by Dr. Kevin Nunley

Imagine owning a massive distributorship with thousands of energetic merchants selling your products and services.

You easily administrate everything from your computer, quickly looking through daily reports that show what your organization is doing at all times.

This is no pie in the sky dream. I have just described the affiliate program scenario that is driving much of today's Internet business. When you hear about an Internet entrepreneur earning six figures or millions each year, you can be sure his or her success relies on their smooth operating organization of affiliates. Affiliates you enter into your program are likely to have businesses and web sites that compliment yours. Their customers are much like your customers. When an affiliate refers your product or service, the customer is already a targeted prospect. Your sales efforts can be concentrated on only the best prospects who are most likely to become long-term repeat customers.

Affiliate program members also know they can sell more of your products if they use those products themselves. You gain a strong core customer base of affiliate members who buy from you again and again.

Recently businesses have been offered the option of joining a network that already owns affiliates. At first glance, this appears to be a quick way to build sales. But watch out.

Keep in mind the NETWORK owns the affiliates, not you. The affiliate network provider gives you the equivalent of temporary affiliates. Because these affiliates have a wide variety of programs to choose from, they jump quickly from one to the other, opting for the highest commissions or most trendy products. You lose out on the loyalty that comes from owning your own affiliate program. "Rented" affiliates are also an untargeted lot. Your link is likely to end up on web sites that have little or nothing to do with your product. Sales will be slim and the prospects you get from the network will have little interest in your business. You can wind up wasting a lot of marketing effort with very few sales to show for it.

In short, it is a far better strategy to develop your own affiliate program. A small business with its own members looks far larger than if they are just one of the crowd in an affiliate network provider's database. Your own affiliates can be chosen, targeted, and trained to give you maximum sales and loyalty for years to come. You give yourself a commanding position in the Internet economy.