2006 was an incredible year for my business. My second year in operation and we grew over 300%.

But, it wasn’t a year full of only success. I made big mistakes this year, the 2 that bit the most cost me a total of $120,000.

I fell for a “too good to be true” trap and made a horrible outsourcing decision purely out of greed and I paid dearly and actually am STILL paying in lost opportunities.

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(I’ll tell you more about what happened further down)…
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I know you’re probably in shock right now, right? I mean think about…$120,000 can buy an entire house in some areas.

I know that the $120,000 “sounds” like a lot of money, but I’ve learned to look at
it as an “investment in my business education” rather than a loss.

See, when you put the $120,000 side by side to the MILLIONS in mistakes I just saved
myself in the future, the $120,000 proves to be a great investment.

I don’t tell you this to make you feel “sorry” for me – not even close. I’m telling you this to help you realize that mistakes (small and big) are a part of business, as a matter of fact, an enormous part of business. I would go as far as saying that they are far more important than the successes.

See, too many times everyone looks upon known internet marketers or the “gurus” and all you see are the huge revenue numbers, the big checks, the nice cars and the enormous houses. What these “gurus” never reveal to you are the huge losses that all of them see from time to time.

They rarely talk about their failed businesses, failed products, failed launches, bad decisions, the list goes on…

Well, not me – I’m here to tell you that whether you’re selling your own product, selling a service or building an affiliate marketing business. You will absolutely make mistakes and you should not only be proud of them but CHERISH them (so long as you learn from them and don’t repeat them).

In 2006 I made plenty of mistakes, but can honestly say that I learned dearly from all of them. Now, obviously, I was able to have far more successes than I did losses since  I still managed to grow an astounding 300%.

So, that was 2006, but what about 2007?

Well, as they all say:

“I have BIG plans for 2007″

I’ve taken a lot of time this past week to really sit down and think about my business and where I want it to be this time next year. I’ve thought about the elements that I need to focus on the most and of course, the elements that contributed the most in 2006.

Something different I did this year was rather than just think about myself, I thought about *YOU.* I thought about all the Affiliate Classroom students. I spent hours and hours analyzing your businesses to find what I think the most of you need to really focus on in 2007.

To simplify, I’ve split the tips/advice into 2 sections:

1.  General Business Development Tips
2.  Internet Marketing Tips

I’ve thought long and hard about these and really made sure to tie these in with the biggest trends I am seeing in online marketing for 2007 – so take them seriously, they’re for your own good.

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General Business Development Tips
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1) GET A MENTOR – NO EXCUSES

I’ve heard all the excuses in the book about how it’s impossible for you to find someone. The truth of the matter is, if you’re using this excuse, it’s because you’ve never really tried your best.

Just use me as an example. I grew up in a family of mostly doctors and engineers, not a businessman in sight. Actually, my parents were quite un-happy about “all the time I was wasting with this business stuff.”

But I had a passion and drive that drove me outside my comfort zone. I was determined to find those who would help me.

To date I have had over 5 mentors, each has been an immense help in their respective parts of my business. I can very confidently say that “MENTORSHIP” has been one of the top 3 contributing factors behind my success.

To put it simply, would you rather learn to learn to drive from someone who’s been driving for 10 years or would you rather get 10 people who’ve never driven a day in their life together and basically “figure it out?”

** HOW TO FIND A MENTOR **

Look, I hate to say this, but these things just happen. Not ONE of the mentors I’ve had was through any kind of “application process.” They were all “quincidences” that occurred due to a series of random events that took place because I stuck my neck out. Here’s what I did…

* Asked business associates for referrals
* Found able people and directly contacted
* ATTENDED SEMINARS
* Agreed to work for them (many times for FREE)
* Hired as a consultant and became friends (I call this “buying” my way in)

The key to finding a great mentor is going to be PERSISTANCE, always follow-up and never rely on just one person. Who knows if the first will be that great mentor.

Focus on building relationships and friendships in your industry – the “mentorship” role will grow out itself.

2) BUILD A TEAM – NO MORE 1 MAN SHOWS

How many of you read the Internet Business Manifesto? I should see all hands going up! Rich Schefren opened our eyes with a simple diagram that revealed the biggest problem internet marketers have.

WE THINK WE CAN DO IT ALL

One of my greatest strengths is my ability to recognize my limitations and allow others to make-up for them. It’s a simple LAW of success, you have no choice but to accept it and live by it.

If you want to create a large automated business that creates wealth, prosperity and financial FREEDOM, you’re going to have to delegate work and build a strong team - no ifs and buts.

Remember this when you start to build your team…
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

If you’ll allow me to vent for a moment, I’d like to go head to head with a DETRIMENTAL ideology that seems to be catching on like a bad virus in the “internet entrepreneur” world. This misbelief has to be corrected right away before it dooms your business to failure.

Here it goes…

STOP FOCUSING ON CHEAP LABOR

Yes, I realize labor is “cheaper” in India, Russia and China. Yes, I know that little “Jimmy” down the street will work for 2 bowls of spaghetti and a bag of skittles. But honestly, WHAT QUALITY OF work are they going to do?

I’m not saying all “inexpensive labor” is bad. Heck, I have an excellent design team in India and they cost me 1/10th of what my American team costs me.

I’m only saying to stop focusing solely on “how much they cost” and stop looking for the cheapest.

This is a completely wrong way of looking at your business.

The “cheap” mindset may seem to work for now, but the minute your business starts to grow into an authority figure, that very mindset that will come back to haunt you.

The reason I am so passionate about this topic and am drilling on it is because I had the same mindset in the beginning of 2006 and this year alone it cost me more than $120,000. I don’t want that to happen to you.

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(I’ll tell you more about what happened further down…)
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And I’m not just referring to your outsourcing; I’m talking about your employees as well. I won’t mention names, but just recently I was talking with a big marketer and a good friend. This person started to brag about how they just hired 2 new employees on “just above minimum wage” with no benefits.

Both employees have a family, 1 with a new born child and when I asked this marketer how in the world those 2 would be able to survive on the salary, his exact response was:

“I don’t know, I don’t care – not my problem”

I knew that very moment that either or all of the following was destined to happen to the new team he was building.

1) Complete failure within 3 months
2) Hostile & Un-productive work environment
3) ZERO loyalty

One of the biggest lessons I learned in 2006 was when I was hospitalized for an entire month (I spent over 3 weeks in the ICU) and I almost died 3 times.

Assume I hadn’t told you that just now, would you have ever known?  Let me ask you this, could you, right now, tell me which month I was hospitalized?

I’ll even give you a clue…

I didn’t work at all (barely logged into the internet), didn’t *personally* send out e-mails or launch a new product, etc…

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No idea right? You know why that is? It’s because I have an amazing team that stepped up to the plate and took care of everything. They took ownership over the business and worked overtime, worked weekends and even worked on holidays, yet never complained.

It was then that I learned the true meaning of a team and how absolutely vital the team is to your business – if it wasn’t for them, there was a good chance that Affiliate Classroom would never have survived 2006.

Take care of your team, don’t penny pinch, treat them right and make sure to always reward them for the hard work they put in to make YOU money.

I’ll leave this topic by asking you just one question:

“It’s the end of the year, have you thought about giving your team a bonus to thank them?”

3) BRING IT BACK TO QUALITY

To carry on with the theme of “you get what you pay for” – I’ve seen another deadly ideology catching waive in 2006. The ideology of “QUANTITY OVER QUALITY”

John Reese recently released a video which I found refreshing where he argues against the entire idea of “Multiple streams of income.”

“Stop diving into 10 markets and trying to create 10 different businesses to diversify your income, rather GROW aggressively in just 1 market. Add multiple products and websites for THAT market.”

He re-coined a term:

“Multiple streams of REVENUE”

I couldn’t agree more since this is the exact ideology I built my business on and it served me well.

Let’s review some examples of the “QUANTITY over QUALITY” ideology that will eventually kill anyone’s business.

1. $1 “keyword stuffed” articles
2. Auto-generated websites, scrapper sites
3. Black hat SEO
4. Copyright infringement/Plagiarism

Bottom line is this – all the above may some how produce results “now.” But, check back in 3 months and you’ll find that your time/money/reputation was wasted.

Rather, spend that same time in focusing on quality. Focus on your visitor, your customer, your affiliates – drive quality and you’re truly building a long term business that is well diversified and safe.

So, to review the General Business Advice:

1. Get a Mentor
2. Build a TEAM (Treat them right)
3. QUALITY not Quantity

Now, on to more marketing related tips to help you drive more traffic in 2007 and increase your bottom-line revenue…

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Marketing Tips
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1) Web 2.0

If you haven’t researched it yet, get to know Web 2.0 very fast and plan to dive in right away. Although Web 2.0 is still in its infancy, we’re already falling behind compared to the BILLIONS that the Fortune 500 is investing into it.

Web 2.0 is the “new internet” with a focus on social networking and user generated content. YOUR goal as a business is to simply provide the infrastructure and location where like-minded individuals can gather and share.

Web 2.0 is basically “community building” on steroids.

You monetize Web 2.0 through its viral element. Each new visitor brings many new visitors each who see your ads, your affiliate promotions, your services, your products and sure, even your Adsense!

In 2007, plan on building a Web 2.0 focused social networking space for your niche. For example, if you run a website on “dog training” – launch a dog lover’s social site.

As the internet evolves, there is huge value to be placed on a business’s ability to gather a large group of like-minded consumers in one location and build loyalty.

Sounds Great, What’s The Catch?

Do you have Thousands of dollars to invest in the programming needed to facilitate such a site? Or maybe those thousands would be better spent on building your team.

well not to worry…many scripts and services are now launching everyday that you can get for as long as $30-$50/month that will allow you to get started.

Keep posted, I’ll be testing them through out the year and as always will let you know what I think.

Ok, moving right along…

2) GO FOR THE LONG TAIL

Ok, this may seem like a small or obvious tip – but I promise you, it may be the best one in this e-mail (besides the team building one). Plan to have a major focus on building out your keyword list in 2007.

Whether for SEO or for PPC – if you’re sitting on a list of just a hundred or so, you don’t have enough and you’re likely going after the wrong keywords.

Here’s the best keyword strategy to use (focus more on this and you’re going to see a huge impact on your traffic and by default better rankings on the MAIN keywords:)

A) Find 3-4 word phrases
These phrases should have your main keyword or a part of it in them.

B) Add 1 page to your site for that keyword.

C) Target your promotion on that page.

D) Have good cross-linking on your own site.

That’s for natural SEO…

Now, how would you like laser targeted traffic for $.05 a click?

For PPC – if you’re not focusing on the long tail, you’re losing out on a lot of 5 cent targeted traffic. Trust me!

I’m in the process of testing 3 keyword generation software and will report back any of my findings. For now, please start using whatever tools you have – focus on adding pages to your site consistently and focus on the long tail keywords!

3) WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING

Why is it that since the internet more and more of are starting to abandon the “basic foundation” of marketing that built businesses for CENTURIES. Just because we have SEO, PPC, Ezines, and others does not mean we can forget the raw power of word-of-mouth marketing.

In 2007, all my sites are going to go through makeovers with more focus on viral marketing.

I want to do whatever it takes to get my visitors/customers to recommend my business to as many others as they can. I will focus even more on my affiliate program in 2007.

I will even make small changes like making sure all my sites have a “Bookmark Us” feature and a “Tell A Friend” script. Yes, these are simple fixes, but can you imagine the kind of traffic and income I lost in 2006 because I didn’t focus on these?

The internet has made word-of-mouth marketing even easier through automated technology and we should take advantage.

I’ll give you one more hint – if you want to tap into the ultimate word-of-mouth marketing – start a blog. Don’t ask questions, just start one!

So, to review our “Marketing Tips”

1. Build a Web 2.0 Space
2. Long Tail Keywords
3. WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING!

2007 is going to be an amazing year and it’s 100% in your control. You can make ANYTHING happen this year and I have a good feeling that you and I are going to do big things in 2007.

Of course I have TONS of other tips I want to give, but only so much I can say in an e-mail. So, I invite you to keep reading, join The Affiliate Classroom and watch as we make some incredible changes to AC this year – all to directly help your business grow!

Before I go, I want to do one more thing – I want to invite you to please leave a comment below.

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Give everyone your own tip. What is one tip you can give us for 2007? - Just Put It In The Comment Below:

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Wishing you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR and an incredibly prosperous 2007.

On behalf of the entire AC Team,

Anik Singal

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O Yea! I almost forgot to tell you what happened this year where I lost $120,000. Well, I told you it had to do with outsourcing right? I was trying to outsource “programming” of an entirely new concept/project.

The company seemed very promising and checked out on many levels. I agreed to award them the project and from the very beginning it was a complete disaster.

The coding was horrible, they never got the concept and they assigned un-qualified personnel. At the end of the day, they never understood the business, over-promised and never delivered.

Here’s what I learned:

You canNOT simply outsource the core competency of your business, especially if you know nothing about it. “I’m” not a coder and so I allowed myself to get fooled and “taken” by this company.

If you’re going to make a major outsourcing commitment in an area you don’t understand yourself – make SURE you have someone in your local team who does and who can manage that outsourcing work.

That’s your best insurance policy against “getting taken.”