MBA868 How to Approach Launch Partners & Affiliates

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If you're launching a new product or you're relaunching a product and you're looking for people to help you sell your product, to help promote your product, you're probably looking around in your marketplace for people to help you launch launch partners. Or you may have an existing product and you're looking for affiliates to help sell your product as well. Now a quick explanation. Whether they're launch partners or affiliates, these people will be helping you promote your product, really driving traffic to your website and trying to make sales on your behalf. And they'll get a sales commission for this. It's up to you how much commission you want to offer. Some people offer as low as 10%, some people offer 50%, some that's completely up to you. But the point here is that you're leveraging other audiences, other people's audiences that are a good match for your product or service. So you can increase sales and awareness to your product. But how do you approach these people? How do you ask for their help? This is a very delicate topic. Not everybody's gonna want to be your launch partner or your affiliate. Now, I differentiate between the two, launch partner and affiliate, because when you're launching something new, you're going to need to approach it in a different way because they don't know what the product is, they never heard of it before or they haven't experienced it before, and in some cases no one has. So you're going to need to approach them in a different way. If you're looking for affiliates for an existing product, they still have to familiarize themselves with the product and get to know it a little bit, even if it's known in the market. But in today's lesson, we're really going to focus on a step by step formula. I want to share with you. This is what we do. This is what we're doing with Webinar Ninja to get the right people on board, to get the right people to be on our side. How do you approach them? What do you say? How do you say it? Do you write them an email? Do you call them on the phone? What do you do? How do you follow up with them? How do you make a convincing argument that it's a good idea to partner up with you? In a lot of ways, this is a very important sales exercise, selling your product to the people that are going to sell it for you. We got so much to cover in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Now, before we get into how to approach a launch partner or an affiliate, let's talk about this for a second. Do you need to do this and is it recommended to have launch partners or affiliates no matter what you're launching or when you're launching? Well, personally, I think you shouldn't have partners on board or affiliates if this is the first version of your first product or the first version of any product you create. You want to do what's called a soft launch, where you launch quietly. Basically, you launch internally with your internal, you know, email, email list, your own subscribers, and you grow slowly. You want to work out all the kinks. You want to make sure that you've worked everything out before you do this huge hoopla. You don't want to embarrass yourself and your company, right? And you can always do another launch. You could do a soft launch, make sure everything's working perfectly. You work out all the bugs and problems that you have, whether it's a technical problem, whether it's a content problem with your program, or course, whether it's a time conflict thing where you're doing coaching programs and you want to work that all out, make sure it's a smooth, smooth process, everything's looking good, and then you can do another launch a few months later, and then you can bring on the partners. Just because your product's already out in the market doesn't mean you can't launch. So just keep that in mind. If this is the first time you're releasing your product, you want to do it in a soft way, in a soft launch method. Now, if you're ready to go, you want to go gangbusters, you want to make this a huge event and you want to launch with some launch partners, or even if you want to bring on some affiliates for an existing product and it's not a launch, you need to approach your actual partners. And I'm going to call them partners for the rest of the episode because just easier than, say, partners and affiliates. But you want to approach your partners in a very, very smart way. And when I say smart, I want to clarify. What you're doing here is you're making an offer. You're making an offer to these people, to these people that you're going to partner up with. You're not asking for Something here. They're going to get something out of this, right? They're going to be associated with a great product. They're going to be able to help their leads, help their audience with something that's going to help them. They're going to make commission, right? They're going to make money out of this is not, you know, for free here. They're going to be able to do all this with pretty much minimal work. You've done the product, right? All they're going to do is promote the product to the list and for the most part, you're going to be providing the promotional materials, even the sales copy of these emails and everything. So what you're doing here is you're creating a compelling offer. You're making it a no brainer. You're making them say, you know what, I got to jump on this because this is a great opportunity. You have to frame it that way, you have to see it that way and approach it that way. You're not coming in, you know, hat in hand, looking for a handout. This is a win win situation for both parties. Now my first piece of advice is that you definitely want to approach the people that you've built a relationship with first. Obviously they have to be a good match, meaning that their audience is a good match with your product. That's how you make sure your conversions are going to be quite high. There's no point in, you know, promoting to 100,000 people that are not interested. I'd rather promote to a thousand people that are interested in converting a lot higher. So approach people that you've built a relationship with that kind of already know who you are and they can kind of vouch for you, they trust you. It's a lot easier to get a yes from somebody that knows that you're going to deliver. Now that doesn't mean that you don't approach people that you don't know. You could definitely approach people in your market that you've never met before and make them that offer where you say, hey, this is what I'm offering you as a partner for my launch or for my product. All right? The next thing I want to make clear before we get really tactical is that your job is to make their life easy, to make this whole thing a no brainer again and make it super simple. That means you're going to lay out in clear language exactly what they need to do as well as how you're going to support them, to make it easy for them to do what they need. So I gave the example of copy. So if you're going to ask your partners, your affiliates to send out a few emails, let's say you're going to say, I need you to send out four emails as a part of this campaign sending them some copy. Some example template copy for these emails can be helpful and they can modify and put in their own voice. But, but it's a lot easier to edit some copy. You know, it takes a few minutes to edit some copy and make it their own versus having to write it from scratch and learning about your product and learning about why you know it's important or its benefits or what problems it solve. So you're making their life easier by saying, hey, here's a Google Docs, you know, document with all our copy that you need. Here's some images, here are even some videos you can use make their life super easy. Now, your first approach, when you approach your actual partner or affiliate is, is very important. You want to make a good impression, a great impression. So you want to make sure your first contact with them makes an impact. When you first make contact and say, hey, I want you to be a partner in my launch or an affiliate, the way you deliver this message and the message itself has to be compelling. So it has to be personalized, number one. So either you're going to write them a personal email where you actually write it out just for them, don't write a template every time you approach somebody. Even if you have 10, 15, 20, 100 partners, you're going to write a hundred emails. Yes, you're going to do this. Now, most of us are not going to have a hundred partners, but even if you have 10 partners, you're going to write separate email. Now, most of us are not going to have 100 partners, but you know, even if you have 10 partners, you're going to write 10 separate emails personalized to them. If you want to go a step further, and this is what we do, you're going to want to record a personal video message. It has a completely different impression when you have a personalized video. When somebody receives a personalized video saying, hey, Mary, hey, John, hey, Omar. I have something very special I want to share with you and I want you to be a part of it. This is going to be a launch that I'm doing. Here's what it's all about here, where you can get more materials. This is what I need from you. Most people will not shoot 10 videos and send them to these people. And therefore you'll be noticed. You always Want to try to go a little bit beyond what most people do. So it's different, so it's unique. So people can feel like, wow, this is something I want to be a part of because, you know, they're making the effort. At the same time, it's a higher caliber. This person takes this seriously. Therefore, I know the launch is going to be successful. So I recommend shooting a personal video. If you're not a really personal email. Second thing, in that email, you want to include as much information about the product itself or the service or whatever you're offering. Now, I'm not talking about a detailed, you know, long form sales copy here. You may want to link up to some page that has all the details or a video that is like a trailer to what you're going to be launching. Now, as you can see, doing this right is going to take some time. So it's very important for you to get started as early as possible. If you're launching something next month, you're super, super late. You know, you really need to do this a couple months, three months in advance so you have enough time to shoot these videos. You know, shoot the trailer video for the affiliates as well as all the other materials you have to do for the launch. But the point here is that you want to make sure that they're on board. Hey, this is going to be an amazing product. See for yourself with this video. See for yourself on this page. Check out these images, check out these testimonials, whatever it is, you got to sell them on what they're going to sell. Again, make their life easier. Show them that this is going to be an easy way to make some quick commission because the product sells itself. Because people are going to love this product. Your audience is going to die for this product. But if you don't talk about the product, you don't talk about what you're offering, it's hard for them to say yes. It's hard to say, you know, maybe this is not a good fit for me. It's probably a great fit, but they don't know because maybe you didn't give enough information. So when you approach them and you're writing a personal email, and then even if you add a personal video message in that email, also include a trailer, some sort of snippet, some sort of preview of what the product's all about, even if it's, you know, still being created. Show them what it's all about. Tell them how it solves the problems of their audience members. Sell them on the product. This is a whole lot easier to do if your products are to created and it's been out in the market because then again, you can get testimonials, you can really, you know, go to town in terms of, you know, making a sales video. And this is a sales video, really, you're selling it to the affiliates first before you're selling it to customers. And if you're short on time, you may want to just use your sales video to explain it to your actual affiliates. Now the people that you're approaching are most likely really busy and they get a lot of emails. So you want to keep the email as short as possible. So you have to just quickly explain why you're emailing them, you know, give them that personal message or include that personal video, talk about when the launch date is, talk about what you need from them. So it's literally like a couple lines that says, hey, I would love for you to participate in this launch. This is what's in it for you and this is what I need from you in exchange. I need X amount of emails, I need X amount of social media, I need you to show up on a webinar, whatever it is you need them to do. Make it clear there's a, you don't need to talk about these details in the video that you maybe have like that personal video that you're going to be making for them, that personal message, but you're going to want to include that in the email that you send where the video is linked up to. Now what your whole job is in that first email is to get a confirmation that says, hey, I'm in, count me in, I will be a partner. That's all you're looking for. There are other details you're going to need to give them later on, but you really don't need to give them those details until you get a confirmation that they want to do this with you. They know the date of the launch, they know what's required of them, they know what they're getting in exchange. So you just need to ask them, put a call to action at the end of the email. All I need you to do is to reply to this email and say, I'm in, or yes, I want to be a partner. And they could just reply with one line and that's it. At that point, once you got a confirmation that they're in, they're sold on your product, they're sold on the exchange that you have as a partner. Now you can talk about all the other stuff there's all these little details you're gonna have to give them. You're gonna have to give them an affiliate link. And we talked about this in a previous episode. You know how to install an affiliate program on your website? You're gonna have to give them that copy. I told about all the email copy that you're gonna need to have for them so they can send to their lists. You're gonna have to show them how to go into their affiliate account and track their sales. You have the detail. When each email goes out, you're gonna have to send a few reminders to them. There's a whole bunch of things you're gonna need to send out. But again, what I wanted to emphasize here is that you don't need to send all those details until you get a confirmation. Yes, I'm in confirmation. You can have all that information ready to go to send to them. Now let's talk about that email, that second email they're in. Congratulations, you got yourself a partner again. Make their life easy. If you installed an affiliate program onto your website so you can have affiliates, you know, sign up and become affiliates. Don't tell them to sign up. Sign up for them. You have their email address. Use their email and sign up for them. Create, you know, any kind of password, a random password, set up their account, get their affiliate link through setting up the account, and then provide that information in your next email. Hey, I already set up your account. Here's your login details. You can change your password later on. I shot a short video to show you how to log in and how to manage your affiliate account. This can literally take minutes where you just do a screen capture. You could do this with QuickTime or Screenflow or Camtasia, whatever. There's so much software that does this. You literally just walk them through. This is where you sign in. This is the link. Sign in with these credentials, the ones that are in the email, your email and the password I gave you. You can change your password here. Here's where you track your affiliate sales. This is where you get your affiliate link. This is where you get all the copy. You know, the email copy. This is where you get the images, all that kind of stuff. Walk them through in a one to two minute video. You can use that video for all your partners. Super simple. Again, you want to make it easy. So they already have an account. They don't have to set up an account. All they got to do is sign in. If they want to change your password, they can go ahead and change their Password. You're going to want to walk them through and show them around the affiliate area. You may want to emphasize, hey, I need you to fill out the area where I can pay you, you know, your PayPal email address or however you're going to pay them. If it's by check. You need to maybe get some information to know who to make the checkout to, company name, personal name, things like that. So they get this email. They automatically have this great impression of this whole launch, this whole campaign because it's professional, because it's organized, because, because it's like everything's done for them. Oh, wow. I already have an account. Oh wow. They shot me a video. I know exactly what to do. Oh, wow. I know exactly what to do next. I know how to fill out my payment information so I can get paid. That's great. This person cares about me getting paid. Oh, wow. This is where I get all my email copy and images and all that stuff. I can, you know, basically create all the emails now and schedule them now. So give them the materials, show them how to use it. This is email 2. And then you want to cap off email too by telling them, here are the key dates that they need to do whatever they have to do, whether it's social media or email or whatever it is. And I'm going to follow up with you on this date to check up how things are going. You want to make sure they know that you're on top of things and that you're here for them. If they have questions and you just want to follow up with them, hey, you know, how's it going? You know, do you have any questions? Make sure they know that you have their back. Now if you have key dates where emails have to go out, where partners have to send out emails at a certain, you know, set of dates, there's nothing wrong with sending a quick reminder the day of saying, hey, today's the day the first email goes out. Let me know if you have any questions. We're really excited. Thank you so much for participating. You might think that's overkill, but you can never over communicate. Sometimes people can forget. Sometimes people could set the wrong date by mistake. You know, at the very least they're going to check, you know, their email marketing provider and say, hey, did that email go out? Oh, it did great. Oh, it didn't? What happened? Let me make sure it goes out. Let me hit send. It's better to be safe than sorry. And they'll appreciate the fact that you're following up. Hey, you're helping, helping them out here. You're making sure that they're making the most out of this partnership. And again, these emails can be scheduled ahead of time. You can send these emails and schedule them. You can create a list of all your partners in your email marketing software and schedule all your emails on the days the emails are supposed to go out and say, hey, just quick reminder now a couple more tips before we talk about what happens after the launch, after the whole campaign. Some of your partners are going to have unique platforms, meaning that they may be running a great podcast, they might have a great YouTube show, they might be doing webinars and have a great audience for webinars. Make sure you include that in what you're asking from them. Leverage what they have their strengths. So ask them, can I get on your podcast and talk about the power of whatever your product is? Can I get on your YouTube show? Can we do a webinar together? And I want to show you and show your audience what I'm all about and what kind of value I can offer them for the partner. This is really not a lot of work because you're going to be doing all the teaching. You're the one who's going to be doing all the presenting. They just need to set it up and, you know, invite their audience. And in some cases, like with a podcast and a YouTube show, they don't have to invite their audience. They just have to publish the video. It's all good. So take a look at your partners, see where their strengths are. See where their audience really is thriving, where they get a lot of engagement and double down on that. Another great tip is that if you're making this a huge launch, you might want to get some help with somebody who can create some Facebook ads for you. Now, I'm not talking about the actual ads on Facebook. I'm saying actually creating the copy, creating the imagery, creating the content for the ad. Now, you may want to use it to run ads for yourself, but you want to also offer it to your partners, your affiliates, and say, hey, if you want to run ads to your affiliate link, I've created all the ad copy for you and the imagery so they can invest in some Facebook ads to drive traffic with their affiliate link so they can make more sales. Just a quick tip, you may want to utilize depending on how large you want to make this launch. So you had your campaign, you had your launch, and the dust is settling. Got all your sales, and it's all good and dandy. Now your number one Priority is to make sure that your actual affiliates get paid properly and on time. They've done a good job for you and you want them to do a great job in the future. The best partners are the ones that you have for life. So you probably have some sort of schedule, some sort of payment schedule. So say for example, you have a 30 day money back guarantee and your affiliates get paid after that guarantee is over. Most people say after 45 days. So what you want to do is after it's all over, let's say the next day after the launch or the day after email, your partners say, hey, thank you so much for your participation. Thank you so much for all your efforts and you know, introducing our product to your audience. You want to let them know a few things. One, this is when you're going to get paid. You can check your affiliate account for how much you're going to get paid and all that stuff. Two, remind them if you don't have a payment on file or payment form, whether it's PayPal, email address or you know who to make the checkout to, please fill that out now so I can be able to pay you on time. Three, let them know that their affiliate links are still live, if they're still live, that if people buy even after the launch, they will get credit for it later on. Thank them again. Keep it short, but the point here is that you want to thank them and let them know that you got their back and they're going to get paid at this time. This is how they're going to get paid and that they can continue to support you through their affiliate links. The next thing I would recommend you do is surprise your partners with a special thank you. And this could be something very small, a small tokenistic gift, but it means a lot. It could be a handwritten note, it could be, you know, a T shirt with your company logo on it, it could be a box of chocolates. The point is that you want to really say thank you with something physical, something that will surprise them. Lastly, maybe a week after the launch, what you want to do is send out a survey to your partners. This is going to be a short five question survey and the point of the survey is to ask them how was the experience working with you. And you could tell them it's anonymous. You can actually make it anonymous. So you just get the feedback and say, hey, this is completely anonymous. I just want to know how things went so I can improve. The next time I do a launch and have partners on board. I want to make sure that I'm treating my partners properly. This feedback is going to be incredible. And they'll be more than happy to answer this survey, especially if it's short and if they had a decent time being your partner, they're going to give you some good feedback. Take that feedback and keep it top of mind. Save those results so you can read them for your next launch so you know exactly what, what to do, what to continue to do and what to stop doing or what to change. And there you have it. That's how you approach your partners, your affiliates and actually convince them of your offer. Get them on board, give them all the materials to make it easy for them, make it a no brainer, and then follow up with them throughout the launch as well as after the launch. Guys, I hope this is helpful, but I think after saying all that, you realize, wow, this is a lot of work having partners on board, but it's all about having a system. I know after doing this episode it sounds like a lot of work because it is a bit of work, but let me make it easier for you. If you listen to this episode one more time and take some notes, jot down step by step what you have to do. All you gotta do is just, you know, fulfill, just go through the steps. There's some work involved writing some email copy and shooting some videos. But trust me, you're gonna have a better experience and you have a better launch because your partners are going to be completely on board because they believe in what you're doing. But more importantly, they're going to believe in you. They're going to be like, I want to back this person because they're a winner. They're doing things right. They're doing things better than I've experienced before. And that's what you really want to do. Your first sales exercise is really selling you on to the partners. You want to make sure the partners are sold on you. And once you've done that and they're convinced of your product or your service, they'll do the selling for you to their audience. So there you have it, everything you need. Best of luck in your next launch and approaching your partners and affiliates. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. Make sure you hit subscribe. Hit subscribe right now so you get all our episodes automatically. Number two, if you love the show, let us know. If you have some feedback, let us know. Just leave us an itunes rating and review. Just search the $100 NBA show on iTunes and leave us a review we read every single one of them, and we really, really love to read them. To be able to adapt and change and improve or double down on what we're doing. Right, that's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. Working with partners or affiliates is a management exercise. It's all about making sure you're managing it right, you're taking care of them. So give yourself time. Make sure you do all this legwork and approach your partners well in advance. Because, hey, your partners might have other things they want to support, or their own launches or their own work, or they might be going away on vacation. You want to make sure you give them ample time so they understand that, hey, these are the important dates to you. I need you to get my back and support me. All right, that wraps up today's lesson. I'll check you in the next one. Until then, take care. We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon, but forget about it and suddenly it's expired. Expired in 2012. Dang it. 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