Clickbank have a really strict payout policy that requires you to keep on actively selling products before you get any money. This really catches out new people when they are starting out and building traffic to their sites.

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Here’s a part of their policy:

Customer Distribution Requirement

ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria is met:

• Sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers; and,

• Sales made with two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal). Note: PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum 5 different credit card numbers.

Once you have met the Customer Distribution Requirement, your account will begin issuing payments normally, in accordance with our Accounting Policy, beginning on the next payment issuing date.

Dormant Accounts

Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for an extended period of time are considered dormant. Dormant accounts are subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after 90 days of no earnings, $5 per pay period after 180 days of no earnings, and $50 per pay period after 365 days of no earnings.

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The Problem If You Are New To Internet Marketing

You make a few sales and then you wonder why you haven’t received any money… THEN you notice that your account balance is dropping. Your sales are far and few between and Clickbank will penalise you for this.

They call it a “dormant” account. Clickbank will start charging fees to the account and before you know it your account balance is zero! This is a real demoralising situation for anyone to face. You have this frustration of trying to build traffic and then trying to generate sales, all for nothing. Clickbank takes the lot.

The Way Around The Clickbank Problem

Basically… Don’t Use Clickbank

There are plenty of other networks out there doing exactly the same thing as Clickbank… and they will pay you too. Just search around and you will find some.
An example are:
Plimus
ShareASale

plus many, many more.

Twitter

Pros: A lot of people don’t get Twitter… I’m one of them. Twitter has shown to have marketing potential for a business if it gets the right audience. An advantage of Twitter is that you can monitor how your brand and competitors are perceived by tracking keywords with add-on software like TweetDeck. You can add twitter feeds into your site, and it gives your business a simple way of increasing your brand exposure.

Cons: Twitter is still a fledgling platform and did have a rough time of outages last year.  It does seem that only a tech-savvy fanbase is bothering with it. It can work against you too if you irritate people with meaningless tweets. It doesn’t work wonders for SEO, but if people are mentioning your brand, it will turn up in search.

Facebook

Pros: The appeal of Facebook is the privacy if offers and how much more personalised content can be. Creating this is very easy, and incorporating your brand into it is simple, provided you phrase it in a simple and personal way. It’s also geared towards viral awareness. If someone becomes a fan of your brand page, all of their friends knows about it. The stronger your presence within a group, the more click throughs you’ll win.

Cons: It has little to no effect on your SEO, and convincing users to link through to your site is easier said than done. It’s more of a brand presence than a link-driving machine.

YouTube

Pros: YouTube is one of the stronger social media players. Video is becoming more and more popular as a form of communicating online, and is the best way to engage customers and address their interests re: your business. Having a branded YouTube channel filled with video content addressing customers about your products can be an invaluable marketing proposition. Videos rate rather well in search.

Cons: Not many, aside from video production costs. It should be said that YouTube isn’t fantastic for generating traffic to your site.

Social news

Pros: This type of service places its emphasis on the content sharing that Facebook features. Users post a news item and it is upvoted/downvoted by other users. Potentially, this kind of platform is useful for gaining exposure for any brand-focused blog articles/press you want to promote. Ensure that the articles you upload aren’t too advertisement-like; and that they have a novel/interesting angle to appeal to the demographic on these sites. Popular social news sites include Reddit and Digg.

Cons: Users of these sites can be very cliquey and judgemental, and often only really use the sites for entertainment. If you push your links too hard you will be down-voted and exiled, a kind of negative online exposure that is undesirable for any brand.

Tony Robbins has touched the lives of thousands of people all around the world.  This has given him a unique insight into our behaviours.  Here he talks with internet marketers Frank Kern and John Reese about how they “take action” and achieve successful results.

In the 21st century the internet has matured into a  dynamic, socially networked environment.  Marketing needs to evolve with this as the old sales methods just don’t work anymore.

Gone are the days of a single page of copy convincing you that you need to buy their stuff.  It just doesn’t work anymore.  People are naturally resistant to being told what to do or having something sold to them.

You need to talk about what “I like” rather than “what I think you need”.  Talking about yourself and what you like encourages a natural conversation and sparks the interest of your listeners.

Personalized marketing engages people to interact with you.  Once someone is engaged in a conversation with you they are a lot more receptive to taking up your ideas.  Of course they need to trust you too.  Trust is built over time just by people getting to know you.  You can also build trust by giving away something of value just to show how genuine you are.

But even what you give away has to be free of a sales pitch.  It has to be about you and what you like.

Be enthusiastic about what you do and people will follow.

Do you feel like your business is stalled? Like you are facing a brick wall with no where to go? Stubbornness can kill your business. I know you can be so determined to stay on track that sometimes you can fail to see how twisted the track is that you’re trying to run your business along.

Emotional Intelligence is one of the most important traits that you need to get a handle on.

Your business is your baby, you know it inside out, you created it, nurtured it, love it – even though it’s killing you through exhaustion. Because it has you DNA all through it, you can’t see the havoc – until it’s too late. Your business runs out of steam, it implodes with a shudder or it continues to limp along, surviving on grit and sweat and other manly and overrated attributes.

This sort of emotional attachment can kill your business and, believe me, it is rampant amongst start up businesses. Newbies sees the freedom, the lifestyle, and… the money. All they have to do is share their vision with enough people and they’ll have it all. The free time, no boss and… the money.

When things don’t work out they way they expect they convince themselves that it ‘will take a little time’. So they keep waiting and waiting, thinking that’s the same thing as running a business. What they’re really doing is getting ready to become a statistic.

Tell Me How You Sell It

If you become too attached emotionally to your business you can fail to see what your business is really all about. You can fail to see how others perceive your business. Rather than working in your business you need to start working ON your business.

Put 90% of all business efforts into sales and marketing

This is what strategy is…. sales and marketing. This is what your business needs to be all about.

What’s Your Purpose?

Have a purpose that is bigger than ‘making lots of money’. A vision that inspires people needs more than simply a profit imperative. Every business must make money to stay in business – but the business that has a vision bigger than that, that people can believe in, follow, and invest in, will make you more money.

Promise Big!

What do you promise to do for your customers that make you stand out from the crowd? What can you deliver that sets you apart from the pack, drives prospects to you and gives them a sense of certainty that you are genuine? The Big Promise is EXACTLY what your customer wants.

Find Your Customers…

The most crucial role of any business leader is to generate quality leads for the business. The more leads, the better. A business that has few leads feels constant pressure and ultimately, won’t attract the best people to work for them.

Set Benchmarks Around Sales and Marketing…

By setting 90 day, 1 month and 1 week goals, you and your team know exactly where they are heading, what needs to be achieved, what needs to be prioritised and what’s expected of them.

They Keep Coming Back!

The goal is to make one sale after another to the same person, as often as you can.

Too many business owners think that their goal is to make a sale – it is, and it isn’t. The goal is to make one sale after another to the same person, as often as you can.

Promote Your Customer!

Upgrade your customers to more expensive products or more helpful programs. This is a key element of the best businesses. If your customers get your Purpose, want your Big Promise and have bought from you, the odds are they will buy again… and again.

Reward your customer by promoting them to more expensive programs or products that give them more and more access to you, your services, and more importantly, your culture. People love to belong, and will pay to be part of the ‘in’ crowd. The ‘inner circle’ of the elite can be sold at a premium.

What’s Your Next Action?

If you’ve spent too much time until now organising, designing products and anything else that isn’t sales, it’s not too late – study whoever is focused on sales and marketing and learn – as fast as you can. Be as skilled and excited about sales and marketing as you are about your vision.

Positions Vacant: Social Administrator

Companies are already paying attention to how their brand is perceived and what is being said about them online. This means 2010 will see the hiring or formally appointing of staff to handle a company’s brand perception across social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The real power of social media marketing will lie in the crowdsourcing of social media sites to actually offer customers the opportunity to actively provide input into the development of a brand… perhaps even collaborate on the actual production of a product.

PYO – Produce Your Own

2010 consumers will create their own marketing information. The buzz word is ‘prosumer’. Prosumers use their ability to create and distribute content to contribute to online conversations on brands and services. Companies will begin to incorporate and address content created by prosumers into how they develop products and present themselves online.

21st Century Wonder Women

The pay gap between genders will continue to narrow in 2010. Women have been found to not only make more collaborative, team focused leaders, but are more empathetic, have stronger organisational skills, are better given to people skills and are more resilient in a business environment.

Freebies

In order for brands to be seen, heard and TRUSTED, companies will need to offer valuable, relevant content to their prospective customers for free. 2010 will see more companies embracing small-scale gift-economy offerings. These are likely to take the form of creative commons licensed content or open-source software; free products that provide value to consumers and drawing the right kind of attention to a brand and the other (monetary) benefits it offers.

Going Green

More and more businesses will be making the effort to go green, and incorporate that status into how they’re perceived. In light of the growing awareness of climate change, and the apparent ineffectiveness of global meetings like the one in Copenhagen earlier this year, individuals will be more conscious of how they and their communities impact negatively on the environment.  There is great value in being able to declare to this growing carbon-conscious customer group that your business is certified green. People are more likely to react positively to a business that shares the same principles and concerns in this respect.

In The Clouds

Cloud computing will be recognised as something that happens everyday and is commonplace. Accordingly, more small businesses will begin to favour affordable cloud based software as a method of managing their internal processes. VoIP is also likely to rise in popularity amongst small businesses.

Tip Your Cabbie

What’s The Next Action?

For business people at the top of their game, strategising the growth of their companies always means thinking far outside the box!

Strategic thinking means:

• branding yourself and your businesses with publicity stunts
• putting together a creative financial deals that profits everyone
• developing a strategy to grow a giant retail business based on family values
• or just be the first to market

All these are all well-thought out business strategies, but notice: each one is conceived on the values and personality of the people involved.  It could be your love of adventure or just about being the best and enjoying the “art” of the deal.  Some businesses offer all their employees a share in the business which helps create a loyal employee and customer base.

Your company is more likely to grow when it’s congruent with the lifestyle you feel comfortable with. If those two are at odds, one could hinder the other. As an entrepreneur, develop business strategies that match your particular values and suit your unique style.

Successful Entrepenuers know that they never stop selling their ideas.

Success comes down to having the passion behind what you do. Passion is contagious. When you’re on fire, it’s easy to spark interest in others. It doesn’t mean every single individual will share your same level of interest, but when you align your offer with their needs and desires, the right investors, customers and clients will all be drawn in. Drive and enthusiasm then comes from knowing what benefits you are providing others.

Whether you’re selling ideas, options, products, services or yourself, present the benefits

Make sure with every deal that everyone is winning…except your competition. Study how other businesses pitch their products and who they appeal to.

While it may be true that some are just “natural-born salesmen,” sales is absolutely a skill anyone can develop.  A Win-Win Sales Process works because it’s based on creating trust and responsiveness in others, understanding what’s important to them, then fulfilling their deepest values. This is also where you get “pitching practise” and specific feedback on how you can make your pitches more irresistible.

Believe it or not, sales gets to be really, really fun!