Most people know affiliate marketing (AM) is not fastlane. Sure, you can make passive income but you have little control. It’s not even a business. However, it is a great way to start off learning about Ecommerce, but a bad place to ‘finish.’
Pros of AM
1) Very very cheap running costs for a beginner
a. You don’t own the product or distribute it (for a real biz, this is bad!)
b. All you have to do is set up a website and post links. When people buy the link through your product, you get passive income
2) You can learn almost everything about the way a real business works (I think…)
a. Set up a website, logo, branding
b. Marketing is the same
3) It doesn’t take long to test your idea for failure/success
a. I started learning code in February. I made my website and failed out of it in 3 months (including the entire time it took to learn 4-5 coding languages)
b. I just decided my second website was a bust. This only took one month including programming and advertising.
Cons of AM
1) Fails the commandments of Control and Entry.
a. You have no control of the affiliate program. It’s not your product!
b. There are too many people doing it. It violates the law of entry. It isn’t that hard to set up an affiliate website
2) Lack of motivation
a. You are working on somebody else’s dream. Are you really going to have the desire to promote somebody else’s product?
3) AM isn’t going to be a long term $$ stream to get you out of your full time job
a. The margins are extremely low
The reason why I failed
I was sure that my second website was fail proof to make at least a few bucks (Deep down that’s all I wanted). I didn’t make anything **update: I literally just had one item ordered through my link**. But I only recently advertised less than half my 100 bucks on Bing ads. I could make money eventually but it would be a waste of time. The reason why I failed is because I didn’t care. I didn’t love the idea. My market was the hair loss industry. There is a huge need for that. I’m losing my hair so I thought I had a commonality to relate to customers. I HATE this industry. I’m going to shave my head anyway so I don’t care about the products. I just wanted to make balding people feel vulnerable to buy my product. And I don’t actually want to do that. It is such a pathetic industry that I didn’t share what I was doing with many people.
When I realized that the margins were too low, I knew the longer I spent doing this, the more time I would be spending at my full time office job.
The only thing I could think about was my ‘million dollar’ manufacturing idea that I wanted to execute—my background. By 'million dollar' I mean something that I would want to sell at least a million times.
Something that I could control and use to get out of my office job TO LIVE THE LIFE I WANT.
Questions to ask yourself before starting a REAL business
Why you pursue something is equally as important as what you pursue.
What is the competition like?
How much would you be willing to fight the competition?
Would you share your product with everybody?
Would you post your product on your own Facebook page?
Do you absolutely LOVE the idea? Or do you think you can make a few quick bucks?
Is this a ‘million’ dollar idea or a cheap AM idea?
Is this new idea going to get you out of your full time job?
How long is it going to take to test your idea?
What is your Pros vs Cons list for this idea?
This business could take a year to grow to see any good returns. Are you willing to commit to this timeline?
Pros of AM
1) Very very cheap running costs for a beginner
a. You don’t own the product or distribute it (for a real biz, this is bad!)
b. All you have to do is set up a website and post links. When people buy the link through your product, you get passive income
2) You can learn almost everything about the way a real business works (I think…)
a. Set up a website, logo, branding
b. Marketing is the same
3) It doesn’t take long to test your idea for failure/success
a. I started learning code in February. I made my website and failed out of it in 3 months (including the entire time it took to learn 4-5 coding languages)
b. I just decided my second website was a bust. This only took one month including programming and advertising.
Cons of AM
1) Fails the commandments of Control and Entry.
a. You have no control of the affiliate program. It’s not your product!
b. There are too many people doing it. It violates the law of entry. It isn’t that hard to set up an affiliate website
2) Lack of motivation
a. You are working on somebody else’s dream. Are you really going to have the desire to promote somebody else’s product?
3) AM isn’t going to be a long term $$ stream to get you out of your full time job
a. The margins are extremely low
The reason why I failed
I was sure that my second website was fail proof to make at least a few bucks (Deep down that’s all I wanted). I didn’t make anything **update: I literally just had one item ordered through my link**. But I only recently advertised less than half my 100 bucks on Bing ads. I could make money eventually but it would be a waste of time. The reason why I failed is because I didn’t care. I didn’t love the idea. My market was the hair loss industry. There is a huge need for that. I’m losing my hair so I thought I had a commonality to relate to customers. I HATE this industry. I’m going to shave my head anyway so I don’t care about the products. I just wanted to make balding people feel vulnerable to buy my product. And I don’t actually want to do that. It is such a pathetic industry that I didn’t share what I was doing with many people.
When I realized that the margins were too low, I knew the longer I spent doing this, the more time I would be spending at my full time office job.
The only thing I could think about was my ‘million dollar’ manufacturing idea that I wanted to execute—my background. By 'million dollar' I mean something that I would want to sell at least a million times.
Something that I could control and use to get out of my office job TO LIVE THE LIFE I WANT.
Questions to ask yourself before starting a REAL business
Why you pursue something is equally as important as what you pursue.
What is the competition like?
How much would you be willing to fight the competition?
Would you share your product with everybody?
Would you post your product on your own Facebook page?
Do you absolutely LOVE the idea? Or do you think you can make a few quick bucks?
Is this a ‘million’ dollar idea or a cheap AM idea?
Is this new idea going to get you out of your full time job?
How long is it going to take to test your idea?
What is your Pros vs Cons list for this idea?
This business could take a year to grow to see any good returns. Are you willing to commit to this timeline?
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