Although this blog is about SFI, in order to establish how valuable it really is, it is necessary for me to first discuss why people fail on the internet and thereafter I hope to establish why so many fail with SFI.
As mentioned in my earlier blog, SFI is one of the biggest and most successful affiliate programs on the net. It is entirely dependent on affiliates for earnings and as such if they didn't offer their affiliates success, they wouldn't have become so big and so successful. Also, it is highly unlikely that they would be around even after 10 years if they didn't truly offer a money making opportunity. So the reality is that affiliates are earning and indeed there are a large number of affiliates earning in excess of $100,000 plus per annum.
However, this particular issue of my blog is not about the success stories. Rather it is about the unfortunate people who don’t succeed. The failure rate on the internet is about 95%. This staggering number includes all the people who lose money on the internet rather than gain. It’s not impossible to earn and many ordinary people are earning every day, but unfortunately the numbers of people failing is far greater.
One of the reasons for failure is hypes and scams. Prospective affiliates are quite often trapped in hypes and scams which are extremely common.
A hype in my view is when a program or marketing method is described in an exaggerated manner which is impossible to duplicate, which so often is told by a self proclaimed guru who explains how he has made a ridiculous sum of money almost magically, but in luring poor affiliate into his trap, does not show how it is done and never offers the tools needed to duplicate his trick and thereby succeed. Too many affiliates join hyped up programs hoping to make the same ridiculous sums of money they are told is possible, almost magically, might I add, and of course magic does not exist and so therefore nearly all the affiliates fail.
On the other hand, a scam is much worse than a hype because it is set up to exploit people’s natural desires to become self sufficient and wealthy, but instead of offering these it just robs people of their money. Although there are numerous types of scams on the internet, for the sake of this article I would like to refer only to scam affiliate programs. Once an affiliate joins a scam, quite often they gain a sense of immediate success, and sometimes this immediate success is designed to strip the affiliate of more money, but in the end it's always the same, they are cheated of their initial investment and sometimes more and the program operators disappear out of sight only to return another day with another program to cheat some others. There are a large number of websites that are scams and although there are policing authorities in every country of the world who will arrest the culprits quite often the loss to thousands of people are never returned.
Whilst I sympathize with the thousands of affiliates that are trapped in hypes and scams (I, myself have been trapped many times in the past), the very first thing anyone must try to establish before entering into a commitment, even if it is FREE, is whether they are joining something realistic and whether the organization is successful. It is important to understand how a program works and where the money is coming from to pay the affiliates. If the earning is mysterious then it is usually not a good idea to join. Also if nothing is really being sold except a membership to the program then it is usually a sign that the program is not genuine .
To avoid being trapped it is usually a good idea to join an established company with a proven track record for success, but this is not to say that new companies cannot succeed. It just means you have to be a little more careful.
Having said this, I really do not agree that hypes and scams are entirely the reason for failure and infact I do not agree that this is the main cause for failure. Most people have enough sense to avoid hypes and scams, at least repeatedly, but in quite a lot of cases, this avoidance tendency goes too far in that a totally negative opinion of everything is forged, which includes genuine opportunities, too. Everything is not a scam and infact there are quite a number of giant corporations on the internet today with quite a lot more to come tomorrow. These are not scams, but the avoidance tendency, once set in, can prevent success even more than the hypes and scams. Unfortunately this mindset is so severe that, once fully set in, prevents one to distinguish genuine opportunities from the hypes and scams and as such, quite often, they join the hypes and scams instead of the genuine ones. So in fact, far from the hypes and scams that are a problem in itself, a greater reason for failure is the wrong mindset of the prospective affiliates. An open and intelligent mind is necessary before entering into an affiliate program else failure will repeat itself again and again.
If this weren’t enough, the fact remains that are even more reasons for failure and once again it is more because of the affiliate rather than the affiliate program. Every affiliate program offers rewards, but it only rewards people who have benefited the program and unless an affiliate does this, they can’t get rewarded. Quite often affiliates do not do anything. I have seen this happen too often in my downline and there is unfortunately not much that can be done. I try to coach them, to show them free methods of marketing, to help them succeed, but quite often, they don’t budge and so they don’t earn. I am not sure exactly why this is the case, because it obviously is not beneficial for anyone, but I have formed my own assumptions on this. Unfortunately some affiliates are concerned about what their upline will make and it might sound funny, but I suspect it is true, and it is for this reason they fail to listen to advice and progress forward. This childish behavior is infact preventing these affiliates from earning. Another reason can be because of the negative mindset I discussed earlier. In such cases, affiliates do not attempt to try new methods because they think they will fail if they try.
In my opinion, this is by far the largest reason for failure and unfortunately coaching such people is futile because any attempt to help is often received as an attempt to exploit and earn. We cannot enter into people’s minds and we cannot change the way they think and it is often not the affiliate program, but the affiliate that is the cause of their own failure. This applies to SFI and any other program out there.
Having said this, and I hope quite a lot will agree, if we applied this sort of mindset to a regular job, where an employee doesn't work because his superior gets paid more or doesn't work because he thinks that whatever he does will fail, he will surely and undoubtedly get the sack and there is no buts about it. So if such people avoid getting the sack for lowly paid jobs and, in a few cases, work like a dog or slave to keep it, then why on earth do they not avoid failing on the internet? Why should they not try the free methods of marketing that I use all the time and that I suggest to my downline? Why should they be bothered with what I will gain from them, if I can help them to earn? It beats me. I really don't have the answer, but can say for sure that the vast majority of failures are not due to hypes and scams but due to the wrong mindset of quite a lot of affiliates.
Join SFI
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
SFI - One of the Biggest and Most Successful Affiliate Programs
As you can guess from the title, this blog is about SFI – one the biggest and most successful affiliate programs on the internet which has been running strong for over 10 years.
Because it’s a company with a long track record behind it, one of the key concerns of most affiliates is already removed, that is, it cannot be classified as a scam. Unfortunately scam is far too widespread and therefore if you are looking to join an affiliate program and to avoid scam, joining an established organization such as SFI might be a good idea.
Over the years, millions of people have joined SFI and today they are recruiting around 8000 affiliates a week. This demonstrates the success and popularity of SFI over other programs more than anything else, but really it is the structure of the affiliate program that attracts affiliates like a magnet.
Immediately after you join, anyone who joins after you is added to your downline, which is otherwise known as your power line in SFI. It’s far too difficult to recruit thousands of people yourself and so this structural aspect of SFI is very important and distinguishes it from most other programs out there.
However, it’s not all a bed of roses. Like all programs you need to earn your rewards and in the case of SFI, it works on network marketing and teamwork with the greatest rewards going to the team leaders. So if you are not a team player, then SFI might not be for you.
If, on the other hand, you are a team player, SFI can offer something which many other programs can’t do. For a start, thousands of affiliates added to your down line is a valuable asset in any program and, in SFI, it is infact more valuable if you can utilize your team and leadership skills. To benefit from these you must first become a leader or at least enter the preliminary stage before you become a leader. This is to say that if you want to benefit from the thousands of affiliates that are placed under you; you need to become an executive member.
Although joining SFI is free and although it is possible to earn without any investment, like all things in the internet, success comes faster by paying and, in the case of SFI, going executive may be an wise investment to your road to success. The cost of an executive membership is not cheap, but you do get valuable goods in return for your subscription, which you can choose to use yourself or resell to someone else. It also needs to be said that this is entirely optional and if you feel that you are not ready, you don’t have to go executive right away and therefore the program remains FREE..
If you do choose to go executive, and only if you do, you have the opportunity to earn from everyone that is added onto your downline. You can earn if any of these affiliates make purchases, which include every day goods. Infact going executive locks your position in SFI and in that case you will gain an opportunity from every affiliate in your downline right down to infinity. You can also earn if any of these affiliates choose to go executive, too and infact there are special bonuses which SFI offer if this happens. One of these is the matchmaker bonus from which you will earn 50% of the entire earnings of every affiliate that decides to follow you onto executive class and you will continue to earn this each and every month that you remain an executive member.
If you don’t want to pay to become an executive member but still want to earn, then it is possible, but it is a little more difficult and involves recruiting on your own. What you have to rely on is your ability to recruit but also your leadership skills so that a good percentage of anyone who joins you might follow on to executive status (or alternatively might purchase something). In this case, however, you do not have the opportunity to earn from the thousands of downline members that SFI recruit for you automatically and so the speed of your success can be a lot slower.
It needs to be said that even executive members who are locked in to earn from every single affiliate that joins after them, must still recruit on their own to assure success. The fact is that the responsiveness of your downline is far greater when you recruit yourself because you can easily make friends with them. Whereas the chances of anyone following you onto executive status could be anything between 0.1% to 0.5% from the downline recruited automatically by SFI, the probabilities that someone will follow from your own downline increases to about 20%. So recruiting on your own is a skill that you really need to have.
In some of my later blogs I am going to discuss some of the methods I use to recruit using only FREE methods and if you like you can try them out. Having said this, I really don’t believe that it is a question of like, but rather a question of necessity. If you want to earn on the internet the only way you are going to succeed is if you start recruiting yourself and what better way is there than FREE?
Also I think it's important to add that there are a lot of benefits from SFI that I could not mention simply because I am trying to limit the length of this page (it's getting too long already), but like all affiliate programs there are also lots of difficulties too. However, if your objective is to earn, then you must do something and in this case, SFI might be a good choice for you. Nevertheless, rushing in and finding out that you can't meet the demands is never a good idea and therefore you should find out how the program works before joining. What you should promise yourself before joining is that you are going to make it a success and as you mean to keep this promise make sure that you are equipped for the job.
Join SFI
Because it’s a company with a long track record behind it, one of the key concerns of most affiliates is already removed, that is, it cannot be classified as a scam. Unfortunately scam is far too widespread and therefore if you are looking to join an affiliate program and to avoid scam, joining an established organization such as SFI might be a good idea.
Over the years, millions of people have joined SFI and today they are recruiting around 8000 affiliates a week. This demonstrates the success and popularity of SFI over other programs more than anything else, but really it is the structure of the affiliate program that attracts affiliates like a magnet.
Immediately after you join, anyone who joins after you is added to your downline, which is otherwise known as your power line in SFI. It’s far too difficult to recruit thousands of people yourself and so this structural aspect of SFI is very important and distinguishes it from most other programs out there.
However, it’s not all a bed of roses. Like all programs you need to earn your rewards and in the case of SFI, it works on network marketing and teamwork with the greatest rewards going to the team leaders. So if you are not a team player, then SFI might not be for you.
If, on the other hand, you are a team player, SFI can offer something which many other programs can’t do. For a start, thousands of affiliates added to your down line is a valuable asset in any program and, in SFI, it is infact more valuable if you can utilize your team and leadership skills. To benefit from these you must first become a leader or at least enter the preliminary stage before you become a leader. This is to say that if you want to benefit from the thousands of affiliates that are placed under you; you need to become an executive member.
Although joining SFI is free and although it is possible to earn without any investment, like all things in the internet, success comes faster by paying and, in the case of SFI, going executive may be an wise investment to your road to success. The cost of an executive membership is not cheap, but you do get valuable goods in return for your subscription, which you can choose to use yourself or resell to someone else. It also needs to be said that this is entirely optional and if you feel that you are not ready, you don’t have to go executive right away and therefore the program remains FREE..
If you do choose to go executive, and only if you do, you have the opportunity to earn from everyone that is added onto your downline. You can earn if any of these affiliates make purchases, which include every day goods. Infact going executive locks your position in SFI and in that case you will gain an opportunity from every affiliate in your downline right down to infinity. You can also earn if any of these affiliates choose to go executive, too and infact there are special bonuses which SFI offer if this happens. One of these is the matchmaker bonus from which you will earn 50% of the entire earnings of every affiliate that decides to follow you onto executive class and you will continue to earn this each and every month that you remain an executive member.
If you don’t want to pay to become an executive member but still want to earn, then it is possible, but it is a little more difficult and involves recruiting on your own. What you have to rely on is your ability to recruit but also your leadership skills so that a good percentage of anyone who joins you might follow on to executive status (or alternatively might purchase something). In this case, however, you do not have the opportunity to earn from the thousands of downline members that SFI recruit for you automatically and so the speed of your success can be a lot slower.
It needs to be said that even executive members who are locked in to earn from every single affiliate that joins after them, must still recruit on their own to assure success. The fact is that the responsiveness of your downline is far greater when you recruit yourself because you can easily make friends with them. Whereas the chances of anyone following you onto executive status could be anything between 0.1% to 0.5% from the downline recruited automatically by SFI, the probabilities that someone will follow from your own downline increases to about 20%. So recruiting on your own is a skill that you really need to have.
In some of my later blogs I am going to discuss some of the methods I use to recruit using only FREE methods and if you like you can try them out. Having said this, I really don’t believe that it is a question of like, but rather a question of necessity. If you want to earn on the internet the only way you are going to succeed is if you start recruiting yourself and what better way is there than FREE?
Also I think it's important to add that there are a lot of benefits from SFI that I could not mention simply because I am trying to limit the length of this page (it's getting too long already), but like all affiliate programs there are also lots of difficulties too. However, if your objective is to earn, then you must do something and in this case, SFI might be a good choice for you. Nevertheless, rushing in and finding out that you can't meet the demands is never a good idea and therefore you should find out how the program works before joining. What you should promise yourself before joining is that you are going to make it a success and as you mean to keep this promise make sure that you are equipped for the job.
Join SFI
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