This is one of the oldest lessons in business. Often times customers are sold not on your product, but on you as a person. I’ve always thought that WhyDoWork.com would be a much more powerful place if we enabled those who joined the site to network, showcase, and broadcast themselves to the community, and yesterday we laid the groundwork to make this a possibility.

Sell Yourself by Serving Others

One great example I can draw from personally is the story of a member on our site who goes by the name swagen. When he first arrived at the site he posted like crazy, ruffled a few feathers, but eventually got the hang of the culture at the site and became a great member, and eventually an excellent moderator. One thing swagen did exceptionally well is sell himself. When a new member came to the site, he was the first to answer their questions professionally and honestly, and quickly developed somewhat of a cult following. Swagen will be the first to tell you that he grew much richer as a result of WhyDoWork.

For a long time we were his largest affiliate on the Internet generating a ton of sales for his Honest Income Program. Did we have anything to do with it? Not really.

It was the connections he made at our site, his commitment to helping others, and his keen ability to sell himself that led to his success.  This is a valuable lesson to newbie marketers who often out of inexperience burst onto a scene, promote their product with spam like aggression, and leave.  This approach will tarnish your reputation, ban you from sites and most definately leave you with very little money in your pockets.

What occured was Swagen demonstrated himself as an expert in the work at home world and as a result people wanted to know more about him, learn from his mistakes, and understand his formula for success.  People were clamouring to reach out to him and did so by clicking on his forum signature, contacting him through personal messages, and responding to his posts directly with questions.  Instead of soliciting sales, other people were the ones soliciting him to buy and ask questions.  This approach costs nothing but time, and will leave you a solid relationship with your customers and money in the bank.  All you need is the right attitude and a product you beleive in.

As a site that learns from it’s members we realised the need for people to be more interactive, and to promote themselves, and their products both easily and transparently.  We needed an unobtrusive means within whydowork.com for members to showcase what they are about while allowing them to make connections and learn from their peers.  So what did we do?

My Page Beta Launches at WhyDoWork

Take a look at the top of the page. We have a shiny new tab up there for a new service cleverly called ‘My Page’. We just launched it yesterday and have already had a great response with some members making great pages like Power_Advisor27 who has incorporated a video intro into hers. As a special offer for participating, we’re currently rotating the top 10 profiles on the homepage, above the fold, and with your avatar in full view. Frankly speaking I’d probably price these spots out at $200/month each if we were to allow users to pay to be featured, but for now you can get one totally free just by making a cool profile and letting us know here.

Why would you bother with things like the Million Dollar Wiki or other questionable advertising schemes when you can get your own space and advertise to thousands of visitors interested in working at home totally free?

I can personally guarantee that if you create a catchy profile, advertise effectively, and network with the members at WhyDoWork you will make more money. Give it a shot! If you’re not already a member, you can join free here and get started on your profile.

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