Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

If you create your own products, I have no doubt that from time to time, you get emails from people asking you if you can give them a discount on one of your products. Lots of people ask me how they should handle this. Well, let me start off by saying that how you handle your business is your business. If you want to give out discounts, do it. If you don’t, then don’t do it. It has to be YOUR choice. However, if you want my advice on the subject and some tips on how to not alienate potential customers, should you decide not to give out discounts, you might want to read what is to follow. It is my own personal policy and I find that most prospects respect me for it…even though the answer is no.

Whenever I get an email from a prospect asking me for a discount on my product, this is exactly what I tell them.

“It would not be fair to those who purchased my product at full price if I gave out discounts to those who just happen to ask for one. Certainly if you were one of my customers and knew that you had spent twice as much for my product as somebody else, you’d be at least mildly upset. I hope that you will understand my position on this but I do not offer discounts to others just because they ask for one.”

Now, this is not the same thing as if you were to announce a special sale for one of your products that you’ve just released and you want to give the first ones in a chance to get it at a lower price. Besides, stores run sales for items all the time. This is common accepted practice. But you’d be upset if a store wasn’t running a sale and you walked in and found somebody got a break just because they asked.

There is really no right or wrong answer to this question. Everybody has to handle the situation as they see fit. However, I’d keep my policy consistent. In other words, if you’re going to offer somebody a discount just because they asked, then you should carry that policy to anybody who asked and not just enforce it at a whim. But then again, that is your choice too.

Bottom line is this…if people find out that you’re giving discounts to some but not to others, word will get around and your reputation just might take a hit.

It’s certainly something to keep in mind when deciding how to handle this situation.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

If you are sick of typing articles than I’ve got some really great news for you. In this article I’m going to show you how you can get more content out than you ever thought imaginable. And after you are done reading this, you may never want to type another article again. Trust me, I know exactly what I am talking about. So sit back, and get ready for the ride of your life.

I admit it, I really hate typing articles. I am probably the worst typist in the whole world. At my very best, I can maybe type 30 words per minute. And that is on a good day. Trust me, I don’t get a lot of good days. Finally I just got fed up with it. So I went to the store, and I picked up some speech recognition software. I really didn’t expect it to work that well. But I figured I had nothing to lose. It wasn’t that much money, and with all the money I earn, I could afford it.

I brought it home, and started to fool around with it. It took me about 30 minutes to train this thing to work. You do have to speak slowly to start. However, after you start getting used to it, and it begins to recognize your voice, it gets a lot easier to use. After about an hour, I was cranking out articles at speeds that I had never imagined. Honestly, this was the most amazed that I had never been in my whole life about a new kind of software.

There is one thing that you do have to be aware of. Dictating articles is a lot different than typing them. The reason is because you do not speak as you write. When you are typing something, you have more time to think. However, when you are dictating your mind is going quicker than your fingers can type. What this usually translates to, is longer articles than you are used to writing. Therefore, you really have to think about what you are going to say before you say it. Otherwise, you can ramble on forever.

I am sure that you will find that using speech recognition software is going to greatly increase your production. I can’t recommend this enough for anybody who writes articles or any kind of content for a living.

My life will never be the same again.

And I couldn’t be happier.

To YOUR success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to write articles that get people’s attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find at http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.

Are a lot of people that I speak to ask me how they can get into copywriting. Most of them have been trying to make a name for themselves, but have not been succeeding. So they asked me how I do it. Well the answer is really very simple… I work hard at it. There is no shortcut for hard work. In addition to that, it takes a lot of marketing to build a name for yourself. It doesn’t matter how good a copywriter you are, if nobody knows you exist, you are not going to get any clients. So in this article, I am going to show you how to build a name for yourself as a copywriter. Hopefully, it after you are done reading this, you’ll have a pretty good idea on how to go about it.

The easiest way to make a name for yourself as a copywriter is to hit the copywriting forums. These forums are usually swarming with people looking for good sales copy. To start out, you may have to offer your copy at a huge discount. A lot of copywriters don’t want to do this, but it is usually the best way to break into the business. Some copywriters will even offer to do one or two sales letters for free in exchange for a testimonial. Trust me, one or two good testimonials can be all it takes to break into the business. Once you have them, other people will seek you out to write sales copy for them.

Another way to break into the business is to simply go out there and advertise. You can use Google Adwords, maybe take out a few solo ads, and even hit the classifieds. There are allways people looking for good sales copy. Granted, you’ll have to start out at lower fees than the big boys, but as you gain a reputation, you will be able to start charging more and more for your services. There are some copy writers out there who are charging $15,000 or more for one sales letter. For some people, that’s a half years income. Naturally, it takes a while to get there, but if you keep at it, you can make a good living as a copywriter.

Basically it comes down to hard work and persistence. But I never said that becoming a copywriter was easy. If it was everybody would be doing it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Discover How YOU Can Write 6 Figure Copy For Pennies…And Save Up To $15,000 In Copywriting Costs For Yourself. Visit my site at http://www.bcipe.com/ and discover killer copywriting tips that have allowed me to write my own copy for years and earn myself a 6 figure a year income selling my own products.

Do you want to know what drives me nuts about Internet marketing? Actually, there are quite a few things…too many to go over in the space of a short article. But in this particular article, I’m going to go over three that REALLY drive me nuts. If you’re in agreement, let me know. If not, you can let me know that too.

At the very top of my list is spammers. I can’t for the life of me understand why Internet marketers have to spam their advertisements through email, forums and other places when there are so many legitimate ways to promote online that are much more effective. Yes, I know…there are people who open up the spam emails and buy their junk. If it wasn’t profitable they wouldn’t do it. But they could do so much better if they learned some legitimate tactics and used them.

Another thing that really drives me crazy about Internet marketing is serial refunding. You know what I’m talking about. These are the people who buy your product and five minutes later, they either ask for a refund or claim that they never authorized the purchase in the first place. These are people who are just after your product for free. Well, there is a way to deal with them. Get something like DLGuard and then, after they refund the purchase, blacklist their IP and email address. It’s not 100% fool proof, but it will at least force them to use another computer and/or email address to steal from you again.

Finally, there is the rapid pace at which things change on the Internet. You buy a book on Adwords and then three months later you have to buy another one because the old book is outdated. Why is it outdated? Because Google changes their rules as often as I change my socks. Well, actually, I change my socks more often but you know what I mean. So you constantly have to keep up with what’s going on. If you have a hard time doing that, just follow my articles. I’m always on the latest developments.

So what about you? What drives YOU nuts? Let me know. I’d love to hear it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

Article marketers, pay attention. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what you can and can’t do and what is and isn’t true when it comes to article marketing. So, in an effort to clear up some of that confusion, I’m going to answer three of the most commonly asked questions that I get in regard to this subject. Hopefully, after reading this article, you’ll not be so confused. But I won’t hold my breath.

First question I get asked, and probably the most frequently asked is this. “Can I put my article on my own site and other sites? Isn’t that duplicate content?” Okay, this duplicate content myth has been going on long enough. I don’t know who started it, but whoever did should get the biggest award for fantasy thinking since somebody came up with the idea that Santa Claus is real. So let me put this one to bed right now. Google has officially come out and said that there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty if you have your article on your site and another site. Think about it. If duplicate content penalties existed, article directories wouldn’t be in business. Okay? End of discussion.

Second question I get asked a lot is this one. “Should I submit my article to my site first or an article directory first?” A lot of people won’t agree with this one (I get plenty of arguments) but there is no evidence that suggests that it matters. Either way, your article is going to get indexed at both places. Some people argue about “ownership.” This is hogwash. YOU wrote the article. YOU own it. It doesn’t matter where you submit it first. Your name is on it…it’s YOURS. I have articles that I’ve submitted to article directories first that get thousands of views a month. Hasn’t hurt me one bit that I didn’t submit it to my site first. Bottom line…it doesn’t matter.

Finally, I get asked this question. “What’s the best way of getting people to read my articles?” There is no best way. It depends on your niche. Some great ways are the following:

Send an email to your list about your article.

Tweet about it at Twitter.

Bookmark it at social bookmarking sites like Digg.

Go to a related forum and have a link in your signature to your articles.

There are plenty of ways to get traffic to your articles. No one way is better than another.

Anyway, those are the three questions I most often get asked. Hopefully, the answers I gave will clear up any confusion that YOU might have had.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of article marketing, pay per click, forum participation and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.

Affiliate marketing can actually be very easy. It’s not rocket science if you just follow a few basic steps in regard to finding and reviewing a product, and promoting it. Unfortunately, some product merchants make things so darn convoluted that no matter how good YOUR efforts, you’re going to end up losing lots of sales. This article is going to show you what to be on the lookout for when promoting a product as an affiliate. You might want to make note of some of these.

For starters, I tend to look for a product that has as simple a sales page as possible. I know that long copy converts (I’m a copywriter) but there is long and then there is ridiculous. You can write too much. So go over the sales page and use some judgment as to whether or not you think the page itself is going to do the job it’s supposed to do. This is a gut instinct thing. There are no hard and fast rules here.

Secondly, I tend to stay away from confusing opt in pages. Some products have squeeze pages that are so convoluted that the prospect can’t possibly know what they’re supposed to do when they get there. Ultimately, they end up just leaving the page without even opting in. This is a surefire way to lose a sale. So I look for squeeze pages that are short and to the point and explicitly point out what the steps are and what will happen after the prospect completes them.

Finally, I make sure that I check out the sales process for any leaks. I’m talking about links to a blog or a video. These only distract the prospect from what they’re supposed to be doing there…buying the product. I also stay away from sales pages that say, “Affiliates sign up here.” In the make money niche, this is a recipe for disaster as most people in this niche will simply sign up and then buy the product through their own link. Outside of this niche, it’s not as big a problem. Most people looking for acne cures aren’t interested in signing up as an affiliate.

Bottom line is this. The simpler the sales process is, the easier it is for YOU to close the sale with methods as simple as an article on the topic and a comprehensive review of the product itself posted on your blog. This simple system works well for me and should work well for you too.

As long as the product creator doesn’t make the prospect jump through too many hoops.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

You know what burns me up more than anything else? A great product with a lousy product launch. What do I mean by a lousy product launch? Well, read this article and you’ll find out. And no, I’m not going to mention any names because I don’t want to embarrass anybody. The point of the article is to allow you to still promote the product honestly, even though the launch is less than ideal.

A recent product I promoted, a great product in the IM niche, had a launch strategy that a lot of people would find very annoying. The launch had an upsell, downsell, OTO, forced continuity and whatever else you could think of. It was a real purchaser’s nightmare. I know from first hand experience and feedback from people that they don’t like being made to jump through a million hoops to buy a product. And forced continuity is a real hot topic today. Don’t even get me started on that one.

Okay, so what do you do? You have a great product but a sales process that will most likely annoy the majority of people who go to the site. Well, here is the way I handle it.

For starters, any product I promote, I don’t just send people directly to a sales page. With every other affiliate doing that, where would be my advantage? Instead, what I do is send them to a review page of the product where I offer a comprehensive review of the product. This puts me ahead of the game over most affiliates. I suggest you try it sometime.

Now, in the case of a product with a lousy sales process, what I do in my review is simply mention the process itself. I tell people EXACTLY what they can expect to find at the sales page. This way there are no surprises when they get there. I even go as far as to say that I personally don’t like the process either and only promote the product because it is so good. This kind of honesty goes a long way.

You might want to try it sometime. It sure beats having one of your prospects come back to you complaining that they were taken through a million OTOs before they could actually get to the page to download the product that they just paid for. They will appreciate the heads up and will know that they can depend on you to be straight with them.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

Did you know that the average attention span of people today is close to zero? It’s true, whether you want to admit it or not. That’s why everything in our world today has to be instant gratification at the touch of a button. Look at the tools we have in our lives today. iPhones that can give us just about anything short of cooking our breakfast. Well, the last thing people want to do today is read a long email. So what do you do when you have a long message to share with your list? This article explores this issue.

Let’s say you’re sending an email with a review of a new product. The review is quite long. So what do you do? Do you send the whole review in the email itself or do you just have a brief introduction in the email with a link to the review that you posted on your blog? Both methods will actually work, but what method is going to work better for YOU? What I am going to relay is what I have found from my personal experience. Your results may vary, so test for yourself.

I have found that if the relationship I have with my list is a very good one, putting the review inside the email itself is fine. Most of the people on that list will read the review right there and then go to the sales page directly from the email. However, if the relationship I have with that list is more casual (happens with non IM niches for me) then I am probably better off just putting a brief intro and then including a link to the review. This way, I haven’t taken up much of their time and then, if they’re interested in finding out about the product, they can go to the review site.

You may find that the opposite is true for you. Truth is, if your relationship is great with your list, you can write a three line email telling them that you just reviewed a new product and give them the link. That can work very well. Conversely, people who don’t know you very well may need more than just that intro. Every list is going to react differently. That’s why it’s so important to test.

Having said all that, like I said, the attention span of people today is very short. So you’re probably better off keeping your emails short and to the point.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly

I have no doubts that this article is going to cause a lot of discussion. To be honest with you, as much as it burns me up when somebody steals my products and sells them illegally, I am very torn between going after these crooks and running my business. Ultimately, my main concern has to be putting food on the table. So that’s where this article comes in and asks the question…is the cost of fighting piracy worth it? We’re going to look for that answer together.

Let’s start off with a fact of Internet marketing…piracy is rampant. Just go to any site like Rapidshare and you will find more than your share of illegal downloads. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. On top of that, you have individual marketers uploading products to their own web space and selling them. It’s not a pretty picture.

Okay, so what do we do about this? Well, for starters, there’s just finding out about the piracy to begin with. To do that, you can create a few Google alerts to let you know of any sites that mention your name, your product name, or anything that can be associated with you. The problem with this is that if you have a lot of things out there that can legally be taken (such as articles) you’re going to be going through a lot of alerts each day. Still it can be done.

What about what happens AFTER you find all the offending sites? Well, if it’s a site like Rapidshare, you can contact them, let them know that the product up there can not be legally shared and for the most part, they’re pretty good about taking the links down. But what about private sites like Joe’s Web Store? In this case, you have to first contact them personally, to which you will usually receive a non reply. After you go that route, the next step is to contact their web host with a C & D.

Needless to say, all of this takes time unless you’re going to outsource the tasks. And then, if that’s the route you go, you’re spending money on something that is a non stop, never ending battle. As long as there are people out there, there will always be those who will steal your products. You will never totally put an end to it.

So ultimately, the question I’m asking is simple. Is it worth the time and expense to do this? How many sales will you have saved? Most people who download products illegally don’t use them anyway. So if they had no other way to buy them, they wouldn’t have bought them from you anyway. So what do you lose?

On the other hand, just throwing your arms up in the air and saying, “Oh well” is letting them win. And that’s not being responsible at all. That’s saying you condone the behavior or don’t care enough about it to do anything about it.

Is there a middle ground? Can you maybe dedicate just a small period of time each day to fight this problem? If you do that, are you doing it to really make a difference or is it just to prevent a guilty conscience from doing nothing?

If I’m getting too psychoanalytical with you, my apologies, but the truth is, this isn’t a simple cut and dried issue. Our time is limited and we have to decide if we’re going to spend it MAKING money or spend it preventing from LOSING money.

Believe it or not, there is a big difference between the two.

To Your Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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What’s your word worth to you? That’s ultimately the question that this article is going to ask. I feel that the best way to get my point across is with a real life example…mine. Naturally, it’s your business and you can run it the way you like, but you might want to learn a lesson from the story I’m about to tell.

I occasionally run sales for my products. I’ll sell them for a limited amount of time at a discount price. Whether I do or not, however, the price of the product at THAT point in time, is the price of the product. Well, I will sometimes get an email from somebody either asking for the product at a deep discount or even for nothing. Now, as I said, it’s your business and you can run it the way you want, but you might want to take notes on how I handle this situation.

I send an email back to the person that essentially states the following.

“It would not be fair to my customers who purchased the product at the regular or sale price if I gave it to you for less. I treat all my customers equally and therefore, the price of the product is what it is and I must
hold firm on it to be fair to others.”

Now, you might be tempted to think that nobody would know if you did offer the product at a discount or even for free. But what if the person who got the special treatment went back to some of his friends and told them about the transaction and what if one of them paid full price for the product? Do you not think that this person would be a bit upset?

There are so many things in regard to our home business that are out of our control, such as recessions, changing technology and even changing trends. We can do the best we can to adapt to them, but we can’t control them. The only thing we REALLY have control over is our word.

We can either choose to keep it or not.

Anyway, it’s something to think about the next time you decide to go back on yours.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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