My Friends Want to Be Affiliate Marketers - Ha Ha
Franklin Banker
February 08, 2007
I have this happen a lot where a friend makes an appointment to come over and pick my brain to see if affiliate marketing is something he/she could do for some extra money. I mean, I can just about predict that someone will do this about every 6 months. They know I make money, so they want to do it too.
I enjoy talking about this business, but somehow unless a person has a certain mindset to learn a whole new thing, the talking and showing doesn't seem to get through. It just doesn't set in their brains somehow. I guess I could be a bad teacher too. (HMMM)
This one guy, a really hard working fellow who is good at what he does wanted to earn extra money online, so he came over for over 2 hours. I explained everything, showed him everything and put him on overload. He went away and never did a thing. Took tons of notes, I sent a follow up email, but nothing ever happened (think I blew him away).
Another friend is a high tech guy who works in IT. I thought he would certainly get it and maybe even partner with me and really make some stuff happen. Nope, never happened. He wanted to make money selling credit card offers. That is what he read about somewhere: "Affiliate Earns Millions with Credit Card Offers".
"Yuch" I said. Anything but that. Especially for the beginner. I asked him what he was really passionate about, and of course it was software. He is also a programmer, so he has even written some software. I suggested software. He just kind of looked at me funny. He said, "I want to enjoy this." Ok, so that was a bad idea.
He is looking into a template builder. I offered to give him a template, even design one so he could put up a website. He said no, that he would study the program for awhile and get back to me about opening a domain and getting started (I offered to do that for him too). Never happened.
That was over 1 year ago now. I know he could have done this business. So sad.
Point is that unless a person loves doing this, loves sitting and creating, writing and reading, loves tweaking stuff, that person is doomed in affiliate marketing. These people just want a real easy thing to put up and have money come rolling in. They hate the complexity of it. They appparently think there are too many details in getting started.
I learned all this stuff, but it is just the tools of the trade. I don't love the tools. I love the trade. It is marketing and publishing that I love, and I could care less about the details of how I do it. It is just necessary baggage.
The order of things is sort of like this: First a person has to decide what they love and are passionate about. Then they must decide on a name for the website they want to create, and register a domain. They must find a medium to display the content they want to create as HTML, and then they must learn how to use FTP to upload the content to the internet. If a person can just get that far .....
Truth is there is some technical aspect to the business of affiliate publishing and marketing, but it is a low level compared to what software engineers and IT professionals in technical areas must master. But, somehow those steps seem to be daunting for many people.
I have often wondered if I should publish a complete tutorial of how to publish on the web so I could show it to interested people, but alas there is already a plethora of this type of information out there that is already available and FREE online! Why should I bother with that? It is already there anyway. They just have to be willing to read it and learn, then apply.
Why won't they do it then?
I have a theory why so many folks that look at this business don't do it. I believe they want a quick and easy solution. They want a turnkey program that is simple and easy to operate, and if there was such a thing without all the humdrum stuff involved then they might grab it. Truth is, there is no such thing in my opinion.
Affiliate marketing and publishing from a desktop platform in a home is truly a one man or one woman show at the beginning. Some home affiliate businessses have grown and expanded, but most remain stationary. The direction of any affiliate enterprise is up to the individual, and if they want it to be quick and easy, it will never start in the first place.
I close this short artlcle with a quote from one of my recent visting friends who said, "Do I need to have an internet connection to do this stuff"? Oh boy, I just sighed and took him for a coffee at Starbucks.
I enjoy talking about this business, but somehow unless a person has a certain mindset to learn a whole new thing, the talking and showing doesn't seem to get through. It just doesn't set in their brains somehow. I guess I could be a bad teacher too. (HMMM)
This one guy, a really hard working fellow who is good at what he does wanted to earn extra money online, so he came over for over 2 hours. I explained everything, showed him everything and put him on overload. He went away and never did a thing. Took tons of notes, I sent a follow up email, but nothing ever happened (think I blew him away).
Another friend is a high tech guy who works in IT. I thought he would certainly get it and maybe even partner with me and really make some stuff happen. Nope, never happened. He wanted to make money selling credit card offers. That is what he read about somewhere: "Affiliate Earns Millions with Credit Card Offers".
"Yuch" I said. Anything but that. Especially for the beginner. I asked him what he was really passionate about, and of course it was software. He is also a programmer, so he has even written some software. I suggested software. He just kind of looked at me funny. He said, "I want to enjoy this." Ok, so that was a bad idea.
He is looking into a template builder. I offered to give him a template, even design one so he could put up a website. He said no, that he would study the program for awhile and get back to me about opening a domain and getting started (I offered to do that for him too). Never happened.
That was over 1 year ago now. I know he could have done this business. So sad.
Point is that unless a person loves doing this, loves sitting and creating, writing and reading, loves tweaking stuff, that person is doomed in affiliate marketing. These people just want a real easy thing to put up and have money come rolling in. They hate the complexity of it. They appparently think there are too many details in getting started.
I learned all this stuff, but it is just the tools of the trade. I don't love the tools. I love the trade. It is marketing and publishing that I love, and I could care less about the details of how I do it. It is just necessary baggage.
The order of things is sort of like this: First a person has to decide what they love and are passionate about. Then they must decide on a name for the website they want to create, and register a domain. They must find a medium to display the content they want to create as HTML, and then they must learn how to use FTP to upload the content to the internet. If a person can just get that far .....
Truth is there is some technical aspect to the business of affiliate publishing and marketing, but it is a low level compared to what software engineers and IT professionals in technical areas must master. But, somehow those steps seem to be daunting for many people.
I have often wondered if I should publish a complete tutorial of how to publish on the web so I could show it to interested people, but alas there is already a plethora of this type of information out there that is already available and FREE online! Why should I bother with that? It is already there anyway. They just have to be willing to read it and learn, then apply.
Why won't they do it then?
I have a theory why so many folks that look at this business don't do it. I believe they want a quick and easy solution. They want a turnkey program that is simple and easy to operate, and if there was such a thing without all the humdrum stuff involved then they might grab it. Truth is, there is no such thing in my opinion.
Affiliate marketing and publishing from a desktop platform in a home is truly a one man or one woman show at the beginning. Some home affiliate businessses have grown and expanded, but most remain stationary. The direction of any affiliate enterprise is up to the individual, and if they want it to be quick and easy, it will never start in the first place.
I close this short artlcle with a quote from one of my recent visting friends who said, "Do I need to have an internet connection to do this stuff"? Oh boy, I just sighed and took him for a coffee at Starbucks.
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