It ticks me off when people spend too much time on headshots, graphics, and other name recognition devices when they should be focusing more on web sites that actually make money!

Branding is one of the last things you should worry about — so if you really want to get to the point where you’re working on branding to get that extra 5 percent boost in sales, get through these steps first…

The big formula is: List + Traffic = Offers.

Step 1: Choose Your Niche and Skill Level.

A niche is an area of expertise like copywriting, stress relief, PHP, article writing, etc., and a skill level is how you will turn that expertise into a shippable product. A skill level might mean freelance projects, affiliate marketing, or site building.

Before you do anything you need to know what your area of expertise is. Everybody has one, because everybody has read books, had a favorite job, had a favorite subject in school, subscribe to certain niches of magazines.

If this is your first time choosing a niche, make it a skill you can prove. If you haven’t made any money online, don’t make your niche the “make money online” niche!

Not only that, you need to make up your mind about what your offer will be. If you are brand new, choosing freelancing since that is how you will make some quick money.

You might be an article writer for your niche, create videos, make graphics, write autoresponders or copy — but it needs to be limited to your niche so that you can establish yourself as an “expert” in that niche and charge more.

Maybe someday you can move onto site building, affiliate promotions or even your own products, but don’t make that leap until you have some freelancing experience under your belt.

Step 2: Create a Squeeze Page.

Present an ethical bribe to sign-up to a mailing list so you can start following up with prospects about your future offers.

This means you’ll have to sign up for an autoresponder like Aweber and paste the sign-up code to a very simple HTML page that also lists a couple of quick benefits explaining why they should get this information in the first place.

You do this to get people on a list, so you can send them offers later. These offers aren’t necessarily products but could be entire sales for sale or your freelance services.

You don’t even need to create the content.

Find the 7 best articles in your niche and grab them off article sites, leaving the bylines and resource boxes intact so the writer still gets credit. Compile all those articles into a Word document, put your contact info at the beginning and end of the book, especially if you are going the freelance route.

Then convert the Word doc to a PDF using either Microsoft Word 2007, OpenOffice or a free online tool (you can Google search for many great “doc to pdf converters”).

Step 3: Fill Your Follow-up Sequence With 7 Offers.

This might be 7 more articles in your niche and set them as e-mail follow-ups spaced 3 weeks apart. This will keep the leads fresh, and ready for when you have offers for them.

Do you offer freelancing article writing in a certain niche? Your offer then might be that three slots have opened up at a special price. Or the offer might simply be an affiliate program you are promoting in that niche for people who want to pay for the even better information.

Step 4: Create Special Offers, an Affiliate Program, and Joint Ventures.

Here is the fun part. Now that you have made a couple of sales, you can offer special deals to your list and repeat customers.

Maybe you want to order a “rush order” option to your article writing services so for 50% more, people can get their articles from you in half the time. Maybe you’ll give a 30 minute telephone consultation to each person on your list who buys a particular product through your affiliate link.

Next, you’ll want to setup your OWN affiliate program. Most people think that an affiliate program means you offer an e-book for sale, people refer traffic, and get a commission. But you can also offer an affiliate program for your freelance work!

Just get an account with an affiliate processor like Clickbank, setup a pitch page explaining your services, a payment button where people can pay you for services. Now you’ve given your friends and business partners a reason to promote your services — because they get a cut of the profits!

Take affiliates to the next level — find joint venture partners. Co-host an interview or webinar to provide content (with a link back to your web site).

Contribute to their content by giving them a ridealong product (a report of yours they can bundle with their paid product). Write a guest blog post.

Create a special offer just for that joint venture that they can place on their thank you page after they’ve made a sale, where they can get commission. Basically, customize an offer for them and make it as plug-and-play as possible.

Step 5: Brand Yourself.

Once you’ve got your niche and skill level, squeeze page to build a list, offers, affiliate program and joint venture partners, it’s finally time to establish your brand.

But it’s not as hard as you think. If the domain name with your name is available, for example, MichelFortin.com, register that domain name and add a blog to it.

You don’t have to make a big deal about your blog. To be honest, for the first few months I had only my resume on my blog. Later on I added a couple of articles, but it’s not worth your time until you get some traffic.

Let’s recap…

• Step 1: Choose your niche (copywriting, stress, blogging, etc.) and your skill level (freelancing, affiliate offers, site building, your own products)
• Step 2: Get an autoresponder, and add a squeeze page using a report compiled from free articles as an ethical bribe. Then use even more articles as follow-up messages.
• Step 3: Create seven offers for this list which might be affiliate programs, your own report for sale, a site for sale, or even your services for sale.
• Step 4: Create an affiliate program and joint venture system to reward people for sending traffic over.
• Step 5: Register YourName.com if it’s available, add your picture and post a couple of your articles.

That’s all you need to know about branding.

If you’re an entrepreneur, a marketer, or a small business owner, this is the place to get answers to your most pressing marketing and online business questions.

Hi. We’re Michel and Sylvie Fortin. Michel is a sought-after Internet copywriter while Sylvie owns one of the most in-demand freelance outsourcing companies on the web.

Yes, we’re married. But what you may not know is that, both individually and together as a team, we were instrumental in generating hundreds of millions of dollars online since 1992.

We were the “secret weapons” working behind the scenes of some of the most successful and most envied online marketers in the world, as well as some of the most profitable marketing campaigns in the history of the world wide web.

If you have a question about marketing online or off, this is the place. In here, we will answer some of the most burning questions marketers have. In fact, they will be your questions!

Yes, that’s right! You will be the one helping us generate content, because you’ll be able to ask your questions. If selected, we will answer it right here on this board. We might even have special guest experts, or even create videos to show you how.

Best of all, we will do it for… FREE!

We Might Surprise You, Even Shock You.

We won’t hold anything back. Yes, we are positive people. But don’t kid yourself. Life is not all roses. In fact, if you’re not successful yet, chances are you’ve been duped, carrot-dangled, or distracted at some point. And we’re sorry to say, but a lot of it is your own fault.

So be prepared, because we will be going off on rants from time to time.

If you’ve read Sylvie Fortin’s scathing and highly controversial exposé on the stupid mistakes marketers make, Internet Marketing Sins, or Michel Fortin’s white paper on the decline of worn-out, overhyped sales tactics online, The Death of The Salesletter, you know we don’t sugarcoat or pull any punches.

We’ll try to keep this blog clean. But we will be blunt. We will be straightforward. And we will peeve a few people off. So if you’re faint of heart, this is not for you. Consider yourself warned.

However, if you’re ready to hear the solid, unvarnished truth, and you’re ready to make an honest living online using proven strategies and tactics, then stick around. You might learn a thing or two.

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