Okay, so hopefully you know what affiliate marketing is now and you have a good understanding of the process and how it works.

As I mentioned in the previous video, anyone can be an affiliate marketer (Well, providing you have a wifi connection and a computer or laptop.)

The only problem is, affiliate marketing is not for everyone…

99% of the time, when I tell someone that I’m a full time affiliate marketer and mention the success I’ve had with it, the person I’m telling often begs me to show them how.

Now, I LOVE helping people but the biggest problem I’ve found is that most people just don’t have the passion or the drive to make it as a successful affiliate marketer.

They get stuck on something and give up…to be successful you just can’t do that, not in this game and the same goes for life in general.

You have to always stay hungry, be thinking positive and dream BIG.

But most importantly – you have to do something everyday that will get you that step closer to your goals.

If you don’t….you’ll be stuck twiddling your thumbs staring at your screen wondering why you’re not making a single dollar.

How Much Money Can I Make As An Affiliate Marketer?

I get asked this all the time and it’s a question that recently came up in the Affiliate Marketing Ninjas facebook group.

You can make a LOT of money promoting other peoples stuff and best of all you don’t have to deal with anything an ecommerce store owner will have to deal with like:

• Answering customer support tickets.
• Dealing with suppliers or trying to find good reliable suppliers.
• Going to the post office to ship products out or having to send details to your dropshipper.
• Having to find space to hold stock or worry about being stuck with unwanted stock.
• Dealing with credit card fraud or staying up at night worrying your accounts going to be frozen because of strange activity on your card?

There’s a lot of good reasons why affiliate marketing is my favourite way of making money but it’s not as easy as some people think.

If you’ve watched videos on Youtube of the ‘Gurus’ showing off all their big paydays or telling you how easy affiliate marketing is and how much money you’re going to make by using their push button systems then you’re probably all hyped up and ready to jump on board…

I’m about to drop some truth bombs but don’t let them turn you off because it’s not all bad…

The Truth About Making Money Online….

The truth is, most people wont make their first dollar online from anywhere between 2 – 3 months or more when they first start out..

It all depends on the work you put in, the way you promote and present the products you’re recommending and what type of traffic/audience you’re chasing.

If you work your butt off and put in the hard work in the beginning, work smart and actually get out there find visitors that are interested in the products you’re promoting, you can definitely start making money a lot faster.

And unfortunately, you wont get rich over night so don’t go quitting your day job just yet…

But what if I pay for traffic?

Well paid advertising can make you money quickly and can also burn your money quickly..I don’t recommend paying for traffic unless you know exactly what you’re doing and just so you know, I don’t really teach that because there is soooo much involved and there’s too much risk of a person losing all their money.

Now, I’m NOT trying to turn you off affiliate marketing, I’m just telling you how it is because I’m done with all these ‘Gurus” preying on people who want to succeed so bad they will spend their last dollar on a internet marketing course that’s most likely full of garbage.

With all this being said…You can make a lot of money online but it’s all on you and the effort you put in.

Personally, I’ve created sites that started making money in as little as 2-3 weeks all from free traffic – and most of that time was me writing content, getting my website up and spending far too long on the design.

Once I had that site up, I worked my ass off finding and helping people in my niche that hang around social media, forums and groups (health and fitness niche).

That site started making $300 per week within 2 months…grew to $600 per week then started breaking into the $600 – $1000+ days within 6 months because as my email list grew my income started growing and growing..

It was like having my own little ATM machine each time I hit send. (I’ll talk about email marketing later on in the course, so watch out for that one).

On the flip side…When I first started, I had so many websites that flopped, I almost gave up!!

No matter how hard things get, you just can’t give up…Who knows, you might be just missing that one piece of the puzzle.

The Struggles In Affiliate Marketing

When you’re just starting out as and affiliate you’re going to have so many struggles it may do your head in.

The reason why so many people struggle when they first start an online business, is because they try and learn everything and anything all at once!

That’s not their fault really because there is a LOT to learn..

In the beginning, you have to figure out how to get started. That can be a mission in itself!

Some people will have a fair idea of what they want to make a website about but for others they have no idea what niche or they’re going to get into.

So, you need to research niches, products and see what’s profitable. A lot of people get stuck on this right from the get go..

When you finally work out what you’re going to do you then have to learn how to buy a domain name, hosting and then you have to work out how to actually make your website.

Once you have your website up you have to then figure out what you’re going to write about and what you will be promoting.

Then you have to try and get visitors to your website and this is where most people get really stuck!

And, because there are so many different ways you can get traffic such as search engine optimization, social media, forum and video marketing, paid advertising the list goes on, but what happens is we try and figure it all out.

So you’ll watch videos, read blogs and maybe even buy marketing courses to help ‘crack the code’.

This, unfortunately is where a lot of people give up..

With this free crash course, I hope to cover everything you need to know in the most simplest form. It may be a little overwhelming but please what ever you do, never give up!

The Dreaded Shiny Object Syndrome…

Shiny object syndrome is a curse! I think we all suffer from it at one point in time.

Because there is so much to learn and so many ‘methods’ we tend to jump from one thing to the next hoping to jump on the ‘next big thing’, when really we should be just focusing on one lot of set tasks that helps us move forward.

You will come across push button software, research tools that make marketing easier, programs that automatically build you backlinks and grow your social media accounts and you will even come across all different types of money making methods.

It’s really important to try and block out all the shiny objects because you will end up like a dog chasing its tail!

I always tell people to keep it simple when they’re first starting out.

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid..

^ This is something I still follow, because when we start to go for all these shiny objects a lot of the time we over complicate things which just slows you down.

Keep things as simple as possible and only learn the basics – once you master them, then and only then should you move on to the next.

In this course I will try my hardest to teach you the things you need to learn and what you need to focus on..

That way you won’t need to worry about shiny object syndrome and trying to guess what works..

Stress, Family, Money And Time

Working online no matter what kind of path you take takes up a LOT of your time.

You’ll become soo focused on trying to achieve financial freedom and trying to become successful that you’ll forget the important things like family, friends and your health.

If you’re married or have a partner it can put a HUGE strain on your relationship.

I’m married with kids (all girls) and I can tell you that in the beginning and even now, the affiliate lifestyle has put a massive strain on our relationship.

We live very comfortably and money is never the issue but because I spend most of my time online I often forget the important things like spending time with my wife and kids.

I sometimes even forget to go outside and get some light..I’ve had big binges hustling and grinding away without sleeping trying to get masses of work done..it’s just not healthy.

Even if you’re single, you’ll forget the people who mean the most to you and start declining offers to go out and do fun things because you’re so caught up in trying to get everything done online.

You have to stay hungry, work your ass off and be consistent but you should always try and manage your time so you have balance.

In the next video I will talk about what you need to get started..You’ll be surprised how little you need to get up and running 😉