Anyone can earn commissions as an SFI Affiliate...but to make BIG money, you've got to lead and grow a team of active SFI affiliates. This leads to DUPLICATION and LEVERAGED INCOME—the key to building a great income in SFI!
Start creating your team and maximizing your commissions right away by following the SFI Advisor DO & DON'T guidelines below.
Always lead by example. Perform all the activities yourself that you want your Personally Referred Affiliates (PRAs) to do, and they will follow your lead. For example: want your PRAs to advance to Silver Level? Then it only makes sense that you should be at least a Silver Level Affiliate yourself. Always offer and provide robust support to your team. Never forget that YOU succeed only if THEY succeed. A good place to start is by opening up good lines of communication. Learn how HERE. Work with the workers. Never forget this critical principle! Way too many people focus on QUANTITY, referring dozens, even hundreds of affiliates. That can be great...but ultimately, QUALITY is the real key. As few as 3-5 topnotch affiliates can make a HUGE impact on your commission check. Parlay your way to success every month. The fact is you have to invest SOMETHING to build a successful business. It can be money. But it can also be "sweat equity," hustle, and just plain effort. Parlaying your way to success means starting with small, reachable goals—e.g., referring two new PRAs in your first 30 days—then using those resources to develop your business into something better, month after month.
Use your Icebreakers tool to directly engage with your new PRAs. Begin by clicking the Affiliate Snapshot link in your New PRA Notification email. Then select the handshake icon located behind their name to initiate an Icebreaker. Icebreakers are ONLY available during a new affiliate's first 30 days in SFI, so don't wait too long to send an Icebreaker! Learn more.
Encourage action from your new team members using SFI Starter Incentives. This helpful team-builder tool lets you automatically offer select people in your team a special incentive to encourage action—e.g., verify their email, chat with you online, etc. Stop by your Starter Incentives Manager to set up your incentives and set your preferences. Learn more HERE.
Connect with your new Affiliates on SFI Chat. As soon as you receive a new PRA notification, click their Affiliate Snapshot link in the email. If the chat bubble beneath their profile image is green, it means they're currently online. Click the bubble to start up an SFIM chat. Introduce yourself with a Hi, I'm your SFI Advisor, {YOUR NAME}. Welcome to SFI! Can I help you to get started? This is one of the absolute BEST WAYS to connect with a new PRA, and help get them started on a road to success in SFI. Send out weekly newsletters to your team. Use your Referrals Report group mailer function to send messages, newsletters, and other notifications to your organization. No need to worry about messages going to bad e-mail addresses or opted-out affiliates as our system automatically filters those out for you. Your messages will be sent to both the registered e-mail address AND to the SFI TeamMail inbox of each recipient. Not sure what to say? Pick up some good ideas HERE.
One caveat to keep in mind: Stay focused on publishing valuable information each week and not on getting a lot of responses. Remember, most people are highly skeptical that they can make money on the Internet. Over time, your consistency will demonstrate that SFI is real and that you're real, and then they'll want to jump in. Think of your weekly newsletters as follow-ups. Most people have to be exposed to something at least 10 times before they even notice it—and it often takes many more exposures before they will take action. Use this knowledge to your advantage with a regular, weekly newsletter!
Post a message on your SFI Stream page at least every three days. Your most recent two posts will appear prominently on the NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS section of the homepages of your PRAs. This is a great way to get your message in front of your team! Avoid major announcements or deep thoughts on the Stream. Instead, post a brief word of encouragement, a short tip or insight, a favorite quote, a quick comment regarding a recent SFI news item, a thank you, recognition of team members who have reached a milestone, or just a description of what you're doing to build your SFI business today. Answer all your PRA emails and inquiries ASAP (within 24 hours or sooner). YOUR JOB, as an SFI Advisor, is to be available to your referred affiliates. That means offering prompt guidance and support when they reach out to you. This is how you build relationships with your affiliates and teach them how to become successful in SFI.
Think big and act boldly. As our SFI slogan says, aim high and dream big! Small desire produces small results, just as a small fire produces little heat.
Spend a few minutes every day at the SFI Forum. Be visible to the SFI community as a whole and to your downline, especially by posting regularly. Share tips and answer questions from other posters. Show your affiliates that you're a leader at the Forum too! You can even earn extra income through tips for valuable Forum posts.
Check ALL SFI Forum posts from your team. Your PRAs will appreciate seeing their Personal SFI Advisor leading by example on the Forum and responding to their posts. Click the TEAM-POSTS link at the top of your SFI Forum page to view all posts from your PRAs.
Collect and tout your SFI Badges. When your team members view your Affiliate Snapshot or visit your Leadership Page, they'll see all your impressive SFI badges arrayed on the page. As we said in DO #1 above, your PRAs will do as you do. Therefore, make sure you lead by example by earning and displaying badges on YOUR page for actions you'd like your affiliates to take, such as: an Auto Delivery, a high Power Rank Leaderboard rank, E365 finalist, etc. If your page isn't sporting these badges, don't expect your PRAs to work for them either.
Work with and cheer on all your PRAs currently in the E365 contest. Just go to the E365 Leaderboard and select "My PRAs" to view your Affiliates. Click a name on the leaderboard to bring up your PRA's Affiliate Snapshot, containing specific details on their current E365 contest status. Use this information to personalize your support messages. Write a good tip to display on your Affiliate Snapshot and Leadership Page. Your tip will appear to your Affiliates under a "My Best Tip" heading. Make sure it's spell checked and the grammar is correct. This is one of the best places to show your team what kind of leader you are! Add/edit your tip HERE.
Recognize the good works and milestones of your referred affiliates. Everyone likes to have their accomplishments recognized! You can use a combination of venues, including the Recognition section of your Leadership Page, a Recognition post at the SFI Forum, your weekly team newsletters, and posts on your Stream page. Recognize new affiliates, affiliates who have advanced their level, and affiliates who are referring their own PRAs. Recognize milestones: first PRA sign-up, first PRM sign-up, first sale, etc. Also, be sure to recognize the advancements of your PRAs in the Entrepreneur365 Challenge.
Read every day. Always remember that leaders are readers! Visit your SFI Affiliate Center every day and review SFI headlines, daily to-do's, and other updates. Read the latests posts on the SFI Forum, including Gery's posts in the Forum's BY GC section. But don't stop there! Subscribe to online marketing newsletters, read business blogs, check the business news headlines, and read the most recommended books for entrepreneurs. Complete your Leadership Page. Check it weekly to keep it fresh. SFI Leadership Pages (LPs) are available to every affiliate currently advising SFI Affiliates. Your SFI Leadership Page (LP) provides a central Web page through which to support, instruct, motivate, and inspire your PRAs. Get instructions on setting up your LP HERE.
Add your own creativity to your marketing. From SFI Founder & President, Gery Carson: In the years before we launched SFI, I ALWAYS created my own marketing tools to promote the companies I was associated with, and it was a major reason for my success. And although you must stay within the boundaries of SFI's advertising policies, there is plenty of room to add your own touches, your own story, and your own style to create marketing that works for YOU.
Run an advertising co-op for your team if you can. Co-op advertising is a popular and VERY powerful method of advertising in which two or more people share the cost of advertising and the resulting benefits. It allows you and your PRAs to pool your dollars together to advertise, and then share in the resulting leads generated. Available to SFI Gold Affiliates and above, the free SFI Co-op Manager tool makes it super easy! It does all the heavy lifting and makes setting up and maintaining a team co-op simple and quick. Learn more in these SFI Co-op FAQs.
Rely on autoresponders or canned text responses. This kind of mechanical interaction leaves your team members cold...and more likely to quit SFI. Achieving success in SFI is about creating and maintaining genuine, strong relationships with your PRAs. THIS is what leads to duplication and big commissions for you and your Affiliates!
Pressure your Affiliates to level up. Twisting arms more often repels people rather than bring them on board. If your affiliates get the impression in any way that you just want to "make money off them," they're going to resent you, and they're not going to want to do anything to help you, which would of course include upgrading. Besides, SFI already has an extensive system already in place to encourage your Affiliates to advance their levels and more. Find out what you SHOULD be emphasizing HERE. Behave negatively or disengage from your business. If it's not something you want your PRAs to emulate, don't do it yourself! Venting to your Affiliates; posting critical, disparaging remarks; or disappearing for weeks or months at a time harms you and every SFI affiliate who is working hard to achieve success. Remember, as spelled out in the very first DO above, your affiliates follow your lead—good OR bad! If your PRAs get the impression that YOU do nothing, for example, they'll likely do the same...NOTHING. Maintain outdated support sites. Having your own website for your SFI team can be a great idea, but only if the information on your site is accurate and up-to-date. See our SFI Personal Website Policy. Engage in sloppy and unprofessional communications with your PRAs. Leaders get the details right. Passing along inaccurate information or unprofessional remarks does not help your affiliates develop trust in you or your business. Let little problems get you down. DON'T major in minors. Concentrate on the positives...and the "big picture." Remember that the only thing that will never change is that there will always be changes big and small (especially in today's rapidly evolving world). Be prepared to be flexible and to adapt as needed. Do things for your affiliates they should do themselves. You don't want to create "dependents." Remember: YOUR JOB, as a personal advisor, is to provide the personal, one-on-one relationships so vital to your SFI success. Support your affiliates. Be there for them as much as you can (especially at the start). But DON'T WASTE TIME trying to encourage people who clearly aren't motivated. Waste time on skeptics and non-motivated people. You and SFI can only provide the track for them to run on. You cannot drag people across the finish line. They have to want it for themselves. Always focus on the workers. Just 3 to 5 topnotch Affiliates can make a BIG difference for your business and boost your commissions!TIP: Print this article out and go through each item one by one.
How many of the DO's are you employing in your SFI business to create monthly growth?
How many of the DON'Ts could be sabotaging your success?