Week In Review: Making the Switch from ClickFunnels to Affiliate Systems +

Happy Saturday!!!

This week I got a surprise email, it was from ClickFunnels. 

Actually, it wasn’t really an email just a receipt for their monthly fee that was recently billed to my credit card. 

I guess this means my 6-month trial is done. I totally panicked at the price tag, but it is the kick in my butt I need to finally move everything over to the Affiliate Systems Platfrom. 

Over the next few weeks I have to 1. Figure out how to transfer all my domains from Clickfunnels into Affiliate Systems 2. Move over all my funnells and email sequences AND 3. Get everything up and running, then lastly, 4. update all my book QR codes with the new funnels! 

 

This is a pretty big task to take on that requires some technical Know-how, and I am so happy I have the support of a big team to help me. 

 

During the Wednesday Q&A, Dean showed me that it is possible to move the funnels over; it is actually quite easy; the tricky part is going to be getting the domains out of ClickFunnels and setting up all the back-end stuff. 

 

From the email I received from ClickFunnels in order to transfer the domains out, I must first open a paid account with DNSimple, then email ClickFunnels billing some info and they will transfer over the domains.

 

It took a few days of back-and-forth emails, but I was able to get the Domains transferred into DNsimple. What I am not so happy about is  that in order to do this transfer, I have to create a  paid plan with DNSimple, and they hold my domains for 60 days before I can transfer again.

 

This is not ideal, since now I will have to pay for two months of DNsimple in order just to transfer over my domains to Affiliate Systems. In hindsight, if you do wind up using ClickFunels, purchase your domains from elsewhere like Namecheap or GoDaddy, then point the records to ClickFunnels; this will give you more control over your domains. 

I was able to schedule an appointment with the Affiliate Systems DNS specialty department for Friday, 4/19, to see if they can help me with the Domain transfer from DNsimple and set up the sender emails, which are currently in Zoho.

I need to get this off my plate ASAP. I was hoping to have it done by today, but that didn’t happen.

 

But I got a lot done; check out how easy it is to transfer funnels over from ClickFunnels to Affiliate Systems by watching out my newest YouTube video, you can access it by clicking here.

I am feeling a little stressed because on Monday at 5 am, I start Sophie’s 6-week Facebook Lead Ads training, Wednesday we have our weekly Q&A at 4:30 am, and on Thursday, a 3-hour class dedicated to emails and follow-up starting at 5 am!!!!!! And on top of all this, I start a new job this Monday. Did I mention I am taking a huge leap, a huge salary cut, and jumping ship from being a pharmacist to running a dialysis clinic?

Yup, as a pharmacist for the past 15 years, I have to say I absolutely love helping people, constantly learning, and being part of an amazing team. However, I have run into some health issues, and my body cannot keep up with the demands currently, so while I work on my health and build up my business, I have decided to make a shift. It is not just health driving this huge change; it is my desire to grow as a person, learn new skills, and open doors into healthcare operations management. As someone who has managed a team of over 40 pharmacists and technicians, I can honestly say that many of my team have mentioned that I was the first pharmacy manager to tell them they did a good job, compliment them, provide constructive criticism, and was vested into helping them grow.

I want to do more of this, and I love efficiency. As I am going down this path of affiliate marketing and owning my own publishing business being able to look at and interpret data to make actionable decisions is a crucial skill,  and I will be learning this skill and developing it in this new role.

This jump is going to force me to learn an entire new segment of healthcare, new rules and regulations, new laws, and service people in a way that I have not before. Instead of helping people with a variety of conditions through medication and lifestyle management, I will be saving lives, by providing dialysis and helping improve patient outcomes, in a very immenent and tangible way.

I will be honest: I have a lot of anxiety about taking on a new job. I need to make sure I can continually work on building my business, and I feel that taking on a 9 to 5 for a steady backcheck is not the path I really want. I want the freedom of time, but I have to be realistic; while I am building these businesses, until I get to the point of steady, consistent income, I must work this 9 to 5 and trade my time for a paycheck. 

Taking this job is not an announcement that my affiliate and publishing businesses are failing; they still need nurturing and time to blossom, and I will need a 9 to 5 for the time being. It’s nice to know that I will be learning a skill set at this 9 to 5 that will help me excel in my own businesses. So, I consider it a win. Mindset is everything in every facet of our life, so instead of being filled with fear and anxiety about the lack of time in the day and feeling that having a 9 to 5 means I am not putting 1000% in and taking a big enough leap of faith in myself to grow my own businesses. My Mindset is that it is an opportunity for growth and a steady paycheck to pay for Facebook Lead Ads, and all of the other expenses that come with running a business. 

 

From affiliate marketing to book publishing to e-commerce to being a pharmacy to running a dialysis clinic, all of these businesses require the knowledge of the four core elements that Dean is teaching. 

 

The pharmacy I used to work for has a dedicated team of salespeople who do doctor detailing and run advertising and marketing campaigns to grow their customer base. They are constantly testing out different types of ads to showcase different services they offer to attract new clients. They research and get to know their target market and test out different types of ads to get the most traction. Once the consumer becomes a customer, it doesn’t stop there. They send emails to communicate and let them know of new services being offered. It’s their version of driving traffic, capturing, following up, and making offers.  These skill sets are transferable to every business and every niche. 

 

That is why the affiliate systems platform is so powerful. I can run all my businesses through it, and it is a one-stop shop.

 

Once I get all my stuff moved over from ClickFunnels, I will be able to cancel that membership and the SMTP I am paying for. All my emails, regardless of which domain I am using, will be in one place!!! That means only one email to check!! And for someone like me, that is incredible.

Having all your emails in one place makes it easier to respond. If people are emailing you and you are not responding, you are missing out on an opportunity to build and develop your relationships. And relationships is what affiliate marketing is all about. 

 

That is a good segway into what we coveted this week in class: Today was an Introduction to Emails! 

 

Dean has touched on emails in the past, but he mainly showed us how to send and check emails in the Affiliate System and encouraged us to send broadcast emails at least weekly.

But now we are diving into the world of building out email sequences and then automating them, so when someone joins our list from, let’s say, a Facebook Lead Ad, they are taking on a journey. A journey that gets them to know us, hopefully like us, and builds trust. This relationship building takes some time, but then you get to share with them real solutions that solve problems you have that will solve their problems. As you offer more and more of these solutions, you get to help more and more of your audience to reach their goals, and you make some money along the way through sales and, hopefully, recurring sales like memberships.

I am so excited that one of the offers I will eventually get to make is the Affiliate Systems Platfrom itself. I’ll keep you posted about this…and some other amazing stuff Dean has in the pipeline. If you want to be part of the first group in, just sign up for my newsletter by clicking here! 

 

Automated email sequences can be as complex or as simple as you want them to be.

But as this is just an introduction let’s talk about some things you will want to consider and keep in mind before you even begin…

 

An email list is one of the most valuable assets you have. One reason for this is that you own the list; it’s yours, and  “you can send traffic to this list on demand.”

What does that mean exactly? It means that if you have an offer to share, you can formulate an email and send it to your list, and your email list of superfans would check it out and most likely produce the best results in regards to interaction for the offer…. It’s interacting with a warm/hot audience. You have built the know, like, and trust, so when you tell them this thing is something to check out, most likely they will.

 

Because of the new rules to the game that started in February of this year, it is critical to build a list of engaged people, as sender reputation is important to getting your emails delivered. Successful email deliverability is when your email arrives in your recipient’s inbox as intended. For more information about the new rules you can check out my previous blog post here. 

 

Failed email delivery is when your email gets routed to your recipient’s spam/junk folder or completely blocked by the Internet Service Provider (ISP). 

Your Sender Reputation Matters

 

The first step to better email deliverability is the sender’s reputation. These days, your reputation is determined by a wide variety of factors. 

 

Dean encourages us to get recipients to interact with our emails. Not just opening them but clicking on the links and hitting reply. When your recipients open, read, click, or reply to your messages, ISPs know that your messages are wanted. That’s why email was created right, as a communication tool, a back and forth. 

 

When you are sending emails, but nothing is being responded to, this lets the powers know that you are an email marketer. Actually, asking people to reply can be a very valuable thing. You could send a message like: “Just wanted to check in. Are you still looking to start and grow your online business? As we are on a similar path, check out my blog, and hit reply to this email anytime you have questions, here to help”…. Reply’s not only help with the sender reputation but they are also great ways to build relationships. 

 

I have said this before in a previous blog post, but I will say it again because it is important:  YOU MUST RESPOND TO EMAILS FROM SUBSCRIBERS. This is the ultimate Recipient engagement, and it is a key part of building your reputation

Engagement is key to letting ISPs know that you are not just sending out a bunch of emails spamming people… when crafting an email, you need to keep this in mind: make sure your links work, provide content of value that is easy to digest, and encourage interaction. 

 

The bigger your audience gets, this gets more challenging, but this is critical. 

Email Content 

Your email layout, links included, words in your subject line, and wording within the body will impact your sender’s reputation. The content of emails and subject lines bears great significance to whether they will end up in the inbox, spam, or junk.

 

Dean recommended avoiding trigger words, i.e., FREE, money, income, and commissions; the email service providers typically don’t love these, and these can land your emails in spam folders. Word choice is important; some people still use these trigger words, but you need to be conscious and track the data. 

 

How do you know what words are trigger words? There are a ton of them so don’t overthink it. You can go to Google and search for “autoresponder email trigger words” or   “words to avoid in my autoresponder emails.”

 

Autoresponders like aweber and the likes, want to help you get delivered, so they will provide this information, there are tools and services also that will test deliverability of your email. Things like subject line testers exist! 

We will need to constantly manage our online sender reputation. It is an ongoing task that must be done. We must remove unengaged people to avoid damaging our sender reputation and spend some time each month looking at the statistics. 

Now, let’s talk about the dreaded spam complaints…

A recipient marking an email as spam is the strongest negative signal to ISPs about your email.

 

It is frustrating and partly out of your control, but your emails will eventually get marked as spam. Even with double opt-in, this will still happen. Don’t get frustrated or sad; it’s part of life. Make it easy for people to unsubscribe, and this can help reduce people hitting that spam button. 

 

A spam complaint rate above 0.1% is considered high, may result in poor deliverability, and you should take steps to address it. 

 

One thing you can do is keep only people engaged on your email list. 

 

If someone has not opened your email in more than 60 days you are best advised to remove them off your list,.

I know you’re probably thinking like me: it was so hard to get people on my list am I really going to delete this person?

If that person is not engaged or not opening your emails, then yes, you need to remove them because they are doing more harm than good. They are potentially hurting your sender reputation, and it’s pointless to contact them because they are not opening anything, they are not part of the conversation, and there is no possibility of creating a relationship or selling anything.

But don’t spend too much time worrying about this. Your focus should be on creating and sending out consistent emails that have good content and are engaging. 

 

And as always, it is time to get over being uncomfortable. 

The physical act of sending emails can be uncomfortable. Even though I have been doing this for a while, I will admit that every time I send an email, I feel that resistance coming up, almost like I am bothering someone. The mental challenge and psychological blocks of sending emails are a real thing, so I want to take a moment to recognize it and say again that affiliate marketing is all about getting uncomfortable, facing that resistance, that fear, and moving forward. The money is in the list, and it is so critical and important; it’s core area 3: follow-up, and essential for your success as an affiliate market, so it’s time to get uncomfortable, take that cold plunge, and do it.


It’s not just you; there is nothing wrong with you; this is common to feel this way. Sometimes we don’t feel good enough, we fear judgment, we feel like we are imposters, and we are going to be found out that we are not good enough… The brain loves to solve problems. That’s its job, so when there are no problems to solve, it creates some, and feeling all this fear and doubt over sending emails is just your brain’s natural saboteur rearing its ugly head.

Lastly, don’t freak out when someone unsubscribes or marks you as spam. It’s going to happen, expect it….It’s okay, continue on anyway. Do you best not to take it personally.

 

We are not going to agree with everything said, we are not going to be friends with everyone we meet, sometimes there is a connection and sometimes there isn’t regardless …I’ll repeat it again, don’t take it personally and keep moving forward. 

Don’t let anything hold you back. At the end of the day, you are doing what you need to create a successful affiliate marketing business and make your dream life a reality. So if one person unsubscribed, that is okay, the people who interact with your emails are the people with whom you will build relationships, and these will become your superfans.

 

This is another defining moment. Imagine you are on your deathbed; looking back, what would you regret the most: regretting giving up and stopping your follow-up emails because some people unsubscribed, marketed you as spam, or you just stopped emailing people because you didn’t want to bother them Or you reach your dream life, whatever that is for you, looking back on all the challenges and uncomfortableness and being proud of all that you have overcame to get to the finish line.

 

It is better to regret something you have done than regret something you haven’t done. In my opinion, don’t let fear hold you back from success. Don’t care what people think; they are not living your life. They are not there for you when things are bad; things are good. Do the things you want and need to do, take your fears, especially those about what others think about you, and flush them down the toilet. As we practice doing things that make us uncomfortable, we realize the fear was inflated, and it wasn’t so bad.

 

When you get older it helps with this, and you realize no body is thinking of you as much as you thought they were.

Although I can sit here and say overcome your fears and just do it, I know how hard it can be, and I am here to support you on your journey. To be a sounding board for when you get stuck, and to remind you of how amazing, special, and capable you are of making your dream life a reality. You can accomplish anything. I know it, but do you?

Comment below, I would love to know how you are feeling about the prospect of sending emails? Does the thought of hitting send make you cringe with resistance? We are doing this together, so please reach out if you need anything.

 

Always here to help as we ride together from rookie to riches!

To our success,

Alison Blaire