John Dilbeck Musings

In December, 2007, SFI Marketing Group introduced MaxMalls.com.

In essence, SFI has joined the affiliate program of many of the top-ranked and most-liked stores on the Internet and has built a simple portal to all of these stores.

In addition to the convenience of starting at MaxMalls.com to go to your favorite stores - or a store you’ve never browsed - you’ll be helping children in impoverished countries around the world.

How?

SFI will donate a portion of every MaxMalls sale to the nonprofit organization, Save The Children.

Their goal is to have thousands of major, name-brand stores in MaxMalls.

Please note that going to any of the stores in MaxMalls is exactly like going to the store directly and you will pay the exact same amount for your purchases, too.

The only real differences for shoppers is that there are many stores conveniently located in one place and you can be happy that a portion of each of your purchases, if you start at MaxMalls.com, will be donated to Save The Children.

Not bad for just a couple of extra clicks when you start shopping.

Act on your dream!

JD

I earn, you earn, WeAllEarn.com. ™

I’ve been working over the last few days to create a new social networking site for SFI Marketing Group affiliates, and I’m announcing its presence to the world today.

If you are an existing SFI affiliate, or would like to learn how to join SFI, I hope you will join us at the SFI Marketing Group affiliates business networking site.

Please restrict your conversations to topics of interest to SFI Marketing Group affiliates. You are welcome to use your SFI affiliate links in the conversations and on your profile pages, but you are not welcome to spam the site with unrelated topics.

Spammers will be banned with no recourse.

You are invited to come and join us at the SFI Marketing Group Affiliates networking site. Of course, it’s free.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’ve been thinking about this question quite a bit over the last few weeks.

Am I getting all I deserve from SFI?

Let me think out loud about that for a few moments.

Do they send me a commission when I sell something? Yes, and it’s always on time, as expected.

Do they pay me an upline override for anyone in my T-Net? Yes. Again, it’s always on time and exactly as promised.

Do they offer training materials to help me improve my marketing and team leading skills? Yes, they do. I’ve learned a lot about online marketing over the last few years and I’m getting better at it all the time. I still haven’t found the magic system and don’t believe there really is one. But, I’m finding and using tools that make my business grow and I’m getting more commission checks than ever before.

Am I getting better as a team leader? That’s certainly a mixed bag. You see, I’m not a people person. I’m an old bear who likes to travel alone and do what I want. I’m much more suited to being a blacksmith, a programmer, or an affiliate marketer than I am to be part of a network marketing team.

On the other hand, I try to do what I can and I like to think I’m improving over time.

I only contact you sporadically, but I value each contact and look forward to hearing from you and working with you to build a real sales team over time.

I do my best to answer all emails I receive from you - something my sponsor has never done. So, I didn’t have anyone to learn from and I’ve had to figure it out on my own with the help from what I’ve found on the dboard. Eventually, I plan to have a system that works and which will be relatively easy to duplicate, even if you don’t have extensive computer or marketing skills. It’s not ready, but I am slowly making progress.

Will I take you by the hand and lead you each step of the way? No.

Will I help if you ask me a question? I’ll do my best.

So, I’m trying to offer you more than my sponsor ever offered me, and I hope you will build on that trend and offer more to your affiliates than I offer to you. When any of us finds something that works reliably, I hope we can find a way to make it available to everyone in our team. We cannot build a sales team without working as a team.

Does SFI provide me with services and products to market? Yes, they do. I love some of these products, including the Super Orange cleaner, which I use all the time. I enjoy reading the magazines to which I’ve subscribed via our Veriuni affiliate store. I haven’t bought many things through our store, but I’ve been very satisfied with all the ones I have.

Does SFI provide me with a staff to make my business easier to build? Certainly they do. They handle buying, stocking, and keeping track of the inventory. They pay the interest on financing that stock. They have a staff to handle customer service, shipping, returns, refunds, and all the rest of the behind-the-scenes duties that have to be done when selling products and services. They offer help to their affiliates (us) via phone and email and have always been curteous and helpful when I contacted them.

They provide a computer staff to take orders, provide marketing doorways for us, and maintain the dboard forum where we can help other affiliates and be helped by them.

What do they ask from us? Very little. You can remain an affiliate and do nothing, if that is the path you choose. If you want to build your sales business and start earning commissions, then you have to do the marketing that brings in new customers and generates sales. SFI pays rather generously when you do that, especially if you are an EA.

Am I getting all I deserve from SFI? I think I am. I am building a business, and SFI is an important part of that business. It’s not all I do, but it’s important to me.

Are they paying me for doing nothing? Not on your life. I’ve earned every dollar I received from them, and you’ll have to earn every commission check you receive, too. SFI is a marketing organization, and if you’re not marketing, you’re not making any sales. No sales, no commissions.

That goes for every other affiliate and network marketing organization you’ll find on the Internet, too, no matter what they say. SFI won’t try to hype the opportunity and tell you that you’ll succeed by doing nothing. No sales, no commissions; it’s just that simple.

I think it is important to become and remain an EA in the organization. I became an EA the first month it was offered and I remain one now and plan to remain one for years to come. It is part of my commitment to the company and is a concrete demonstration of my intention to do the best I can with this organization.

Is SFI getting all they deserve from me? I hope so. I’m trying.

Is SFI getting all they deserve from you?

Only you can answer that. You know why you joined and what your dreams were. You know what your income goals are and I suspect you have not achieved them yet. Why not? Have you done any marketing today? What about yesterday? How are you going to sell anything if you are not marketing at least a little every day?

If you are regularly marketing, believe this: If you persevere and are consistent with your marketing efforts, they will start paying off for you.

I remember when I started my online marketing business. I was happy to make a sale a month at first. Then it was a sale a week, and then a few per month, and now a few per day. It takes time to get noticed and to let people know you.

Now and then, I entertain thoughts about quitting SFI. I’m not earning as much as I want to with this company, but I have good feelings about it. Gery is always working to make the company better. The staff I’ve dealt with have been efficient and honest. I’ve always been paid what I earned, and I can’t say that for some companies with which I’ve worked.

I think, as Gery states in his AskGery column, that NOC is the future of SFI. I think it still needs improvements, but I’m sponsoring new merchants every month and I’m seeing requests for coupons every week, so I know it’s growing. I love helping people in my local area market their products and I’m working to increase my marketing of NOC in the coming year.

Have you told anyone in your town about NOC?

Working together we can achieve great things. Working separately - or not working at all - will certainly limit our success.

I lost my team leader status for awhile and just regained it in November. I want to thank each of you who is now an EA, and I’ve adjusted my 4102 team leader co-op so that all current EAs are in it. I’ve removed anyone who no longer an EA.

The way you build your sales organization is to sponsor a few EAs and help them do the same. I wish I had a clear-cut way that I could recommend, and one day I’ll find one. If you find one before I do, please share with us.

Are you fully participating in your SFI business? I think there is room for each of us to improve.

Act on your dreams!

JD

http://JohnDilbeckAndFriends.com

http://ResidualIncomeForum.com

PS: I hope you are enjoying the holiday season and I wish you the best in the coming year.

I just created a new Site Build It Webmasters group on Squidoo.com.

If you are a Site Build It! webmaster, you are invited to create a new lens about your SBI site and how you use Site Build It to create your online business.

If you create a lens using the above link, you will be submitted for membership to the Site Build It Webmasters group on Squidoo.com.

As long as your new lens is about SBI and/or your SBI website, I’ll be happy to admit you to the group.

(Site Build It! websites, only, please.)

This is a great way to get one-way links to your site and the pages within it.

Squidoo lenses are powerful ways to build one page websites that link outward to other resources. You can even make money while you promote your site.

Do you have a CafePress store related to your SBI website? Add a CafePress module to your lens and sell your wares.

Do you sell products from Amazon.com on your SBI site? Add the top sellers to your Squidoo lens, too.

Feel free to put your 5 Pillar affiliate links on your lens(es).

Let’s all help each other succeed.

Act On Your Dream!

JD

Now that Groups are active on Squidoo, I have been inspired to start some new lenses.

For the Country Music Fans group, I just created a new Dolly Parton lens. Pigeon Forge is only a couple of hours from here and I’ve been a Dolly Parton fan for decades, so it seemed like a good lens to build.

For the Addicted to Squidoo group, I started a Marketing With Squidoo lens. I have some ideas for more content on that lens, but I’ve run out of time today to work on it.

I plan to start a new group that I’ll announce in a few days. I created a couple of lenses for adding to the group when it is created. They include:
Success With Power Blog and Success With Blogging. They may fit into groups that also include Home Businesses and Marketing. I have an idea that we’re going to see a lot of overlap in groups since anyone can start whatever group they want.

In fact, I plan to create a few more groups to cross promote lenses I’ve already created.

With the groups I’ve created at MySpace and Squidoo, I’m starting to think that I don’t want to over-extend into another direction! It’s a lot easier to join a group and let someone else manage it than it is to find the time to visit all the groups and forums I’ve started here and there every day. Some days I have other priorities and just don’t have the time and energy to visit all those sites to make sure things are staying on track.

I just added another 17 lenses i want to create to the file where I keep all my information about my existing lenses. I found I wanted a comprehensive list of all the lenses, their URLs, RSS feeds they publish, and any notes for further development. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with all of them and what I want to do, even if the Squidoo Dashboard does keep a list of all our lenses.

By the way, I just discovered a neat tool for promoting your lenses. On the bottom right of your Squidoo lenses dashboard, there is a section called Lensmaster Tools. At the bottom of that column is a link to Spread The Word. On that page, there is a nice tool that helps you create image links to your lenses. An example is shown below:

So, who else has been creating new lenses?

Over the last few days, there have been some big changes at Squidoo.com with the release of the new groups feature.

Now, your Squidoo lens is not a stand-alone page. You can join appropriate groups for cross promotion of similarly-themed lenses.

Don’t find a group you like? Start one of your own. Help all the members of your group find more readers and more success with Squidoo.

New Squidoo lenses

I just created a new Success With Blogging lens and I invite your feedback for resources that can be added to that lens.

New Squidoo groups

I have several lenses, websites, and forums related to North Carolina, so I created a new North Carolina Group and I invite you to add your lenses to this group as long as they relate primarily to a place, event, person, organization, or business that is in North Carolina.

I’ve never paid much attention to MySpace until the last couple of weeks.

When I looked at it last year, the people and their interests that I found there were not at all what I was interested in.

However, recently, there is a lot more business networking going on and I’ve started to invest some time there.

Come visit my MySpace John Dilbeck profile page.

If you have a MySpace account, come visit my page and - if you are interested - invite me to be your friend. If you don’t have already have an account, you can join for free.

From my page, you can link to some of the best online marketers I’ve been able to find and can expand your network as you want.

Some of the reasons I decided to invest some effort there is the built-in audience that numbers in the millions, good blogging tools, bulletins to keep in touch with friends and associates, the forums, and groups that you can start and moderate.

I’ve started new groups at:

Site Build It Webmasters

Success With Power Blog

Success With Affiliate Marketing

At the moment, I’m feeling rather lonely in these new groups and I hope you will join me there. I’m open to suggestions on how to make the groups better for all participants.

If you are going to use affiliate links, post it to your blog or profile page and link to it from the group forum. Please, do not post affiliate links in the forums.

I hope to see you there. Come be my MySpace friend!

The Power Blog is a brand new, hands-off, affiliate marketing service which combines the simplicity of dynamic internet marketing with the power of a search engine optimized blog needed to create a real profit pulling internet marketing campaign.

Join free or see all the benefits of pro membership.

After I discussed the idea with Peter Dobler, creator of the Power Blog, I set up a Success With Power Blog group on MySpace.

I’m inviting you to come and participate.

The more we discuss the Power Blog, the more we can succeed with it.

As long as I was promoting the Power Blog, I also created a lens at Squidoo, Success With Power Blog on Squidoo, to present it to new potential members.

I have a MySpace page, John Dilbeck, and I invite you to come view my profile.

I invite you to get a MySpace account if you don’t already have one. They’re free.

Sign in to your MySpace account and visit my profile page. Invite me to be your MySpace friend, if you want.

Then, come join the Success With Power Blog group and let’s spread the word.

A week ago, I didn’t know who Kimberly Dawn Wells was, and now I’m running across her lenses and groups everywhere I look!

That’s a good thing.

About Kimberly Dawn Wells

Kimberly is very active on Squidoo, CafePress, MySpace, and probably other places, but I’ve been concentrating on those three for the last couple of days. She has an outstanding lens about herself on Squidoo and an equally impressive page about herself on MySpace.

Activities on Squidoo

Kimberly is a Citizen Squid at Squidoo and has been creating groups on Squidoo to make it easier for lensmasters to group a bunch of lenses together on a common topic. While this is a pre-release feature at the moment, it looks like it won’t be too much longer before it becomes at least a beta release.

I’ve added a couple of my lenses to the Country Music Fan and Totally Awesome Tees groups, and I’ll be participating in more groups as they become available. I think this is going to be a very important addition to Squidoo.

She offers helpful advice

Kimberly is very helpful and offers her advice on a number of topics.

For example, she offers some very helpful tips on her MySpace Made Easy lens to help us improve our experiences at MySpace.

Activities on MySpace

Kimberly has several groups at MySpace, including Success with Squidoo and Success with CafePress. Groups on MySpace include the ability to discuss topics of interest on forums associated with the group and the optional ability to post bulletins which seem to be used to post news or ads.

I’m new to MySpace, so my limited knowledge of the community may not allow me to fully appreciate the nuances of membership and participation there. I’m open to being educated on the subject.

I created two groups at MySpace for Murphy NC Business and Site Build It Webmasters, which was an outgrowth of my Site Build It lens at Squidoo.

Free to participate

You can participate free at Squidoo and MySpace and I think both are great places to create content and tell about your activities and interests.

On MySpace, this is done through conversations on the forums, posting of bulletins, blogging, and leaving comments on your friends’ pages.

On Squidoo, you participate by creating lenses (one page keyword focused pages with out-pointing links) and joining the groups as they become available.

Both of these sites work well with other communities where I participate, including Ryze.com, PowerfulIntentions.com, AdlandPro.com, MySpace.com, and others.

I look forward to meeting you on one or more of these communities.

Feel free to tell me what you think. Correct me where I’m wrong and educate me where I’m ignorant.

You will find tips, advice, training, and answers to your questions about the NOC program at the NOC Forum and UBC Forum on the SFI discussion board.

If you are not an affiliate and would like to participate in the NOC coupon system, I invite you to sign up as a free affiliate.

To learn more about all the details about NOC, visit the NOC Launch Announcement.

Take advantage of Nice Offers, today.

If you are a merchant who would like to offer your own special offers, learn more and register your business at no cost.