How to Learn Affiliate Marketing 101
If you are anything like me, the words “make money from home”, “home based business”, and “internet business” cause immediate scepticism and eye rolls. We all are being bombarded on a daily basis by businesses, systems, techniques and all forms of propaganda about making money on-line. We hear far more often of the systems that fail than the one that succeed. We all are tired of all the ones that do NOT work. But, do any on-line businesses succeed at all? I doubted. So I started to investigate some offers on the internet.
Opportunities
The amount of offered opportunities is tremendous, as I soon found out. I immediately was thinking: "OMG, this will take the average opportunity seeker for ages, to go through these amounts of information". I think, if you want to have an on-line business, than you at least need to know about what it is and what it can mean for you. And you always need to compare it to several other offers, is it not? The first one you consider is not necessarily the best one (for you). Looking at how many opportunities there are (just google the words "home based business"and you see what I mean: around 500 MILLION PAGES are reported to cover that subject). I would say basically it is undo able to really investigate offers, since it will take a life time to only try to find the right one this way.
Back to the Basics
And I apologize because this is what I should have done in the first place. Me to Me: "IF I want an on-line business, Which one I will earn money with? Aha, better start, I think. So now I can try to find out what kind of on-line businesses would be available and what would be interesting for me. Googling On-line Business Opportunities does not help much (more than 1 BILLION pages). Now what? Quit? Never, I really want to become independent, work from home and don't have a boss. Motivation helps, I start to think for myself and make a list of possible on-line businesses:
1. Selling your own products 2. Selling someone else's products 3. Offering services 4. Don’t know yet but probably a lot more
Oke, now I focus on these first three first. I don't have my own product, so no that skips. Number 2 could be considered? Well, perhaps, worth looking into, at least. And finally, Offering Services. This is also a maybe for me. Now I know how difficult it is to find good on-line business opportunities, but I am learning and why not help people in a later stage with my knowledge too (for a price, of course)?
Opportunities (next stage)
Right, I decide to go first for number 2. I am not a salesmen, as a matter of fact I hate the idea to have to phone someone I don't know trying to sell something. So I have my doubts but yet again, at least it is worth looking into. And investigating I did. Jeez, it takes enormous amounts of time to do this. After several months work in my spare time, I finally had the basics discovered to decide IF: a. there is anything interesting for me at all in on-line business and b. what road should I follow? To make it short, and this in no way is meant to discourage you, just to get you SCEPTICAL: the first thing I found out that 95% of the on-line opportunity seekers DON'T succeed. Actually they only lose money, after signing up for whatever possibility. That seems at least not very encouraging. As I am an optimist, I said to myself: what the heck, this also means that 5% DO succeed! Compare it to the famous way of thinking: Is the glass half full (optimist), or is it half empty (pessimist). Right, What to do now? Well, I belief it can be certainly worthwhile selling other peoples products, by promoting their products and earning a commission. They call it Affiliate Marketing (google it: 57 MILLION pages). Now is this IT? Yes, I decide to explore it further (57 million is much less than 1 billion :-)).
Affiliate Marketing (or: Selling someone else’s products)
“As I discovered the secrets shared, and learned how the business works, I was stunned. It made sense. It was true. It worked, and will work.”. That is what I dreamt and thought about, night after night after night, day after day after day. That is what I was thinking about day after day after day. Well, again I face an unbelievable amount of information, opportunities and opinions to look into. But finally, after 18 months of research, it is clear that Niche Affiliate Marketing ((Niche means: focussing on a smaller part of the general market, for instance: General is: Golf (google: 500 million + pages), Niche could be: Golf Balls (google: almost 15 million pages, but a better Niche would be: Personalized Golf Balls (500.000 pages)) is likely the best business to get into as a starting on-line entrepreneur. You can promote products (and when there is a sale: get a commission) from almost every on-line company in the world, this includes for instance Amazon and many others. I thought: if these companies offer to join their "affiliate marketing" program, then it had to be a possibility to make money online, would it not? Yes, PERHAPS, but how to do it so, that I actually earn money. And if that is accomplished than next is: How to earn enough money I need to live. And then the final step: Earn so much money to become FINANCIALLY INDEPENDANT (the ultimate goal, don't you agree?). I am facing now yet another learning curve, since offers to promote from others (affiliate marketing) google 58 million results. Now one thing I have learned being an off-line entrepreneur for almost 25 years is that I DON'T want to reinvent the wheel, I rather choose to learn from those who already have proven success, and want to teach us starters how they did it. (Some say they are generally called: GURU'S).
Guru’s
Wikipedia on Guru (just kidding, this is my own definition): “The people who are (or feel they should be) considered as real and proven successful experts in the field of knowledge they want to teach to others." OK, finding a Guru/Expert is the way to find someone who can teach me and you to become really successful in my on-line business. I felt for sure, this is the right choice:Niche Affiliate Marketing is my future on-line business, so I started to search for "Guru's", the real Experts in this field of expertise.
I am disappointed, again, to say the least. This is my personal opinion, guys, so don't hang me if you disagree, but fact is: I found that the 'gurus' or "Experts" were selling the same ideas in different forms but who never gave me enough information to start making real money. Anywayt, again, 95% of them :-). Like always there are some really good, impressive, outstanding coaches (Guru's) that can teach you all there is to know about Niche Affiliate Marketing. And yes, finaly I found some good ones, and yes, I am starting to earn money with Niche Affiliate Marketing. So I know now:
Niche Affiliate Marketing
WORKS. BUT……. There are many things to learn (the best is to find a good coaching program, IMO), this is certainly NOT a Get-Rich-Quick-Scheme, like any off-line business you need to learn and work hard to earn.
Conclusion
So to recap my initial question: Do any on-line businesses succeed at all? Definitely: YES, ……. BUT…….. I think if YOU want to succeed on the internet, you should choose to do so in Niche Affiliate Marketing. That is my honest opinion. But in the end it is your choice of course. Be always very sceptic on all offers you want to look at, and do that BEFORE you pay, even if there is a money back guarantee (much income is earned from people who sign up for something, don't do anything with it and forgot about the possible reimbursement). Be aware of the fact, even if you are already an expert in your field, there is lots of things you need to learn to become successful on-line. Even IF you use a Guru/Expert. And I certainly recommend a Guru, but yet again, there are only a few people who are really successful on-line and even much and much less really good Guru's who can teach you to become successful. So watch out who you choose as your mentor! Be always SCEPTICAL!
If you want to get a totally free report and audio cd from my personal "Guru" Darren, whom I certainly know to be a true source of knowledge to become successful on-line, now's your chance. You can get the same report that changed my entire life for free right here: http://www.LearnTrafficBlitz.com It is Free because you need to decide yourself if this is what you really want before you commit yourself financially or otherwise. Be and Stay a Sceptic!
