AMNinjas FB Group Questions: Should I Quit My Day Job?

AMNinjas FB Group Questions:
Should I Quit My Day Job & Go Full Time With Affiliate Marketing?

It’s a good question and it’s one that has been asked a few times in the AM Ninjas Facebook group..

Before I share my thoughts on why you shouldn’t quit your day job (more details below), I thought I would introduce you to a new series that I’m doing for the blog called AMNinjas FB Group Questions.

Basically, I will be going over the most common and most interesting questions asked in the group and sharing my answer on the blog so everyone can read them.

Plus it makes it easier to link to a blog post when a question is repeated over and over again.

Okay, on to the question…

Should you quit your day job and go full time with affiliate marketing?

Please read until the end because my story might help you avoid a few mistakes with your affiliate websites even if you’re not thinking about quitting..

If you’re just starting out or if you’ve been getting your feet wet as an affiliate, there’s a good chance that you’ve watched a Youtube video or 2 or even read an article by some Guru promising the world.

You may have even seen a bunch of webinars, purchased an affiliate marketing course or maybe you’ve already started and have a website that is making some money…

There’s going be a time where you start questioning yourself – should I quit my day job and put all my money and time into affiliate marketing?

Here’s some truth bombs for you and I’m not writing this to scare you away from affiliate marketing, it’s the best source of income I’ve ever had.

I’m here to tell you that you need to be smart and by that I mean stick to your day job for as long as you can…

The only time you should quit is when you’re making enough money online to cover living expenses AND have money in the BANK.

Take Risks But Use Your Brain…

I’ve been doing affiliate marketing for almost a decade now and when I first started I stayed in my job for a couple of years before I quit.

When my online income passed my income from my 9-5 job, I still stayed in my job for a whole year.

Trust me, I wanted to quit on a daily basis BUT I have a family to think of and it was my duty to keep a roof over their head and make sure there was food on the table.

I knew I needed money in the bank for back up and I needed to consistently make more money than my job for at least 6 months – just in case things go south.

Now, if you’re brand new to affiliate marketing, you have to realise some people don’t make their first sale or get their first pay check for months, some even years.

You can definitely make a lot of money as an affiliate marketer, especially if you work your ass off and find what works best for you.

BUT, you do need to be smart and have a back up plan if things do go bad and here’s an example…

Back in 2012 I had a successful music site about beat making software.

It was bringing in around $3500 per month, sometimes more and it was one of my bigger sites at the time.

I spent a tonne of hours working on it and I got it ranking for some really good keywords related to beat making.

Things were going great and I had big plans to sell the site for around $30k to $40k USD..

Yup, I Was On My Way To Riches….UNTIL…

I was soooo close to selling this site for some good money but little did I know that Google was about to release an update to their algorithm which was called the Penguin update.

Back then, ranking a website was a lot easier…

You could throw a bunch of shitty links at your money site and you’d see instant boosts in the search engines.

Then Google got smarter and made some serious changes that effected a LOT of internet marketers using low quality backlinks and link farms.

For this music site, I was using one of the larger link networks called buildmyrank.com

Unfortunately the network got penalised by Google and the sites that were using their network got hit as well, mine included.

So, my site went from making $3500+ per month to practically NOTHING over night.

As you can imagine, I was devastated!

For a good 2 months I was numb, scared to work on my other sites, scared to build backlinks and it literally broke my heart.

I was about to sell it for over $30k which is a lot of money.

However, I was fortunate enough to have had money in the bank and other websites that paid the bills.

And no matter what I did to that site, I couldn’t revive it. It was doomed!

I put the site up for auction on Flippa and it sold for $1700.

I Learned a Valuable Lesson From This…

When I finally snapped out of the rut I got myself into after I sold the site, I decided it was time to take my affiliate business more seriously.

From that day I knew I HAD to focus on quality and to stop taking shortcuts.

This was a big turning point for me and I’m actually glad that site got penalised when it did because ever since I’ve become a better marketer and better understand how search engines work.

I also learned that things can go very bad and I don’t have full control of everything which is why it’s important NOT to put all your eggs in the one basket.

What I mean by that is, don’t just rely on Google for traffic. Be everywhere and make sure you build that email list – Google can’t take that away from you.

When Should You Quit Your Day Job?

Again, only when you have the money in the bank and have enough coming in on a regular basis.

The good thing about creating the niche affiliate sites that I teach to make, is once you have have them up and ranking, they can consistently make you money over and over again with very little on going work.

Focus on one site in the beginning and master it.

Once you have that site making some money, create another one and try to get that site making money as well.

I personally like to have multiple sites, that way if one does get penalised for some reason or if something happens – I have back up sites that still make money.

However, try not to have too many sites unless you can handle the work load.

If you’re working a 9-5 job, consider investing some of that money into content, building backlinks or advertising.

Grow your site and treat it like a real business.

Wrapping it up..

• Don’t be scared to take risks but make sure you be smart about the decisions you make.
• Always have a back up plan and an exit strategy.
• Get some savings in the bank.
• Invest your money back into your website.
• Build quality websites and don’t take shortcuts.
• Work hard and don’t be scared of failure.

I hope you enjoyed this write up. If you did, please smack the like button or share it on social media.

Who knows, someone else might just benefit from it.

Until the next group question, have a great day!

Regards,

Wazza!

PS..

Don’t forget to grab your copy of my Affiliate Marketing Cheat Sheet. It’s a no BS guide on how to get started with affiliate marketing and I think you’ll love it..