Resume Templates — Yes or No?

 

I’ve been a resume writer long enough to have seen many generations of resume templates over the years. In the 1990s, there were the “resume-in-a-box" software programs. In the 2000s, you had Microsoft Word resume templates — which were either super boring or overly designed (with multiple columns). More recently, you've been able to purchase resume templates on Etsy or use the resume designs in Canva.

The problem is, many of these documents LOOK good, but aren’t GOOD to use in an actual job search because, especially in recent years, they have not been compatible with applicant tracking system (ATS) software, putting applicants at a disadvantage with their online resume submissions. 

But the world of resume templates changed when career industry pioneer Michelle Dumas introduced “Distinctive Resume Templates.” As a longtime professional resume writer herself, Michelle recognized the need for modern, ATS-friendly professional resume templates that could be used by career industry professionals to enhance their interview-winning content with visually attractive designs.

Michelle and I started in the resume writing industry in the same year (1996) and we’ve both seen lots of changes through the years. But one thing hasn’t changed: The need to create compelling, attractive, and interview-winning career documents.

In 2020, she created a series of resume templates to use with her company’s own clients. They were designed to be easily customized, right down to the color schemes. Her first goal was to streamline the resume development process, creating templates that were useful but also easy to customize. In using the templates with clients, she realized how useful they would be to career industry colleagues. So she started selling them to other resume writers.

“Our work is tremendously time-consuming and we trade our precious time for money. Writing a great resume for a client is a very time-consuming process,” Dumas says. “Our income is limited by how much we are able to produce, which makes it hard to grow/scale a business.”

By introducing resume templates into your resume writing business, you can focus more on the content creation and let the design enhance the content, instead of having to struggle with formatting the resume and associated career documents.

“Writing and graphic design are two different skill sets,” Dumas says. “We are professional resume writers, not graphic designers. While both of these — the writing skill and the design skill — require talent, they are completely different skill sets. Graphically-enhanced resumes that incorporate color and shapes became the norm and the expectation.”

Simple Microsoft Word design enhancements can make a big difference. 

For example, take this Key Qualifications section:

In the Amplify template, it becomes this:

Because the templates are provided in Microsoft Word format, you can change the color of the themes. The change from blue to green was done with ONE CLICK.

 

The templates are Microsoft Word templates (.dotx extension), and MS Word is required to use and customize them. Template collections are sorted into categories — professional and executive, student and entry-level, industry and trade-specific, career change, etc. When I choose a design, I start with the client and pick the template to fit the content. Sometimes I write the content first and then copy-and-paste the text into the template. Other times, I write “to the template,” writing directly in the template. Or, you could do a combination of both. Fill in the “easy stuff” — education, certifications, affiliations — in the template, and then write out (long hand or in a blank Word document) the other content and then paste it into the template.

Dumas suggests that resume writers can save approximately one hour per project by using one of the templates. My personal experience reveals similar time savings — more for complex projects. For an average $1167 project (the average price for a resume and cover letter project, according to the 2022 Profile of Professional Resume Writers), the investment of $21 in a Distinctive Resume Template provides a strong return on investment (representing only 2% of the project cost but saving one hour of the average nine hours resume writers estimate spending on an average resume project).

Instructions for making the color changes are included in each document, including links to videos to illustrate the process. Successive page headers are automatically set up, including page numbers.

There are dozens of templates to choose from. 

I’ve been using Distinctive Resume Templates with my clients since March 2022. My favorite designs that I’ve used so far with clients are:

•    Amplify (the design showcased in the samples above)

•    Alluring Luxury

•    Ascendant Modern

•    Blue Collar

•    Career Launcher First-Job Resume Template

The resume templates are $12 per design. You can also purchase coordinating templates (cover letter template, biography template) for $8 each (or save 10% when you purchase the resume and coordinating templates in the same transaction). For less than $21, I save hours of design time while providing my clients with attractive, ATS-compliant documents.*

* The templates are marketed as “ATS-friendly” but I have found them to be ATS-compliant for all the clients I’ve used them with. The official documentation says:

Disclaimer: While all efforts have been made to ensure resumes created with these templates will be ATS-friendly, it is impossible to guarantee ATS compatibility. The purchaser takes full responsibility for ensuring ATS compatibility, if this is important to them. Distinctive Career Services, LLC is not responsible for the content or effectiveness of any resume created with one of our templates.

But like I said, I’ve found all the ones I’ve used to be ATS compatible.

(I test graphic resumes for ATS-friendliness by saving them as text and reviewing the content to make sure it remains intact.)

The license for the template allows resume writers to use the templates to create resumes for clients. (You may use the templates with your clients on an individual basis. However, only one writer per firm may use the template, so if you are a contracting writer, you must purchase one license per writer – but discounts are available for large agencies.)

Want to try them? Get 50% off your first purchase using this promo code:

50offbearesumewriter

(Fifty percent discount is valid on first purchase of any amount. Visit DistinctiveResumeTemplates.com to redeem.)

Note: This post contains affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links, but there is no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions stated in this blog post are my own. As stated in the blog post, I personally use Distinctive Resume Templates with my own clients. Thank you!

Content is the Key to Making More Affiliate Sales

Want to earn passive income with affiliate income? One of the keys to increasing your affiliate click-throughs (and purchases!) is through content. Content provides credibility. It gives your visitors the value and information they are looking for online. Some types of content also help put people in a buying mood. And, of course, content is the key to driving traffic to your website. If you have affiliate links on your resume website, more traffic brings with it the potential for more affiliate sales.

So what type of content works best?

Reviews
Some content puts people in a buying mood. And to be fair, when people seek product information and reviews online, they are already looking to make a purchase. Reviews are one of the most powerful ways to promote affiliate products or service -- simply because they help provide that potential buyer with the information, and the link, to make a purchase.

When writing a review be sure to present an unbiased opinion. A prospect won't trust a review that is all good. Be sure to point out any downsides to the product or service. You can then counter it with a positive statement. Consider reviewing features, prices, and any personal experience you have with the product or service.

Be sure to include a link or two to the product sales page so you can earn your commission.

Free Downloads
The most common type of free downloads are reports and ebooks. You can create these yourself or use Pass-Along Materials. Reports and ebooks offer a tremendous amount of value to the reader because they offer more information and benefit than a simple article.

When relevant, you can include affiliate links in your ebook or report. You can also include them again in an appendix dedicated to resources. However, make sure to not go overboard with the affiliate links. Use them only when relevant and appropriate.

In addition to reports and ebooks, consider giving away other downloads. For example, printable checklists or calendars, useful resource lists, blueprints and other easy to use and informative resources.

Email Marketing
Hopefully, you are collecting email addresses and building an opt-in mailing list. This list may be your single biggest commission-generating resource. Each person that signs up for your list is a qualified prospect. They are interested in the information you have and the products and services you represent.

If you don't have a growing opt-in list, spend some time creating your opt-in strategy. This often includes a giveaway with the sign-up. (Once again, you can use Pass-Along Materials for this purpose.) Once you're collecting email addresses, don't wait for a magic number -- even if you only have 15 or 20 people on your list. Start sending them informative messages right away. You can include an occasional affiliate link, or two, when relevant to the information you are presenting.

Test and track the methods that generate the most affiliate sales, and focus on building and growing those tactics. Affiliate marketing commissions will almost certainly increase as you provide more content.

If you want to learn more about how to earn passive income using affiliate marketing, check out the recording and transcript of "Building Affiliate Relationships to Grow Your Resume Business." (Just $5.)

Multiple Streams of Income for Your Resume Writing Business

I talk often about resume writers who trade "hours for dollars" -- if you're only writing resumes, you're missing out on the opportunity to create passive income and recurring revenue that can put a couple of extra dollars in your pocket each month -- or completely ease the peaks and valleys of resume writing by providing steady, ongoing income...even while you sleep.

Sounds great, huh? When some people think of multiple income streams they think of "get rich quick" schemes that do nothing but take your hard-earned money. However, there are some easy, effective ways to create multiple streams of income in the careers industry.

Ideas for More Income

• Work with multiple clients simultaneously. It's hard to maximize your income when you're working with one client at a time. After all, there is only one of you, right? But have you considered offering groups or workshops? For example, Tina Kasklak Nicolai of Resume Writers' Ink is offering a "Do-It-Yourself Resume Writing Workshop" next month. For $50, she can work with a whole roomful of folks for a couple of hours (and some of them are likely to hire her to write their resumes, once they figure out how hard it is to "Do It Yourself"). Income potential: $150-$1000.
• Set up a blog. Blogs are not only a good place to communicate with your market, but also a place to earn a bit of extra income. Find ways to monetize it. (Affiliate links, Google Adsense, links to Clickbank programs, and selling ebooks are just a few ideas.) Income potential: $5-$200/month.
• Take a part-time job. If you're just building your resume writing business, or if you're struggling to make ends meet, consider taking a part-time job -- especially one in the career services field. Your local university may have a need in their career services office for someone to work part-time. Other possibilities include: employment offices and recruiting firms, government career services, or local nonprofits that serve jobseekers (like Goodwill). It will take a balancing act to get everything done each day, but you will have that security of knowing your bills will be paid and your family taken care of until you can leave that job for good. Income potential: $500-$2000/month.
• Create a product of your own. Maybe an ebook or workbook on a topic related to the job search. (Instead of doing a "general" book, however, I recommend something more specific -- for example, resume and cover letters for the specific niche you serve, or a job search guide for your geographic area, listing major employers, job search groups, employment resources, temp agencies and recruiters, etc.). You can sell your information product on your website, blog or on another site for greater exposure. Read "Making Money Writing Ebooks" -- it's January's "Special Report" for bronze members of BeAResumeWriter.com. Income potential: $25-$500/month.
• Start a Career Membership Site. Create passive income and/or recurring revenue by providing membership programs on careers-related topics. I have an 8-day LinkedIn training program that sells for $15. Once you set it up, it runs itself! Income potential: $15-$1000/month.
• Affiliate marketing. The best thing about affiliate marketing is that the person with the product gives you all of the tools that you need to promote their product in your affiliate toolbox. This makes it easy for you to begin taking advantage of this stream of income.  And, your revenue can grow as your business grows. Possible affiliates include ResumeSpider, Allison & Taylor, and multiple products in the Clickbank Marketplace. Check out this blog post for more details about affiliate marketing. Income potential: $10-$300/month.

Are you looking to have more than one source of income? Put one or more of these ideas to work for you today!

Resume Writers: Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing

Not enough resume writers, in my opinion, understand how to integrate affiliate marketing into their businesses.

Affiliate marketing has two major advantages for resume writers. First, it allows you to generate passive income -- you simply recommend products that you think may benefit your resume clients, and if they purchase them, you earn a small commission.

Second, all of us get inquiries from prospective clients who never end up buying from us. Yet, many of them would still be receptive to hearing from us occasionally about information that might help their job search. Integrated with these messages can be affiliate marketing offers, for things like reference checking services, resume distribution, interview coaching training systems (if you don't provide it), salary information services, etc.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is like the online version of a direct sales model. An online business needs advertising and promotion to bring people to their site to make purchases. An affiliate marketing program uses other people (like you!) as sales associates to promote their products. Usually, the affiliate owner provides the tools that an affiliate needs to promote them well. (These can include articles, email copy, ads, links, etc.)

Affiliate marketing presents a win-win situation for the business owner. They can provide their knowledge of marketing to others (you!) who will then do the majority of the legwork for them. The affiliates don't lose out here either. You receive a commission on each click, visitor sign-up, or sale made through their affiliate link. (Each affiliate program has its own way of compensating affiliates -- through traffic or actual sales.)

How to Become an Active, Effective Affiliate

Here are some tips to help you get going with affiliate marketing.

• Search out reputable affiliate programs. There are tons of affiliate programs out there. All do not offer the same commissions or tools to help you promote their products. At some point in the future, I'm going to be developing a guide to products/services you can represent. (In the meantime, feel free to list your recommendations in the comments below.)
• Read about affiliate marketing. A good affiliate program will offer help for their affiliates, including education on tools and marketing strategies for their success. Be sure to read the training emails provided by the business too, as they'll often have ideas and tools to help you roll out your affiliate marketing program.
• Choose a product that you believe in. Don't base your choice of programs on money. Yes, there will be many lucrative programs out there, but that is not the only way to go. When you promote a product that you can get behind, then your customers will learn to trust you and be more likely to buy or click on your site.
• Promote a variety of products. You don't have to just join one program at a time. As an affiliate, you can earn money promoting several products at once. (But I generally recommend only promoting only one of each type of service -- like one resume distribution company.)
• Be honest with your customers. Let them know that you are an affiliate. (Disclosure is required by law!) You can do it with something as simple as a statement that says, "I am an affiliate for [name of company.) This won't turn them off if they see that you use the products yourself and believe in them.

You can be an active, effective affiliate for career-related services. You can even start today. Use these tips to help you choose the right place to begin.

More Ways to Profit From Your Content

In yesterday's blog post, I talked about how to profit from your content using five easy strategies. With all the time, effort, energy -- and sometimes -- money that it takes to write content, it makes sense to want to earn a profit. The good news is that, with a plan in place, you can profit from your content and build your bank account.

Here are five more ways to profit from content.

1. Affiliate commissions with comparison charts

Comparison charts are charts that essentially compare similar features in several products. You'll often find them for electronics. For example, a comparison chart might compare five different smart phones in five different categories. You might create a chart to compare resume distribution services, for example.

An unorthodox way of using comparison charts might also be to review resume firms (including yours, showing why yours is the best), but becoming an affiliate for the other programs so that if the job seeker chooses another service, you'll still make some income.)

2. Affiliate commissions with resource lists in reports

Do you give away a free report to build your email list? If so, do you have a list of resources in the appendix? And are those links affiliate links? If not, you're missing out on valuable income. You might also include a few affiliate links in the body of the report.

For example, a LinkedIn free report might include links to LinkedIn products, such as this Linkedin Profile Makeover book. (Earn almost $12 for each ebook sold.)

3. Promote your opt-in list with free downloads.

Many audiences love free downloads. For example, you might offer a LinkedIn profile optimization checklist. Optimizing your resume checklist. Preparing for a job interview checklist. Researching a company checklist. The lists can be downloaded in exchange for an email address. It's a great way to build your opt-in list and profit from email marketing.

4. Create a membership program and provide monthly reports

Does your audience respond well to free reports? If so, consider creating a membership site for job seekers where you provide a monthly report. For example, you could create a series of 12 reports on these topics:

• LinkedIn Profile Development
• Interview Questions You Should Be Prepared to Answer
• Interview Questions You Should Be Prepared to Ask
• Salary Research
• Customizing Cover Letters for Positions
• Researching Companies

Charge even a few dollars a month for the membership (or a full-year membership for $15 or $20) and you earn a nice profit. (Note, you can also upsell in the report and offer your organization services or consulting.)

5. Drive traffic to your sales page with free downloads.

Back to those free downloads. You can use them to drive traffic to your sales page. Continuing with the checklist example, you can include a call to action at the bottom of each checklist that sends people to your website sales page where you sell an ebook, those affiliate products, or even your organization services. It's a great way to convert prospects into customers.

Take a look at your target resume customers, your current business model, and the content that your prospects respond to. Find a content monetization tool that fits your niche and start making more money from your content efforts.

Using HubPages to Build Visibility As a Resume Writer

How to Build a Successful HubPages Link 
HubPages are essentially hosted web pages. As a "Hubber" you write and publish pages. These pages are essentially articles or long pages of content on a specific topic. For example, you might write a page on how to cultivate your job search network.

HubPages are great tools for building your visibility as a resume writer -- they are well-indexed using Google -- and you can also make money from your content. (Signing up for HubPages is free.)

The key to success on HubPages is to write great content. How do you know if it is great content? Well, HubPages has measures in place. These measures include the ability for readers to:

* Tweet
* Like
* Vote up
* Vote down
* Share
* Print
* Follow

Many of these elements contribute to what's called "hub karma." You essentially earn points for quality content. As your points increase, so too does your linking power.

The HubPages Linking Tool
HubPages offers a very useful linking tool. This tool gives you suggestions to the best hubs to link to. Link to other hubs and you boost your hub karma. Additionally, this linking strategy can also motivate others to link back to you. Thus, linking can generate traffic and ultimately it can help boost your HubPages profits.

When choosing to link to other hubs, keep your readers and audience in mind. Only link to other hubs that are relevant and valuable. For example, if you have a hub page about interviewing, linking to a hub that talks about how to change your car's oil filter just doesn't make sense. It's not relevant or helpful to your reader. However, a link to a hub page about career assessments would be relevant and helpful.

What About Back Linking? 
Many people use HubPages to link to their existing businesses. They use it, or try to use it, as a promotional tool. HubPages has very strict rules about self-promotion and will penalize you if you're simply using your hub to promote another site.

However, you can use other sites to promote your hub page. For example, you can link to your hub page from your Facebook or Twitter account. You can also link to your hub from your blog or website content. Again, like any incoming links, the more relevant they are to the topic being discussed, the better. And search engines love relevant links. When a hub page has many incoming links from other sites, it ranks better on Google. That means more people see your hub page and you make more money.

In fact, social networking is an integral part of HubPages. Every reader has the opportunity to like your content on Facebook and tweet or share. You can build a community of followers on both social networking sites and HubPages, and generate positive linking karma for more traffic and more profits.

Making Money From Your Hubpages
There are four main ways to monetize ("make money from") your HubPages. The first is through Google AdSense. When readers click on the ads on your HubPage, your Google AdSense account is credited. Don't have an AdSense account? It's easy to sign up. (And you can place AdSense ads on your other content pages -- for example your website or blog. Just be mindful that if you don't change your AdSense settings, you're going to be advertising a lot of other resume writing services on your blog or HubPage!)

The second way to make money from visitors to your HubPage is through integrating Ebay and Amazon modules into your page. Because most careers industry professionals won't be promoting products on their HubPages (in the same way someone writing about collecting Star Wars toys would, for example), your best bet is the Amazon module. You can recommend relevant careers industry books, and when someone buys from your link, your Amazon Associates affiliate account will be credited. (Personally, the most I've ever earned in a month from Amazon was around $5, but my sites don't get a lot of general jobseeker traffic either.)

The third way to make money from your HubPage is through affiliate marketing services. You can sign up for affiliate programs (for interview training services or career assessments or other job search-related products) and you'll make a commission whenever someone purchases one of these products using your affiliate link. (If you want to learn more about this, visit the "Expert Interviews" section on BeAResumeWriter.com (available to Bronze members) and download the recording and transcript of my teleseminar, "Building Affiliate Relationships to Grow Your Resume Business." (In this 63 minute program, you'll learn the five things you need to make affiliate relationships work, how to find and establish affiliate relationships, what products and services NOT to sell, and how much you can realistically earn from affiliate relationships.)

The fourth way is to get readers to purchase your career industry services! Including your contact information on your HubPage is a great way to allow your HubPage reader to turn into a real business customer!

Opportunity To Stake Your Claim
There aren't too many resume writers using HubPages yet -- these are two I found:
Patty Inglish
Marye Audet

HubPages are another tool you can use to build your prospect's ability to "know, like, and trust" you. Give it a try!

Selling Ebooks and Workbooks on Clickbank

I've delivered a couple of teleseminars and written some articles on affiliate marketing in the past, but I haven't specifically addressed selling your information products (workbooks, ebooks, job search guides) on Clickbank before.

Clickbank.com has paid out nearly $2 Billion to those selling information products online in the last 10 years – and that number is growing fast. Yet, for a lot of marketers, Clickbank has a bad rap. I’d like to spend the next two minutes showing you why you absolutely should sell your ebook on Clickbank.

Who does this blog post apply to?
* If you’re currently selling your product with a simple paypal button, consider switching to Clickbank.
* If you have a shopping cart (like 1ShoppingCart.com) that you’re using to sell your products, consider also setting up a separate page or URL where you sell your product on Clickbank.

* If you're using another online sales system (like Payloadz), consider switching to Clickbank, or selling your products on Clickbank in addition to your other online sales system.

Here’s why…

Diversification of Your PaymentsYou may not be aware of this, but PayPal.com has been known to “freeze” accounts while looking into them after they’ve been flagged by one of their employees. While Paypal.com is a trusted company, they do have to watch out for their own interests. So, if this happens to you, your account will not be accessible during that time. That means you can’t withdraw money, you can’t pay affiliates, and you can’t process refunds. You’re stuck. I don’t know about you, but I have bills to pay – which is why I recommend that you also sell products via a secondary payment method like Clickbank. They pay via direct deposit into your checking account every two weeks, like clockwork. If, heaven forbid, your account gets flagged by Paypal, you’ll be able to pay your mortgage while getting it cleared.

Less Book-KeepingWith Clickbank, you get paid weekly or when you reach a certain dollar amount that you’ve set. That means that you can pay less in accounting fees – because you’ll have a maximum of FOUR transactions per month, assuming you’re getting paid weekly. Compare that to using a PayPal button or shopping cart – where every single transaction has to be entered by your bookkeeper – and you can see the advantage.

100,000 + Sales ForceYes, Clickbank has the eye of over 100,000 registered affiliate niche marketers in 145 countries. Many of these affiliate search the Clickbank marketplace first when looking for products to promote. If you’re not listed there, they can’t find you. Having affiliates who will promote your product for you is a great way to increase your sales. And there are tons of folks who are looking for job search-related products to promote on their blogs and websites.

Clickbank’s HopAds ProgramYou may be familiar with Google Adsense, but, did you know that Clickbank also has an advertising program? As a vendor, you can create Ads that automatically show on affiliate websites – based upon keywords. So, if your ebook is about “Finding a Job Faster” and someone with a job board website site puts the HopAd on their site with keywords “job search” or “job interview” – your ad may display in rotation with the other ads – as long as that ad is live on their site.

Hands-Off Affiliate ManagementIf you’re using your own shopping cart like 1ShoppingCart.com, then you have to manage your affiliates or hire someone to do so. While this is definitely a profitable thing to do, some tasks can be a nuisance, like collecting W-9 forms (if you’re in the United States) for taxes. If you sell through Clickbank, that’s not an issue. They handle it for you.

Affiliate Payment Safety CushionIf you’re selling your products through your own shopping cart, then every month, you have to make sure to keep a “cushion” in your PayPal account so that you have enough money to pay them. That’s not an issue with Clickbank. You ONLY receive your profits after affiliates have been paid. And, Clickbank handles paying them for you. You’re totally out of the loop.

There you have it. Six reasons why you should consider putting your ebook on Clickbank for sale.

If you're interested in learning more about selling your job search-related product on Clickbook, I recommend “15 Quick & Easy Steps to Getting your Ebook on Clickbank” by Nicole Dean.

It’s a special report where Nicole Dean, Internet marketer, affiliate manager and work-at-home Mom, gives you the 15 steps you need to follow to get your product up on Clickbank, ready to take orders!

“How to Get Your First Infoproduct on Clickbank” is more than a special report.

You’ll also get:

• Video demonstrations, so you can watch actual demonstrations of how to do the techie stuff 
• Templates for sales pages and thank you/download pages, where you just type in the details of your product, add your links, and then upload the pages to your site 
• Advice on tools you may want to use to make Clickbank work even better for you 

The sooner you get and implement this report, the sooner your product will be out there, making sales for you! Learn more here.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: Promotion

This is the last post in a five-part series on affiliate marketing. The fifth thing you need to make affiliate relationships work is a promotional plan. 

Banner ads and text links are the two most common ways to promote your affiliate relationships. You can use these in a variety of formats. Using an e-mail list to sell the product is also a great way to promote your affiliate links (see the first post in the series, on list-building). Less common are print pieces.

As I talked about with steps 1 and 2 — building your list and developing additional online venues to showcase your affiliate relationships, you’re likely to generate little or no affiliate income if you don’t have a promotional plan in place.

For example, if you have a website, blog, and e-newsletter, you want to develop a schedule for when you will promote which affiliate relationships, and in which medium. You might have a banner ad on your website, which stays pretty constant over time. You might decide to run an ad in your e-newsletter every issue. But you should also plan your content. For example, writing an article on using the product or service for your blog and then excerpting pieces of that article in a couple of issues of the newsletter. If you don’t plan this out ahead of time, when it’s time to put your newsletter together, you might forget to include the ad and/or excerpt.

You can expect some support from your affiliate marketing partners when rolling out your promotional plan. Many of them offer pre-developed “creative” -- which is basically the “artwork” you’ll put on your blog or website. This is often in the form of customized code that you can copy-and-paste into your website code or onto your blog. Some offer affiliate newsletters, which alert you to new offers they are promoting, or provide you with articles that you can customize for your customers.

Some affiliate programs offer contests and other special bonuses. For example, last year, Ellen Britt, of Marketing Qi (pronounced “CHI”), who offers information products for social marketing, had a promotion for her affiliates called a “Ice Cream Social Media Sale.” She put together a package of information products from herself as well as a couple of other social media gurus and offered it over a multi-day promotion. You could purchase it for as little as $57 the first day, and it went up each day, until on the last day, you could purchase the same package for $197. She mobilized her affiliates to promote the program, offering them 50 percent commission on the sale … but also offered a couple of additional prizes. The affiliate that sold the most packages received one day of hands-on training with Ellen in Atlanta (it included one night’s lodging at a resort, but the winner had to pay his or her own transportation), and the second prize was an ice cream maker. You can see this promotion at http://icecreamsocialmediasale.com/.

You might also get ideas on how to market your products and services from the affiliate advertiser. Some will provide you with case studies of their most successful affiliates. Others offer tutorials or videos.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: The Agreement

It’s important to have a formal agreement, which is the fourth thing you need to make your affiliate marketing relationships work. 

It’s important to understand what your rights and obligations are. Some affiliate marketing relationship agreements are only a few paragraphs long. Others are pages. One is not necessarily better than the other. What is more important is clarity. Do you understand what you can — and cannot do — to promote the relationship? Do you understand how, and when you will get paid? Is there anything prohibited by the arrangement? 

For example, some affiliate programs (like domain name registrar 1and1.com) will allow you to use your own affiliate link to purchase products and services, and you’ll get paid on the order — basically, giving you a discount. Others strictly prohibit you from using your own affiliate code. AdSense, for example, will kick you out of the program if they find that you click on the ads that appear on your content, because this artificially inflates the income you receive from the advertising program. It’s important to know this!

Payment is also an area that isn’t often examined too closely by resume writers and career coaches. You might be thrilled to learn you’ve earned a couple of 30% commissions — until you see that the payment is still “pending” in your account. It’s one thing if your payment was just held up a bit while you submitted a tax identification number form to the affiliate network — it’s quite another if the affiliate provider has a $250 payment threshold…and you earn about $25 per month. Do you want to wait almost a year for your payment?

So there’s a balance. You might choose to affiliate with an independent program that pays a healthy commission on a regular basis — OR you can choose to go with an affiliate network that offers multiple affiliate opportunities, but at a smaller commission, because it’s easier for you to hit the payout threshold if you’re promoting multiple products.

The fifth, and final post in this series: Your promotional plan.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: What Not to Promote

This is the third article in a five-part series for resume writers interested in affiliate marketing.

A key part of the affiliate marketing process is an understanding of what you want to promote and not. This is the third thing you need to make affiliate relationships work. There are certain things that you should not be promoting. This brings us into the discussion of what you shouldn’t be selling.

For example, have you ever visited a resume writer’s website and he or she had Google Ads on the home page — and the ads are promoting low-cost resume writing services? (I tried finding an example for this blog post, but fortunately, the majority of resume writers realize this is a huge "no-no.") If you do use Google Ads on your site, did you know there is a setting you can adjust on Google AdSense to eliminate your competitor’s ads from being shown on your content?

However, if you’re looking for complete control of what appears on your website and/or blog, don’t affiliate with Google AdSense. Even though you can exclude direct competitors, you still can’t control exactly which ads, from which companies, will appear on your content.

When working as a direct affiliate (that is, not just hosting ads on your blog or website or in your newsletter), you don’t want to promote any product that you don’t have personal knowledge or experience with. After all, as an affiliate, you are basically endorsing these products. You are staking your reputation on the products and services you choose to affiliate with. One definition of the word affiliate is: A company in which another company has a minority interest; more generally, a company which is related to another company in some way. So when you become an affiliate of a company, you are tying your brand to their brand. This is why it is important to carefully consider which products and services you choose to promote.

Next up in the series: The importance of a formal agreement.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: Your Online Presence

The second step in developing effective affiliate relationships is having a website, blog, or online presence. 

E-newsletters are nice, but you’re not going to get everyone to opt into receiving your e-newsletter. So if you don’t have some other online presence — and most often that is a website or blog — you’re missing out on the opportunity to talk to non-clients — or prospective clients — about your services — but also your affiliate marketing services.

The same content-to-advertising ratio used in e-newsletters applies to your website and blog. Make sure you’re providing useful content in both of these forums — and don’t­ let it overshadow your primary marketing focus — whether that’s resume writing or career coaching.

And make sure you disclose your affiliate marketing relationships. (But that's a whole other blog post!)

Next up in the series: What you shouldn't be promoting with your affiliate marketing.

Five-Part Series on Affiliate Marketing: Your List

This is the first in a five-part series on Affiliate Marketing, building on our "Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Resume Writers" post last week. The first post focuses on your list.

Those in the affiliate marketing world believe the list is the Holy Grail. But it’s not just the size of your list that matters. Frankly, the quality is more important. If I gave you a phone book, you’d have a list. But it wouldn’t necessarily guarantee you any sales, whether for resume writing or affiliate marketing products. Sure, you could probably get 1% of the folks you contacted to buy, but the return on the time and money you’d have to invest to make that happen probably wouldn’t justify the effort.

On the other hand, what if you could get 20% of your existing resume clients to purchase a resume distribution service or recruiter targeting service?

A few years ago, I conducted an interview with Steve Shellist, of ResumeSpider, which bills itself as the “E-Harmony” of job search. He gave this example of the kind of revenue that a resume writer could expect promoting ResumeSpider:

If you write 5-7 resumes per week, and convert 5-6 of them each month to become ResumeSpider clients, you will earn $100 to $120 per month (based on a $65 average sale price, resulting in a $20 commission per order). But remember, they don’t have to be one of your clients to be a client of ResumeSpider — meaning, every visitor to your website is a potential sale. You can easily double your affiliate profits if you have a web site that gets decent traffic and you promote ResumeSpider visibly to visitors.

If you’re the type of writer that generates a resume each day (and/or you get 5-10 job seekers looking at your website each day), you could conceivably convert 20% of them into affiliate marketing product users … and you’d make that $100 per month goal.

Next up in the series: Establishing your online presence.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing for Resume Writers

I get a lot of questions from resume writers about how to avoid the "Time for Dollars" Trap -- that is, how to unlink your income from billable hours. Affiliate marketing is one way to start this journey.

You may be doing affiliate marketing without even knowing it. For example, if you write a resume and refer your client to Bob Bronstein at Profile Research to research employers and distribute the resume and cover letter, you’re engaging in affiliate marketing. If your client mentions that you referred them to Bob, he will send you a check for a percentage of the order. That’s affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing opportunity between two companies. Business one (the “advertiser”) pays business two, the “publisher” (that’s you) for sending new customers to them. They may pay you for “traffic” — which is visits to your site; they may pay you for “leads” — which are qualified customer names who may end up purchasing their products or services; or they may only pay for sales, or when a purchase is actually made.

You can choose to be an affiliate for an individual company (on their website, look at the very bottom of the page and you might find a link for “Affiliates”) or join an affiliate network. Affiliate networks connect advertisers with publishers. Companies that offer their affiliate programs through networks often are making a significant commitment to their affiliate program, because they’re paying anywhere from $500 to $6000 or more to be a part of that affiliate network. Advertisers that also have a dedicated individual to serve as their affiliate relationship manager are also more committed to the success of their affiliate program — which means more support for you.

You can also work with individual providers. Profile Research is an example of this. Bob tracks the business you refer to him without the use of an affiliate network, and without a formal affiliate program. If you are a resume writer, you might also set up this type of relationship with a career coach, if you don’t offer career coaching yourself. The client mentions they were referred by you, and the career coach might pay you a flat fee or percentage of the client’s order. The same might be true if you are a career coach who refers to a resume writer. (If you're interested in pursuing this type of informal relationship, I suggest the "Developing Strategic Alliances and Partnerships with Recruiters" Special Report, which also covers developing referral relationships with other third parties, including career coaches.)

There is also a third type of affiliate program. I mentioned the terms “advertiser” and “publisher” to describe the companies. The placement of ads on your online content is also a type of affiliate marketing. The most common of these relationships is with Google’s AdSense program. Any business can purchase ads through Google’s AdWords program. If your website or blog matches the demographics of the customer the advertiser is looking to reach, his or her ads will appear on your content, and you’ll get paid for people who look at the ad … and you’ll get paid more when they click on the ad.

P.S. One of my most popular blog posts was an interview I conducted with Steve Shellist with ResumeSpider.com on affiliate marketing for resume writers. Check it out here.