[0:00:01] Hey, what’s up? Welcome to the learn, create, grow podcast. This is Santhosh Shettyhere. I’m going to be your host for the rest of the episode. First of all, thank you so much for coming here and listening to this episode. I really, really appreciate that. And in today’s podcast, you are going to learn some of the secret strategies that I personally use to recover whatever I have paid for any product or co overs or anything online, even physical products sometimes.

[0:00:29] You’re going to find this super useful and you will be able to apply these strategies in your own business and your personal life as well. Before we begin, make sure you follow this podcast if you’re looking to grow your business on the internet through uncomplicated designing and marketing. And once you finish listening to the episode and if you like the podcast, don’t forget to give me a like and a five star rating. I’ll really, really appreciate that as well and share it with somebody who will find this useful as well. All right then. Let’s get to the episode.

[0:00:59] If you’re wondering, is this even possible? You don’t have to wonder because I’ve been doing it for a while and it’s working for me. And this is how it’s going to work. You ready? All right, then. I usually use this strategy on four types of products. One is a physical product which gets shipped to your house. And next one is software. And then there are these digital courses as well. So this is a third kind of product. And the fourth product I would say services.

[0:01:30] Services, consulting, and things like that. So these are the four things that I majorly use this strategy on. So what is this strategy? This strategy has a term in the online world. It’s called affiliate marketing. In the offline world, I was into hospitality. So whenever I used to give bookings to a hotel or resort, right, they would look at me like an agent. Even though I had my own resorts and farmhouses, still, even if I tell them I’m a property owner, they wouldn’t believe me. They will just say they will treat me as an agent and they will give commission to every booking that I give them. Okay? So commissions used to range anywhere between 20% to 30%. When it comes to hotel bookings or resort bookings, that is the offline world. And that was the business I was into a few years ago.

[0:02:20]Now, when it comes to online marketing or online business, the term that is used here, it is called affiliate marketing. So most of the companies in the world have an affiliate program. You can go to their main website and just scroll down to the very bottom to the footer and check for anything that says affiliate. They will definitely have it. All the top brands have affiliate programs. Or another way to check is just go to Google, open Google and let’s say you’re looking for an affiliate program for something that you use regularly, like, let’s say a Nike shoes. Okay?

[0:02:54] So go to Google, look for Nike affiliate program. These are the keywords. That’s it. And you will get to know whether Nike has an affiliate program. I believe they do. You can go ahead, sign up to that, and you can use the special link that you get from Nike to promote. So that was Nike. I am not part of Nike’s affiliate program. I was just giving you an example. So this is what I do whenever I require something, right? Any of these four products that I spoke about, for example, let’s talk about software, a tool that a cloud based software, which I need for my own business. Something like email marketing software. Let’s take that as an example.

[0:03:36] So what I would usually do is, when it comes to email marketing, there are multiple many companies out there who provide this service. So first thing is, I’ll do my research to find out which is the best one. So I’ll shortlist maybe four to five of them, and then look at the pricing and see which one suits my kind of a business and my budget. And then once I zero down on maybe one or two, which I am interested in purchasing, then I look at whether these companies have an affiliate program.

[0:04:10]I scroll down, I go to their website, I scroll to the very bottom of the page and check if there is anything that says affiliate program. If it is there, I’ll go ahead and sign up to affiliate program on both of these websites and wait for an approval. Usually they approve it like in three, four days. And once there is a possibility, they may not approve as well. Some companies may not approve for whatever reason.

[0:04:34]So once I get the approval, I know that, okay, I have an affiliate program ready. And let’s say they are paying maybe 20, 30% commission, which is decent. And if I am spending, let’s say Rs1000 a month, then the commission amount would be 300 for per sale. Okay? So if I make three to four sales a month, then I make thousand 200, which means I have recovered my money for that month. But it sounds easy, but it doesn’t work that way. So what I usually do is I look at their yearly program.

[0:05:10]So when you are going for a yearly subscription, the price gets down further. So if it is 1000 per month, if you’re on a monthly subscription, you take a yearly subscription where your price will get down to maybe, let’s say Rs800, and you’ll be paying lesser 800 or 700, whatever that is, depending on what software it is or what service it is. So what I’ll do is I’ll pay for the year. So let’s say it is 700, for example. So 700 for a year is around 7000, around Rs8400.

[0:05:47]Okay? So I have already paid Rs8400 for that particular software or service. Now I have 365 days to recover that amount. And how do I do it? I find the link which I have got from them. They have approved it. So I’ll get a special link from the company. It’s my private affiliate link, which I can use in different channels and promote. Now, before promoting, you have to be absolutely sure what you’re promoting. Don’t, just as soon as you get the affiliate link, start promoting. No, it doesn’t work that way because people will easily get to know whether you know about the software or not.

[0:06:30]You got to use it. Use it for some time. You have 365, 366 days or 365 days to recover that money. So use it for some time. Use it maybe for a month. One month is more than enough to get used to a software and get good at it. So after a month, what you can do is you can create a blog on it, you can create a video on it, and whatever way you want to promote whatever kind of marketing that you used to use, that you would like to use.

[0:06:58]But here are a few things that you should never ever do, okay? One is don’t spam just because you have an affiliate link. Or don’t get too confident thinking that if I put this affiliate link in multiple groups, there is a possibility I might get a sale. You may get a sale, but you may also get banned. Facebook or any of these social media channels don’t like spammy stuff. So don’t start promoting your link all over the place.

[0:07:26]You can get banned. That’s not the right way to do it. And don’t fall into that spam category. It’s not good. And another thing is, don’t promote too many things. If you are using one particular service for email marketing, then only promote that. Don’t promote like four or five different kinds of email marketing software. That doesn’t make sense unless you use it. There are people who use two to three different services as well. That is fine.

[0:07:51]But if you’re not using it, then don’t talk about it. People will easily get to know humans are intelligent beings. You should never underestimate them. So be honest, be transparent and say it the way it is. Just speak about your own experience. That is more than enough. And another thing, if you don’t believe in a product, let’s say there is a product who is paying 50% commissions, okay? And you are using a product which has 30% commissions. Now there is a possibility if you promote the other product, you might get more money than the one you are using, but you personally don’t believe in that product.

[0:08:28] That also does not work. If you don’t believe in something, or if you don’t have confidence in something, don’t promote it. That’s not the right thing to do. Always do ethical stuff. Do the right stuff. Eventually, eventually you’ll do well. The most important thing is building a very strong base for your business. And that should be built on transparency and integrity. And if you do that right, you will go a long way. You’ll do good in your business.

[0:09:01]And I think I already spoke about this. Don’t sign up to multiple programs. See, quantity doesn’t mean it’s quality, okay? Always look for a quality program and promote only that. That is enough. And if you have a business online, and if you already have a set of followers who follow you for certain kind of knowledge, that get, let’s say you’re in your own business niche, probably you are an expert at something, right? So whatever products you pick, whatever service you pick, whatever courses that you pick, it should be around your niche.

[0:09:40]When you do that right, it becomes easier to promote these products. Because you already have a set of people who believe you. And they believe you for what you say, for the products you use, because they know that you also use it, right? They will definitely buy it. Not everybody, but some of them will surely buy it. And don’t go too aggressive with your promotions. You don’t have to. You have your own business to take care of. So unless your main focus of main focus of your business is affiliate marketing, marketing, don’t do this, okay? Focus on your business. Focus on what you’re doing.

[0:10:22]These are the things which will create these additional multiple sources of income for you. So let it take its time. It’s fine. You have an entire year to recover the money if you’re looking to earn out of it. If you want to build a business around affiliate marketing, then it’s a different story. Then it is good to run ads and do some digital marketing stuff, maybe SEO and stuff like that. Otherwise, if you already have a set business, focus on that and let these affiliate products bring in multiple streams of income to you from all sites.

[0:10:58]So that’s what I have been doing and it is helping me. So pretty much whatever software, whatever service, anything that I pick upright, I always look for an affiliate program, sign up to it, use the product or service or whatever it is, and then promote it with my audience. Or if I really really like it, I might even create a campaign around it and run ads and things like that. What really, really matters, end of the day, is you believing in that stuff.

[0:11:27]
So I hope you got value out of this and I hope you found this useful. So make a list of everything that you have. Check if they have affiliate. Look at all the products, courses, whatever you have purchased so far. Even the physical products from Amazon, right? Even they have an affiliate program. So check if they have an affiliate program. Try to get affiliate link from these companies and promote it.

[0:11:52]
And here’s another tip. See even local companies in your city or around you, some of the companies also give you direct commission for your service, for exchange of your service. Like I was talking earlier, whenever I used to give, we used to have our own farmhouse and resort. So there used to be some bookings which will not fit into our resort. So we used to call other properties and check with them if the property is available and share the custom information with them. And they used to call the customers and close the sale. Or sometimes we used to close the sale and hand it over to the person.

[0:12:30]
So by doing this, we used to get these additional commissions which was direct. And generally when you work with local companies, the commissions are a little more than online. So get to work. Now use this strategy to not just recover your money, but also make some additional money out of the product, services or courses or whatever that you have. Well, that’s about it for today. If you like this podcast, don’t forget to review, give me a five star rating and share it with somebody who would find this useful.

[0:12:59]
And don’t forget to follow my podcast. My podcast is called Learn, Create, Grow Podcast and you will find it in all the music, all the different music platforms like Apple Spotify, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, pretty much everywhere. If you don’t find it somewhere, let me know. I will make sure I list my podcast over there as well. And there are some important links in this podcast. You might find it in the description.

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Those are the links. One link will take you to my product page where you can check out my products on uncomplicated designing and marketing. And then there are these social channels that I am on. So you can add me as a friend, follow or interact with me through those channels. And if you want to request content on designing, entrepreneurship, marketing, then you can do that as well through my social channel. Just send me a message on messenger and let me know what you want.

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I will create a content around this. Maybe a podcast or maybe a YouTube video. Well, that’s it my friend. Thank you so much for listening. To learn, create, grow podcast. This is Santhosh Shetty, have a Wonderful Day!!.