3. The psyche of an affiliate.

Most companies write of affiliates who do not generate any sales in first quarter of signing up. This is a dead situation as both parties would have lost interested. However, a little retrospection into this will show something else. Most affiliates who sign up do not know technical details for setting up banners, etc. Instead of having a generic FAQ page, customization is keyword here.

Companies will need to monitor affiliate's path on site and contact them accordingly. For example a person who signs up as an affiliate and then logs into system, clicks on banner links and then logs off. If this happens way too often, (and im talking of not more than 2 times) there is something seriously wrong. If a company can take this opportunity and provide support to affiliate, trust me, you have one person who is going to be all praise for you.

4. Custom deals.

Another most common fact is that companies provide custom commissions only to affiliates who bring in higher volumes of sales. While many people do know that a company would not limit itself to commission type it displays on site, company also needs to approach affiliate and negotiate a custom deal that will be appropriate for affiliate. Most often it happens that companies tend to either overquote or underquote deal. Perhaps a little more research into market and affiliate himself would provide a better insight.

5. Special promotions.

Now, I would not call these anything special, far from being called a promotion. For most companies, a special promotion would mean giving affiliate an extra amount for a set number of sales brought to company in a specified timeframe. What is use for having a special promotion when your infrastructure is still same?

It would take anywhere between 2 to 3 quarters before a company can consider offering you a special promotion. Apart from usual custom of offering extra commissions or increase discounts, it would be a better idea to actually gather information from affiliate. If a company assigns an account manager for an affiliate, 2 to 3 quarters time is more than sufficient for account manager to be able to guage requirements of their affiliate. Companies will have to move out from usual and experiment more in terms of likes and dislikes of affiliate so that it would fit well into system and at same time not lose focus from affiliate.

While most companies always rely on same roadmap towards having a successful affiliate program, this sector needs companies to experiment with new ideas and innovative campaigns to give a facelift to affiliate programs.

John Benjamin works as a freelance consultant for Internet marketing and has his website at http://www.promindsinc.com/

(Please note: If you are unsure about anything, you should enlist help of a CPA, regarding tax matters).

Your estimated taxes are due on following dates throughout year:

April 15 June 15 September 15 January 15

To obtain more specific information you can read IRS Publication 505: Estimated Tax payments.

Note: You are not required to make estimated tax payments until you have income not subject to withholding on which you will owe tax. If you don't make your first payment until a later period, you must divide your entire estimated tax by number of payment dates remaining. If, for example, you have three payment dates pending, you would pay one third of total tax by June 15, other third by September 15 and last by January 15.

Typical Expenses To Deduct

Here is a list of some of expenses you can deduct.

1. Your home mortgage -- If you use a room solely for conducting business then you can take this deduction. There are a couple of different formulas to determine percentage of your home that is used for your business.

You can use "number of rooms" method or "area method". I would suggest using "area method" because I can't imagine having a home where all rooms are same size.

With area method, you would take area of your home office divided by area of your home. Example:

Your Office= 10' X 10' = 100 square feet YOur home is 1000 square feet Your deduction = 100/1000 or 10%

2. Indirect Expenses -- with indirect expenses you will only be able to deduct area percentage (Note: use area percentage calculated above) of total cost. These indirect expenses would include such things as:

House payment Utilites Telephone Garbage collection Internet connection (If other people are using Intenet)

3. Direct Expenses -- these are expenses that relate only to your business.

Supplies Advertising Business account bank charges

Keeping Track of Expenses

To keep track of all your expenses. and you are comfortable working with a spreadsheet software, I would suggest purchasing a small business accounting package such as QuickBooks or Peachtree Accounting.

To conclude, this definitely is not an exhaustive list of what you need to know. However, this will give you a beginning as to what you will have to be aware of when starting a home-based business. As your business grows, your CPA will be able to assist you and keep you on straight and narrow to your success on Internet.