It’s a cloudy Monday morning here in the UK, and I often remind myself on days like this that five years ago I was joining commuters on the 30 minute morning drive to work, trying to wake myself up to face the day ahead, while the weekend faded away into oblivion.
These days my commute is somewhat shorter: from my bedroom to the spare room where I have my office. I can gently ease myself into Monday morning, and while I don’t sit at my computer in my pyjamas, I certainly don’t have to wear a smart suit and have perfect hair!
I became self employed just over four years ago, and despite set backs, some financial, I have not regretted it for one second. In the last year I discovered affiliate marketing and am happily building my business and looking forward to financial freedom in the not too distant future.
Today I have the Olympics running on one half of my computer while I’m typing, and I have an old school friend coming round for lunch.
Don’t be fooled, though. Working for yourself at home is hard work and discipline is needed to keep up the momentum. But I can honestly say I find it easier to get out of bed these mornings than I did five years ago! And if I need to catch up I can work in the evening, or get up an extra half hour earlier if necessary.
Working at home gives you flexibility and freedom. In these days of recession and work insecurity, it is certainly worth looking at self employment as an option. There are many choices available for the home worker - and you don’t have to put up a lot of money either.
If you’re fed up with Monday morning, why not contemplate a home business? It’s definitely one way of improving your Monday!
OK, before I start to answer the question, “What is MLM?” I need to define a few terms.
MLM is an acronym for Multi Level Marketing, and is a legal way of marketing products or services and earning a commission every time you, or someone you have referred, sells a product or refers a new marketer.
It’s also called affiliate marketing or network marketing, although there are subtle differences between the three.
A pyramid scheme involves no product and there is no legal marketing involved. It is purely exchange of money where the person at the top of the pyramid is supposed to make a profit. Pyramids usually collapse very quickly, and people at the bottom lose their money. They are illegal in most countries as far as I know.
Unfortunately, many people still distrust multi-level marketing or affiliate marketing because they associate them with pyramids. Even one of my own (free) affiliates emailed me the other day asking the question, “Isn’t this just a pyramid?”
I sighed inwardly, and then sent him a very nice email explaining the difference.
I also sent him to a website that explains all these definitions in full details and much better than I can in a short blog! The website is called FirstClassMLM and is run by Tim Sales. There is absolutely no hype on this website, and also no advertising or any call to sign-up with anything. It is purely informational and is full of excellent articles explaining all the questions you might have about mlms.
If you have the home business blues at the moment, it could be because it’s July. I read somewhere that this is quietest month of the year for affiliate marketing and if your business is less than a year old it can be a trying time, wondering whether things will ever pick up. Here are some tips for staying motivated with your home business during the quiet period.
Work on a project, such as an ebook, that will be ready to launch as soon as things pick up.
Remind yourself of the reasons you began your business. Think about your goals and the lifestyle you will have when your business is successful.
Remember that the work you do now, although it is not showing results at present, will pay off in future months - so don’t be tempted to take too long a holiday!
Get in touch with what you love about this business - rekindle the excitement you had when you started by listing all the things you enjoy about it.
Take a day off to review your business; set some new goals; plan a new project; brainstorm about how you can improve your traffic and make more sales.
Spring-clean your business. Cancel any newsletters that you never read, clear out your inbox folders, and consider cancelling any paid-for programs that are not working for you (making sure, of course, that you have done everything possible to make it work first)
Think of all the skills, interests and experience you have and how you can use them in your business.
Read some motivational books (there are some suggestions at the bottom of this post)
Read biographies of people who are successful. This is extremely motivating, because you will find that they have all come through difficult periods, and you are not alone!
Join some home business forums and share your feelings with other people.
Don’t listen to any negative thoughts you may have. Reality is something you create from your thoughts, so make sure you are creating something positive.
Above all, remember that in a few weeks things will begin to pick up so just hang on in there and don’t give up!
People in the affiliate marketing business often give up just before their business was about to take off. Don’t be one of these people. The most successful people in the world all had to get through tough times.
If you want more ways of staying motivated with your home business, I offer a special service for everyone who joins an affiliate program with me: a free motivational newsletter delivered to your inbox every 3 days. Go to my website for details.
People who wonder how to make extra money online often search for a quick and easy answer - and there are plenty of schemes out there that will give you a quick and easy answer - but unfortunately, these are the schemes (or scams) that will not deliver.
The truth (boring though it may be) is that the secret of making money online is up to you. You can join the best, highest-paying and most popular affiliate marketing program in the industry, but unless you are prepared to learn the skills of internet marketing, you will not get very far. No-one makes money for you - you have to do it yourself.
There is a word I have used in my title that is the key to online money-making success.
Yes - you spotted it. It’s the word, “learn”.
This may be off-putting for some but if you are serious about creating an online income, the only way is to learn what you need to do.
Yes, this takes time. There is no magic fix or quick solution. You have to take the time to find the teaching resources, apply what you have learned and continue to apply it until you start getting results.
But, on the other hand, the learning process is fun, and if you use the excellent online support systems that are available, you can meet lots of people that will help you achieve online success.
If you are thinking of earning money through an online affiliate program, you need one that will provide you with a good learning system, online support and easy-to-follow procecdures.
This is why I am always suggesting that newbies begin with the PlugInProfit Site, where you get all of the above and more.
I was a complete novice when I joined the PlugInProfit Site (or PIPS, as it is known by its members), but within 8 months I have learned the basics of internet marketing, learned how to personalise my website (that’s provided for you), improved my search engine rankings and rapidly increased the traffic to my website. I am on page 1 of Google for my chosen keywords and have many affiliates across six affiliate programs.
How did I do this? By following the training given to me. Not only does this program give you a step-by-step training system, but there is a members’ forum where you can get answers to any question AND there is an excellent PIPS mentoring group where you can get more intense and personalised training from six successful PIPS experts.
And as an added bonus, I have made many friends, developed new ideas to make my own business unique and have established a niche that I know will provide me with the income I need for years to come.
So, don’t expect to just join any affiliate program and make money magically out of thin air. You need a fully supportive training system that will help you to build a real business and give you the satisfaction of knowing that you have built your success yourself.
PlugInProfit will give you the groundwork. Applying it is up to you. Learnhow to make extra money online, then go out there and do it.
Running an affiliate marketing business can be tough at times, especially in the beginning. Many new affiliates give up early on, not through lack of practical or technical support - because there is plenty of this - but through lack of emotional or motivational support. As a life coach as well as an affiliate marketer myself, I really understand the importance of motivation when you are running a business from home. This is why I offer my affiliates self motivation tips when they sign up with me.
In affiliate marketing it is important that you give your downline as much support and encouragement that you can in order to help them be successful. I have gone one better than this and I do believe that what I am offering is quite unique amongst affiliate sponsors.
Every person who signs up for an affiliate program under me, has the opportunity to receive a FREE newsletter every 3 days full of motivational and inspirational tips. Most of these will be based on life coaching techniques, and will include goal-setting, self-belief, vision, positive thinking, time management and many more themes that will get you motivated and in the best possible mind-set to succeed.
Of course, there is a lot of support for the affiliate marketer. Most good programs have good practical training, and there are great forums where you can get technical advice and ask questions. However, I have not come across any system that provides ongoing and regular motivational support like this.
Basically, if you become my affiliate for any of the programs listed in my website, you will also be getting your own personal life coach for free, and delivered to your inbox every 3 days!
So if you’ve been putting off starting a home affiliate marketing business through lack of confidence or fear of failure, you can start right now and get self motivation tips that will help you to overcome your doubts and be set on the road to success. Just visit my website here and choose an affiliate program to get started with.
If you are considering starting a home based affiliate marketing business, you could do a lot worse than starting with Plug-in Profit. Earning money at home is not as easy as it sounds if you are new to the business, but this program gives the newbie a real “leg-up” on the affiliate marketing ladder and there is so much support available that you cannot lose as long as you put in the work.
To help you make the most of what Plug-in Profit (or PIPS) has to offer, I have made my own list of steps you need to take when getting started with PIPS. This is the advice I give to all my PIPS affiliates:
1. Set a budget. PIPS is free, but you do need to pay for the hosting of your website, which is $25 per month plus set-up fee. It is important that you decide before you start how much more you can afford. It may be that you can only afford the hosting fee for the moment - and that’s fine. You just need to be clear how much you will spend per month and then you will not be tempted to spend money you cannot afford.
2. Read the 30-Day Training. When you join PIPS, you also join up to six other programs which are promoted under the umbrella of your PIPS website. This means you will be receiving a lot of helpful emails from each program, which can lead to information overload! For the moment, all you need to focus on is the excellent step-by-step training you get from Stone Evans. It’s best to read it through once before taking action.
3. Choose Your Strategies. You DO NOT have to do all the things Stone suggests in his 30 day training. If you did, you would probably go over your budget and spread yourself too thin. Many people pick just a few ways of marketing and do very well. In fact, the free ways of marketing that are explained in the training are probably the most effective.
4. Join the Forum. One of the best factors of PIPS is your free membership to the PIPS members’ section of the Warrior Forum. I believe that being part of a forum is one of the most important parts of affiliate marketing. Here you will get support, advice and encouragement from people who are already successful, as well as the comaraderie of meeting other newbies like yourself who are just getting started. It is very wise to come to the forum for advice before you spend any money on anything.
5. Join the PipsPowerGroup. If you do have any spare money in your budget, I recommend that you use it to join this members’ group. It is run by six PIPS experts who are all earning a very good income from PIPS, and they will give you honest, personalised advice on how to get your business going. This program also has its own step-by-step program which starts where Stone’s training finishes.
6. Stay in touch with your sponsor and help your own affiliates. The person you sign-up under (that’ll be me if you sign up here today) is there to help you succeed as much as possible. This business is based on helping others to succeed and this works both ways. Allow your sponsor to help you, and in turn use what you have learned to teach your own affiliates. When they succeed, you do too.
If you join Plug-in Profit, and follow these six steps, you will be well on your way to building a successful affiliate marketing business, and within a year you will be earning money at home which will become a full time income and grow each year to provide you with the financial freedom you deserve.
For more information about PIPS and other programs, visit my website below.
The world of affiliate marketing can be a bewildering place when you are just getting started. Without a helping hand or proper guidelines, the novice can easily get trapped into paying for expensive marketing without really knowing what they are doing. If you are a novice in affiliate marketing, or are interested in getting started, here’s my list of essential first steps:
1. Set a budget. Decide, realistically, what you can afford to spend every month. Do not be tempted to go over this in the hope that you will get your money back quickly. This is the way to run up an enormous credit card bill and get yourself into debt quickly. Even if you can only spare a few dollars every month, that’s fine, as long as you know this and are prepared to keep within it. Making money takes time and you need to look after your finances before you get to this stage.
2. Get In Communication with Your Sponsor. I am often amazed at how many of my affiliates just don’t seem to want to communicate. Unfortunately, these are the ones that pull out a few months down the line. This may be a business that you work at alone, but you don’t have to BE alone, and everyone needs support. If you get a welcome email from your sponsor, reply and tell them what your goals are. It’s quite possible that your sponsor is an expert and will be able to help you build your business without falling into any of the traps that they will have experienced.
Sadly, there are some sponsors who do not communicate with their downline! This is madness. Affiliate marketing is all about helping your downline, because when they succeed, you do. If you are unfortunate enough to have signed up with an uncommunicative sponsor, then don’t despair! Step #3 is the next best thing for getting support and encouragement.
3. Use Forums Most good affiliate programs will have their own forum. Join this. If it doesn’t have a forum, join some general internet marketing forums such as Conquer Your Niche, or the Warrior Forum. Many people who use these forums are experienced internet marketers and are usually very helpful if you have any questions or need some support.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to communicate with other people in this business. Doing this on your own is extremely difficult - you need guidance and positive input. By interacting with other people you can also have fun and make new friends all round the world. I certainly have.
4. Learn, learn, learn. Use any training your program gives you, ask your sponsor, ask in the forum. Try not to learn too many things at once - you will feel overloaded. Take it one step at a time. Learn one thing thoroughly, put it into action and then go onto the next step.
Above all, it is important that you learn that this business is a real business that takes time and effort to build. However, it has many advantages over other businesses because it’s easy to start and you don’t have to have a huge capital.
Novice affiliate marketing is an exciting time, and if you are still looking for some excellent money making ideas, have a look at my website here. As your personal sponsor, I won’t let you down.
There are many reasons why people choose to or even have to stay at home during the day, and with the growth of the internet it is now easy to start a home business for those who want to or need to stay at home. However, starting a business is the easy bit. If you want to know how to make money staying at home, read on.
You will need the following.
1. A product. This does not have to be your own product and it does not have to be a physical thing. A service is also a product. A product is anything that you have the right to sell. If you can make something, you can sell that, if you have a skill, you can sell that. Or you can sell other people’s products through affiliate marketing.
2. An internet presence. This can be in the form of a website, a web page or a landing page. This is not necessarily the point of sale. Most often the most effective way of marketing your product is to get the contact information of your visitors and then send them information (see below). A website is the best way of doing this, but many affiliate marketing programs provide you with web pages and landing pages, and some will even provide your own website. On all of these you will need links for capturing your visitors’ contact details, or to a sales page.
3.An autoresponder. When your visitors provide their email addresses, this information needs to be automatically sent to an autoresponder which will send out your newsletters for you. I use GetResponse which is very easy to use, but there are plenty of others if you want to shop around.
You will need to set up a series of 5-10 messages that will be sent to your subscribers on a regular basis, and will build your authority and trustworthiness. You may not even want to mention your product in the first two or three messages; instead, you are providing them with useful information or advice that will give you credibility. When you do come to mention your product, they will be more ready to buy.
4.A Blog. Blogging is one of the most important aspects of internet marketing. It attracts traffic to your website or pages and gives helps to build your authority on your given subject. You can also direct your autoresponder subscribers to your blog so they are getting extra value.
These are the most important things you need to get started. Once you have established your product, a website or page, an autoresponder and a blog, you need to consistently work on them.
You need to work on getting traffic to your website through optimizing your website using keywords, getting backlinks by getting your website linked on other sites, using pay-per-click advertising, blogging and article writing, social bookmarking, posting in forums and free and paid-for advertising.
If you are serious about running a home business, the process given above is essential if you are to succeed with an online business.
With affiliate marketing the process can be a lot easier because you don’t have to create a product yourself - and with most good companies you will get free training in how to make money staying at home with an online business.
Many people are put off starting an online home business because they believe most of them to be scams. In fact, a very small number of opportunities you will see on the internet are truly fraudulent. However, you will find perfectly legitimate affiliate companies given bad press from time to time. Why? Negative statements are often made about companies because the writer or speaker has had a personal “bad” experience with them. This is often not the fault of the program, but of the member who has not realised that any online business should be treated like a real business, not a “get rich quick” scheme. People who join a legitimate affiliate marketing program expecting to make lots of money for doing nothing get disillusioned quickly, give up and blame the company.
So, if the accusations are not all true, how do you avoid the real internet business scams?
Here are my tips for starting an online business without getting mugged!
1. Take your time in choosing your programs. I know I am guilty of the occasional “knee jerk” reaction to a piece of clever advertising. Your mind is blown by what the advert promises, you feel excited, you HAVE to have it - and suddenly you’ve clicked all the buttons, got your credit card out and hey presto, you are several dollars lighter. If you’re lucky, you might have joined a really good program - but please don’t rely on luck! Shop around - look for the programs that you like, and make a note of them for later.
2. Avoid any program that makes claims that you can get rich quick without spending any money or doing any work. This simply isn’t logical. Whilst you can start up an online business with a very small budget, you will have to spend something - and you will also need to be prepared to give it time and effort.
3. Do some research. You could do a google search for the program you are thinking of joining, but the trouble with this is that you will probably end up on another piece of advertising. Not that there’s anything wrong with advertising - but I do advise you to find a more balanced viewpoint (and don’t read to any hysterical “they’re all scams!” kind of posts either!). No - the best way to do your research is to find some internet marketing forums, join and then ask people in the forum. The reason why this is better than using the search engines is that people in forums are not allowed to openly advertise their own affiliate programs in their posts. Most people who use these forums will give you honest answers. Look at how many posts each individual has made overall, and trust the ones who have been there a long time - they are the eperts, they’ll know what they are talking about.
4. When you’ve met a few people you like on a forum, you might want to have a look at their website. Most people who are experienced in internet marketing have several income streams and will give useful information, reviews and advice on their websites. If you join an affiliate scheme through the website of someone you trust, that person will then be your sponsor, so you are going to be off to a good start.
If you follow these four steps, you should then have a good idea of the programs that are legitimate that you want to join. The thing to do then is to take action. Develop a good relationship with your sponsor and get as much training as you can.
Avoiding internet business scams really is that simple. Good luck, and don’t forget to have fun!
Ros Bott
To find lots of legitimate home based business ideas, go to Financial Freedom Online. Or why not start off with a program that gives you six income streams? The PlugInProfit site gives you excellent training and a great forum.
No matter what people say about affiliate marketing, my belief is that it will become the global marketing system of the future.
While some people might throw up their hands in horror at this thought, I know that many of my colleagues and fellow affiliate marketers will nod their heads sagely, knowing that it makes sense.
Let’s just for a moment deal with the issues that put people off:
Hype. Yes, at present there is still a lot of “hype” marketing with overblown promises and exaggerated facts. Personally, I am not a huge fan of any advertising that lacks integrity, and I think, in the long run, it damages the industry. However, I do believe that if you are intelligent enough keep an open mind and see beyond the hyperbole you will reconise the basic business model of affiliate marketing is very clever indeed.
Scams. For various reasons (and partly, I think, due to erroneous assocations in the public mind with pyramid schemes) the industry suffers from some people’s fear of being scammed. In fact, I have read a comment about affiliate marketing where someone said “all of these programs are scams”. For some reason, the industry has received bad press in the past because of one or two companies that have achieved public notoriety, which has coloured the whole industry. It always seems strange to me that this doesn’t seem to happen in any other industry. I mean, if we read in the newspaper that a certain telephone company has been involved in some shady deals, does that mean that we stop using all telephone companies and never use the phone again? No. All industries contain fraudulent members - but that is an unfortunate fact of life and should not have an effect on all other companies in that industry. Like any other industry, the vast majority of affiliate marketing companies are legitimate, honest and interested in the success of their members. Besides, most scams require the “scammee” paying out vast sums of money. Very few affiliate marketing companies require large joining fees or subscriptions. A $10 per month fee is hardly the robbery of the century.
Failure Rate. If you do any research on affiliate marketing you will sooner or later come across this statistic: that 95% of affiliate marketers fail. I admit, it does look like a depressing figure. However, as most intelligent people realise, statistics can be extremely misleading. One of the reasons why this figure is so high is because of the vast number of people who enter into this business without any commitment. This is partly due to the fact that it is a very easy business to join - the outlay is small and all you need is a computer. This has lead a great many people to believe that making the money is easy too, so they join, pay their fee, sit back and wait for something to happen. These are the people who “fail”. I believe that if those statistics took only serious affiliate marketers into consideration - those who are prepared to treat their business like a business, work hard with passion and determination - those figures would show a completely different story.
So, having got those out of the way, why is affiliate marketing one of the best global marketing systems?
Well, once we’ve peeled away all the nonsense that surrounds the industry (as I have detailed above), we are really left with two things:
1. It’s a very basic and effective way of marketing. When we really like a product or a service, don’t we like to tell our friends about it? If we are excited about a system that really works, don’t we want to tell the world? In the “normal” world, we might do this and not get paid for it. Affiliate marketing takes the most natural and effective form of marketing in the world, word of mouth, and pays the people who spread the word. To me this is just common sense!
2. It’s about helping others. Unlike most marketing systems, which is all about helping the company and those people right at the top, affiliate marketing is about helping all those who join. The more you help your own affiliates to succeed, the more successful you are. Being a life coach (which is all about helping people), I just love this part of affiliate marketing. And it seems to be the fairest way of marketing of all.
I truly hope that in the future the suspicions and fear surrounding this industry will fall away and affiliate marketing will be acknowledged as the most sensible business model of the future.
In fact, large companies are already recognising the power of affiliate marketing. Amazon, Ancestry.com and many other large internet-based companies have affiliate schemes that pay their enthusiastic members.
This is good news for the industry. If companies now look at potential global marketing systems, affiliate marketing is going to be top of the list. It can only grow from here.
I am a writer and part-time life coach living in the UK.
I have been interested in personal development for many years and I am passionate about the power of positive thought and the law of attraction. I know, through experience, that we create whatever we believe in.
I started in network marketing towards the end of 2007, and I love the amount of support and motivational material there is available for people in this business, if they are prepared to look.
My main interest is history - particularly family history, and I write novels that usually have a historical twist.
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I am a writer and part-time life coach living in the UK.
I have been interested in personal development for many years and I am passionate about the power of positive thought and the law of attraction. I know, through experience, that we create whatever we believe in.
I started in network marketing towards the end of 2007, and I love the amount of support and motivational material there is available for people in this business, if they are prepared to look.
My main interest is history - particularly family history, and I write novels that usually have a historical twist.
