Entrepreneurs – if you want your affiliates to do a good job for you, you want to make it as easy for them as possible. I am an affiliate for many people whose products and services I love and I really appreciate those who make it easy. Many send me pre-written tweets, email blasts, and other content that is properly embedded with my affiliate code so all I have to do is tweak it to be in my voice, copy, paste and drop it in.

In contrast, there are people for whom I’ve become an affiliate (because I love what they’re doing) but they don’t make it that easy for me. I have to go digging through their back end, hunting for their banners, and seeing what I can dig up about their copy to do it. Realistically, few people will invest that time. Regardless if they love what you do, they’re busy and if it’s not easy, or even worse if it’s confusing, chances are they won’t do it.

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I was one of those online businessowners who was hesitant to add an affiliate program to my business building efforts. But once my clients and customers starting asking me if I had one that they could join, I knew it was time to bite the bullet and conquer this particular piece of technology.

Now, of course, I wonder why the heck I waited so long (talk about leaving money on the table!). It couldn’t be simplier to get started with your own affiliate program. You can get very elaborate, but the basic set-up is easy, and once you do one campaign, the next one is a piece of cake.

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Tech Coach Sandra De Freitas posted a VERY timely tip on how to save some big bucks ahead of the 1ShoppingCart price increase coming December 1. (Rates are increasing 20% on the Pro Package.)

It’s unfortunate that there aren’t many good alternatives to 1SC out there to give them competition. Maybe this price increase will be incentive to get some new alternative shopping cart service providers going!

If you are a 1SC customer, visit Sandra’s Tech Coach blog for specifics on how to save up to $389 on your shopping cart services, including detailed instructions and screen shots. While you are there, sign up for her ezine, A Boost of Tech Esteem, and get more great technology tips like this one!

My relationship with members of Solo-E relies on trust. As does any solo business with it’s customers. And so I was dismayed last week to find that I had inadvertently done something that could betray that trust.

You see, at Solo-E I only recommend services and products and people I trust. I, or someone on Team Solo-E or occasionally a trusted colleague, reviews every article, ebook, and program. And we attend at least one teleclass from all of our teleclass leaders.

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We noticed some technical problems with one of our cloaked affiliate links the other day. Below, we’ll share a couple of solutions for those with similar problems.

Now, you might ask, why do we “cloak” our affiliate links at all? No, we aren’t trying to fool anyone; we try to provide “non-affiliate” links for anyone who’s not comfortable with us getting compensation for our recommendations. (I used to have misgivings about affiliate links too — but that’s another story.)

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