Forum Moderators: skibum
When you're off the rat race, what's life like?
:)
1) I didn't see myself being where I was and doing what I was doing 5-10 years from now. Might as well as just shoot me.
2) Early "middle age" crisis - Is this all there's to life after college?:) just shoot me again!
3) If anyone should be making money on the internet, might as well as be me, since I have background on the internet and web stuff. If I work on sites for someone else, I'm trading time for money. I want to trade time for 'equity' in a non proportional scale.
4)Always wanted to travel the world, and doing AM would accomplish that. Nothing beats a 'job' where all you need is a laptop and a internet connection. Nothing!
5)I'm at a point where I have proven that I can make money - not a lot, and definitely does not replace my full time paycheck I 'm leaving behind, but enough that I've seen the model and hopefully can keep building on it.
6) What everyone else wants - more time for friends, for hobbies, for the gym - just to be able to go outside and enjoy the day, or take some fun classes at junior college.
7) no career that I am too attached to right now - although my job did have good promise...Promise of more work and more stress. I still have 40-60 more years ahead of me, plenty of time to re-start a career if it gets down to that.
8) If not now, then when? there's hardly such a thing as 'good timing', and then you're dead. - jumping into the 'unknown' where your pay depends exclusively on your exacting performance is risky. I've built a small nestegg, but I have to keep moving! Later there's more responsabilities, loved ones, mortgages, that will seriously make you risk averse.
That's just me, and I hope never to work for someone else again.. at least not where money would be the primary reason.
My plan is:
1. be able to quit my job (have done that)
2. Work less, spend more time with my family (is doing that, but could still use more time)
3. make the same as when I had a job (almost there)
4. get rid of customers :-D (still some way to go)
5. get rid of all my debt/mortgages
6. being able to work with different development projects (like making the next ebay) - without having to depend on investors or partners to pay for my time/rent
6. being able to outsource the practical implementation of these projects (programming, design, content) and just focus on getting ideas and make them happen
7. invest in other peoples ideas and be a part of realizing these ideas
I'm not sure I would ever just retire like buying and island in the tropics or something like that. Living is creating.
I want to be ready so when I quit I have no worries. Should be around the first of the year. It's already a good feeling because I know that I don't need my day job to survive. It seems to take a lot of pressure off me at my day job where I have a lot of responsibilities.
When I'm quit I have a plan of what I want to do already. A few ideas I have wanted to do with my sites that time has not permitted on nights and weekends. Can't wait.
wellzy
I have been running an affiliate site for over three years. I worked two years full time and ran the site, now I work from home. It's great, and I love it. I am my own boss - and I get credit for all my outstanding ideas - which did not happen in the corporate loser world.
Unlike other affiliates that get up at 3 p.m., I get up every day at 8. Work 10 hours a day, always adding and expanding with new products, sites, and ideas. This approach has given me a financial nirvana this year - going to gross over seven figures. My next goal is seven figures starting with a 2 next year.
I guess that's the beauty of affiliate marketing - you don't need to work hard, five hours a day, to make good money. But if you work harder than the average affiliate, you can say **** the corporate world forever.
I think affiliate marketing can fly for 2 more years at best - then the party is over. The next best thing will be here by then anyway.
Good luck to the newbies -
jd
I find this thread very inspirational. I have been doing AM now for less then a year and I am slowly coming up to speed. Starting to make a little $$ but I feel I have so much to learn yet. Hopefully some day I can get off that rat race also.
Bob
I think affiliate marketing can fly for 2 more years at best - then the party is over.
Care to elaborate?
if you could answer, can you tell us if your industries are the [snip]financial (the traditional culprits to big money) or you've made the big bucks with other products?
[edited by: Drastic at 9:03 pm (utc) on Oct. 6, 2004]
[edit reason] not those topics, not here [/edit]
If affiliate marketer abz company can spend $10 and earn $20 selling widgets, why can't the actual widget company itself do the same?
I think in in two years, about 95% of all affiliate marketers won't be able to make money. It's only the 5% of affiliate sites that offer a little some content and resources instead of a link that will.
Don't let it discourge you - just be better than an other affiliate out there.
jd
If affiliate marketer abz company can spend $10 and earn $20 selling widgets, why can't the actual widget company itself do the same?
Because they don't have the time, resources and knowledge to do so themsleves and they never will. At least in that there will always be companies coming into the market like that.
Beyond that, there are a few (with more to come) advertising mediums out there where a single company can only put one ad out (PPC right now) but with an affiliate force, they can flood the market.
If ABZ can make it out on their own, then how come Amazon and Ebay, the two largest websites in the world, actively and successfully run affiliate programs?
I think in in two years, about 95% of all affiliate marketers won't be able to make money. It's only the 5% of affiliate sites that offer a little some content and resources instead of a link that will.
The easy money in the affiliate marketing business ended years ago. As it stands now, I would say that less that 95% of the affiliates out there earn more than $100 a month. Those earning 6 figures/year are clearly fewer than 1%.
Affiliate programs are a great way for merchant to expand their reach. With affiliates competing like madness to end up high in the SERPS and looking for the best PPC keywords around the clock, the merchants are the ones laughing, as they get the lion's share of an affiliate's successful venture.
What's better than having other people do their best to promote your products for a measily fee of just 5%?I don't think aff. marketing will go: it's just a too cheap and effective way of advertising.
Affiliate marketers are sales people. 99.99% of successful offline companies have sales people. Why would the web be any different? Paying commissions for sales is a very effective use of marketing/advertising dollars. Are you suggesting that, for example, mortgage brokers will no longer want to pay for leads?
There was a funny thread in the supporters forum about how every year for the past 5+ years people predict the end of aff marketing :)
AS far as being out of the rat race - let's just say life is good!
I would say that less that 95% of the affiliates out there earn more than $100 a month. Those earning 6 figures/year are clearly fewer than 1%.
Just like in the 'real world':)
The lines between aff maketers, ad agencies, print/design/media and direct sales forces are becoming increasingly blurred. And what's interesting is that the net offers more eyeballs than anywhere else in the world, which means that there's a much bigger audience to target than ever before and the traditional attitude of "let's fire the sales team now we have more sales from this alternative" is being relaced with "Wow, this internet stuff has really turned things around for us, we can now afford to keep ALL our sales channels because we see their sales as incremental business, not poaching customers that would have otherwise come thorugh our normal channels"
That's what I think anyway :)
And by the way, I've made more money as an aff than I ever made in 20 odd years of stockbroking and running a huge travel business of my own, and the life it affords me is second to none.
And, no, I don't do 10 hours a day. Maybe 3 hours if I'm flat out, but usually more like 45 minutes. That excludes browsing and posting on fora, of course, which I treat as my hobby!
Unlike other affiliates that get up at 3 p.m., I get up every day at 8. Work 10 hours a day, always adding and expanding with new products, sites, and ideas. This approach has given me a financial nirvana this year - going to gross over seven figures.
Guess it depends what you are into. For me its travel and leisure, etc...Don't get me wrong, I go through phases where i work pretty damn hard....I don't like to toss around figures but there are folks here doing $10,000-$20,000 per DAY, NET not GROSS, in aff marketing that are not working anywhere near that amount...(before you guys ask what markets it is the usual suspects) :)
As far as aff marketing dying, not likely. If ou can attract visitors in areas where there is demand, there will be a market for them. Orbitz, which is basically a travel affiliate, is selling for 1.2 BILLION. I am pretty ceratin the buyer sees a future for them even though, theoretically, the airlines could simply market themselves....
I do too, but not by choice ;). I've got three children who crack the "wake up whip" very early each morning. I've been full time for several years now and love it. I couldn't ever see doing anything outside of Internet marketing. I have days that I'll work 12 hours and then sometimes I won't work for a few days. It varies by my mood.
Finding, learning and excelling in this business has truly changed our lives. My husband actually still works for two reasons - A: I like the security of having that paycheck no matter what (its a "security" I am going to have to learn to give up) and B: because I would like to see him live. Being home with me 24/7 may hinder that. ;)
But, that isn't going to last much longer. He keeps taking a ton of days off, one after the other - than goes in for a day or four and repeats the process. I keep asking him if he is trying to ease me into his quitting - one day I am going to look around and notice hes already done it ;).
I keep asking him if he is trying to ease me into his quitting - one day I am going to look around and notice hes already done it ;).
"hey, didn't you take 7 days off the week for the past 4 weeks?"
"yeah honey,I'm thinking about taking a few days off this week as well" ;)
And buying beers for a certain individual who took me under the wing just before I called it quits in the affiliate market. You know who you are, Michael. :)
Give yourself a pat on the back.
In about 2 months, it'll be smooth sailing from here on out.
If affiliate marketer abz company can spend $10 and earn $20 selling widgets, why can't the actual widget company itself do the same?
.... one word = > leverage.
1 widget company makes $20
but 1,000 affiliates make $20,000 ( minus aff comm )
Wasn't it Archimedes who said :
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."?
I agree 100%.
Until the day companies cannot make a profit using affiliates (won't happen), affiliate marketing will not go away. It will always be around in some form, though the rules of the game may change somewhat.
when I got confortable two years ago I worked whenever.....became slobby and lazy. money seemed to be comming from nowhere and went to that same nowhere
seven month ago my lazyness reached it's peak and I didn't do anything at all. and guess what? my income quatered....... but still I didn't do anything and had enough :)
now i'm back to the ratrace.
now i'm back to the ratrace.
Let me show you where your problem lies.
seven month ago my lazyness reached it's peak and I didn't do anything at all
It's easy money in this, but you can't just stop working at it.
It's easy money in this, but you can't just stop working at it.
thank you my comandor, I figured it out as well :)
what I mean by ratrace is not that i'm back to the dayjob, but that i'm back in the race with you =)
24 hrs/day. Me too, i'm like the newer terminator in T2. Beware.
so you look like a runway model and wear tight leather outfits? :)
so you look like a runway model and wear tight leather outfits? :)
That's T3. :)
That's T3. :)
Lol. What was I thinking?:) well, about hot models in leather, that's what!
Back on topic...
