An Affiliate Mentor's 2009 To-Do List

With a New Year, we often take a fresh look at the way we do things. This can be both in our personal and our professional lives. When it comes to affiliate marketing it should be no different. If you have a downline team, you must continually look at your role as an affiliate mentor.

The year 2009 is going to mean being creative in marketing your affiliate products. We are in challenging economic times and are in a recession. Those are the cold facts. However, does that mean you hide under a rock, or bury your head in the sand as a businessperson? No, it doesn't.

It means you find ways to operate your affiliate business more efficiently. It also means you step up your efforts to promote your products and services, not curtail them. On top of all that you must step up your efforts to train your downline team properly. You are essential to their survival and vice-versa.

With that in mind, the following are some tips for effectively mentoring your downline team to success in 2009:

Open Door Policy

It's imperative that you let your downline know you are available to them. As soon as you gain a new downline member, give them your personal contact information. If it's an e-mail address, make sure it's one checked frequently so you can respond to them promptly.

In addition, send messages to your downline encouraging their questions and input. This lets them know you're concerned about their success, not just your own.

Flash: In Today's Headlines

You are Editor-in-Chief when it comes to getting affiliate marketing news out to your downline. Is there a product upgrade on the horizon they should know more details about? Then you can supply them that news and add any details as you deem appropriate.

Does your downline team know about article marketing, how it all works? If not, then it's up to you to inform them. Getting their article promotion campaigns in high gear is essential to their business.

Your job as an affiliate mentor is to let newbie's know where the good article distribution services reside. Make sure you get the news hot-off-the-press out to your team concerning ways to build their business.

Class is in Session

This one is straightforward for 2009. If you have never done so in the past, now's the time to institute training modules. Make a commitment for this New Year to train your downline in a systematic manner. This means thinking about, planning, scheduling, and doing the actual training.

Pick different marketing tactics you want to teach your team. Plan a lesson based on each tactic. Come up with a schedule for when each module will be taught.

Get that schedule out to your team and encourage them to attend, if the training will be via teleconferencing. Of course, you can engage in e-mail training and send out regularly scheduled newsletters or lessons on effective affiliate marketing.

Incentives

As an affiliate mentor, explain to your downline your affiliate parent's bonus/reward program. Many affiliate marketers sign up for a program because they love the product and like the main commission offering. They sometimes forget to read further and look at what other monies can come their way for sales performance.

As a mentor explain to them the different levels of payment. Encourage them to be proactive to reach these levels.

In addition, offer your own personal incentives. Reward creative downline members who work hard and excel at promoting the program. Your commitment to reward them from your personal resources raises your credibility as a mentor.

Structure

One way to inspire your downline and discourage affiliate attrition is to implement some business structure. In so doing, you add extra professionalism to your affiliate business.

Structure would be in the form of regular monthly meetings with your downline. This is different from the casual open door policy. It's different from your planned training sessions as well.

Regular meetings with an agenda, focus on affiliate marketing within a team framework. They are organized meetings that encourage give and take when it comes to ideas. These meetings have a touch of a corporate aura to them, which is where the professional persona comes in.

Planned meetings, with a purpose, via conference calls, online video, or text chats, are useful. Use them to show your downline you operate as a real business. Use them to show them that you are committed to their success and have the structure in place to help them.

There you go; the above are some ideas for mentoring your downline effectively. The New Year is your opportunity to run your affiliate business in a new manner. Run with all, or some of the above, and inspire your downline to grow their businesses in 2009.

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