No Loan? Then Generate Cash
With Affiliate Programs

Business loans for start-up companies have always been difficult to find and often wasn’t accomplished without family or friends contributing. Small main street businesses, usually located in leased locations, have also had difficulties finding funding. This will continue.

Today’s businesses are faced with:
1. The world wide capital crunch continuing.
2. The likelihood of numerous bank failures.
3. Small businesses that have a line of credit in good standing at a bank that fails may have difficulty getting a new line of credit at another bank.

Considering the business financing difficulties that will confront small businesses for at least the next several years, instead of hoping for the banks to provide financing, it is time for small businesses to look for alternatives.

If there is real estate or equipment owned by the company sale leaseback financing could be an option. Selling the companies accounts receivables would be an option when the increased access to cash allows the company to decrease expenses is another option. Another way to go is to increase sales. Yes, even in this economy. A simple, cost effective, but powerful sales tool is an - Affiliate Program.

What is an Affiliate Program?

You provide a sales person the permission to drive traffic to your site, boost your sales, and then you pay that person a commission for that success. Simple enough. Now increase that by thousands of affiliates selling for you.

An Affiliate is just another name for a sales person. The affiliate is self employed, and doesn’t require healthcare benefits, workers comp insurance, etc., and they don’t create an expense until they have earned a commission.

You might be an expert at what you do. You might build the best products or provide the greatest services, but you may be in the same position as many businesses - you don’t have the time or ability to get more customers on your own. Was the need for more cash the reason you are looking for a business loan?

Benefits of Affiliate Programs:
1. Affiliate programs provide a way to reach a much wider audience at a much faster rate.
2. A company being operated out of someone’s basement can have an international sales force.
3. It can work for all sizes of companies.
4. Allows a multitude of people to become a substantial sales force for a company.

Affiliates market for you using web pages, banner ads, e-mails, etc., and they may also include traditional forms of marketing. It is up to them to get the sales, and with affiliate programs you can literally have thousands of people using their time, money, and expertise marketing to customers you might not reach by other methods.

A traditional sales force may be small enough your staff knows who made the sale, but what happens when you have thousands of people selling your product? Affiliate tracking software is used. Companies can either purchase the software or they can outsource the management of the affiliate program.

Each affiliate is assigned a code such as, yourcompanyname.com/123. The 123 is the affiliate number. The software tracks the sales through this number. Reports detailing the number of clicks, number of sales, etc., are generated by the software. Affiliates can access their reports 24 hours a day to see how they are doing in their efforts, which allows them to adjust their methods - and increase sales for you.

Affiliate Programs have been an effective tool for Fortune 500 companies. It can also benefit a smaller company that might not have the time, or budget, for a sustained in-house advertising campaign. Companies that understand the benefits of affiliate programs, are more than willing to pay an affiliate a percentage of each sale they generate.

With 15 million people out of work in the U.S., and many of them with fantastic Internet skills, every company should increase their sales force using affiliate programs.

Tips:
1. Use this sales tool to sell internationally to markets that were previously unobtainable with your traditional sales force.
2. Affiliates can drive a ton of traffic to your web site that you wouldn’t get with your current marketing, and with the increased traffic, and more links out there in cyber space pointing at your web site, your search engine rankings should increase - meaning even more sales.
3. Greater sales will improve your financial statements, and have you heard the old saying, "banks lend money to those that don’t need it?"
4. When the bank notices that your sales are increasing even in this economy, it will provide a greater comfort level when considering your loan?
5. Any business that understands affiliate sales can increase their bottom line.

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