfort bed that provides remarkably relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.”

In fact, they go on to further describe sleep by saying, “the kind of re-energizing sleep all of us took for granted when we were very young.” In the next paragraph, they said, tempurpedic’s amazing tempur-sleep surface uncannily molds itself to your every curve.”

How about the words, “sleep surface uncannily.” I know what the word uncannily means, but I don’t see very many people use it. “It uncannily molds itself to your every curve.” What they’re doing is painting this visual that’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. They are talking about a mattress, but they never say it. Instead, they say, “the amazing tempur-sleep surface.”

Then they use these big words, “visco-elastic thermal plasticity reacts selectively to your body shape, body weight and body heat.” I don’t know what that means, but it sounds pretty impressive when you’re reading. We can pretty much gather just by breaking down the words what it actually means — it’s a sponge for the most part.

“It actually defies gravity.” Not that, “when you put your hand down in it, it bounces back to its original form.” No. “It actually defies gravity and neutralizes your pressure points. Our sleep technology is light years ahead of any other mattress manufacturer. The media gives us rave reviews.”

Numbers help sell because it makes the ad more believable. In fact, I would have been more specific. It’s the only thing I would have changed in the entire ad. “Well over 25,000 medical professionals,” I would have said, “25,319 medical professionals worldwide recommend our legendary weightless comfort bed to their patients.” Again, a perfect use of the word legendary. “No wonder more than nine out of ten enthusiastic,” not just owners, but “enthusiastic owners also recommend tempurpedic to their family and friends.”

“One toll-free call brings you our free demonstration kit, which contains an actual lab sample.” Not just a sample, but “an actual lab sample.” Why did they go to extent of describing the sample? It’s because an actual lab sample sounds more official.

Why did I pull this ad out? It was not only to share it with you because I think it’s a fantastic and brilliant ad, but more so, it demonstrates one of the things that people are usually too lazy to actually do, and that is to go out and be more descriptive in their copy.

When you are writing your next piece of sales copy, ask yourself this question. “How can I be more descriptive in what I’m writing?” The answer is not just with the simple additions of adjectives. You need to use the appropriate word at the right time. It can make a world of difference to get our point across to people. When you have what you think is your finished copy, go back over it. You need to go back over your copy and paint a picture, a visual representation for your customer to experience.

The quickest and fastest way to become an authority in your field is to write a book. It’s the common denominator and everyone I’m sure has read one at one point in their life. I’m getting ready to release my first book later on this year called “Success Leaves Traces”. In future articles I’ll elaborate on the book and the concept which I’ve taught to people all over the world.  In getting ready for this book, I did a lot of thinking on presentation. Specifically the first initial impression it will leave with the person thinking of buying it.

We have all heard the cardinal rule — don’t judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately, that is a lot of bull, because people DO judge books by their covers all the time.

It’s the same way when you see a person, I don’t care how great of a person you think you are, and how non-judgmental you feel you are, you judge people when you see them — that’s human nature. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

You judge them, and then decide whether your initial judgment was right or wrong. That’s how it works. As much as we’d like to think it’s the other way around, it’s not. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck.

Image is everything. The first image of your book that people will see, whether online, offline or wherever it is, will be the cover. Your cover must portray the rest of the book in the fashion that you want to be portrayed.

I am talking about perception. Your book’s cover has to allow the potential readers to perceive your book to be of great value. The greatest information in the world will be left sitting on the self at the bookstore if the cover fails to grab the wandering eyes of the customer.

Depending on how impressive that cover is will also determine, at least online, how much you can charge for the book. Believe it or not, the cover is going to become a big factor in how much money you are going to charge for your book. It’s also going to determine how many sales you are going to get — that’s the bottom line.

The whole point is, your book will be judged by its cover.

Here’s how I come up with my cover designs. I go to Amazon.com, but you could go to BarnesAndNoble.com or whichever online bookstore you prefer, to research book covers. Not all of us are design savvy or creative geniuses. We may know what we like, but in order to be successful, we have to know what the market likes. So, I use online bookstores to see what BEST SELLING authors, who have written books on similar topics to mine, have come out with.

I am not looking to steal cover designs, but I am looking to borrow great concepts. I am specifically looking for the types of design elements that they use to capture the market’s attention. I look at things like:

• Title and Sub-title – Look for the kinds of words used to convey their message; look for placement, fonts, size and how it relates to the rest of the design.
• Graphics – Are there specific graphics or images that are used to represent your title’s topic? How are they being used on the covers? Again, size, placement and interaction with the rest of the design are crucial.
• Author’s Name – Notice how the name of the author is displayed on the cover. Is it pretty standard, or does it vary from cover to cover? Do the authors generally use their full names, including middle initials, or do they use shortened names, such as Bill instead of William? Do they typically use pre-fixes or suffixes to show any credentials, such as Dr., MBA, PhD, etc.
• Colors – Are there certain colors that are used to represent your topic? Look at the colors they use in backgrounds, notice the color in fonts and graphics. Are there certain color combinations that are used that work well in your market.

There is nothing that creates a favorable perception like a strong, positive first impression. Since the first image of your book that the customer sees is the cover, you have to have an incredible cover designed if you want your book to be successful. Taking the time to research what others have done to be successful, and using that to spark ideas for your books’ covers will help you quickly and effectively create a cover that sells, and allow you to say, “Go ahead, judge my book by its cover!”

I’m sure you’ve all heard and have probably read the classic book Think and Grow Rich. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is on of the greatest examples of a properly formatted interview book. It is one of the bestselling books of all time. Here’s how he did it and how you can too once you understand the process.

Hill actually went the extra mile and rewrote all of his interviews. He made it sound like his own words. Throughout the copy in the book, he referenced and gave credit to whomever he was interviewing at that particular moment. He paraphrased all these other people’s words and put it down into a step-by-step logical format, and he got famous from doing it.

Most of the people in Napoleon Hill’s book are people we have never heard about. Obviously, that is not true of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie, but those are the main names you will recognize from Think and Grow Rich. He actually interviewed thousands and thousands of people who were successful during his time.

He paraphrased every one of their words. He put these interviews through his own thought process and his own opinion and weighed them out with his own experiences.

In doing this, he created an amazing book called Think and Grow Rich. It wasn’t initially called that. The original title was something like Use Your Noodle to Make Oodles. Aren’t you glad the title of the book got changed? I don’t think it would have sold as well as it has with that name. Thank goodness for editors and copywriters.

Many people since Hill’s time have tried to do something similar but never had quite the knack of doing it like he did. He had tenacity and broke it down and created his own system from other people’s information. He broke it down into 16 principles in the book. Many have read that book and made millions of dollars by following those principles.

It worked for Napoleon Hill because he DID NOT use the standard interview process which I have way too many people use. Where it’s a he asked, she answered format. Although an interview product is easier to initially create, it turns out to be harder than most people think when turning it into a quality product that will draw people in.

What you must remember is that your audience was not there for the interview. Every word the person spoke may be important but there is more to the situation than that. You will need to add information to your writing that the words spoken don’t tell. Were they rushed when they answered? Did they speak quickly? Slowly? Were they cheerful? Tired? Confused? What were the surroundings like?

If you can edit your interview to show more detail, you will have a much better finished product. Think of the research that went into Think and Grow Rich. Hill had to do an unbelievable amount of traveling to compile all the information for his book.

With all the new technology out there, doing an interview product is much easier than it was for him. It is not necessary to travel from one end of the country to the other to do interviews. You can usually hold them over the telephone then have them recorded and transcribed.

Don’t just report what was said. Tell a story. Construct your piece so that it has a logical beginning and end and a strong middle.

Napoleon Hill said, “Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” Keep this in mind when compiling an interview product or book and think about what he had to go through in order to sell the 30 million plus copies that have been sold of Think and Grow Rich. Who knows? Maybe you could be the next Napoleon Hill.

Ok, I had some time to kill today. So I found this cool site which will Simpsonize you from a regular photo. I have to say it was pretty cool. The final result is below. What do you think?

Make your own Simpson Character here: http://www.simpsonizeme.com

Many of you don’t know this, but I had an absolutely HUGE movie scene a few years ago in a movie with Robin Williams. I’ve been trying to keep it a secret, but I just felt I couldn’t live a lie any longer. So here it is! Enjoy!

Armand Morin in Patch Adams