Many of you may not know this… but I have been working on a tech startup venture for the past year and a half.  It’s called Flevy and it’s an online marketplace for premium business documents.

Today, Flevy is the #1 online provider of high quality business documents. We sell presentation templates, financial models, PowerPoint templates, and more. We cover a wide breadth of corporate functions, from IT to Corporate Strategy to Communications to Change Management to Corporate Finance. Read more about Flevy here: http://flevy.com/about.

I am excited to announce that we just launched an Affiliate Program for Flevy.

Flevy’s Affiliate Program is structured like the Amazon Associates program. You direct customers to our site and earn a commission on each sale. Commission % is based on monthly sales.

For a limited time, we are boosting commission rates–up to 15% on each sale. These rates will be LOCKED IN for the lifetime of your account if you join within the limited promotion period.

Full program details and commission rate structure can be found here:
https://flevy.com/affiliates

What does our typical customer look like?

Our most common customer profile is someone who works in a corporate role at a mid-size to large enterprise. Here are several random examples to give you a better idea:

A marketer, working for P&G, needs to develop the pricing strategy for a new product. This person would be interested in this document —
https://flevy.com/browse/business-document/pricing-strategy-226

A project manager is getting frustrated with Microsoft Project and is looking for an alternate solution, preferably built in Microsoft Excel and customizable. This person would be interested in this tool —
https://flevy.com/browse/information-technology/project-management-tool-in-excel-212

A VP wants to establish a proper scorecard and KPIs for his team. He may be interested in learning about the Balanced Scorecard methodology —
https://flevy.com/browse/business-document/balanced-scorecard-134

What makes this Affiliate Program unique?

Flevy is a marketplace, meaning people join us to both BUY and SELL their business documents. As part of the Affiliate Program, you can also refer document sellers to Flevy. You will then earn a commission on all sales that the document sellers makes off Flevy.

This is an important distinction from other Affiliate programs, such as Amazon’s.

Who is this Affiliate Program best suited for?

In my opinion, this program is best suited for someone who has held a corporate role in a previous life.  In other words, previously, you worked for a large company in some corporate function — e.g., Marketing, Operations, IT, Supply Chain, HR, Program Management, Safety, etc.   This could’ve been an internship or a job you’ve held for 10+ years.

The Flevy Affiliate Program allows you to capitalize on both your expertise and professional network.  Furthermore, you will a significant advantage of others trying to sell these same documents, because you have domain knowledge of these highly specialized products.

For any of you who read up on or practice SEO techniques, you know this: the past year and an half has been rough. Google has been releasing major algorithm update after update — each having momentous changes to search engine results. Many businesses have lost their rankings overnight.

Google’s intentions, of course, are good — but the actual results have been horrible. What has resulted is almost an chaotic penalizing of sites. Countless completely whitehat sites have been penalized. The casualties of war, I guess — and Google has admitted to this. Furthermore, Google has also admitted to the existence of Negative SEO, which I find appalling.

The net result is SEO has become an unreliable way to promote your website. I have, unfortunately, learned this first hand.

A more reliable method is Social Media Marketing. For my web startup, the majority of my online marketing methods focus on social media channels.

The premise behind Social Media Marketing is to remain top of mind.

When you log into your Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn account, you are bombarded with a live, constantly changing feed of updates.  Therefore, to capture your social audience’s attention, you need to constantly provide relevant, engaging updates.

This is difficult. It requires a lot of time and effort.

To address this, I am actually working on launching a new service for webmasters.  This service will put your Social Media Marketing (as well as a good part of your Internet Marketing) on AUTOPILOT.  The techniques used will be completely whitehat. The premise of my service is to automate a lot of what you ought to be doing manually to promote a successful online business.

More on this as the service gets more fleshed out and closer to launch.

Organo Gold sells organic coffee based on a natural supplement called Ganoderma. Ganoderma has medicinal properties and has been extensively used in Asian and holistic medicines.

Organo Gold sells through Multi-level Marketing (MLM). For those unfamiliar with the concept of MLM, give the Wikipedia article a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing. Many large, successful companies use this business model–the best known examples include Avon and Tupperware.

This is my second attempt at MLM. The first attempt (Isagenix) kind of fell by the wayside. How come? Well, I’ve just been consumed with other business ideas, mainly a “web startup” I launched about year ago.

I was recruited to join Organo by my friend, Chris. Chris is a tennis coach living in Texas. We met through a mutual friend here in New York City. He only joined Organo Gold just over a month ago, but has already earned several thousand.

With Organo, I will again take an unconventional approach to MLM. My idea is to build an ecommerce site around Organo Gold products (and quite possibly add on similar products into our product catalog) and promote it like a normal online business. Over the past several years, I have built several successful ecommerce sites, so will leverage those experiences in this MLM venture.

Also, Chris will be my partner on this. While I focus on Internet marketing and web development, he will focus on the traditional direct-selling side of MLM. He is great at that. He will also be directing customers directly to our site.

Btw, if this is something you think you’d be interested in, shoot me an email (dave@[this domain]). I will put you directly in touch with Chris.

If you’re unsure or just want more info, I still recommend you speak with Chris. Here are 2 reasons why:

1. Coffee is the second most consumed beverage in the world–second only to water.
2. Organo (like Isagenix) has a very optimal, 2-leg referral plan. The essence of it is this — if you join under my tree, then HALF of all my future referrals will automatically become your referrals.

If you want to see the ecommerce site come together, check it out here: SedonaFoods.com.  We picked and registered the domain yesterday.  Over the next couple days, the site itself should take shape and we’ll be in business!  I will be posting periodic updates to this blog.

Total investment so far? About $2.12.  I used the promo code FORK on GoDaddy to register SedonaFoods.com for $1.99.

I can’t believe it’s been over a year, since I’ve updated this blog.  I’m actually shocked.  Time flies.  I’ve been busy with a number of ventures, many of which I plan to share on this site.

For those wondering (and I’ve received many emails asking), 300K Job Search In-a-Box is still working and being supported.

As my first post since 2011, I thought I’d share this: an absolutely excellent collection of Thousands of Public Data Sources.

As you may recall reading one of my earlier blog articles, using publicly available datasets is one of the easiest way to create a Value-Added Megasite: http://themanwhosoldtheweb.com/blog/2011/04/autoscaling-with-publicly-available-data/.

Okay, I haven’t tended to this blog in a while.  So, why not re-ignite things with a new live case study?

This will be a completely new venture for me.  I am going to give Multi-level Marketing (MLM) a  try.  This is my first time playing in the MLM space.  For those unfamiliar with the concept of MLM, give the wikipedia article a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing.  Many large, successful companies use this business model — the best known examples include Avon and Tupperware.

The specific program I decided to join is called Isagenix.  Isagenix is an ecommerce site that sells health supplements.  Specifically, they sell health supplements promoting body cleansing, anti-aging, and weight loss.  Here is their official slogan: Isagenix: World Leader in Whole-Body Nutritional Cleansing, Cellular Replenishing & Youthful Aging.

So, why Isagenix?

There are 4 primary reasons why I decided to join Isagenix. […]

Here are the step by step instructions for setting up your Niche Business Directory In-a-Box site.  We’ll have your business directory up and running in no time! […]

I came across this great article on TechCrunch earlier this week on the freemium business model.  This article discusses the business model, psychology behind, and critical aspects you should consider when you determine your own product pricing strategy.

First, the basic question.  What is the term freemium mean?

As Wikipedia so articulately put it, freemium is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge, while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services.  Sounds familiar?  Yes, a ton of web services operate under this freemium model.

In fact, most software-as-a-service offerings offer 3 or more pricing options.  The introductory option is free, while the 2nd and 3rd ‘premium’ options are offered for a fee, because they include additional value-added features.  Or, the introductory option is free for a trial period, then the fee kicks in.  In fact, BacklinksGenie uses this freemium pricing strategy. […]

When I first launched this site, the only product I had was this ebook here: Pick Your Niche.  It’s about making autopilot money from niche business directories.

Some people were wondering if it was still possible to make money from niche business directories given the rise of Google Local listings.  I’ve always answered “yes.”

Just the other day, I was browsing BlackHatWorld and came across a number of new forum threads from people who reported making a lot of money from niche business directories.  Here, have a look:

• Guaranteed $10K/month from hybrid method.
• How I made $5K+ on vacation.

I’ve also come across a number of recent offers on WarriorForum related to the topic of making money from niche business directories.

In short, I still strongly believe you can make a lot of money from niche business directories and there are tons of different ways and permutations of similar ways to achieve this goal.  Have a look at those 2 forum threads and be inspired!

dave

Has your site lost considerable organic traffic after Google’s notorious series of Panda updates?  Well, you’re not the only one.  Check out this compilation of traffic statistics for big name sites that have been “pandalized.”

The list of big name sites include the likes of…

• eZineArticles.com (stats shown in the image above)
• HubPages.com
• FindArticles.com
• ArticlesBase.com
• Mahalo.com
• ShopWiki.com
• AllBusiness.com
• ChaCha.com
• Answers.com
• eHow.com

Notice anything interesting?  […]

This has been in the works for a while. Finally, we launched our long-awaited Affiliate Program.

Sign up is open (for now). Just go here:

http://themanwhosoldtheweb.com/affiliates.php

As an affiliate, you can share in our growing success. We have 2 product offerings, both which have been doing well. The 300K Page Job Search In-a-Box, in particular, has been doing great!

Over the month of September and beyond, we do have a number of other offerings that are coming out. These include scripts, turnkey solutions, and guides. As an affiliate, you can capitalize on all of our current and future products.

Hope to have you in our program!

dave