Create Your Affiliate Program

One of the most common questions I get from product sellers and course creators is this:

Who should I ask to be my affiliate partner?

One of the first places I recommend people start is inviting their customers to become their affiliates.  And in this blog, I’m going to cover 3 reasons you should absolutely ask your customers to become your affiliates after they have left a review or testimonial as well as what the benefits to doing this are!

Reason #1: You’ll get amazing testimonials from your customers

The first step in inviting your customers into your affiliate program is asking them for a testimonial or review of your product.  Once you’ve done that, you will send them down one of the two pathways to invite them to become an affiliate, depending on if they submit a testimonial/review or not.  {I cover this here.}

The good news is that even if they do not sign up to become an affiliate for you, you will still have their review which you can use on your website and in your promo materials.  Social proof is so important, because it helps new potential customers connect to your brand easier, and it can also help create more customer loyalty with the person who writes them.  

Reason #2: It’s a faster way to get your business in front of new audiences

When you invite your customers to become your affiliates, you aren’t having to spend hours researching potential affiliates, engaging and networking with them, writing a fantastic pitch to them and tracking the follow up emails needed.   

Instead, you save so much time by inviting customers who already have used your product/course to share their experience with others as your affiliate partner.  What this means is that you will get your products/courses in front of new audiences faster.  

And by automating this process {I also cover this here}, you aren’t adding more things to your already overwhelmed to do list.  Instead, your customers are out there promoting your products and bringing in new sales for you, while they earn fun commissions in the process.

Reason #3: No Facebook ads needed

If you think that in order to make more sales you’ll eventually have to figure out how to run expensive Facebook ads, I invite you to think again.  With affiliate marketing, you don’t have to run facebook ads if you don’t want to.  Instead, you can have your customers become your affiliates and then when they refer people to you, you pay them out commissions.

And if you do want to run facebook ads eventually, use the money you make from your affiliate’s referrals to fund your Facebook ads budget. #winwin 

Ready to invite your customers to become your affiliates? 

Grab the Invite Your Customers to Become Your Affiliates Template Pack here.  These are the exact templates you need to send customers to get those reviews and testimonials to turn them into your affiliates!

I recently had the opportunity to head to Nashville, Tennessee to attend the Ultimate Product Party, a 2-day conference for product sellers. Even as a service based business owner who works with product sellers, I had SO MANY TAKEAWAYS from this event.

In this blog post, I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite moments from the conference.  While I won’t highlight all of the speakers and roundtable leaders, I do want to emphasize this: EVERY SINGLE PERSON was amazing. All of the speakers were awesome, I learned a ton from every single roundtable I went to, and all of the keynotes were just top notch.  So, while I won’t mention them all below, know that they were still 100% amazing.

Okay, now onto some of my favorite moments from the Ultimate Product Party.

Ciara Bennett’s Opening Keynote

Ciara Bennett with Vintage Oats was the opening keynote and omgosh, her personal story was AMAZING. It’s always so amazing to hear stories of women who triumphed when the odds were stacked against them, and Ciara is one of those women. I found her story really inspiring and encouraging as someone in a growth stage in my own business.  

Follow Ciara over on Instagram here. 

Amanda Dare’s Breakout Workshop on Business Funding

Amanda Dare with Women Owned Wallet did an amazing session all about money and how to fund your business.  One of the things she said that really stood out to me, and I think can apply to so many different business scenarios is this:  

Don’t do what helps you today; do what helps you in 3 months, 6 months, a year…

In other words, be future focused and don’t think so much in the “right now”. I know I can get so shortsighted sometimes, and so this was a great reminder to really focus on the long term plans I have for my business. 

Check out Woman Owned Wallet here.

Q&A Panel on the High High’s and Low Low’s

Sometimes in business, especially I think as a solo entrepreneur, it can feel like I’m the only one dealing with the business struggles I go through.  So, when this Q&A session happened, it was honestly so refreshing to hear that – surprise surprise – other business owners deal with struggles too. I especially appreciated Monica Little’s stance on how problems can be opportunities. It doesn’t always feel like that in the moment, but I do like how she suggested looking at them as opportunities to solve things.

I received an email this week from Allison Carter {co-host of Ultimate Product Party} that said “what are you too scared to say??”

When it comes to my business, there’s not really a lot I am scared to say because affiliate programs aren’t really that controversial lol ….

…But I am sometimes scared about being too repetitive with the things I do say. 

But here’s the thing I am always saying because I wholeheartedly believe this:

If you have an online course, sell products (digital or physical), or have group programs…

You need an affiliate program.

And if you don’t have one, you’re losing out on lots of potential sales a.k.a you’re not making as much money as you could be.

Chances are you’re following me because you’re interested in starting an affiliate program so you can double your course or product sales…

… and maybe you just haven’t taken action yet…

… or maybe you’ve kind of piece-mealed things together but haven’t really done anything with your program yet….

If any of these describe you, I want to share the following 9 reasons an affiliate program is a must-have for course creators and product sellers like you!

I’ve got an activity for you today that is going to help you increase your sales this month if you carve out the time to do it.

Let’s start by raising your hand if you sell a digital product, such as templates or an ebook, or even an online course… ?‍♀️

If you’ve got your hand raised, did you know that you are in a great position for working with affiliates?

It’s true!

Because when you work with affiliates, that gives you the opportunity to get your products and courses in front of new potential customers…

… which means more sales and more money in the bank for you and your affiliates who share your offers with their people! ?

Wondering who your affiliates should be?

? Past customers.
? Current clients.
? Colleagues with complimentary products to yours (because that means their audience is most likely full of your ideal customers!)

 That’s a short but simple list of good places to start looking for affiliates.

Today, I want you to do this simple but impactful money-makin’ activity:

Who are 5 – 10 people you can think of that might be willing to share your freebie or offers with their community?

Make a list.

Then reach out to the people on your list and *ask* if they would like to be an affiliate for you.

You might be surprised how willing people are to share your work with their community! ❤️

As I always say, setting up your affiliate program doesn’t have to be hard…

Start with reaching out to potential affiliate partners!

If you don’t know what to say when pitching these potential affiliate partners, grab this Invitation to Send Potential Affiliate Partners email template here.  You can take this google doc template and customize it for sending out to your potential affiliate partners.

If you’re reading this post and wishing you could make more sales, do the activity above asap.

I know that even if just one affiliate partner says YES to working with you, you have the opportunity to increase your sales dramatically.

But they can’t say yes to being your affiliate if you don’t ask them.

So, make your list and send those pitches today!

Let me know over on Instagram if you give this activity a try – I’d love to hear how many YESes you get! 

Today I’m getting ready to send out 15 emails to potential affiliates I have researched for one of my affiliate management clients. {One of my favorite tasks I do for her!} 

As I’ve been crafting each of the emails to send, I realized that I had some important things to share with you about what makes for a great pitch {the email you send asking someone to affiliate for you!}.

So, without further ado, here we go!

3 Mistakes to Avoid When Reaching Out to Potential Affiliates

Mistake 1: Making your pitch only about you! 

Instead of making your pitch ONLY about YOU, instead make it about the person your pitching’s audience and how your collaboration can benefit them, and why partnering together is the best way to make that happen!

Mistake #2: Sending a generic pitch! 

Whatever you do, please, do not send a generic pitch.  Instead, do your research on the person/company you are pitching. Send a pitch that shows you know about their company, and their audience, and that you are genuinely interested in serving their audience by partnering together.

Also, check their website BEFORE you pitch… they might already have a page on their site about how to best reach out re: collaborations and potential affiliate partnerships.  If they do, follow the instructions on that page.  

Mistake #3: Sending all the details before it’s needed 

Friends, do NOT send a novel with all the collaboration details and sign up information in the first email. People are busy {aren’t we all!} and so they don’t have time to read all of the details about the collaboration you have in mind.

Instead, I recommend sharing a high-level overview of the collaboration you have in mind, and then asking them to hit reply if they’d like to hear more!  Then, once they say YES to partnering with you, you can send them through your affiliate onboarding process!

If you are considering working with affiliates and will be doing any outreach soon, make sure you keep these things in mind so that you can get more YESes and less NOs {or worse, no reply at all!}

Let me know if these tips are helpful!

Need some help with writing your pitch to affiliates? I’ve got a template for you HERE that you can customize for each affiliate reach out email you create.  If you grab it, let me know what you think!

One of the tools I use the most here at Create Your Affiliate Program is Google Drive which I love and use on a daily basis. But if we’re being honest, the excitement of having a free tool like Google Drive is erased by the total lack of guidance on how to actually use it. {Google does provide a training on using it but it’s… pretty lackluster at best lol.}

So you find yourself with random docs floating around like that feather in the Forest Gump movie, and you waste so much time looking for things in your Drive, I want to share with you three few reasons you might want to get your Google Drive organized, PLUS a resource for making that happen!

Three Reasons You Need to Organize Your Google Drive ASAP

1. It increases your productivity!

When your Google Drive is organized, you can quickly locate the files you need, saving you time and increasing productivity in your daily work. You won’t have to spend time searching through cluttered folders to find what you’re looking for, and instead, can focus on your work and get things done efficiently.

2. It leads to better collaboration!

If you work with others on projects like I do, organizing your Google Drive makes it easier to share files and collaborate without worrying that your collaborators have access to everything in your Drive. Plus, when everyone knows where to find files, you can work together more effectively, without wasting time looking for missing files, or worse, creating duplicates.  

3. It makes more things secure!  

Organizing your Google Drive can also help keep things more secure for you and your clients.  When you have a clear folder structure, you can easily identify sensitive files and ensure they’re stored in secure locations that only you have access to. You can also use Google Drive’s sharing settings to control who has access to your folders and files, which helps protect your files from unauthorized access or deletion.

Now that I’ve told you why you should organize your google Drive, I want to share with you a resource for making it happen.

Introducing Organize Your Google Drive.

Organize Your Google Drive is a self-guided, online course created by Becky Moffit, aka The Organized CEO.

A self-professed organizational nerd of the highest order, Becky says that literally every client she has ever worked with – from the newbies to the 7 figure folks – has asked her first and foremost how to get their Google Drive tamed. 

In 4 quick lessons, she shows you how to get and stay on top of your storage so you never have to wonder where the heck everything went the last time you closed your laptop. Dedicate an afternoon to following the Take Action boxes, and boom, you’re one organized CEO. YAY!

(Also you get two bonus lessons on Google Docs and Google Sheets! Finally learn what all that stuff on top of your browser window does! Woohoo!)

Don’t miss out on this (super affordable) course! 

Click here to access Organize Your Google Drive.

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This blog post contains affiliate links, but as always, know that I only recommend products and programs that I use and love myself!