A Bold Big Step

Quote of the Day:

In life, the first thing you must do is decide what you really want. Weigh the costs and the results. Are the results worthy of the costs? Then make up your mind completely and go after your goal with all your might.

Alfred A. Montapert

Today I will expand a bit on making extra money with the assumption that some folks would not mind making money via some sort market based system. One such system is:

Affiliate Marketing

One of the easiest ways to earn home-based extra income is through what is commonly called affiliate marketing. With these programs you can choose the product you wish to be associated with and to sell. Normally these companies provide you with a free website, called a gateway website. These sites give you a no cost promotion tool to generate prospective customer. Once directed to these to these sites customers can find out about and hopefully buy your product. These affiliate companies’ do the heavy lifting, they take care of processing the orders, handling payments and any customer problems that might come up. You simply promote your site and the rest is done for you. One special note, when choosing a company to partner up with make sure you are getting commissions from 35% to 75%. Normally there are different tiers of commissions. The rule is, the more you sell the more you make. When the checks come in you have the hard job of cashing them.


As an aside, don’t worry just yet if you don’t have your own website. That will be a future step and for those interested I can help you out by covering the topic in a future issue or you can contact me.


For a technical explanation of affiliate marketing check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing

• Some things you want to check out.


• We are all about saving and making money, so make sure that you can participate in your chosen program for free or a very low price for as long as you want.


• There should be no long-term agreement that traps you in something you might find out is not for you.


• Are you provided with a personalized website for FREE. There should never be a fee for a company gateway webpage.


• Is there a mentoring system or at least a responsive Q&A system?


• Make sure the company handles shipping, at least to your location. The company should handle customer service, returns, and other problems. (Some organizations have you take care of payments; while others do not, this is up to you. Both are legit)


• Is marketing local, regional or international. This choice will impact later decisions about advertising and promotion.


• Does the company have a good reputation and a physical location if you are dealing with tangible goods? There are forums, websites, and the BBB you can check with. Just remember when running into complaints. Read them knowing that some legit companies get their share of complaints simply because some people are not willing to put in the work. Some folks are just looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.


• Is there training?


• Is your future income tied to residual or onetime sales? This is a fundamental concern. It will be up to you to make this call. There are pros and cons on both sides. One-time commissions tend to be higher while residual lower but are repeated over time if the customer is retained.


• Is it simple for you to do? I am not saying easy; get over it, nothing is easy. But if it is understandable by you and you can see yourself trying it, I say go for it.


• Do they pay regularly? Once established as an active member you should be getting paid at least once a month. Many pay weekly once you reach a certain point in an organization. As long as the checks cash it’s all good in my book.

In conclusion, affiliate programs; sometimes called MLM for multilevel marketing is the easiest and most affordable way to start your own business. We will be discussing this and other endeavors as we go along in this blog. Blog at ya next time

MoonLighting

One of the things we can do with this extra money we are making is to set ourselves up to make more. Many Americans rank as a top desire: having a business of ones own. The economy lately is giving no guarantees of security so why not have a back up plan. Now I am not suggesting giving up your ‘day job’. On the contrary, as with most of our ideas so far they have been of the slow and steady variety. You always want to be able to keep the paychecks coming to pay those nagging day-to-day expenses. What I am suggesting is a sideline business, ‘Moonlighting’ as it is often referred to. Who knows, maybe one day when you have a nice steady flow of extra income it can become a primary income. But for the time being lets think sideline.

As I explored in the last issue, it helps to know what you want out of life, or at least what you think you might want. I must caution against waiting for all things to be perfect before you decide to pursue a sideline. If you put off till that elusive spare time shows up this might never happen. What you need before hand is a plan, and you have to get a bit specific about it. I can almost assure you that ‘No Timetable’ = ‘No Start’. It just won’t happen. One does not have to get all Harvard Business School about this so don’t let it scare you. We will create a reasonable plan, a ’to do list’, with steps to tackle with due dates for each. Most people can simply consider their TV watching schedule and replace (at least partially) some watching time to start getting things done. Then work on them one at a time. You can always get up a bit earlier on your weekends or stay up late a bit more. It depends on if you are a morning person or night owl. If you have long commutes you might use this time to listen to educational material or dictate your plans and ideas into a recorder. (As long as you don’t get absent minded about your driving)These will be some of the tools you need to find to get started. So think on it, where can you honestly secret some time away for making your life better? This is actually always the first step and when skipped allows others things to take over any hope of making a start on a business of your own.

One of the best fits for a sideline business is the home-based service business like the virtual assistant we discussed in earlier issues. Ecommerce and affiliate businesses are also a great fit. Making your own products could also be your course. We will get into some of this next issue.

One of the great myths about starting your own business is that you are not smart enough to run you own business. This is just self-doubt, it is destructive and not worth it. If you are a person of normal intelligence with the will to just try, you can run a business. Having said that it is true being your own boss is not for everyone. I do feel that there is no super intelligence litmus test you have to pass to be successful with your own business. In the end it is all about sharing a part of your self with others and anyone can do that.

Over the next few weeks we will be discussing some no and low cost start up business idea that work. We will be looking for the type of business that will bring in steady and repeat sales. We will avoid the scams by using good judgment and research. So start thinking about it right now. Give yourself permission to think you can be something bigger than you are now. I think this is going to be fun. Some hard work, but fun.

What do you want?

What do you want?
Is it just more money or is it freedom from the 9 to 5 job.
Have you actually thought it out?

Do you know what you will do when you get what you want?

These are question that always need attention. When you don’t actively try to get these thoughts clear, what you’re left with is simply wishful thinking. Now don’t get me wrong a good daydream now and then will keep you young and cheerful. But wanting something but not really knowing what that something is, is what marketers count on. Most ads on the Internet sell dreams. These programs will tell you how the author, starting from nothing ends up a millionaire and how they want nothing more than to share all their secrets with you. Isn’t that sweet of them? I’ve read all sorts of business ads and books; I’ve checked out programs and listen to telephone conferences till my ears rang, its kind of my hobby now. As a matter of fact, the other day a very nice lady (well respected in the Internet guru circles) was spotlighted on one such phone conference. She entertained with stories of being dead broke then becoming a millionaire in one year. She learned a few rules, fewer than the number of fingers on two hands. These magical rules changed her life. As she tells it, she will teach these secrets to you, hold your hand , so to speak, give you web pages ,CD courses and coaching sessions. All these to help ‘Average Joe’s’ like you and me become millionaires. She is not lying or perpetrating a fraud. She assures you all of this is worth $7000 or more. But for you lucky few; you chosen ones, a mere $900 will get you on your way to everything you want. Getting what you want, that’s worth some money isn’t it? How much money?
So we come back to that question of what we want. There are a ton of these programs out there all making quite similar claims. They are just slightly different (good capitalists must always differentiate products) to make themselves seem special. Some offers went for $395, one for $195, quite a few at $98, $74, $59 and so on. I actually belong to a few organizations but they are under $30 as a monthly fee. (By the way they all end up having monthly fees.) You see I want to take in more than I pay out, so I want to get the biggest bang for my buck. What do you want? Do you know how to get it? By now I am sounding like a broken record but my point is no amount of money you ever put out will make any difference if you don’t know what you want. Tighten it up. Yeah, we all want to be rich, but how rich. What are you will to give up, put up, and shut up about to get rich. What is rich to you? How hard do you want to work for it? Do you want to go to collage to major in Business? Could you be a successful affiliate in some program you like? Do you want to be your own boss? Do you want to have your hand held for $900 like in the above-mentioned program? Maybe you will only put in the time and effort to succeed if you stand to lose all that money. Me, I'm putting that money back into my own business and keep growing it till I have those things I want. And believe me I've thought about what I want. How about you?