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.

Guest Post: Are You A Smartie?

By Barb Wade

Many of you may have heard of S.M.A.R.T goals, but as we approach the beginning of a new year, I thought it would be good to have a little refresher on the concept.

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for:

S - specific
M - measurable
A - achievable
R - realistic
T - timely

SPECIFIC — You goal must be specific. Not only because it has a greater chance of actually being accomplished, but it's much easier to know when you've reached your goal if you know exactly what it is!

So make sure you can answer the 6 "W" questions about your goal:

• Who: Who is involved?
• What: What do I want to accomplish? (Be specific!)
• Where: Where will it take place? (If applicable)
• When: When will it be finished?
• Which: What are the key requirements in order to succeed? And what are the significant obstacles?
• Why: The "why" is the tangible benefits of accomplishing this goal. (Make this personal — we work much harder on things that having meaning to us)

MEASURABLE — Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort toward reaching your goal.

ATTAINABLE — It's fine to "shoot for the moon" as a way of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone (see the Quick Tip below). But you want to make sure that your goal can actually be accomplished. It's fine to make it a bit of a "stretch" though. Even if a goal seems out of reach, as you take each necessary step to attain it, you begin to develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach your goal. And those goals will become more and more attainable as you grow to meet their challenge.

REALISTIC — Some people get stuck here because when they are setting a goal that is beyond their reach, they start to feel that it isn't realistic. But most of the time, that is just a limiting belief. A realistic goal is one that you are completely motivated to work and strive for and that you truly believe can be accomplished. In addition, it is a goal that others have actually achieved and therefore you can even model the steps they took to get there. A goal can be both high and realistic at the same time. Not only that, high goals are frequently easier to reach than low ones because you are motivated by something that is truly meaningful to you and gives you significant forward movement.

TIMELY — Any goal you hope to achieve needs to be within a timeframe. "Someday" never comes, and ASAP is too nebulous and impossible to measure. The minute you set a concrete timeframe — "by July 15th" or "by the first day of school" - your unconscious mind is already beginning to work toward that end goal and you have created a sense of urgency that will help you work at the top of your game.

So as you set your goals for the next year — whether personal or business — give them the "SMART" test and make sure they all have high IQs! ;-)

Barb Wade, M.A. specializes in teaching Coaches to create thriving, 6-figure practices in under 20 hours a week! For a FREE "How To Get Clients" BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH KIT just for Coaches, visit http://www.BarbWade.com

New Edition of "Expert Resumes for Managers and Executives" Released

Wendy Enelow and Louise Kursmark have just published the third edition of "Expert Resumes for Managers & Executives." 

Here's a brief summary:
A powerful, performance-based resume is key to landing a great management position. This book features a collection of 100+ professionally written resumes and letters for all levels of management, from front-line supervisors to top-level executives, and everyone in between.

The third edition has been enhanced with updated resume samples, a resume questionnaire/worksheet for documenting experience and accomplishments, an appendix of resume power verbs, details on online resume preparation, and so much more.

I highly recommend the "Expert" series of resume books for resume writers to add to their personal reference/inspiration library.

(I'm pretty sure it was the second edition of the "Expert Resumes for Managers & Executives" book that appeared in "The Company Men" movie in 2010, starring Kevin Costner and Ben Affleck.)

Details: 304 pages, published by JIST. List price: $17.95 (available on Amazon.com for $11.96 plus shipping).

No More VisualCV after December 31, 2011

Thanks to Kathy Hansen of Quintessential Careers for sharing this message, which announces the end of VisualCV.

Dear VisualCV Member:

We regret to inform you that the VisualCV.com website will be ceasing operations, effective December 30, 2011.

Since our launch almost four years ago we've been gratified by the response to VisualCV, and how it has enabled thousands of professionals to better represent themselves online. Even more importantly we have been delighted to see VisualCV help people secure significant new career positions. However, we have been unable to turn the site into a viable, self-supporting business and therefore we reluctantly made this decision.

We recognize that many of you need time to recover your resume data from VisualCV -- which is why we are providing you with thirty days' notice. We recommend saving a PDF copy of your current VisualCV. You can easily do this by clicking on the button on the bottom of the page you see when viewing or editing your VisualCV. We also recommend you separately save any images, videos or documents in your portfolio that you do not currently have stored somewhere else.


To ensure we meet all our members' privacy concerns, we will destroy all user data once website operations have ceased. This includes any and all backups we have. As a result, once the deadline has passed it will not be possible for us to recover any member data. You can be assured that we will not be providing any user data to third parties of any kind.

We will be contacting the small number of paying customers that still have active subscriptions to arrange a prorated refund for the months remaining on their annual subscription.

Thank you for all your support over the past four years. We wish you well in your future career endeavors.