Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

The new feature for adding images in Stream and Leadership Page is useful for supporting your team in so many ways.

As we know, a picture paints a thousand words, which is especially handy in the Stream where we are limited to typing only 340 characters.

A screenshot image can help you demonstrate things your team needs to know much more effectively than trying to describe things in a limited number of words or characters.

An image is much more eye-catching and attention-grabbing, and will instantly draw your team to read what is written in your Stream posts.

Many of us who use them, know that ecards generally get a better response than regular emails, and I believe that to be due to the use of an eye-catching graphic, and so far I have seen an increased response to my Stream posts where I have attached images, especially a 'Congratulations' picture.

In your Leadership Page, it will break up blocks of text and separate individual posts and make what was before a dull page of text, much more attractive and interesting to read.

You can upload images direct from your computer. I would suggest keeping a collection of images in an 'SFI' folder.

You don't mention about using images in the forum, but they can also be uploaded direct from your computer to the forum now, whereas they previously needed to be hosted online to add them to a forum post.

Although I couldn't find the size requirements for an image to be uploaded to Stream or Leadership Page, individual images to be uploaded to the Forum are limited to 4 MB in size and must be at least 50×50 pixels dimensionally, so the same sizes may apply to Stream and LP too.


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The new feature for adding images in Stream and Leadership Page is useful for supporting your team in so many ways.

As we know, a picture paints a thousand words, which is especially handy in the Stream where we are limited to typing only 340 characters.

A screenshot image can help you demonstrate things your team needs to know much more effectively than trying to describe things in a limited number of words or characters.

An image is much more eye-catching and attention-grabbing,
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Hi Maria

My first thought when reading your question was that I might change the wording slightly to say "When and how should I start preparing for my retirement WITH SFI?" and the answer to that question would be NOW!

To say "retirement from SFI" implies an intention to leave, to stop what you are doing, but from what I see of SFI, leaving is not necessary, especially if it is providing a steady retirement income. I know we have many affiliates here who are well into what is considered retirement age, who are still thriving and enjoying SFI.

If you can work now to build your team and your business, then in your later years, the business may well be virtually running itself, and requiring little practical daily input from yourself. However, you will be a great example to your team of how your earlier efforts have led you to an easy 'retirement'.

On a practical level, if you have a strong team of working PSAs, especially ones with whom you have built a strong relationship, your sponsorship points from them will drive you up to your rank - hopefully DTL by then! - and all you will really have to do is maintain your Leadership Page three times per month and achieve a minimum 3-star sponsor rating from your PSAs. If your daily VP streak badge is important to you, then log in each day to get 10VP from your red tabs. Reassign less active PSAs to your most active, highest-ranking PSAs to be taken care of by them.

As the years pass, our younger generations will be more ready than ever to do this kind of work, and your business is something you can share with your children or grandchildren, teaching them how to operate it, allowing them to take an active role, and eventually leaving it in their capable hands. You will be remembered as a 'ground-breaker', one of the pioneers in the world of online business. What a lovely gift!
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Hi Maria

My first thought when reading your question was that I might change the wording slightly to say "When and how should I start preparing for my retirement WITH SFI?" and the answer to that question would be NOW!

To say "retirement from SFI" implies an intention to leave, to stop what you are doing, but from what I see of SFI, leaving is not necessary, especially if it is providing a steady retirement income. I know we have many affiliates here who
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Any website is only effective if people are finding it and reading it. Therefore, the main aim is to attract traffic to your site, and organic traffic i.e. people who have specifically searched for what you offer, is the best kind of traffic. To keep that traffic coming, or returning, you need to provide the reason for them to do so. Here are some elements you need to pay attention to:

* Make it useful
Think of your target audience. What are they looking for? What do they want?
Many people, especially those looking for ways to make money online, are looking for useful and trustworthy information. They will research money-making opportunities. Your website can describe your own personal experience and help them make the decision to join.
Also, your PSAs will look to you for additional support and guidance. While the SFI site does contain all the information they need, they may find it a little overwhelming. Your website can break it down into bite-size chunks, can explain it without the 'jargon', you can even make videos to show your team exactly how to do specific activities.
You can include more subjects than available from the SFI website, e.g. tutorials on how to set up their own website or social media page, good places to find leads/paid ads etc. These will not only help your team, but will also attract other people looking for this information, even if they are not looking specifically for SFI, but they may see your SFI banner and be curious, so will join.
Remember also, SFI is a global opportunity. You already know that there may be language issues with your PSAs, the same is true for prospective affiliates. Install a Translate facility on your website.

* Make it attractive
Make it easy-to-read and well-designed. Ensure you are using a 'responsive' theme which will display well on any device.
Think carefully about placement and style of your ads and banners. Personally, I cannot tolerate those websites that have lots of flashing banners and I will move away from those sites immediately without reading them.
Pay attention to spelling, grammar, punctuation, paragraphs and layout.

* Encourage engagement
Offer visitors a way to stay engaged with your site, and a reason they will want to return.
Offer the ability to subscribe to your site and receive updates when new posts are added.
Offer a 'freebie' if they sign up to your list. This could be something like a free report, or an easy-start guide. This doesn't have to be something aimed at getting them to sign up with SFI, it can be anything a reader might be interested in (somehow generally related to online business or entrepreneurship, there's no point in offering '10 tips for raising chickens'). The main thing is that you now have their email address and you can send out autoresponder and scheduled emails in the future which gently encourage them with 'drip marketing'.
When you write articles, invite readers to make comments.
You can even install a 'membership' plugin and make some areas of the site accessible only to registered members. Some also have a forum feature included. This will give you an opportunity to send member newsletters to invite members back to your site.

* Use effective SEO
Effective SEO increases your search-engine rankings. Don't worry if you don't understand it. There are lots of free plugins, especially in wordpress, that you can install and they guide you through the process of improving your SEO.
In my own website, before I learned this and installed a SEO plugin, I was getting only a few visitors per day, mainly through my own publicising, but after I began using SEO, this improved drastically. Within a month I had my first 100-hit day and some of my articles even made first page of Google, which is what you want to aim for.

* Persistence
Give it time. Update and add articles regularly, and keep going. I began a personal interest blog about 2 years ago, not about SFI. Since starting SFI, I have been too busy to update my personal blog regularly. When I left it, about a year ago, I was getting a few hundred visitors a month. I had reason to log into the admin area recently, and was very pleasantly surprised to find it is receiving around 5,000 visitors a month now. I didn't set it up to monetise or promote any business, but I also found out about 6 months ago, that I had earned some affiliate commissions from an event I promoted on it - it was a decent amount, about $60 from one single event. I didn't even know this activity was going on, and I can only imagine how many more visitors and how much more income I would be getting if I had continued to update and publicise it regularly.

* Engage with social media
You can link up your website with your social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc. so that whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be posted on your social media pages. You can also write several posts at a time, but so you don't bombard people with lots of posts at once, you can schedule them to post at specified times, e.g. you could write 7 short posts in one day, but schedule them to publish one each day, so if people miss your posts one day, they might see them the next day.
Social media pages, particularly popular ones, are becoming highly-ranked by search engines.
Ensure that your website has a feature for visitors to connect with you on the social media of their choice.

* Include an 'About Me' page
Increase reader trust and confidence by showing that you are a real person that they can personally connect with.

Now put all of this in the context of an SFI website, more activity on your site means higher search engine rankings and more visitors to your site which, by the laws of probability, means more SFI signups.

I hope this has given you some ideas.
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Any website is only effective if people are finding it and reading it. Therefore, the main aim is to attract traffic to your site, and organic traffic i.e. people who have specifically searched for what you offer, is the best kind of traffic. To keep that traffic coming, or returning, you need to provide the reason for them to do so. Here are some elements you need to pay attention to:

* Make it useful
Think of your target audience. What are they looking for? What do they want?
Many
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

I would say that both are equally important.

PRMs are important for possibly more immediate commissions, 45% of the CV, that will enable you to earn income to develop your business. Also, you directly earn the VPs attached to the purchases of your PRMs, which help greatly towards your rank. You will earn commissions and VPs from anything they buy from TripleClicks, for life!

Also, by referring at least 1 new PRM every 120 days, you will qualify for the new Wave 3 membership, which gives you the following benefits:
1. Exclusive W3 Member badge
2. Free monthly Member Listing
3. Free monthly download of the TC Song of the Month
4. Additional 5% discount on any one day's Deal-of-the-Day of your choice each month
5. For each TCredit spent by referrals, you'll earn a free bonus entry in the Daily Crown drawing for that day, for a full year (maximum 5 free bonus entries per day)
6. Earn unlimited MRP Bounties: Earn MRP when referrals buy and win. Example: If you challenge a friend to play Card King and they post a top-50 score within 10 days, you automatically earn 300 MRP! Note: Each POR (point of referral) may have different MRP amounts and/or qualifications for earning the MRP Bounty.
7. Win unlimited TCredits! Lifetime 10% Zackpot Matches of any Eager Zebra Zackpot winnings of your PRMs. Qualifications: Personal minimum $20 purchase at TripleClicks (cash purchase, no MRP or TCredits) AND played same game on same day or period as the winning PRM.
8. Additional recognition (e.g. badges/leaderboard for active "wave makers"--those who refer lots of TC members)
9. Free W3 promotional aids (banners for blogs, etc.)

PSAs are important in your long-term business strategy by building your downline. When your Gen 1 PSAs purchase from TripleClicks you will also earn 45% of the CV, and if they do this by setting up a Standing Order as part of their own business plan, you are assured of a regular commission income. You do not earn the attached VPs directly towards your rank, however, when your PSAs become and maintain EA2 rank, you will earn matching VP which gives you more shares of the TripleClicks Executive Pool.

As your PSAs develop their own downlines to reach and maintain EA2, you also earn these matching VPs from up to 12 levels of your downline, dependent on your own rank. This is the real power-house of the SFI compensation plan and what you look towards for your long-term success.
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I would say that both are equally important.

PRMs are important for possibly more immediate commissions, 45% of the CV, that will enable you to earn income to develop your business. Also, you directly earn the VPs attached to the purchases of your PRMs, which help greatly towards your rank. You will earn commissions and VPs from anything they buy from TripleClicks, for life!

Also, by referring at least 1 new PRM every 120 days, you will qualify for the new Wave 3 membership,
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Hi Biljana,

There are many answers given that list the features of SFI, and of course people may be interested in some of those. They may feel more secure knowing that SFI has been in business for 17 years because that gives them a sense of security, and that is what people want, to know what it can do for THEM.

And that is what you could focus on - what are the benefits to THEM of joining SFI?
To do this, you do need to think more about your target market, and who you are speaking to.

For example, a parent might be attracted to working with SFI because it could:
- enable them to stay at home with the children so they don't miss out on them growing up
- make sure they can always take their children to school or social activities
- save them money and time as they won't have to commute to work, that's more money and time they can spend with their family
- enable them to take holidays at a time to suit the family rather than having to suit their employer
- help them teach their children to be more independent and business-minded

A person approaching retirement might like to know that SFI could help them:
- supplement their retirement income
- give them something to keep them mentally active
- continue to give them a sense of purpose after their job ends
- teach them how to use the internet for productive purposes
- leave something potentially valuable for their family to continue on
- feel less isolated as they learn how to network and socialise through their business

I'm sure you can think of more ways to attract students, people with disabilities, etc.

You can tailor this to suit whichever group you are marketing to, or whichever individual you are speaking to at the time. It's about identifying what THEY need, and how SFI can meet that need.

I hope this helps to give a different perspective in your marketing focus.

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Hi Biljana,

There are many answers given that list the features of SFI, and of course people may be interested in some of those. They may feel more secure knowing that SFI has been in business for 17 years because that gives them a sense of security, and that is what people want, to know what it can do for THEM.

And that is what you could focus on - what are the benefits to THEM of joining SFI?
To do this, you do need to think more about your target market, and who you
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Personally, I rarely distinguish between my PSAs and CSAs. That means I communicate with CSAs almost exactly the same way as I do with PSAs.

Therefore I:

- send them my Welcome message, the same one I send to my PSAs, letting them know I am their co-sponsor and therefore an additional source of help and advice for them. I list the Getting Started actions they need to do, and direct them to Start, SFI Basics and Launchpad.
The only difference here is, while I send PSAs individual ecards as they arrive, I send a TeamMail to all CSAs together, simply because they tend to arrive in bulk and I don't have time to send individual ecards to 80 or more CSAs

- send my newsletters to entire genealogy, PSAs, CSAs and all downline, because I feel it could be of equal benefit to all, and I don't know what guidance they are receiving from their own sponsors

- let CSAs know that if they need help or advice at any time, I am available by email - I am equally accessible to CSAs as I am to PSAs

- acknowledge them in Stream posts equal to my PSAs e.g. when they achieve EA, when they win in Daily Grand etc.

The only thing I do tend to favour my PSAs with is inclusion into any co-ops I operate, as commissions from my PSAs are contributing more to my income and therefore enable me to do that, however I hope in time, as my income grows, to be able to extend more of those direct benefits to CSAs also.

It really takes very little, or no, extra effort to help your CSAs just as much as any of your team, and the benefits in time will outweigh that effort.

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Personally, I rarely distinguish between my PSAs and CSAs. That means I communicate with CSAs almost exactly the same way as I do with PSAs.

Therefore I:

- send them my Welcome message, the same one I send to my PSAs, letting them know I am their co-sponsor and therefore an additional source of help and advice for them. I list the Getting Started actions they need to do, and direct them to Start, SFI Basics and Launchpad.
The only difference here is, while I send PSAs individual
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Hi Bamidele

You have had lots of great answers on this question, about
- how the monthly TC Executive Pool is shared based on VPs collected individually in the last month
- how your monthly activity determines your rank
etc.

However, I would just like to add an aspect I have not seen mentioned yet.

Because VPs are reset each month, everyone has an equal opportunity to earn from the TC Executive Pool, whether they have been with SFI for many years or just begun. Whilst it is true that the long-standing TLs will build their VPs quicker each month because they earn Matching VPs from their downline, if the VPs did not reset to zero, these TLs would have just so many VPs accrued, that the TCEP would be so diluted it would be impossible for a new affiliate to earn anything of value from it. So the answer is to build your team so you can benefit from the Matching VPs each future month.

I hope this helps you explain.
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Hi Bamidele

You have had lots of great answers on this question, about
- how the monthly TC Executive Pool is shared based on VPs collected individually in the last month
- how your monthly activity determines your rank
etc.

However, I would just like to add an aspect I have not seen mentioned yet.

Because VPs are reset each month, everyone has an equal opportunity to earn from the TC Executive Pool, whether they have been with SFI for many years or
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Hi Dzul,

The forum provides an absolute wealth of information and is one of your very best resources for growing your SFI business.

Firstly, keep up-to-date with the SFI News category so you know of any new announcements or developments.

You can spend some time each day browsing new forum posts, and will undoubtedly discover or learn something new, or you could have a topic in mind and use the forum Search facility to find posts related to your chosen topic.

If you have your own question in mind, and don't find it already answered, then do ask it. You will get answers usually within minutes from other affiliates who are more than willing to help you.

Apart from the obvious uses I have already described, the following features will really enhance your forum experience, and probably save you much time in the long run.

- Use Bookmarks
When you find a post that gives you really helpful information, click on the Bookmark button below the post to save it and refer back to. Not only will this help you directly, but you can also recommend that post to your team, in your Stream, in your newsletters or if somebody asks you directly for advice you can refer them to that post.

- Follow other knowledgeable affiliates
When you notice that somebody regularly gives good, clear, understandable advice in the Forum, click on the + sign next to their name to Follow them. You can then easily access all their posts from your Follows tab.

- Check your PSAs & CSAs tab regularly
This will help you support your downline directly. You don't have to add anybody to this, they will be there automatically if they are in your downline. If you see your PSAs or CSAs posting, but they may not have contacted you directly, you can contact them by email or 'Here to Help' ecard and help them with their enquiry, or praise them for actively using the forum. This will let them know you are interested in their activity and are a proactive and supportive member of their upline.

All of these tabs - Bookmarks, Follow, PSAs & CSAs - can be found within the 'Me' tab on the main forum page.
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Hi Dzul,

The forum provides an absolute wealth of information and is one of your very best resources for growing your SFI business.

Firstly, keep up-to-date with the SFI News category so you know of any new announcements or developments.

You can spend some time each day browsing new forum posts, and will undoubtedly discover or learn something new, or you could have a topic in mind and use the forum Search facility to find posts related to your chosen topic.

If
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Great question Thomas!

Video marketing is HUGE now! Thanks to Youtube, you only need to publish a video to one place, then use your video link everywhere else -
- embed on your website
- embed on your lead capture/squeeze page
- post on any social media
- in email campaigns

Youtube videos are highly ranked by Google (it is owned by Google, so of course they promote it well), as long as you get your SEO right - you can optimise your youtube videos with keywords and tags, just as you would a website. Write a good description on your video, including keywords and link to your website/gateway.

YT is the next best search engine after Google. Whenever I search for anything, particularly a 'how to...'or 'review of...' I will invariably end up at a youtube video, so it would be a good idea to use those phrases in your description and keywords.

You can make a promotional video in some of the following ways:

- create a Powerpoint slide show and import that to Windows Movie Maker (which is a free program - but be sure to download it from the microsoft website, as I downloaded it from elsewhere and found it to be a fake which contained a virus!)
You can then edit it to include sound, perhaps a voice-over. Personally, I don't recommend music which can be overpowering, annoying and make the video appear 'cheesy'

- do a 'selfie' video, where you review and talk about your own positive experience with SFI. Talk about what you have achieved so far, and how SFI is helping you achieve goals such as creating extra income, maybe working towards giving up your job and living a 'freedom lifestyle'.
Present yourself well, look calm and relaxed, natural not too 'staged'.

- use a screen-capture program which will record what you do on the screen and your voice-over if you use a microphone. I have used a program called screencast-o-matic which is free for videos up to 15 minutes long and you can choose whether to download it to your PC or upload your video directly to your Youtube account

Youtube allows you to add clickable captions to your video, so you can add a link to your website or squeeze page. Affiliate links are not generally allowed in these captions, so you may not be able to link directly to your gateway. However, if you have your own domain, you should be able to set up your gateway through a redirect URL.

Uploading and publishing a video on Youtube is quite straightforward. There is step-by-step guidance on the page to help you through the process.

After your video is published on Youtube, it is up to you to regularly promote your video to get it seen by a wider audience.

Be sure to monitor your Youtube account for any comments which may be posted, and engage in a friendly, professional way with anyone who posts a comment or contacts you.

Comment on other people's videos - in a genuine and appropriate manner, not spamming - so if anybody then reads your comments and likes what you say, they may click on your name, and will find your own video too.

Wishing you success!
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Great question Thomas!

Video marketing is HUGE now! Thanks to Youtube, you only need to publish a video to one place, then use your video link everywhere else -
- embed on your website
- embed on your lead capture/squeeze page
- post on any social media
- in email campaigns

Youtube videos are highly ranked by Google (it is owned by Google, so of course they promote it well), as long as you get your SEO right - you can optimise your youtube videos with keywords
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Affiliate since: 04/14/2014, Power Rank: 99999999

Hi Zina

You can see exactly how your Movers are performing by looking at their VP Ledger.
To do this, click on their name in your Movers list.
On their Affiliate Snapshot, beside their picture, you will see a link to their VP Ledger.

The VP Ledger will show how many VP they currently have, and how many they need to progress to the next level. If they have not yet reached EA, it will show how many total VP they need.
If they have already achieved EA or higher, the VP Ledger will show a breakdown of how many Sales or Action VPs - SVP/AVP - they need to reach the next level.

The Type column in the VP Ledger shows A or S to indicate whether the VPs are for Action or Sales.

You can calculate how many are AVP are available from daily/weekly/monthly tasks in the remainder of the month.

If the available AVP alone will be enough to get them to the next level, you can email them or send an ecard congratulating them for being on target to reach level as long as they ensure they do all the tasks available for the rest of the month.

If there is a shortfall, you can suggest ways of earning the additional VPs they need.

Be sure to point out the benefits of reaching the next level, e.g. extra Rank TCredits, Second Home CSAs - the full list of benefits can be found in the Benefits Chart
https://www.sfimg.com/Reference/ComparisonChart

Some good ways of earning AVPs above and beyond the regular tasks are:
- sponsoring - do they have any existing EA/TLs they can motivate to progress to their next rank too?
- distributing TripleClicks gift cards
- answering Ask SC questions well enough to be ranked as a Top 10 answer
- reviewing TripleClicks products they have purchased
- referring traders to the ECA program

Unlimited SVP are available from purchasing or promoting products at TripleClicks but only so many SVP will count towards each rank.
Full details of how many SVP/AVP are needed for each rank can be found in The Plan:
https://www.sfimg.com/the_plan

If they have MRPs, they could use them to purchase single TCredits, TC Gift Cards or an S-Builder Unit which will give them SVP without any outlay of their own, and the S-Builder will help them build their team.

If you know they are a committed worker, but are just a few VPs short of their next qualification, there are a couple of other ways you can help them:
- send them some TCredits if a few auction bids or games will help them reach the goal - maximum of 10 can be sent to any one PSA/CSA
- send them a small gift certificate if buying a single TCredit might help them
however, I advise caution when offering any monetary help as it is not a good idea to encourage financial dependence

What I have described already is a fairly short-term view, i.e. how they could achieve the next level this month, however it is a good move to get your Movers to think about their longer-term strategy too, and set some goals they can work towards in the coming months, in order to steadily increase and sustain their higher ranking.
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Hi Zina

You can see exactly how your Movers are performing by looking at their VP Ledger.
To do this, click on their name in your Movers list.
On their Affiliate Snapshot, beside their picture, you will see a link to their VP Ledger.

The VP Ledger will show how many VP they currently have, and how many they need to progress to the next level. If they have not yet reached EA, it will show how many total VP they need.
If they have already achieved EA or higher,
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