Resell Rights Mastery Blog

A Word From The Author

Greetings everyone,

My name is Khai and if you’ve read the previous blog post by Edmund, you would’ve known by now that I’m joining the Resell Rights Mastery Blog as a regular contributor.

It is truly a great honor to join the RRM team as an author and I really look forward to providing quality content to the RRM community. Make sure you return frequently to check for new updates and share the information here with the rest of the Internet marketing community.

A Formal Introduction

So… what can I say about myself that wasn’t already applauded by my good friend?

Well, before we start with the first blog post, I’ll just share a brief history about myself.

I started out my sales and marketing career way back in late 2004.

Back then, I must admit that I didn’t know JACK about sales and marketing due to my background (I studied computer science and Information technology and my first full time job was a computer technician). I was also a shy person and I didn’t know how to talk to people.

Nevertheless, fate has a strange way of equipping hopefuls with opportunities and trials that will make you what you are today.

Eventually, I started getting involved in network marketing . That was one of the toughest trials in my life as I learnt the hard way that determination and persistence does NOT compensate a lack of a proper marketing system and a workable business model.

Fast forward 3 years and 4 network marketing opportunities later, I left the industry with nothing to brag about. However, if there was one skill that I’ve gained from the last 3 years, it was the ability to analyze and dissect complex business models in any field.

It was no surprise to me anyway… after all, network marketing has taught me all about compensation plans, and the funny thing about ‘comp plans’ is that you might need a degree in mathematics to fully understand who gets paid what (how they even come up with these plans really baffles me). Many even went through decades in network marketing without understanding the difference between PVs and BVs and Executive Diamond Bonuses. So I guess it was a blessing in disguise that taught me how to understand marketing and business models (which is my passion today).

Late 2006 marked the beginning of my Internet marketing career. I found out that I could write well, in spite of the fact that I haven’t written a single essay since 2004. It is quite ironic, since my lecturers in college would swear that I would never make a career out of writing due to my poor assignment test scores (who would’ve thought ). In fact, my sales and marketing knowledge even gave me a jumpstart as a copywriter (having the ability to write doesn’t make you a good copywriter).

Word spread around fast within the Internet marketing industry and in a short span of 10 months, I’ve worked together with many Internet marketing celebrities like James Brown, Internet marketing pioneer Sen Ze, WIS speaker Vince Tan, marketing expert and speaker Jaz Lai, Aurelius Tjin, Gobala Krishnan and last but not least, Edmund Loh.

I truly feel lucky to have been able to work with these marketing geniuses and I attribute the majority of my success to Edmund because I started off my Internet marketing career with what was known to me at that time as a ‘ground-breaking JV offer with Edmund Loh’. He and he alone opened the floodgates (for me) to endless possibilities of Internet marketing opportunities and I’m not saying this because I’m on his payroll, but if you really get a chance to meet Edmund in person (and work together with him), you will agree with every word I say here.

Enough about me… let’s talk about 2 Internet marketing business models today

Affiliate Marketing Vs Marketing as a Merchant

Resell rights (and private label rights) are some of the best businesses in the Internet marketing world today along with affiliate marketing.

The former positions the marketer as a merchant while the latter positions the marketer as an affiliate.

So how do these business models work?

WHAT ARE THESE IN A NUTSHELL?

In simple terms, the merchant basically sells their own product and either, keeps 100% of the profits to himself or pays the affiliate a commission while keeping the rest.

The affiliate on the other hand, promotes other merchant’s products by driving traffic while the merchant does all the lead capturing, relationship building and selling. The affiliate gets a commission after the sales are made.

Now, both the models may seem to be very straight forward… but the dynamics are very different and it could affect your profits in many ways.

AFFILIATE MARKETING - PROS AND CONS

Most newbies in Internet marketing start out with affiliate marketing for a few reasons:

- They don’t have to create a product
- They don’t have to worry about writing a sales letter
- They don’t have to worry about follow-up E-mails
- They don’t have to set up a payment processor

Of course, starting out as an affiliate is highly recommended, because as you are trying to overcome the learning curve, it is much easier to make your first few sales as an affiliate because it is less work for those who are starting out.

But here is my take on why people shouldn’t just stick to being an affiliate all the time:

(1) You make an up front sale but you ‘lose’ the long term relationship:

When you divert traffic to someone else, they do all the relationship building, follow ups, selling and money handling for you…

But at the end of the day, they keep the customer.

You don’t.

They keep the customer by having them on their list, strengthening their relationship with YOUR customer and selling them stuff over and over again.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this but why don’t you BE the one keeping the customer?

(2) Affiliate sales are short term… branding is long term

When you direct traffic to others, people tend to forget who you are.

In sales, they say the best time in the world is being in front of the customer. Because the merchant is ‘working’ on the customer, you lose ‘air time’ with them.

But that’s not the only thing you lose…

If you’ve heard of ‘the speed of trust’ by Stephen Covey, you will realize that branding and trust are one of the fastest ways to get business from others.

We usually buy stuff or watch movies that are recommended by our friends or trusted sources, right?

The best way that you can brand yourself is to BE the merchant. You have to create your own products eventually.

(3) You have little control over the cash flow

Most affiliate programs only pay you your commissions after a 30-day cycle.

But that is not the only problem… you can’t adjust the pricing. It is out of your control

Sometimes, even commission percentages fluctuate!

If you create your own products, you have more control over the pricing and decide what to do with them.

(4) You can’t recruit an affiliate army

Recruiting affiliate armies is something that only merchants can pull off.

An affiliate can’t recruit an affiliate for two very important reasons:

One: The affiliate doesn’t get any benefit
Two: The affiliate creates more competition for himself

“But then, there are two-tier affiliate programs” you say.

Yes, there may be two-tier affiliate programs similar to a multi-level structure, but the percentage are usually very low that you can only make significant money if your sub-affiliate is a super affiliate himself.

But here’s the punch-line… what are the chances of having a super affiliate joining under you?

If I were a Super Affiliates, I would already be scouting out for good affiliate programs. Super affiliates probably won’t join under you as your sub-affiliate… in reality, you are probably already UNDER THEM.

I’m not trying to run down affiliate marketing, but you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket if you know what I mean.

MARKETING AS A MERCHANT - PROS AND CONS

Affiliate marketers should eventually ‘upgrade’ themselves to become merchants.

- As a merchant, you get to brand yourself so people will remember you (think of Coke, Nike, Wal-mart, Microsoft and many others).
- Merchants can recruit an army of affiliates so that you are leveraging on other people’s traffic - thus widening your circle of influence.
- You get to upsell other products to your new customers.

But here’s one of the best benefits of being a successful merchant - you have a huge list of customers who trusts you and are willing to buy the products you recommend (compared to being an unknown affiliate marketer). In other words, it is much easier to be a successful affiliate if you are a successful merchant.

Plus, the ‘customer retention’ is still there even after you divert your customers to others. It all boils down to the relationship you have with your customer and it is easier to build a relationship as a merchant.

However, becoming a successful merchant requires work on your part…

You need to write a good sales letter.

You need to build relationships with affiliate marketers.

You need to setup payment processors and hosting (affiliates can even make money without a blog or website).

And last but not least, you need to MARKET yourself aggressively.

It may seem like a daunting task, but the solution lies below.

USING RESELL RIGHTS & PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS

Resell Rights and Private Label Rights are one of the best solutions to overcome the ‘cons’ of being a merchant in many ways:

• Good resell rights products that are in good demand will help you to make money as a merchant - especially if it comes with a high-converting sales letter. Private Label Rights take this principle up a notch because you get to edit the contents and brand yourself as the author - thus eliminating the product creation process altogether.

• Resell Rights and Private Label Rights allows you to easily setup multiple streams of income without leveraging out your time too much.

• As a reseller, you keep 100% of your profits and you can even upsell other packages in the back-end (thus, maximizing your profits).

• Best of all, you can acquire good products at a fraction of the cost (without paying boatloads of ‘production costs’ to ghostwriters, copywriters and graphic designers).

I’ve always loved Resell Rights and PLR products. They provide tremendous viral marketing power due to it’s ‘no-cost’ duplication and distribution. In fact, some of the PLR products out there (including those that bear my digital fingerprints ) are so widely distributed that The affiliate channels that I’ve placed in those products have helped me generate hundreds of affiliate commissions month after month completely on autopilot.