The top five affiliates in their income bracket will receive a prize! So not only do you cash in on the income you generate by accumulating contest points, but you get rewarded for your tact in playing the game!

Here are the ENV2 contest details:

$30,000 and above:

• 1st Prize: $12,500, a guaranteed speaking slot, and a special gold lanyard at a fall regional event
• 2nd Prize: $5,000
• 3rd Prize: $2,000 and a Canon T5i Camera
• 4th Prize: $1,000 and a GoPro White Edition Camera
• 5th Prize: iPad Mini 64 Gb Edition

 $15,000 to $30,000:

• 1st Prize: $10,000, a guaranteed speaking slot, and a special gold lanyard at a fall regional event
• 2nd Prize: $4,000
• 3rd Prize: $1,500 and a Canon T5i Camera
• 4th Prize: $750 and a GoPro White Edition Camera
• 5th Prize: iPad Mini 32 Gb Edition

 $5,000 to $15,000:

• 1st Prize: $7,500, a guaranteed speaking slot, and a special gold lanyard at a fall regional event
• 2nd Prize: $3,000
• 3rd Prize: $1,000 and a Canon T5i Camera
• 4th Prize: $500 and a GoPro White Edition Camera
• 5th Prize: iPad Mini 16 Gb Edition

 up to $5,000:

• 1st Prize: $5,000, a guaranteed speaking slot, and a special gold lanyard at a fall regional event
• 2nd Prize: $2,000
• 3rd Prize: $500 and a Canon T5i Camera
• 4th Prize: $250 and a GoPro White Edition Camera
• 5th Prize: iPad Mini 16 Gb Edition

The contest will run from Tuesday, July 30th at 12:00 AM EST until Monday, September 16th at 11:59 PM EST.

If you’re not part of this amazing opportunity, fill in the form below to find out how you can join us! The contest is on, and it’s anyone’s game!

Every year we harvest these pecans and sell them to local markets, who then turn around and resell them to their customers at a higher price. The market, or reseller, is the middle man. And the middle man almost always makes the most profit, and I’ll explain why.

The process we use for the pecan harvest

To get ready for the pecan harvest, there’s a little work to be done which requires some man hours, a little sweat and maybe a few blisters. The main thing to be done is the clearing of the ground around the pecan trees. So that involves raking up the leaves and any remaining pecans from the previous year and mowing the grass real low. It’s easier to see and pick up the pecans without all that junk getting in the way.

Several people here own large orchards with dozens of pecan trees on them and are constantly at war with the crows. A crow will eat anywhere in between 15 to 25 pecans per day. So a swarm of fifty crows, each eating twenty pecans per day, adds up to a lot of lost nuts! That’s money out of pocket. So what they do is purchase what they call a popper. It’s basically a device that shoots blanks every so often to scare away the crows. Others invest in high powered pellet guns and turn into sharp shooters during certain months of the year.

Once the first few freezes sweep across the valley, the pecans are ready to harvest. At that point, we call the “Tree Shaker.” He comes over with his own creation of a tree shaker, which is basically half Dodge and half hydraulic robot, and he shakes the trees. He charges $12 per tree at the moment.

Once the nuts are on the ground, we use hand held pecan rollers to pick them up off the ground. Those with larger orchards use larger “steam roller” pecan rollers or large tarps. The nuts are then placed in bags.

Most pecan harvesters haul their nuts all the way to Las Cruces New Mexico for the biggest payout. Smaller harvesters, such as myself, drive our nuts and sell them to local markets in Gilbert and Mesa Arizona.

Here’s the part where you learn about why the middle man almost always makes the most profit. After learning of the pecan harvest process, with all the man hours, fuel, tools, blanks, pellet guns, water for the trees and equipment to manage acreage, you know that the costs add up!

Last I heard, pecan harvesters were getting paid between $1.60 to $2.60 per pound, for their unshelled pecans. That’s for the nut meat, not the shells. The middle man at a local market, can sell a one pound bag of pecans for anywhere between $12 to $16. The middle man makes the most money. He has much less invested, yet, yields the most profit!

This isn’t just true for the pecan harvesters. It’s true in general.

Take my business for example. I’m an affiliate with the Empower network. What that means is the Empower Network is the one that has produced the product, much like the pecan harvester. They’ve created the website, the blogging platform, the training, setup the merchant accounts, and so forth. All I have to do is fork out a little bit of money to get started, much like the middle man who purchases the unshelled pecans.

From there, I have the potential to resell their products. And here’s what separates the Empower Network from all other business opportunities out there. I resell their products, not for 40%, 50% or even 60% commissions…but for a 100% commission. Empower Network is the harvester, and I’m the middle man who makes ALL of the profit.

So you see, it pays to be the middle man. Don’t eat yourself up over creating your own product. Jump in as the middle man! It’s much more fun!

Autoresponders: A Simple Guide to Email Marketing and Converting your List

The first thing you need to realize about your list, is that your list is sacred ground. I’ve seen others promote almost anything to their list, things which they haven’t even looked into personally. Instead of treating their list like a gold mine, protecting it from the rest of the world, they treat it like a dump, throwing trash at it as fast as they possibly could hoping to get something of value back.

Your lists value is only a great as the value you give it, the methods you used to build it and the message you send to it.

First: For example, I’ve had a list for several years. It’s not the biggest list in the world, but it’s growing. I’ve probably had this list for around four or five years now. Some of my first, original subscribers are still receiving my emails, and opening them. My mindset is that of a protector over this list of emails. These are people, not just email inboxes, that I’m communicating with.

Remember that. The moment you start treating your list like a bunch of inboxes instead of like people, your list will lose it’s value.

Second: When capturing these email addresses, make sure you’re not doing it in a deceiving manner. I’ve actually been on the receiving end of someone else’s deceiving marketing efforts. Instead of capturing the email addresses of those who are actually interested in starting a home based business, they sold me a list of email addresses from people who wanted to win a free iPad or toaster.

A smaller list of highly qualified leads is always more profitable than a larger list with unqualified leads.

Third: Back to the comparison of the gold mine and the dump, the message you send to your list is just as equal in importance as capturing your leads.

Be Consistent in Your Message: If you aren’t consistent in the message you are communicating to your list, you’ll have more people unsubscribe. They’ll unsubscribe because they are confused. Are you with business A or business B. They’re not quite sure where to start. Be consistent in your message and you’ll not only convert more of your list into sales, you’ll also have less people unsubscribing.

The Autoresponder Rate: The rate at which you send your autoresponders or email broadcasts can also determine how successful you are in marketing to your list. If you haven’t emailed your list in months, they may not be too receptive when you do start emailing them. People will start to wonder where you got their information and will consider you as a spammer. So once you start building your list, stay in contact with them. Email them as often as you feel inclined to email them. Put yourself in their shoes, if you were looking for a legitimate business, how often would you like to receive emails.

Some will tell you to email them every single day, and that works. Personally, I email them every other day most of the time, sometimes every day. If I have something exciting to share, I’m sharing it.

Converting Your List Into Sales: Every list, not matter how small, if maintained properly using the methods above, has gold in it. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve had my list for several years. One of those years I neglected that list and didn’t communicate to them at all. I was waiting for an opportunity of value that I could offer them, and I found one. I started communicating with my list again and have had $1600 days since then.

Did they all convert on the very first email I sent out? Absolutely not! In fact, some of them have been on my list for several years and have been reading my emails for that entire time. Then something clicked. They became interested in what I was doing, because it had value, and my words had that thing called “passion” behind them.

For many of them, it took one or two emails to take action. For others, it took ten or twenty.

If you’re consistent at communicating with your list through autoresponders AND broadcasts, you’ll convert some into sales and find gold.

Were all the email broadcasts I sent out my own words, no! I simply customized, copied and pasted some of the broadcasts I was receiving from my enroller. But I can tell you this, if you don’t add your own personal touch to your broadcasts and autoresponders, if there’s no personality in there, they won’t convert very well.

Tell your story occasionally, show who you really are and people will relate, get started, and follow you.

Include a Call To Action: Someone once told me to have three calls to action within every email, or every sales presentation. So in every single broadcast or autoresponder you send out, be sure to include some sort of call to action, multiple times. Whether it’s inviting them to a presentation, telling them to sign up or simply to check out your blog, call them to action.

For those of you who are curious, I use AWeber for building my list. They’ve got all the right tools and can integrate perfectly with the business I’m in.

In fact, those who get started with me get my email autoresponders automatically added to their AWeber account. It sure helps when trying to get things off the ground.

I hope this article helps you in your email marketing efforts. Fill out the form below if you’d like to become part of my email list to see how I run things, or, or course, to find out more about the business. Either way, you’ll be redirected to a free video which will blow your mind!

If you’ve never seen anything of the such, you might be wondering what an income disclosure actually is and why it’s required.

What is an income disclosure?

This world has become a world of requirements and warnings. With so many people being “Sue Happy” these days, companies are obliged to warn their customers about unexpected events that might occur should they get involved. Ten years ago, who would have thought about becoming rich from burning yourself with a cup of hot cocoa? But it’s happened more than once!

From my point of view, if I were the owner of that hot cocoa product and someone burned themselves while drinking my “hot” cocoa, I’d say that it was their own dang fault. Don’t be an idiot. Think about it, right? Modern law says that unless I warn that person, in writing, before they drink the cocoa, they have the right to sue me.

I guess there has to be certain laws in this world made to benefit the dumb people too. So as a result, every company across the globe has a warning label on their product, just in case an idiot buys it.

Anyway, let’s steer away from the idiots and hot cocoa, back into the income disclosure. Every home business or affiliate company across the internet has, or is required to have, some sort of income disclosure.

The standard disclosure goes a little something like this:

Any earnings or income statements, or income examples, are only estimates of what we think you could earn. There is no assurance youâ€ll do as well. If you rely upon our figures, you must accept the risk of not doing as well. Where specific income figures are used…

Basically put, not everyone will have the same results. If you want to make money, you must do what it takes to make money. You can’t sit on your butt in front of your TV, doing nothing, and expect to make money.

Common sense, right? We’re still watching out for the idiot. (I know, we’re so thoughtful!)

Here’s the most important part if this post.

In addition to the standard income disclosures, the company I work with is an open book and has published “Real-Time Income Statistics,” right on their site! I received an email from a colleague of mine stating, “we are the ONLY affiliate program I know of that actually publishes real-time income stats.” And I have to agree!

Most companies will give a standard disclosure, but never go into this much detail. A company that can do that is a company that has absolutely nothing to hide and is confident in its opportunity.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to know how successful you can potentially be in this income opportunity, it’s public information.

Click Here: Real-Time Income Disclosure

The other day, I was contacted by someone who does something similar online, she designs and promotes Facebook pages for her clients. She occasionally runs across clients that also need a service that she knows very little about, SEO. She contacted me because she wants to fulfill all the needs of her customers, when it comes to the internet. I, on the other hand, don’t really design Facebook pages and could use here skills in that area as well.

The Value of Business Networking

There’s value in business networking, or entering into agreements with other business owners. There are services and skills that other business owners can provide that you can’t. Working together can be mutually beneficial for both businesses involved and in several ways.

1. Customer satisfaction. We all know this, but a major aspect to success in any business venture is keeping your customers happy. If you’re a business owner that believes the old adage that the customer is always right, then you and I are ions apart in that aspect. I believe that customer satisfaction comes from fulfilling their needs, not from putting up with their crap. A satisfied customer comes back over and over again, and gets others to come back with them.
2. Receive more business. Instead of turning away leads that require a service you don’t offer, you can still profit from that lead by business networking with someone who does provide that service. Arrangements can be made for you to make a percentage of the sale, get paid for the lead up front or just trade leads. I would recommend the first two. Get paid for the lead or write up a contract with the other business owner with a percentage agreement for sales conversions. For a service like SEO, this could turn into a residual income stream for you. Money now is always better than money later.
3. Learn a new skill. Business networking can provide a valuable service for your customers while you learn how to offer that service yourself. There’s nothing wrong with expanding your product line or your services while networking. As a great Roman Emperor once said, “We expand or die!”

Business Networking in a Home Based Business

Business network also applies in network and affiliate marketing. We’ve all heard of downlines, uplines, enrollers and distributors. Technically, as an enroller, it’s not my responsibility to motivate those I enroll. It’s not my job to teach them how to do the business. The company should be able to do that. However, as a home based business owner, I know that my business will be more profitable if I train those I enroll and teach them how to be successful. In a sense, I am training my competition, but when training my competition makes me more money by making them more money, it’s all good.

Plus, as much as I don’t like to admit it, I don’t know everything there is to know about internet marketing or succeeding in a home based business. There’s always more to learn, and there are other leaders in the industry that know things that I don’t. That’s business networking at its finest. Finding other leaders, or independent business owners, to mastermind with can be mutually profitable. That’s a big reason home business owners brand themselves with a team name. Everyone on the team works together for mutual benefit.

In conclusion, if you’d like to read more about the network marketing industry, affiliate marketing or business networking, this blog is full of information. However, if you’re determined to succeed in your enterprise, it will come. But consider the benefits of working closely with another businesses or business owners that may extend your ability to satisfy every customer or lead that comes your way. As long as you have something to offer them, it will always work out.