With the recent launch of the ECA (E-Commerce Associates) Program, a couple of pretty big opportunities have just opened up for SFI affiliates. Let's explore them!

A few weeks ago, an SFI affiliate contacted me with a suggestion about us adding a product he was very excited about. I mean, REALLY excited about. As I explained to him, yes, we COULD try contacting the manufacturer and see if they would be open to furnishing the product to us at wholesale, and then we'd stock it and sell it at TripleClicks.

The reality is, however, there just isn't enough time in the day for us to go after every product that looks good out there. Nor is it our goal to have massive warehouses all over the world and stock and ship thousands of different products.

So I explained to him the way to make it happen, that the way to quickly get that product he was so excited about into TC, was through the new ECA Program. What's more, if he followed my advice, I explained he could be the recipient of many thousands of dollars in ECA Royalties over the years to come.

Has the lightbulb gone off yet? What I mean is, I bet that there are at least a few products YOU use that you swear by. You believe them to be outstanding in every way. You'd buy them at TripleClicks again and again and again if they were available. And you believe that EVERYONE ought to be using these products because they are so awesome, right?!

So make it happen! With our ECA Program, all it takes is a simple referral. Someday you may be telling people, "Yep, I made one referral...and made a million dollars!"

For details about how to refer ECAs, go HERE.

Imagine getting a product you truly love and are truly passionate about into TripleClicks. If you love it, so will others, maybe thousands or tens of thousands of others. Maybe thousands of them will put that product on Standing Order so they get it automatically month after month, and year after year. Think how incredible that would be!

And if that product is truly great, I bet you'll aggressively promote its page in TripleClicks because you truly believe in that product and you'll probably make a lot of sales because of your passion for it. And for the same reason, many, many other SFI affiliates may also decide to promote "your" product too...and with each sale, you can be earning lifetime ECA Royalties from all over the world!

"Yeah, that sounds really good, but I'm not a sales person," you might be thinking. Or maybe you just feel it would be too much work.

Well, as it's always been, "fortune favors the bold." Nothing worthwhile in life is ever easy. You WILL have to do some work. You probably WILL have to get out of your comfort zone. So what? What's the worst that could happen? Maybe you'll experience some embarrassment. Don't worry about it, it's not fatal and it passes quickly.

Maybe you'll end up spending many hours writing letters, making phone calls, etc. And maybe you won't get any responses for weeks. So what? Persistence is always a prerequisite of success in anything. If you keep at it, I assure you you will get responses, and some will be of the "yes, I'm in!" variety. And won't those lifetime royalties WAY more than make up for your time investment (that you probably would have otherwise wasted watching TV)? Yes, of course.

And maybe for that one product you really, really, really want in TripleClicks, you'll have to do something extraordinary. Maybe you'll have to write the president of the company a letter every day for a year. And maybe that president will ignore you for 364 days. But on the 365th day…persistence, as it often does, wins the day.

My point is, there are thousands of truly incredible products out there. And because I really do believe in "aiming high and dreaming big," I believe they should ALL be available for sale at TripleClicks. And with a little "aim high, dream big" of your own, there's no reason right now why you, YES YOU, can't get YOUR favorite products into TripleClicks with an automatic ECA Royalty paid to you on every sale for life.

By the way, if you need a little help turning yourself into someone who can make this happen, look no further than SFI's very first official ECA: Jack Zufelt–one of the world's most famous success experts and best selling authors!

What Jack teaches is so appealing and amazing he has been interviewed on over 2,000 radio and TV talk shows. PBS aired a special about him that was broadcast via satellite to 127 countries! The United States Senate honored him for teaching Americans how to achieve more success in their personal lives and careers! He was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit by the President of the United States! He is an amazing man with an eye-opening message that is helping people around the globe.

Within just a few days, if not hours, Jack's products will debut at TripleClicks. I urge all SFI affiliates to check out Jack's offerings. Watch for a special Jack Zufelt announcement with more details soon.

But I said opportunity was knocking on TWO doors, didn't I? What is the second door?

The second door is YOU becoming an ECA. Before we go any further, let's clarify something about the ECA Program: That is, The ECA Program was designed primarily for:

A. Companies that have a physical retail store and/or...

B. Companies that sell products they directly create or manufacture (although some exceptions will be allowed for those with limited retail distributorship licenses).

In other words, to be an ECA, you need to have your own retail store or you need to be selling something that YOU create or manufacture. If you're a home-based business and you've been thinking about applying for the ECA Program to sell the exact same products created by other companies and marketed by hundreds of their sales representatives, I'm sorry, but you're going to need a new plan.

The reason is that we would end up with hundreds, if not thousands, of the company's distributors/representatives all listing the exact same products. Page after page after page of the exact same products would not only greatly degrade TripleClicks and repel prospective customers, but it would also not be conducive for success for those selling these products due to the hundreds of side-by-side "me too" competitors.

"So, Gery, where's this second door opportunity, then?," you're probably wondering. The opportunity is in becoming a true entrepreneur and CREATING a product of your own to sell at TripleClicks of course!

Now, if you've never considered such a thing, this might sound like a pretty wild proposition. I understand that. But the fact is, there are THOUSANDS of products you could create and sell at TripleClicks. Some quick examples are art, crafts, gift baskets, and all forms of how-to information (books, e-books, special reports, etc.).

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. I did a quick search for "home business" under the Books category at Amazon.com just now. Here are just two books of over 2,200 it found that you can acquire to get ideas from:




850 ideas in just these two books! Yeah, I think you can come up with some products you can create and sell successfully as an ECA at TripleClicks! You just have to decide you're going to do it...and then make it happen!

Here's another idea for you: Who are the biggest shoppers right now at TC? SFI Affiliates. What would SFI Affiliates be interested in buying?

How about specialized how-to information? Do you know how to successfully use classified ads...or build high-traffic Webpages...or do phone follow-ups for example? Write it up and put your copyright on it. Then sell it as a special report or e-book to SFI affiliates and millions of other Internet marketers.

How about custom Twitter backgrounds or splash pages?

Here's another one: SFI affiliates are constantly asking for good examples of email messages, welcome letters, follow-up messages, weekly newsletters, etc. If you're a good writer, you could create a book of such messages or even have monthly subscriptions for ongoing content. Do a good job with it and I might even give your creation my personal endorsement and recommend it to every new affiliate who joins SFI!

Be creative! Imagination is a "use it, or lose it" thing. You were born with great imagination and you can make it work for you again if you apply yourself.

And there's a big key right there: "Apply yourself"

Even though I came from a small town and a family of modest means, had no formal business education, and had no money to invest, I found the way to great success. And, in my opinion, the only difference between me and the "average Joe" is simply that I applied myself.

So I challenge you today. Will YOU apply yourself? Opportunity is knocking on two doors at this very moment. Seems like a great time to break away from the crowd and show the world what you got!

"Knock, knock"

"Who's there?"

"ECA"

"Come right in!"

For many years now, we've been trying to solve the shipping cost issue for our international (primarily non-North American) affiliates.

There's just no getting around the fact that if you live in, say Australia, the shipping cost is going to be expensive to receive a bottle of, say SFI's Advanced Liquid Nutrition, because it must come all the way from our warehouse in Lincoln, Nebraska USA.

And for the record, we charge for shipping and handling ONLY what WE get charged by the carrier. Not a cent less or more.

THE SOLUTION

We believe the solution will come with the launch of our coming commercial sellers program at TripleClicks (TC). Participants in this new program will be known as "E-Commerce Associates" or ECAs.

The ECA program will work like this:

Any company can apply to participate in the program (there will be a simple online application).

To participate, the company must be willing to provide SFI with wholesale prices on any products they wish to sell at TC (we're not going to allow them to receive the free traffic we generate and market their products side by side with our products unless they're willing to make it worth our while of course).

There are other requirements as well (more on this in a moment).

Once an ECA has been accepted, they will be provided with a special account where they can immediately begin entering basically unlimited product listings. From this form, they'll be able to enter a product name and description, weight, specifications, price, etc., upload product photos, and choose the appropriate department(s) for the product. There is no cost to the ECA to list their products on TC.

Once entered and approved by SFI, the listings will immediately appear in TC alongside all the other products in that department. They will also be searchable by name, keyword, VP, CV, etc.

Note that an order at TC always uses ONE shopping cart. A shopping cart may contain "TC Direct" products (such as Advanced Liquid Nutrition) and/or Private Seller items and/or ECA items. And all payment processing will be done by TC.

Example: We take an order for a widget sold by XYZ Company on September 1st. Upon processing payment, we forward the order via e-mail to XYZ Company (this would normally be within minutes of receipt of the order). We then send payment (the retail price, plus shipping, minus the percentage earmarked for us), electronically, to the ECA.

So, in short, the basic requirement for ECAs will be:

1. Wholesale prices offered to SFI
2. Acceptance of orders via daily electronic transmission
3. Orders shipped promptly and directly to customers with daily electronic payment

These are very reasonable requirements. And in return, some sizable and growing benefits will be theirs to enjoy. TC is already a top 25,000 website worldwide and we've only just begun. 95% of TC programs, products, and features are still to come. Traffic will, no doubt, increase exponentially over the years to come.

So having your products in TC will allow you to easily have your products exposed to a large and diverse worldwide audience (and many thousands of affiliates looking for products to buy from their countries).

And there you go! With that last sentence, do you see the solution coming into focus?

That is, once the ECA program is launched, excellently-priced products and services of hundreds, if not thousands, of companies from your country can all be available to you from within TC (and with sizable CV and VP to make earning EA status easier than ever before)!

EVEN BETTER

So what would be even better than having access to thousands of products direct from your homeland? How about also earning a royalty on EVERY product sold at TC by every company that you refer to TC? Yes, this and perhaps group royalty overrides, too, are being considered.

Referring an ECA would be as simple as referring them to an SFI Gateway as you do now. Full information and the application form will be provided at the Gateway. All you have to do is get them to the Gateway. For any referrals you generate, you're looking at receiving royalties on EVERY sale from your referred company WORLDWIDE...for LIFE! It doesn't get any better than that, folks!

WHEN? WHERE? HOW?!

Launch of this program is still months away, but I'd encourage you to start preparing now. Start lining up companies in your country (and/or worldwide) you think would be good prospects for the ECA program so that when we do launch, you'll be ready to hit the ground running. A good idea is to also get the name of the company's owner or marketing director as they will likely be the decision makers. You might start talking to them now, give them the preliminary details, and get their permission now to let them know when the program launches.

Who would be good prospects for the ECA program? Initially at least, I would not recommend pursuing major companies. For a variety of reasons, they're probably not going to see significant value in participating, at least in the beginning. Instead, look for companies that are young and hungry to grow. Size-wise, small to mid-sized companies are probably your best bets. You'll have a much easier time getting through to the decision makers and they likely won't have layers and layers of management to stall action.

There are of course companies to avoid, too. Grocery stores or similar stores that do not ship products to customers are probably not viable candidates. We will also not accept companies that sell adult or controversial products.

Note: As always, we have a zero tolerance policy on spamming so make sure you factor this in. For example, preparing a list of companies should include full postal addresses and/or phone numbers so that you can use postal mail or the telephone, not e-mail, to contact prospective companies about becoming ECAs.

Tip: Companies and businesses that are not yet selling on the Internet are great prospects too. This is because with our ECA program, we'll be giving them a way to jump on the Internet with all the heavy lifting done for them. If they can receive email, they can participate because we're going to provide the audience for them, take the order for them, and handle all the payment processing. All they have to do is ship the orders that we forward to them to the customer. That's it.

ONE MORE THING...A NEW FEATURE DEBUTS

In the meantime, it would sure be nice if you could easily locate products in TC that DO ship from your country NOW, wouldn't it?! Well, you'll be pleased to know that, as of today, we have added this feature to the Advanced Search at TC.

Note that it will, of course, only deliver results for listings that indeed ship from your country. If you live in a country that has no MaxMalls Merchants or no Private Seller Listings yet, it will return no results. OF COURSE, THAT'S WHAT THE NEW ECA PROGRAM IS DESIGNED TO SOLVE! So, if you're not seeing results on a search of your country yet–hang in there–it's coming! As well as many other exciting additions and features to YOUR STORE, TripleClicks!

That's it for now. I welcome your comments.

Gery Carson