A new business year has begun and hopefully your strategic thinking and planning has been underway for some time. A strategic thinking business coach suggests that asking clients some probing questions will be very beneficial in your planning efforts for the new business year. The strategy of asking these questions is to gain insight for developing the best solutions for your clients’ problems.

Asking questions will help you gain needed information from your clients; build rapport with your clients; increase the clients’ comfort level; understand the clients’ needs; and discover the clients’ concerns, frustrations and fears. You can begin by asking questions that will let you know what is going right with your clients and hen transition into areas where problems may have occurred. And it is always important to initially focus on your client, rather than you and your client. It is critical that you make sure the client understands that he or she has ownership in this process of questioning.

What are some examples of questions you could ask your clients? Your strategic thinking business coach suggests the following:
1. What are your goals for the new business year?

2. What strategies do you expect to use to capitalize on last year’s successes?

3. What do you believe is the number one challenge for your business in the new year?

4. What is the single biggest frustration you have in your business going into the new year?

5. What is the one major change you want to make happen in your business in the new year?

6. What is the one thing you value most about our working relationship?

7. What can we do to sustain and enhance our business relationship?

8. How can we improve on the services we provide to you?

9. If you could change just one thing about our business relationship, what would it be?

10. How can we be a more valuable asset and resource for your business?

You will be pleasantly surprised at what your clients will divulge to you that they never to9ld you before. And why is this so? I will tell you why – because you never took the time to ask them. Your strategic thinking business coach advises “always know who you are doing business with” and if you do, you will be in a much more strategic position to provide better client solutions because you will understand your clients’ real needs and goals.

In the last posting I described the excellent job done by the University of Alabama at Birmingham in exercising their state of preparedness to address the threat of pandemic influenza. At the end I posed a question: "Do you know that doing this type of planning for avian flu actually has benefits that go way beyond preparedness for flu?"

Most often pandemic planning is done, if at all, for the direct purpose of addressing the pandemic threat. Just as often, it is this singleness of focus that is the reason an organization does not plan or exercise the plan. An official may believe that there is so much his/her organization has to do that this is “just one more thing” and that existing plans will have to make do. He/she may also just hope that nothing happens “on their watch.”

Now, we have all heard that “hope is not a strategy” whether in this context or another. But that doesn’t mean that hope isn’t used as a strategy too often. This is especially a problem when the media reporting lulls, as it is doing now. “The problem is over” is too easy a conclusion to reach for generations of professionals raised on quick TV fixes and a strong even well founded belief in technological silver bullets, such as a vaccine or other drug. And that means that planning is not done and preparedness is absent or an illusion.

Benefits Beyond Flu Prep

So, some other incentive is needed to get and keep preparedness planning moving. I have noticed that pandemic planning offers at least two incentives: (while focused on influenza)

Pandemic planning builds the capacity for the organization to deal with other types of infectious diseases that could be a problem, including those that might be terrorist-induced. The procedures required for influenza response and other infectious diseases are not often, if ever, covered adequately or comprehensively by existing plans and drills on how to deal with other emergencies.

Pandemic planning also develops better organizations more able to do their “regular” work because they did plan. This happens because pandemic planning requires working across the organization to establish coordination and communication among people who generally live in the “stove pipes” of an organization. What is a "Stove-piped" organization?"

For those of you who may not be familiar with the term “stove-pipes,” this refers to the tendency for the parts or departments or offices within an organization to have little or no real contact with the workings of others doing other jobs within that same organization.

"Stove-piped organizations are antiquated organizations"

They are not able to move as quickly as organizations must to compete effectively in today’s fast paced workplace. They were built for stability, not for fast response and adaptability.

So, when you do what is needed to prepare for the pandemic threat, you must cause cross-talk within the organization. Doing this exposes each organizational segment to others. People learn what others are doing and why. They learn about elements essential for the success of their own organization. They learn how their work fits and why it is valuable. They learn who their internal “customers and suppliers” are, and how to work more effectively with them.

In short, the preparedness dialogue and learning cause the organization to update itself, to come into the 21st century world of flexibility and adaptivity, to seize possibilities and make them real.

Preparedness planning increases business capabilities. Exercises build potential. The work plants seeds in the organization that take root naturally and grow to be valued in other aspects of the business.

Finally, building organizational capacity this way is easier, cheaper, faster, and more effective than standard training can be. Preparedness is a “two-fer.” Your organization gets two beneficial outcomes for the price of one.

Donald Frazier

Donald is a Washington-based strategy and organizational consultant. He concentrates on developing and implementing effective strategies in complex environments, improving the performance of organizations, and on solving high-visibility, complex problems for organizations with sophisticated technical missions.

He has more than 20 years experience consulting to public and private sector organizations and highly placed executives. Donald has experience in high technology and basic industries, including energy, electric utility, defense, pharmaceutical, financial, telecommunications, information technology, steel, food and consumer product companies.

Youth today have never known life without computers and much of their world seems to revolve around their own hi-tech gadgets. They seem permanently plugged in – taking photos of friends with their cell phones, text messaging during class, blogging about last weekend’s party and playing online video games. They are connected at any given moment. They are in control and they use their wide range of skills to make the world work for them – gaining material goods, being savvy consumers and seeing through mass marketing to get what they want.

Are the youth today spoiled selfish children who are going to lead our country and businesses down a deep dark spiral of self-indulgence?

Or

Are they smart sophisticated consumers who understand how the game of business is played and know how to capitalize on it to make it work for the betterment of themselves, their friends and their families?

To try to answer these questions, Chuck Bean and Janet Wright – partners in the strategic direction and training company of Baxter Bean – evaluated the future leaders of tomorrow.

Explain how you think leaders of the future are different from today?

Chuck: They are techno-savvy. Downtime to them is playing a video game or a team activity, and when they engage they want to have control. They were brought up in a world where they have much more control at their fingertips. They are not reliant on other people.

They value time more than we did in the past. They have much more of a relationship with time and a desire to value time. I think that they are going to be much more focused on time invested, rather than just money invested.

For example Volunteerism: There is a movement with volunteerism with youth today but it is not volunteering for cupcake duty. If they volunteer, they want to go off to foreign lands and be really engaged in the volunteering practice. It’s much deeper.

Do you think that young people today are being trained to become leaders?

Janet: I think in some ways that they are, but I think that people may not recognize that they are being trained to be leaders because they have a different attitude and a different approach to it. Even young kids are pretty good at asserting themselves, they are good at voicing their opinions and they are good at dealing with authority figures.

How does technology play a role in training leaders?

Chuck: I think we need to be very careful with technology when it comes to training. I think that technology is required in a learning environment – it is an enabler – but it can’t take the place of the learning content.

You have said “Loyalty plus youth equal leadership.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

Chuck: We have a tendency to think that people sitting on the street corners and the squeegee kids are the disengaged youth but the disengagement is happening with all kinds of young people. It is happening in the homes of all classes – from the underprivileged to affluent.

So the formula of loyalty plus youth equals leadership is built around the idea that we need teach our young people loyalty skills so they grasp a deeper level of appreciation and then find a greater level of personal leadership. That is what it’s all about. And it needs to be at their pace and in their words and on their terms.

Do you believe that youth are capable of loyalty in this age of commercialism, materialism and consumer-centered marketing?

Janet: Yes I do, and I think that loyalty looks different than what we might be expecting it to look like. We grew up with an idea that loyalty was going to look like – you work your butt off for the same company year after year after year. You do what they ask you. If they want you to come in on the weekend, you come in on the weekend. If they want you to be accessible while you are on your holiday, you are accessible while you are on your holiday. That’s a way a lot of people worked. I think the baby boomer generation is still working like that – to some degree.

And to some degree the senior management in a lot of companies today – that is what they are expecting. And it ticks them off when they look over and say to some of the younger staff “I need you to come in on the weekend.” And the younger staff says “Well, I can’t.” That looks like it’s not loyalty. I think that if you asked some of those people – they might say that they were loyal or they might say that they were committed to their job and to doing a good job. But it just doesn’t look the same way. By the older generations they are labeled as not being loyal and by the young generations – they would say “I’m committed.”

How do you break through the noise to make an impact on today’s workers and today’s youth to recruit potential new leaders?

Chuck: There are two ways: organically and synthetically. Let’s face it the future tomorrow is today’s kids. We can just let it happen or we can guide and shape them.

Having said that – how do we break through the noise? Well we just have to push it – push that envelop. We have to get to the kids. Let them have a voice. Let them express their ideas. And don’t just take them superficially.

What does an employer need to do to recruit and retain leaders of tomorrow?

Janet: These are the things that employers can do:

Making sure that they have a good match – spending a lot more time on the interview process. And make sure that they’re getting that person who has the right set of values and the right attitudes – more than the right skills. You can train for skill but hire for attitude.

Employers need to respect diversity – the cookie cutter approach isn’t as effective anymore – because we’ve got a much more diverse population in the workforce. So you’ve got people with all kinds of different family backgrounds, different cultures, and different religions. So respecting that and being able to work with that I think is important.

Understanding what the employees’ goals and motivators are – what is it that gets them out of bed in the morning and into work. The more the employer can understand that, the better able they are going to be to meet those needs and find ways to motivate the staff.

Helping employees grow – helping them learn new skills and gain expertise. If they are growing and if they are challenged – the chances of them looking elsewhere are less.

Rewarding and recognizing success – when people are doing well, they need to hear it. And if things are going wrong, they need to hear that right away as well. And the expectations need to be clearly explained.

Allowing for balance - Recognizing that people do have a life outside of work and allowing for that and not expecting that people are going to sacrifice everything in order to be at work.

Taking the right steps to recruit and retain youth today is a big step toward developing the leaders of tomorrow, but as both Chuck Bean and Janet Wright have indicated, that isn’t enough. Employers need to understand where youth have come from and where they are going. Employers who continue to develop and nurture skills and loyalty in their employees will be the best positioned to have a strong succession plan on the path to leadership.

When starting a business you need to investigate the works of others already doing what you want to do. This will save you a ton of time, effort and certainly money. You can even interview the competitor's employees (buy them a lunch) for their opinions on what is done right and wrong within the company they work for. Some of you listening to this may think that’s not honorable or cheating in some way. I'm not suggesting to lie or cheat, you are simply doing a little background work. Don't think for a second that large corporations don’t play the same game.

Automotive companies, electronics manufacturers, clothing designers just about every industry you can imagine will investigate thoroughly the products or services of their competition and even wait to see how it pans out sometimes to determine public interest in a certain product. Better than just investigating – go work in the industry you're considering. Doing this will not only allow you to earn while you learn but it will open your eyes to the true day to day facets of the business you are looking into. I have one client that not only did this but he also worked for some of a major supplier for a short time to see both sides of the equation.

As an entrepreneur I don't suggest researching something to death but I have always found it much nicer to play secret agent and get paid for it than to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars only to find out I made a big mistake. Just be careful not to list your last name as Bond on the employment application or resume.

Do you have the necessary time to plan for a business right now? Yes or No

If you answered no, you may want to know that the easiest way to get some spare time is by getting up early. As you probably already know once the day gets into full swing there are often things that pop up and are somewhat out of your control. So, to beat the odds, grab a bonus hour in the morning before the world begins to wake up. Getting up early is a great way to gain an edge on the competition. You may want to get into practice for your new business now and set up a schedule that allows you the opportunity to begin incubating your business. Getting up early is not imperative to succeeding but demanding more out of your day through proper planning will be a necessary skill to succeeding in business especially if you're going to start it while working a regular job. For me personally I work better into the night and early morning. While I was writing my business launch system it wasn’t uncommon for me to stay up until 3 or 4am. One way or another you will need to find the time to focus while planning your business and building your dream. Work through a 7 day journal to see where you can pick up some spare hours to work your business. You will find the results may surprise you. The secret to accessing the necessary energy to be productive is passion.

Passionate people are inspired and because of this they are often fueled to work well beyond the fourteen hour days of most people. Thomas Alva Edison said: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration!" Simply put, truly inspired people are passionate. That is why Edison holding a world record of nearly 1100 patents, said after 1000 attempts at building his light bulb, “We now know a thousand ways not to build a light bulb.” Find a business that you’ll be passionate about. Passion is the flame of persistence that will have you fully planned and operational before you can say lemonade stand simple.

…the old model of Client-Product-Advertisement- (Old) Media wasn’t so bad!

Advertising Agencies, having practically ruined a nearly perfect marketing communications system, are now trying to lure their Clients onto a totally unproven communications system…the Web!

It would appear that all that glistens is NOT gold. The Internet Advertising Bureau boasts about record online ad spend, however we must remember that that the bulk of these monies are spent on "search".

Just remember "Search" is not advertising. Take a look at IAB figures, just under 60% of what it calls "advertising" are in fact search.

Nearly half of the remainder is classified…the remainder, 24% is display advertising…and this on an unproven medium that has software, and is in the process of developing more sophisticated software, to block advertising!

Now we need to guard against Advertising Agencies being carried away with new toys; as they did when commercial television was introduced, whilst new technology is having an impact, now is not the time to abandon "old media."

Currently Advertising Agencies are still dancing on the head of a pin called a 30’ TV commercial. The really terrifying aspect of all this is that advertising agencies have come up with no new ideas as to how to combat clutter; or even customer mistrust and outright avoidance of traditional advertising.

And it is the media that are suffering as a result of such communications incompetence…especially terrestrial television!

And yet these ideas have always been around, however what satisfied the creative ego was the Creative Director and his acolytes swanning around with the hottest Hollywood movie producer.

As somebody said to us the other day the attitude within advertising agencies still is "The answer is a TV commercial, - what’s your question?"

Funnily enough that is (practically) the right answer...simply add interaction and existing media can be much more effective and accountable.

In the past they used to load the TV production cost by hiring an outlandishly expensive Hollywood movie director, so much the better. It satisfied all the egos involved, but, and here is the real weird thing, the consumer couldn’t care less about who directs the commercial, all they wanted was the right information that would allow them to like and buy the product/service.

We must use ways that make existing media much more effective; they do exist but have been totally ignored by Advertising Agencies!

In the advertising industry’s days of dominance, peopled believed it could change the ways consumers think and behave, not just influence them to favour one brand in a category they were already considering.

In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, an emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.

Much of this sense of advertising’s enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s’ and ‘60s.

Marketing people are moving away from that totally inaccurate picture, however fmcg marketing people still haven’t cottoned on to the fact that "you can sell more goods to less people, and still be more effective", that is if you understand the benefits of ‘conversations’ and interactive television.

Now, customised products are coming back. Modern manufacturing has attained the ability to replicate, in its own way, the Old World of choice.

Advertising agencies have lost sight of their primary goal: to sell the product. Fortunes are wasted on hip; award-winning commercials that often fail to even communicate the brand.

The reality of business demands that advertising answer to the bottom line! Simply by adding interactive communication to your schedule you can reduce spend and make your existing advertising totally accountable.

Which will demonstrably affect your bottom line and, much to the great disgust of Advertising Agencies, Clients can substantially reduce their horrific marketing investment.

Terrestrial television can then breath a sign of relief and get on with what they are good at…producing good programming.

The Times of London, very recently, carried that old hoary story “Subliminal advertising may work, but only if your paying attention”

I do wish that somebody would put an end to one of the great advertising myths of the twentieth century.

The Times then chose to editorialise about a non-running story, “Smoke Signal Puffs. The real news of how to pass secret advertisements and influence people.”

The fact of the matters is that the whole story of subliminal advertising first broke in America, two enterprising young men dreamt up the scheme, however the word “dreamt” is the key to the whole myth…that’s all it was, a dream.

There was no research, there were no subliminal advertisements embedded in cinema movies, in fact the whole thing was a hilarious scam…that’s all.

But the damage it has caused!

Firstly let us review the role of advertising. Marketing applies advertising to the selling of goods or services, so, what is advertising? It is nothing more than a form of learning, the advertiser is saying to his audience, learn about my product/service and then please change or modify your behaviour.”

Well then, what is learning?

Most educationalists today say that real learning is about answering a question or solving a problem. The questions can range from the immense to the trivial, however when we have no questions we need no answers.

Apply questions and an understanding of human behaviour to the marketing of products, then you start to have real communication taking place. But back to the damage it has caused.

Firstly it makes it sound as if the process of advertising is far too easy, it is, to the extent that advertising agencies choose to ignore some human behavioural aspects of the communication process, those of selective perception and selective exposure. Both of which invalidate most advertising messages!

How many times have I attended meetings where the Creative Director, in an attempt to justify weak creative thinking says proudly, “It is almost subliminal…”

And the poor old Client, judging that they (the advertising agency) are the experts, and they know what they are talking about, goes along with it. Committing millions again, into the non-accountable dustbin of advertising!

Of course it contributed to the myth as to the invincibility of advertising, allowing advertising agencies to completely ignore the growing clamour for some form of accountability, which, in turn as bought us to the position we are in today.

Today’s marketplace is different and all the old certainties are gone. To be effective in your communications it is sound advice to start with the premise that you know nothing about the people that you believe your product is aimed at.

Advertising has become too parochial, too introspective, too convinced by its on hyperbole.

However when we shift our attention from the out-dated, discredited practice of advertising, and focus on its replacement, interactive communication, then all the old rules of the game (were there any?). change.

Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than fits the business models companies try and impose upon it.

People respond to interactive opportunities because it seems to offer some intangible quality long ‘missing in action’ from modern life.

In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenised broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered.

But, from the Clients point of view, Interactive Communication is far more cost effective, and allows Clients the attractive opportunity to, substantially, reduce their horrendous advertising/marketing budget whilst, at the same time becoming far more effective in all of their communication objectives!

Which method do you choose?

Interactive communication or regular advertising?

The choice is yours

This weeks issue of Marketing is, as they proudly announce, their 75th Anniversary Issue.

So I eagerly grabbed it hoping that it was going to reveal not only the past history of Marketing and Advertising in England but, and to me, more importantly, the exciting future that lays ahead.

Was I ever wrong!

There was not one mention of the word “communication”, despite the fact that, in my opinion, successful communication is what marketing is all about.

Rather there was a self-congratulatory note, like the headline to one article “Changing Times, lasting truths.”

Which said, basically, “The advertising industry has changed enormously in 45 years. Or has it?

Then it went on to say “…reading an article on choosing an agency in 1962 appearing in Marketing they found many of its recommendations relevant today”!

Really!

I don’t think so at all, the communications scene has changed so much and advertising agencies are falling by the wayside.

As the Magazine says, consumer tastes, technology and media channels have all changed beyond recognition since the 30s, but the industry’s core principles have remained remarkably constant!

Best summed up by the words “One trick ponies” There was even an article on the success of BT, this little gem “Understanding and spelling out the importance of connections to our consumers has summed up BT’s marketing efforts of the past 25 years, its strong history of popular advertising is testament to this”

Really?

And there’s the rub, throughout this little 75th exercise there was not one mention of accountability

And one would have thought that, more than ever, at a time when the advertising aspect of marketing are under severe questioning as to its effectiveness, that a few, unquestionable research studies proving, once an for all, that advertising works, would be extremely well received!

But then again, and to the best of my knowledge, there is still not one research study that establishes conclusively that advertising sells products!

If you accept my thesis that the key to successful marketing is successful communication followed by successful selling. Then allow me to insert here the correct definition of the word “communication” and I would, at the same time, like to suggest that this should have been included in the 75th Anniversary Issue of Marketing. What is communication? After a little thought, most people come up with a definition that is about transmitting and receiving information. A little more thought might produce the word exchange. This is more satisfactory, but still assumes that communication is about moving something about conveying, or sending, or delivering, some commodity called ‘information’.

In fact, the word has quite a different root meaning. It derives from the Latin communis, meaning ‘common’. Or ‘shared’. It belongs to the family of words that includes communion, communism and community. Until you have shared information with another person, you haven’t communicated it. And until they have understood it, the way you understand it, you haven’t shared it with them.

Communication is the process of creating shared understanding.

Never once did this special edition of Marketing mention the fact that we must change in the way we think about media, there must be a major shift away from thinking about media as ‘channels’ down which we tip messages and information. Only in so far as they serve and help advertisers access and harness the power of the social networks that lie behind them.

Neither did this issue of Marketing once seriously discuss research, especially focus groups, both of which consume vast amounts of marketing monies!

Never once did this issue consider the need for more patience. The more breakthrough, the more the revolutionary and the more innovative an idea is, the longer it will take for people to appreciate it.

Next we feel that they should have pointed out that to day with all the clutter, mistrust etc that exists, people in management need to tolerate uncertainty.

The thing that’s driving all this focus-group and market research data is the desire of people with the management power to make every decision as methodical and thought out and certain as possible.

Severe symptoms of what we call “Top-Down-Management”!

These days and wherever you go, a revolution in media consumption is happening. No one in most traditional media businesses has a clue where it will end up, but the trick for existing brands will be to find ways to retain audiences and advertisers. In a era where people have the tools to rewrite and remix what they do not like, the unawareness of all this shone through the special issue of Marketing!

Certainly the next, and major, development within marketing is the development of interactive communication, again no mention of this most significant of all developments so we think that this little description of interactive communication should have been included somewhere within this issue!

Defining Interactive Marketing.

Interaction can be defined simply as straightforward communication between two parties.

Presently we are in danger of losing the real meaning of interaction, as we tend to focus discussions on the emerging technologies and neglect the communication process itself.

With an understanding of the real meaning of Interactive Communication, existing media can be made interactive, and subsequently far more cost effective.

Paul Ashby pioneered interactive communication to the advertising and marketing communities some twenty-five years ago. The communication issues he addresses have been neglected during the explosive grown of advertising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these are Cognitive Dissonance, Selective Retention and Selective Exposure.

However it sure seems that way, at least in my life as a consumer. I rarely click on a Web page banner, I assiduously avoid ads in most consumer publications. I most certainly do other things during the TV commercial break.

Newspapers, magazines and television are also facing the assault from technology.

The gist of all this is simple, persuasive and unavoidable. Interactivity, the hallmark of computing technology, fundamentally calls into question the viability of a model based on being able to force people to watch, listen, and read, advertising.

The real problem I think is that our entire system for valuing advertising is completely wrong. In almost every major medium the basic measurement for value is the cost per thousand as measured by an acceptable accounting company.

Maybe that is because it is virtually impossible to generate any interest for payment by results, because there is no clear way to make such measurements i.e. establishing any sales increase is as a result, exclusively, of advertising.

The supposedly reliable benchmarks of “Old Media” were actually just mutually agreed upon illusions. No one really expected that by paying £35 for each thousand viewers/readers that it would actually get all those people to read/view its ad.

So perhaps, after all advertising isn’t dead, but the way we measure its true value is going to be radically different in the future.

Additionally many people in the industry think that the net effect of all the changes occurring is that “it will be all to easy to avoid advertising”. But because TV is such a powerful medium, we will find ways to cut through, to persuade people that it’s worth seeing the commercials, maybe even paying them to do so!

Some people within the industry think that the customer (which after all is king/queen) is heartily sick of having completely non-interactive ads shoved down their throats.

However in the digital age content will still be king and competition for major programming rights are bound to escalate.

Additionally digital TV is bound to affect viewing figures, and therefor advertising communication (one-way communication?) is the big question. There are certain incontrovertible facts: viewing will fragment, and it will become more expensive to reach mass audiences. As a result of all this, inevitably the quality of programming on certain channels will decline, but viewers will simply vote with their remote controls.

There appear to be certain advantages to interactivity, other than the obvious of enhancing the communication process, for a number of Clients interactive TV offers an opportunity to break the strangle hold of the major retailers. The feeling is among several of them: “We have a range of goods and shopping opportunities, and want to appeal over the heads of the retailers who are wedded to everyday low prices.”

Obviously your customers will continue to buy chewing gum or socks, for example, as an impulse purchase however when it comes to high ticket consumer durables they will buy when they have properly processed the information they need, and that is when interactive communication will really come into its own.

Because Interactive Communication, properly executed, will add tangible value for the reader/viewer/advertiser!

Paul Ashby pioneered interactive communication to the advertising and marketing communities some twenty-five years ago. The communication issues he addresses have been neglected during the explosive grown of advertising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these are Cognitive Dissonance, Selective Retention and Selective Exposure.

Paul Ashby pioneered interactive communication to the advertising and marketing communities some twenty-five years ago. The communication issues he addresses have been neglected during the explosive grown of advertising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these are Cognitive Dissonance, Selective Retention and Selective Exposure.

Do you want to make money online quick with affiliate marketing programs? Sure you! And what’s your strategy? This is where most people take a break and start to think about everything they do to make money online serious with online affiliate programs. If you have to think more than 20 seconds, then you are doing something wrong. Every time you join an affiliate partner program you have to have a clear and simple strategy to earn cash fast. Why did you join one program over another? Why did you pick these products and not the other ones?

Way too few people do any research into what customers really want and need. Before you even think about joining an affiliate program you have to think about trendy products and their industry. This gives you more targeted information about potential problems or opportunities of the market, and includes information about growth, current and future trends, outside factors and information about specific competitors.

There are as many affiliate partner programs on the internet as there are products, so no matter what kind of web site you have, you should still be able to make money online serious if you put your mind to it.

To make sure you will make money online quick though, you will have to do a lot of research and find the best online affiliate program for any product you have in mind. Don’t settle for just another affiliate marketing program! Make sure your prospective customers will always think top notch quality when they think about your web site and the products you promote. The key here is to show your customers that you offer true value for their money. This is what everybody wants. What’s the value of a corkscrew, $0.50? Can you sell it for $5 or even for $10? Yes, you can, provided you offer value for your customers’ money. Let’s say that your amazing corkscrew cannot be used by children under the age of 12 and they cannot hurt themselves trying to pull it apart.

There is only one way to make money online serious with affiliate marketing programs and it means to put a lot of time and thinking behind every page of your web site(s). And this way means you have to build a good web site if you want to make money online quick with online affiliate programs. You have to be different and unique than what the customers can see on the average affiliate partner programs’ web sites.