Even though you want to scale, especially as more people become aware of the work you do and the products you offer, you feel like you're limited to just working with a few tools and methods to market your business like social media and dabbling with advertising.
What's more this is limiting your ability to take your business with you as you feel tied down to staying in one place to manage it all. Or if you're already attempting to work and live anywhere, you may be spending all your days inside your beach cabana instead of taking time off to relax on the beach because you are working 24/7.
But what if I told you that you could build your very own sales team, who aren't your employees and may not even live in your country, while you take off to travel the world?
Building a virtual sales team from your laptop
To build your own sales department as an online entrepreneur, here is what you need to know:
1) Take your already existing products, and set up an affiliate system.
An affiliate system is one where people who have used your product already and loved it can spread the word about it through their communities. If they send you a customer by using their unique affiliate URL, they receive a commission (a portion of the sale) in return for promoting you.
Typically this is 50-60%. It's best to be generous with your affiliate sales as you likely wouldn't have been introduced to the customer were it not for the person who referred them to you and your products. So remember to give back generously.
On the flip side, you can be an affiliate for another person and earn income that way as an extra revenue stream to your existing business.
The first time I started playing around with affiliate advertising was almost three years ago when I got an advanced copy of a friend's product and loved it so much I wanted to spread the word to everyone. They suggested I join their affiliate program so I could receive compensation for doing so, indirectly becoming apart of their sales department.
Without much knowledge of what I should do, I added my own affiliate link to the end of one of my blog posts on a topic related to their book, because I thought that my readers would benefit from the product, especially since I was giving a really honest and simple review of why they would like it.
I didn't expect much at all and yet a few days later I had made some affiliate sales and a month later I received around $150 in my PayPal account from affiliate sales, for simply telling people about something I thought they should know about.
After getting over the thought that affiliate marketing was dodgy or shady since people were appreciative of my recommendations, I redefined what affiliate marketing meant to my business.
Simply put, it's leveraging your traffic and trust into business referrals.
Pat Flynn is a king at affiliate marketing and has made thousands of dollars from giving in-depth and honest reviews to products that he really trusts. He offers a comprehensive guide on how he's done so here.
You can also check out this guide if you just want to read more in-depth about affiliate marketing and how you can start out.
2) Approach past customers and your audience about becoming an affiliate.
This can be as easy as sending out an email to your list saying that you've started an affiliate program, like E-junkies, and if they want to make some extra cash by recommending your products, then they should sign up.
Or you can handpick individuals that you think would represent you well and have the right type of audience to introduce your products and services too.
Choose wisely as these people are representing you, but remember to be open as well to people who love your work.
Also, don't make this an afterthought!
I've experienced launches before where I made my affiliate program an afterthought and totally regretted it because I missed out on so much potential exposure. By having a sales team in place working for you, your ability to reach wider and farther is possible, without too much effort on your part.
3) Set up your affiliates for success.
The best way to empower your sales team to recommend your products is to create an awesome product. Your product needs to be high quality and a resource that informs, entertains, inspires, and solves problems.
Once you have that covered, you want to make the process for being an affiliate as easy as possible.
Write up easy to copy and paste social media posts like the ones I've put together here for the launch of my book The Suitcase Entrepreneur.
I just used the tool Click to Tweet and set up a page where they can all go for marketing copy that contains my core message and helps them sell my product.
Give them everything they'll need to sell your product, like social media copy, images, links, and short blurbs. Then, keep in contact with them to check up so they're reminded to actively sell the product, which benefits the both of you.
This way, you expand your reach, their audience gets access to great content, and your affiliate produces income.
It's a win-win-win.
Three steps to set up a system for your sales force:
1) Set up a business account with Paypal.
This will take you under five minutes to do, and it's one of the best methods for handling payments for goods and services. Paypal also lets you link your bank account and credit cards for a more seamless system.
2) Sign up for E-junkie.
E-junkie lets you sell your digital products and programs for a monthly $5 fee. You start by simply creating a new product, uploading a digital file or pointing to a page on your site, and naming your price.
3) Use your current email client or sign up for one.
Use your email client, like a Mailchimp or an Aweber, to create a list just for affiliates. This way you can keep in contact with them in one big batch instead of emailing them all personally.
Author Bio
Natalie Sisson is a Suitcase Entrepreneur and Adventurer who travels the world living out of her suitcase and running a highly successful online business from her laptop and smartphone, teaching others how to do the same. She's just released The Suitcase Entrepreneur book on how to create freedom in business and adventure in life. You can grab your copy here.
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