You Served is a blog and podcast for anyone involved in, affected or just interested in the military, from current soldiers, and their families to veterans. They have posts on everything from current happenings all around the world to widows jumping out of airplanes.

So if you have loved ones in the armed forces or just want to know what’s happening check out youserved.com

If you would like to see your website or company featured on Free Shirt Friday click here

Have I told you enough about the local affiliate opportunities? Well here is real life case study we just completed.

About 4 weeks ago when the cash for clunkers program was about to start I saw it as a great opportunity to drive leads to a local car dealership. We have a great relationship with Huber Chevrolet in Omaha Nebraska so I called them up and setup a meeting with them.

The Pitch

When you approach companies about driving leads to them its always best if you already have a relationship with them. I can tell you right now if you think you can cold call or walk in asking for the manager of a business its going to be a hard, if not an impossible sale. Like you, since birth I have built relationships by using the services of dentists, optometrists, lasek eye surgeons, bariatric surgeons, plastic surgeons, plumbers, roofers, lawn mowers, photographers, wedding cake makers, and of course car dealerships just to name a few. All of these businesses can benefit dramatically from internet leads.

In this case it was our local friendly car dealership. Now we have purchased many vehicles with them over the years and they knew that I did “computer stuff” but nothing specific.

During the initial meeting I asked a lot of questions.

• On average how much is a sale of a car worth to you?
• Every time a salesman phone rings with a new lead what is that worth to you?
• If I were to send you emails of people who filled out a form online with their name, email and phone number what would those leads be worth to you?

They were pretty fourthcoming with the information. Most companies, especially performance driven commission businesses, will know what these numbers are. If a company has not figured out what a new customer is worth to them…. Its possible you maybe want to help them figure that out first. In fact I would actually say that.

Me: What is a new customer worth to you?
Them: We have no idea.

Me: Are you really serious about growing your business?

That is a service in itself but thats for another post.

By the end of the meeting Huber Chevrolet told me about how they had a separate sales division that did nothing but answer phone calls and emails from internet leads and they valued each of those at XX (they asked me not to reveal the specifics).

I told them I would charge them $10 per internet lead (a small fraction of what they are currently paying) but with the condition I could publish a lot of the data on my case study (what your reading). I also told them I wanted to exclusively use MySpace for this test because in past ones we mainly focused on Facebook for driving social network traffic. I really like the super advanced targeting features of MySpace MyAds. They allowed us to target not only cities but specific zip codes. In addition to the geographic targeting we could also target people who were interested in cars or whatever else we thought would convert well.

They were pretty excited to get started. That night I registered hubercash4clunkers.info and had our designer make 4-5 different versions of the landing page rotating through Google’s Website Optimizer to see which one converted the best. Here was the winner converting at 74% (not to bad):

Then we had a bunch of ads made… something like 4-5 per size (there is 3 sizes on MySpace).

Here was the one that converted the best and we ran with:

Our average CPC for this ad was AMAZINGLY low. 13 cents per click on average for over 800 clicks which converted to about 600+ total leads.

Now at $10 per internet lead coming to us its not hard to see how crazy profitable this is.

If you want to get started trying this on your own you should start by downloading my free guide on setting up your own affiliate program. Then signup with MySpace MyAds with code SHOE75 for $75 in free adspend.

There is currently a HUGE dislocation for these social networks…. especially in the local space. SO GET ON IT!!!

This morning we went down to present the 11,100.00 check to the Lincoln Nebraska Peoples City Mission homeless shelter.

The money was raised from my t-shirt auction for Affiliate Summit East 2009 won by coupon code giant retailmenot.com.

After the check presentation we got a tour of the People City Mission from Pastor Tom. The place is pretty amazing for a homeless shelter.

To start with over 90% of their money comes from private donations. They refuse to take government money in most situations because of the bureaucratic strings that come attached. Pastor Tom said, “the government has a certain way they like to do things and its not our way. We are an entrepreneurial homeless shelter. We have been running on private money for over 100 years and we make each dollar go a long way.” Over 80% of every dollar contributed goes directly to its occupants. That is a pretty insane margin for a homeless shelter.

As we continued the tour i was amazed at how much stuff they do in addition to just providing shelter to homeless people. They have a full health care clinic including surgery center and even dentists. All of this care is 100% free to ALL CITIZENS OF LANCASTER COUNTY who are uninsured!

That blew me out of the water. We have better than “universal health” care running right here in Lincoln Nebraska and its all run by a private organization and private money.

I honestly did not know that much about the Peoples City Mission other then I have a good friend who’s mother is a resident there but I am sure glad we choose it for our benefactor!

Since I last talked about making money with twitter a couple weeks back I have completed 7 “sponsored tweets” on sponsoredtweets.com for just less than $2,000.00…. not exactly enough to quit my day job but worth it none the less.

Listen up advertisers. When you are buying tweets on sponsored tweets let the tweeter write the ad for you. I can tell you right now the ones that I write versus the canned ones you try to write get 3-4x more clicks.

This is because I know my audience and they know me…. and they know when its not me and that converts like ass.

Also you still get final approval/rejection before it goes out. So why not let the person write the tweet for the most conversions?

Chitika announced yesterday they will be giving away 5 brand new dell mini-9 laptops to new premium publishers. These laptops are pretty hot and I have been looking to pickup one for a bit cause you can install MacOSX on them.

The only trick is you have to earn atleast $50 to be eligible to win…. but seriously who can’t make $50.

People like Darren Rowse have claimed Chitika out earns Google AdSense on their niche properties.

What is Chitika Premium ? Checkout this video here:

Looks like they are doing some snazzy referrer based targeting among other things with their new Chitika Premium.

Go here to sign up now

This is a guest post by Jonathan Volk, a 20-something internet marketer who makes millions of dollars a year online.

When it comes to internet marketing and working at home in general, one of the most common problems is shiny ball syndrome. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that most people reading this post have this problem!

Don’t worry, it’s not an STD or some disease passed through the air… it’s actually much worse and it comes from our inherent nature to want to do something different.

So what is this shiny ball syndrome that I speak of? It’s seeing or thinking of that next new idea (the shiny ball) and abandoning your current projects to pour into a new project that you just KNOW is going to be a winner. Forgetting all the work you have poured into the last project, you pursue that next new idea never to return to the old project.

I have a friend for example who I have worked closely with on some projects. The other day he showed me a website he was designing in order to sell some amazon products and get the 4% referral commission.

This was less than a week ago.

This morning he was asking me questions; questions about a new market. “I want to go after this new market…”, he said. And while this is commendable that he has found a new idea to market to, the old Amazon store he had poured hours into was going to end up in a net gain of zero.

This is a classic case of shiny ball syndrome. You start working on a project, but before you can even finish, you move onto the next thing.

Heck, even to this day, I am guilty of doing that at times, but I’ve gotten a lot better by using a few easy techniques.

Solving Shiny Ball Syndrome

Solving shiny ball syndrome easier to say than do but with a little effort and persistence you can solve this issue.

1. Write a to do list and prioritize. – Nearly every day, I write a to do list both for myself and my staff. I prioritize what is most important to get done and what is less important. I write an A1, A2, A3, etc next to top priority and B1, B2, B3 next to those that are of less importance.
2. Email can be a time sucker. – What I do is I open my inbox and open all emails that are important. I read the first line and in my head rank if they are important or not. Important emails I respond to right away. Unimportant emails I keep open, minimized to my task bar for review during times when I am on a break or after I finish important tasks. This way I do not get distracted by new ideas and opportunities before I have finished the tasks I needed to complete.
3. New Ideas – When you think of new ideas it’s important to remember that most good ideas will still be around tomorrow. If you never finish a project / website to the full extent you originally designed for it to be and yet move onto the next project, chances are, you probably won’t make much money like that online. Instead try to focus on what you have going. Heck, even if it only makes a little bit in comparison to your next project, at least it’s something. Compare that with the zero you probably would have if you did not complete it.

In reality, whether you’re an SEO, a PPC marketer, a social marketer, an ecommerce store or just try to make money online in any way possible, one of the most important things is focus. Focus on the projects you have going. Complete them and see them all the way through. If the idea truly turns out to be a dud, then stop work on it and move onto the next project / idea.

And remember, sometimes it’s less about trying to hit the lottery and make the next twitter or facebook as it is just building an income FIRST and through experience building something even greater.