Before I get started, I want to make this very clear. This is one way, the quickest way, to launch a business. It is not the most profitable way, but if you follow these steps, you will come out with a targeted list, a few hundred dollars, and the knowledge on how to expand your business and profits. Without further ado, here is the sequence.

1. Sign up for a Clickbank.com and buy an account at Aweber.com.

   Before you start to tune me out and assume that I’m going to teach you the latest and greatest affiliate marketing technique, I’l just say this: the first product you sell will be someone else’s. The second, third, and hopefully fourth product you sell will be yours. If I told you to originally sell your own product, you’d have to spend days or even weeks researching and producing it. That’s not what we want.

   I use Aweber, and that’s what I recommend. Without getting into a debate as to which autoresponder is best, sign up for one. That’s the important one. You NEED one and won’t build a profitable business without it.

   I used Clickbank as an example. You can also use CJ.com, Paydotcom.com, Neverblueads.com, Shareasale.com, etc. Any affiliate network will do. I actually recommend you sign up for all of them to compare offers and products, and eventually you will sign up for most if not all of them, but for now just one will do. I’ll use Clickbank throughout the rest of this example.
    

2. Pick a niche and find 3 products in that niche.

   Any niche will do, really. I recommend a niche you’re at least interested in. We’re building a business that will grow and be around for awhile, so if you are not at least interested in the niche, it’ll get to be very hard to work the day-to-day aspects of it. There are a few niches that will always make more money than others: anything having to do with making money (stocks, FOREX, make money online, etc.), weight loss, fitness, nutrition, and markets similar to those. I caution you not to get into these markets if they don’t interest you… yet. They are good to get into later when you’re a little more experienced, but not right now. Plus, they’re pretty competitive markets and require a good amount of work and internet marketing prowess to make it work.

   Pick 3 relatively similiar products on Clickbank. Go to CBTrends to see a historical chart of the product’s gravity and other statistics to determine its growth. Find one that has gaining popularity, gravity, and earned per sale, meaning the product is popular and people aren’t returning it. These 3 products should have been around for a while.

   Ideally you will buy these products, however, right now, we’re looking to start quick. You can read the products while you’re making sales and adjust accordingly.
    

3. Use pages.google.com, Page Breeze, or www.weebly.com to build a mini-site.

   Most hosting companies offer free site builders as well, so you can use them to create your site, but those three will also do. You MUST host your own site. Do not use something like wordpress.com or blogger.com to host the site you are building. You need to create your own domain and your own brand. End of story. Without your own domain, you will not be able to build up your own brand and products, etc. Just trust me: you need your own domain.

   To build your site, take about 30 minutes to an hour and do research on the three products you found. Type up honest, unbiased reviews and recommend the product you think is most valuable. It doesn’t have to have personal experiences in the review. It can be subjective like a business article would be. Be sure you recommend one over the other and do not include negative things about the other products. For instance say something like "the blue book has 5 ways to make money online and a better bonus, whereas the red book only has 3 and no bonus, that’s why I recommend the blue book. The red book does work very well, however, the blue book is more thorough". Notice: no negativity, just emphasize the positives.

   Some may call this unetical: you’re endorsing products you haven’t tried. That’s up to you to figure out. I actually only endorse products I use and find useful. If you have a little more time, you want to evaluate the product fully. Your endorsement will reflect it.

   When you write the endorsement, make sure you stress the benefits to the reader, not the features. Example of benefits: only spend 15 minutes a day while the FOREX software makes you millions. Example of feature: FOREX software connects to the broker to automatically make trades. See the difference? Make sure you stress these BIG TIME. That’s what will sell your product.
    

4. Write 4 Follow-up emails, with the 4th one including your affiliate link to your product through a link cloaking tool.

   This is the most important part of this, and the easiest to screw up. Do NOT try to sell the reader on the first email. Span the emails with 2-3 days in between messages, unless you call it a "mini-course" or something of that nature and they expect emails every day.

   You can find the content all over the internet for the four emails that you write. Make it very good and useful content, or you will not convince your reader to buy anything. In addition, make sure your subject line is something you would open. Remember: curiosity = opened email.
   
    

5. Make your Autoresponder

   Put those 4 emails in your autoresponder. Then create a popover script that entices the person to sign up for your course or information. Place that code on your site and sign up for your own autoresponder to make sure it works.
    

6. Send traffic

   This is the fun part. The best 2 quick ways I can recommend you send traffic your way is through article marketing and forum marketing.

   a)  Article marketing: simple enough – write 5 articles and publish them to ezinearticles.com.

   b)  Forum marketing: find a forum related to your niche and create a signature that links back to your page. Start answering and asking questions in the forum. DO NOT SELL TO THE PEOPLE ON THE FORUM. Provide value. That’s the most important aspect.
    

That’s it! Your goal is to start collecting email address and "building a list". Check. And make a few bucks in the process. Check.

Where to go from here: That’s where it gets fun. Create your own product, create a blog for more traffic generation, increase your article marketing, open your site to more marketing methods, cross-sell other related niche’s products to your list, JV and partner with other merchants, and the list goes on and one.

But you’ve started building your list, and that makes it so you will be able to create a relationship with your list (invaluable), and gives you leverage with other marketers so you can JV and create more partnerships.

So there you go. 3 hours, by my estimation, mostly taken up by article creation. About $35 for signing up for Aweber, and paying for hosting. Seriously, if you can’t find $35 to start your own business, you shouldn’t be looking to start your own business.

When he came to me, he stated that he wanted more traffic, possibly through SEO. The first thing that I told him was that traffic was not his problem. It was A problem, but not THE problem.

Watch and learn how traffic can only be a distraction to the real problem behind a flailing business. I also give some quick beginner tips on SEO and Social Media Marketing.

If you would like to have your business and website reviewed to help you find places in which you can probably improve, sign up for a business review. It’s free! 

Today you may have noticed that I have added something to my right sidebar. That’s right! I’m now offering what I like to call "business reviews".

What are business reviews?

Good question. I’m glad you asked. The founding principle of this service is that you can tell a lot about someone’s business just  from their website. You can get a good idea of the revenue they are generating, how they generate it, what type of backend products they have (if they have any at all), etc. With a business review, I will review your website and a little bit of your business, and give you some hints as to how you can increase your profits dramatically (start building more than one list, test headlines and colors, cross sell other products that aren’t in your niche but in your demographic, etc.)

Are you making as much money as you should?

The answer is, probably not. You’re probably not testing correctly, not optimizing your site layout for both visitors and SEO, you’re not offering the right offers, the right products, etc. By fixing these things, you can quickly, and I mean within a few days, explode your income to levels where you probably didn’t think you were able to.

A fresh set of eyes

Even if you think you know more than me about internet marketing, which you may, it is always good to get a fresh set of eyes and brains on a business. Even Michael Jordan had a coach. Sometimes you are a little too close to a problem to be able to fix it.

Tons of free traffic and exposure

I intend on putting the business review on the front page of my site, which should bring in quite a few visitors to your site. In addition, you will receive a backlink with the anchor text of you choosing: kinda like the cherry on top of a sundae.

Why Free? Why would I waste my time?

I have my reasons. No, seriously, in about 6-10 months I would like to offer my coaching as a service. I’ve always had a passion for teaching and nothing gives me a greater thrill than someone becoming successful because of my help. In order to do this, I need success stories. That’s my selfish part of it. The beauty of it is that you get some very valuable advice for free. You don’t even have to take the advice if you think it was just terrible advice.

So if you want to take advantage of this service before it gets too popular for me to handle, sign up here. Or look on the right sidebar, it says "Free Business Reviews".

It is also guest starring David Hassellhoff and the Star Wars Kid…

Let me know what you think.