I can't believe the amount of people who say that they are 'entrepreneurs' with their own 'online business', but who treat it just like a 'hobby' or a 'game' to fit inbetween their other leisure activities.
Before the advent of the Internet, a business required a massive investment to get started. People would think in terms of at least 3-5 years before they recovered what they had paid out, and were making a profit.
Nowadays you can start an online 'business' for next to nothing, but for some reason people expect to make a profit from it immediately, and are then disappointed when it doesn't happen.
If only people could put in the same level of commitment, as they would if they had spent tens of thousands of dollars setting up an offline business, then far more people would be successful.
If only people could stop thinking of their online business as if it were a lottery ticket. There are no instant winnings, and instant gratification.
And don't forget the fact that most people with a lottery ticket are losers!
Success is not easy. It takes time, but the rewards you eventually receive are worth far more than any lottery win!
No one successful ever said it was easy. And if people do say it is easy then they are lying!
As you probably know, most people start off trying to make money online, by signing up with an affiliate program.
An affiliate program allows anyone at all to start up a business for virtually nothing.
But just because it is so easy, and free, to sign up for an affiliate program, it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that there is no work involved either, or to believe that you will never experience problems like you do with any other business.
Most people also think that because they have a great looking affiliate website, then that is all they need.
Yet 95% of people fail with their affiliate sites. Why do you think that is?
I would say that the fact that it cost them nothing to get started accounts for a lot of it!
At the first hurdle they come across, most people give up. It cost them nothing, so it is easy to walk away, because they will have lost nothing.
On the other hand, someone who had invested $100,000 in their business will fight tooth and nail to make their business work!
They will find solutions to problems, they will approach things a different way, do whatever is necessary, until it does work, rather than give up, because they have invested too much to lose it all.
So if you want to know the correct approach to making a success of your affiliate business, it is to imagine that it cost you $100,000 to get started!
Imagine if you had to use your life savings, mortgage your home, or borrow from the bank to start up, then you would have a completely different attitude to begin with.
If you can imagine that every month you are paying back as much as you can possibly afford to the bank for your business, and then you really use this money as your advertising and promotion budget, then you will see your business grow dramatically!
Use some of your budget to get your own website. This is essential, to have you own unique site, and you can have links to all of your different programs.
And follow advice!
If you had really invested $100,000 in your online business, then you would be more inclined to take advice from people who had already become successful.
And the advise you will get from all the experts is that virtually all your efforts should go into promoting your own newsletter, not in promoting your affiliate site directly. Everyone agrees that '..the money is in the list..'
Encourage people to subscribe to it, by offering freebies, and incentives if they do subscribe.
In every newsletter, you keep telling people about your programs, and eventually they will buy something from you!
Think long term investment. Not short term. You could send a few thousand people to your one affiliate website, and you might, if you are lucky, make a bit of money. But having that same amount of people on your subscriber list will eventually make you rich!
