affiliate-centre-sfi.pngSFI (strong future international) Affiliate Program claims to be able to teach you everything you need to know about making money online from affiliate programs for free. They even go so far as to claim that their system is so successful that 8000 new affiliates sign up each week. Those are pretty massive claims but will they prove to be true under close inspection?

The background
SFI were launched in 1998 and have a solid reputation. There is no question of them being an Internet scam. They have 10s of 1000s of affiliates and are one of (if not the) largest affiliate networks in the world.

SFI Basics

1. Send traffic to your free SFI ‘gateway’ site, which has the product(s) you are selling. This is similar to the Amazon e-store, only commission rates are far higher.
2. Refer new affiliates.

Alternatively if you have your own site you can use it to do both.

Payment Details

  • SFI is open to 200 different countries and all payments are in USD.
  • Affiliate payments are usually paid by check and sent out monthly
  • The minimum payout is $8.

    • SFI’s step-by-step Guides
    SFI begin to fulfil their tuition promise from the very start. They have you fill in a short form informing SFI of your level of experience (SFI caters for all levels). SFI use this info later to create your ‘success strategy’.

    If you like using simple step-by-step guides you will get on well with SFI, if not, you can always skip them! I did a bit of both judging whether some of the stages were necessary from their title (nothing terrible happens if you miss anything!).

    The first guide
    At first there is a ‘getting started’ step-by-step guide. If you have joined up to any affiliate programs before you would probably go through these stages without anyone even asking you to. Skimming down the stages basic terminology is explained.

    This stage presents you with a few taster articles teaching beginner, Intermediate and Advanced promotion methods for getting affiliates. When you reach the main section a huge amount of resources becomes available to you.

    If their articles were posted on a blog, it would defiantly be one I would read. They give general advice as well as more specific advice, which can be applied to any online endeavour. E.g. “Write Powerful, Eye-Catching Headlines For Your Products” was the subheading for a paragraph.

    affiliate-sfi.png
    The Action List
    SFI creates an ‘action list’ for you, which you can compete in your own time.
    It includes things like:

  • Add your business signature to your outgoing e-mail (worth doing for all affiliate programs)
  • Read over SFI General Rules & Policies page.
  • Add your photo to the Affiliate Centre.
  • Enter a special welcome message to greet your new affiliates (with advice on how to create a great welcome message).

    • At the bottom of the action list there are 11 training articles available to read. It was about this stage that I started to think they really do provide full training.

    Personalised help
    After those articles there is a ’success strategy’ and a ‘goal review’ using the info from the questionnaire you filled out at the beginning. There’s also a ‘my resources section’, which lists 10 more pages to read and learn from. These pages are not filled with junk, all of the articles (which are very similar in style to a blog post) contain useful advice.

    In addition to all these main sections, in the sidebar are things like ‘question of the week, tip of the week, suggestion box and testimonials from members.

    whale-beast.pngInto the Belly of the Beast
    Once you reach the main site there is a training area of 52 courses (new courses added each week). There are seemingly endless ‘must-read expert reports’. I found the amount of training information is both daunting and very impressive. It is all grouped in the correct category which helps make it more manageable.

    What’s the Catch?
    With most affiliate programs similar to SFI there is normally some sort of ‘upgrade’ option, which involves you paying out for some extras, which will only benefit you if you are extremely committed to the program.

    Thankfully this is not the case with SFI. I am pleased to say that becoming an ‘Executive Affiliate’ can be (I hate saying ‘can be’!) free of a monetary cost.

    What Executives get:

  • Retail sale commissions double from 30% to 60%!
  • Free access to SFI’s VIP business-builder tools like Co-op Manager, Hit Tracking, Eagle Co-op, Key Codes, and lots more
  • Other bonuses (they throw a load of big percentages at you)
  • Free group messaging. Send messages, newsletters or training articles to your downline of referred affiliates.

    • What you give to ‘go executive’:
    You need to generate 10SVP (sales volume points) at any time during a month. You can get SVP in any combination of these 3 ways:

    1. Personal Purchases (buying SFI products which you could resell)
    2. Retail Sales (normal sales, to people who are not SFI affiliates or yourself)
    3. NOC Coupons (personal usage).

    “SFI division NiceOffers.com (NOC) features hundreds of money-saving coupons. Each coupon has an SVP value assigned to it. To earn EA status, simply use one or more coupons worth at least 10 SVP during the month. By using coupons on products and services you’re already buying, you can attain EA status without any additional expense to your budget (while actually SAVING money!).”

    This basically means if you buy products with using the NOC money off coupons and you will earn SVP, so there is a monetary cost there, however you only have to make a few retail sales to make the 10SVP

    Commission Tiers

  • Affiliates earn 30% of the product’s CV for each retail sale.
  • EAs earn double that percentage, or 60% of the product’s CV.
  • TLs earn 80% of the product’s CV.

    • What about the Products!?
    There are a good spread of products to sell, not a huge spread like Amazon, but enough. Selling products combined with being able to refer new affiliates gives you plenty to do.

    Products:

    - Business Tools
    - Magazines
    - Tech Services
    - Pet Care
    - Music
    - Books
    - Natural Cleaning
    - Wellness and Weight Loss

    Affiliate Income Streams
    There are “6 exiting income streams” all of which you can “tap into”. They involve different referral options, where the numbers of affiliates you think you will refer will affects which compensation plan you chose. This section is important and lengthy enough to warrant an entirely separate review, which I will post in the near future.

    Marketing Aids
    SFI provide you with Banners, flyers, and other advertising tools you can use to promote the SFI products and/or it’s affiliate program. Not to mention the information in the articles!

    Other features

  • There is an input section were you can submit suggestions testimonials or bug reports.
  • The SFI leaders page has a presidents club (who knows what they do in there!)
  • The help centre does exactly what you would expect it to do.
  • Affiliate Tracking wise there are detailed business reports of sales and affiliate signups.

    • faq-sfi.pngThe FAQ
    I was impressed with the thorough ‘getting started FAQ’ where it addresses get-rich-quick schemes:

    “Is SFI just another “get-rich-quick” scheme?

    A.”Get-rich-quick” is a fairy tale. If overnight riches are your dream, your odds are probably better playing the lottery than running a business—any business. We’re sorry, but we won’t insult your intelligence with promises of overnight wealth.”

    Is there anything bad about SFI?
    My main criticism is that the landing page the affiliate link sends potential affiliates to has no links to the main SFI site and has a general lack of information. When I first looked at it I was actually very doubtful about the program. There are members testimonials, but not enough information in my opinion.

    What made this worse was that upon signing up I was greeted with this message (see below):

    affiliate-programs-sfi.png
    When I first read that it was pretty annoying, I didn’t want to complete some course! It did turn out to be easy and not a problem, but new affiliates may want to turn away at that point.

    Conclusion
    This is by far and away the longest review on this site and I am very pleased that it has not been to no avail. SFI has made it with flying colours into my recommended affiliate programs section!. It made it because of these key factors

  • High commission rates
  • Lots of help and advice given
  • Good range of products
  • Strong brand name and reputation

    • SFI is not the sort of affiliate program you have a little look at and make a few quick bucks and then get bored and give up. It is for people who are serious about make money online with a well paying and system. It is attractive to all levels of affiliate marketer, apart from those who are not ready to commit.

    Look forward to SFI updates and an in-depth look at their affiliate income streams.

    Sign up to SFI Affilliate Program

    Update!
    You can now read my Explanation of SFI Commission Options