Internet marketing is not just measured in the amount of made, but sometimes it is about reaching people, generating leads, or building a list of followers.  In the last year I have done all of these things, not just for myself but others as well.  Affiliate marketing is easy to get started with and promotion of products and services are a nice way to make some money while you are at it.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you will get rich over night or make a zillion dollars in the next 30 days.  It is not impossible, but for most of us it is improbable.  I want to offer you some help getting started.  It is an easy affiliate market guide.  It is very basic but that is what most of us need, basics.  I want you to go over to my affiliate marketing site or my blog and sign up to get you free copy.

You will also find some other tools, tips, and even some free software.  Shorten your leaning curve and take advantage of the stuff I have over there.  Sure I have a lot of it branded as I am in business, but you too will find out how to get your own plans to make money online and help relieve the hurt this economy has put on us all.

Get over to

www.easyaffiliatemarket.info for your free guide or easyaffiliatemarketinfo.blogspot.com/

to get your free guide and some great free tools and stuff to get you started to internet sales sucess.

Michael Mock

Online Business Ninja

1. Use a day planner. At one time these books were used only by the big CEO’s, or the school academic nut. Not any more today! Look around for a bit before selecting one you like best. Make sure it suits your every need. You will find day planners in all materials and sizes. A day planner will help you effectively lay out your day on paper, so you know where you are going and what you are doing. These days even most cell phones have calendar and alarm features to help you track appointments and meetings with alerts.

2. Use a family calendar. This way, everyone in the family knows what everyone else is up to and when. You can plan much better this way. Consider buying those dry-erase boards available in most office stores I suggest a big desk calendar.  Mom can put her important meetings on there, dad can put his travel schedule, and the kids can put their after-school events on it. Put it up in a convenient location, which might be the refrigerator or somewhere in a high-traffic area.  My kids are old enough for on-line use so we use Google calendar and set it on our home page.

3. Learn to just say “no.” You are only one person, and you cannot do it all! Employ your stress management techniques by saying “no” occasionally when you are asked to do things that are of little priority to you.  Remember some of the most important note we make are in the margins of book.  Our lives too should have margin.

4. Take time to enjoy yourself. What makes you the happiest? Playing an instrument? Going out to the park? Indulging at the mall? Attending sports or movies? Take a minute or two and think of what you love to do most and then plan to do it!  Schedule some “me time” in that great new planner you have bought and treat it like an appointment with yourself! Although doing something such as mowing the lawn may sound like a bit of a chore, if you find it relaxing, pencil it in. Everything has a time of its own so make time for yourself.

5. Take time to do a good clean up. When was the last time you organized that junk drawer, or sorted through your workspace? Is it time to catch up? At the same time buy some new hooks and organize your keys. When you walk in the door, they should be placed right there ready for next time. Chances are, you might be spending valuable time getting frustrated over missing items. Make sure everything is located easily with a place for everything. That way, you will know where to look next time. Maybe it is time to invest in some organizers or a new storage solution. They sure are worth while when you find your life just that much more organized. Sure beats searching around for hours to find your keys!

6. Establish a consistent routine. Keep writing in your planner daily and keep scheduling time for yourself. Throw in the occasional “no” and get into a consistent routine. Stick with your new routine and you will find you will be happier and with less stress.

You can create an ordered life. Life really does not have to be a mess. Taking a few steps to ensure that it is not and you will have time for the things that really matter to you most. You will have all the time you want for family, friends, work and more, and best of all, you will be sane. I think that is the number one benefit to being better organized is being sane!

I just finished Seth ‘s book, “All Marketers are Liars”. and I would encourage anyone, if you are in business or not to pick a up a copy.  That being said, think about your business for a moment.  What lies do you tell to your clients.  I mean the whoppers we put out there every day.  “The suppliers messed up.”, aka we didn’t order enough, or “He/she is new.” aka we tossed a warm body at the project,  or my favorite when going to a restaurant, “We had several people call off.” aka I am not properly staffed.  We as the customer buy this line many times.  We chose to take the story that pulls on our empathy and swallow the hook bait and all.

How about the flip side, what lies to we tell ourselves about our business?   How about, “We aren’t big enough to compete with that big firm uptown” aka we’re afraid, or “We can handle all of this work on our own.” aka we are greedy, and then I have even seen this on used, “The client will understand, they are in business too.” aka we goofed.  We tell ourselves this is the rational for whatever reason and pretty much shoot ourselves in the foot and act like it doesn’t hurt.

We all make up stories and that is not bad.  Don’t you like stories, I know I do.  The trouble comes about when we get caught up in the story and forget what we were attempting to accomplish in the first place.  We start making grand embellishments that cause us to damage our own credibility.  My friend Benny used to say, ” Be careful not to allow our alligator mouths to over hang our hummingbird rear ends.”

In actuality we do all lie and we do all buy.  At the end of day we base most of our opinion on the views of those around us and the things that we chose to believe in.  Perspective is always a matter of where you are stand, is something I tell my children.  From where I stand I see and believe things to be a certain way, and changing my perspective means moving me past my current position to where you are or desire me to be.

Consumers are all driven by emotion not logic when purchasing anything.  We buy the dust cover of the book based on color, graphics, and clever banter.  We buy the motivational story that makes us feel we can achieve it all.  In the mid 1980′s Air Force fighter pilot recruitment increased dramatically with the release of the film “Top Gun”.  All of us not already in the service all want to be Naval aviators.  We loved the story and bought into the after buring sensation of   traveling at Mach 2 with our hair on fire.

Apologies to Seth Godin for pinning the “Calling me a Liar” rap on him, but a big thanks to him as well for pointing out that in the world of business it is important to tell good stories, and that hands down the best story always wins.  We will buy, believe, and even support the things that move us by the stories we are told.  Just remember to be honest with your lies, fibs are ok, and a little slight of hand entertains millions.

Michael Mock

Online Business Ninja

It’s not that bad reviews and negative discussions are the norm, as a matter of fact a recent survey shows that six times as many small to medium businesses find reviews impact their business positively (24%) as negatively (4%) — some 31% aren’t sure of the impact.

Recent Nielsen research indicates that 70% of consumers trust reviews posted online.  This statistic is slightly above recommendations from people they actually know.

At some point in every relationship things can “go south”. Maybe your company messed up an order, or maybe situations or factors beyond your control happened, like weather or system failure. Or maybe someone just had a bad day and you were the best target at the time.

No matter what got you to this point in your use of social media here are some suggestions for damage control.

1. Listen. In yesterdays post I offered you some great free tools for monitoring and listening to your customers and potential clients about you and your brand.  Think of it as the Distant Early Warning System of the Cold War era, where the US and Canada kept constant watch over the sky for missile strikes and enemy planes.

2. Converse. Engage in the conversation.  This can give you the upper hand in gaining control of the flow of discussion.  It also shows the unhappy customer you are willing to accept their criticism and are willing to work to resolve the issue.

3. React Quickly. In tandem with participating in the conversation, actually fixing problems is the key happy clients. And remember, while solving a problem in a phone call creates one happy clientr, solving a problem on social media can spread good feelings to thousands of followers or fans.

4. Stay Engaged. Even if you cannot provide a solution at that very moment, it’s important not to sweep things under the rug. Keep people informed that you are working on the problem.

5. Recruit Some Cheerleaders. Involve employees and others who are supportive and positive about you and your brand to be part of the conversation. Positive input and statements can help balance any negativity. Just be clear that everyone is honest about their identities and affiliations.

6. Be Prepared To Go Beyond Social Media. If things get really ugly, it may be necessary to find another way to tell your side of the story to more traditional forms of media such ad radio, television, and print. An online presence in the form of a web site stating the facts may be a good idea.

7. Be Crystal Clear About the Resolution. Don’t think you can acknowledge the issues and say you are sorry and that is the end of it.  You may need to follow up and reassure people of exactly when and how the problem will be resolved.

8. Have A Point of Contact. Even if your company doesn’t have a social media marketer, you need an articulate empowered representative to speak for the company, and prepared to respond to any public relations issues that crop up in social media.  As well as a policy of how your associates and employees refer issues and questions to the proper places.

Even with all of these things in place there is no way to know for certain you will be able to overcome critics and issues that crop up with the use of social media, keep this in mind; most of the time the positive effects of social media far outweigh negatives.

Michael Mock

Online Business Ninja

As of late I and many others have witnessed poor judgment folks are using online.  Everything from that guy on Facebook who answered the personal ad that was a posed by his wife; to the girl at the pet shop in Ohio who thought it was ok to post pictures of rabbits she drowned.  In both cases people, places, and business were harmed.  Social media is a potent mix of fun, pleasure, chaos, destruction and in even more extreme cases death.

The internet is a big place and it has even been likened to the Wild West.  It is vast, unsettled, and even filled with robbers along the way.  The fast news travels and the volumes being created makes it increasingly difficult to keep track of your good name, the image of your brand, even the conversation people are having about you.

So in todays Online Business Ninja post I want to offer some FREE tools to help you keep sharpen your listening skills online.

1. Google Alerts Google Alerts is one tool I use every day.   You select keywords that are important to your brand, organization, even your own name and receive periodic or batched reports…. I use this daily to find out the latest buzz on a topic or brand

2. Technorati Self proclaimed as  “the leading blog search engine,” Technorati has been helping bloggers and those “in the know about blogged topics” stay informed for many years.

3. Jodange Watching your brand or a product is one thing, but turning that tracking into a measure of consumer thoughts about your brand or product is something totally different. A great tool for that might just be Jodange.  It has TOM (Top of Mind), which tracks consumer feelings about your brand or product across the World Wide Web.

4. Trendrr Want to know how your brand or product is stacking up compared with others? Trendrr uses comparison graphing to show a “you vs. them” and discover trends in real time. Use the free account, or for a few dollars step up to the Enterprise level for more functionality.

5. Lexicon What are people saying on Facebook? Lexicon searches Facebook walls for keywords and provides a snapshot of the activity around those terms.

6. Monitter everyone is talking about Twitter, but what are people sayingt on Twitter? Beyond the built in  search of Twitter applications like Twhirl and TweetDeck, Monitter provides real-time monitoring of the Twittersphere.

7. Tweetburner In the world of Twitter, URL shortening is like the Zip tool for effectively pointing the the public to web sites. Tweetburner  lets you track the clicks of those magically shortened links, giving you some hard numbers.

8. Twendz Waggener Edstrom, a public relations company, recently launched its Twitter-monitoring tool, Twendz. The tool dovetails with Twitter Search to monitor and provide user comments and feelings for the real-time Twitterstream—70 tweets at a time.

9. Yahoo Pipes If oyu want to create a custom solution you don’t have to be a developer in order to make a buzz monitoring tool. Thanks to Yahoo Pipes, you can set up your own RSS tracking, complete with filters. Want to track Twitter for mentions of your company or brand? Not a problem with Yahoo Pipes.

10.  Co.mments.com Sometimes tracking a blog post doesn’t get you the  full conversation about your business. The blog post might be positive, but those leaving comments could be tossing dirt on you and your reputation. Services such as Co.mments.com track the comments left on blogs. You can search for your brand and subscribe to the RSS feed for instant updates.

Some tools for your ninja arsenal.  Learning any new skill takes time, but mastering them will pay lifetimes of benefit.

Michael Mock

Online Business Ninja