My Expensive Hobby

Maybe you are just like me. For more than two years, I was up at 5:00 AM

six days a week. I published new content every day. I was spending money

left and right on hosting, email systems, and more…and I made exactly $0.

I SAID I had a business, but what I really had was an expensive HOBBY!

The funny thing is that I knew all about one of the easiest ways to start

monetizing my blog…affiliate marketing. I’d worked with some of the top

brands in the world like Shutterfly and Adidas on their affiliate programs. I’d

worked with top entrepreneurs like Michael Hyatt, Ray Edwards, and Jeff

Goins on their programs too. And yet, I’d never done it myself.

I was ready to give up on my blog. It was draining time, energy, and money,

I was ready to give up on my blog. It was draining time, energy, and money,

with nothing in return.

That’s when I did my first affiliate promotion.

I promoted just like I’d taught others to do for more than a decade. And it

worked! I made $588 in that first promotion, with a list of barely 800 people.

I’d proven to myself that I could do this. I could make money with my blog.

And I didn’t even need a product to do it.

Over the next two years, I made more than $134,000 in affiliate

commissions. I finished in the top 10 in many affiliate competitions. I even

won a small one.

And I did it all with a list that was never larger than 2,300 people.

For years, I’d seen what the top affiliates were doing. I’d seen the power of

affiliate marketing.

And yet…I wasn’t taking advantage of the opportunity right in front of me. I

didn’t have a product, but I did have a big PROBLEM…I was losing money

fast. And affiliate marketing was the answer to my problem.

Now that $134,000+ in commissions MIGHT seem like the most obvious

benefit to affiliate marketing, but I actually have 10 more benefits you might

not have even thought of.

These are the “hidden” benefits of affiliate marketing that can help ALL areas

of your online business.

So many people preach that when you start a blog, you should give, give,

give. Content, content, content. But when you give, give, give without ever

asking for a financial transaction, it sets you up for burnout. I know because

I’ve been there.

So much of running an online BUSINESS is mental and I want you in a

money-making mindset from day one.

Repeat after me: I run an online business. And businesses make money.

When you start affiliate marketing right away, it gets you in this proper

mindset.

(1) Develop the Right Mindset on Day One

Imagine for a moment that a new store opens up across town. Whether it’s a

Walmart or a mom and pop doesn’t matter. What is ONE thing all stores

have in common?

THEY SELL STUFF! On day one!

And don’t apologize for it.

They give away free samples for six weeks and then ask you to buy. They

sell to you on day one!

Here’s the problem with an online business, though. It’s hard to know what

your audience wants on day one, so it’s hard to create the right products…

which leads us to benefit number three…

(2) Monetize Immediately

When you first start your blog, you are still learning what your audience

wants and needs. You have no idea what products they are interested in

buying, what price points they buy at, or what is the best way to sell to them.

In other words, creating a product of your own on day one is RISKY. Just ask

anyone who’s created something, ordered 1000 of them and parks their car

in the driveway not the garage as a result.

Affiliate marketing teaches you what your audience wants. You get to test

different products, topics, price points, and sales methods.

You also learn what specific people on your list are interested in. That allows

you to segment them over time.

(3) Learn What Your Audience Wants

One way or another, you are conditioning your audience.

The question is: What are you conditioning them to do?

Are you conditioning them to click links in your emails or just read the

content in the email? Are you conditioning them to expect periodic offers or

to receive free content indefinitely?

Think about this…if you have nothing to sell and go on for years or even just

months without selling, your audience conditioned. Then when you DO sell,

it’s the end of the world. They freak out, unsubscribe in droves, even send

you hate mail…seriously, it happens, people are just crazy.

(4) Train Your Audience to Click and Buy

Remember this, you are conditioning your audience one way or the other.

Make a choice to condition them the right way.

Here’s the biggest difference between someone who has a hobby and a

online business owner:

A content and promotional calendar.

When you blog for a hobby, you post when you want to. No one is expecting

much. Don’t feel like posting today? No biggie. Got nothing for next week?

Who cares!

A content calendar is the first step in putting on your grown up blogger pants.

The next step is a promotional calendar.

Think of it like a content calendar on steroids. With the attention span of a

toddler who accidentally drank your coffee.

(5) Learn How To Manage a Promo Calendar

Promotional calendars are hard to manage. You have to build up to a

specific topic and promotion. You warm your list up and crescendo at the end

of the promotion.

Starting a blog is easy and usually inexpensive, but starting an online

business requires an investment.

It’s not much. $20 here. $30 there. $50 for the guy to fix that plugin that's

crashing your site. But it adds up and it’s especially demoralizing when you

have nothing coming in.

A REAL business pays for itself. It has revenues coming in that support the

expenses going out. And affiliate marketing is a great way to do that.

Imagine if you simply had $100 a month coming in right now from your blog.

That would pay for your hosting, your email service, your images, and

maybe even for a premium theme or plugin. It could change your business.

(6) It Funds Your Business

And it could change your perception (and others’ perception as well).

Suddenly, you have a business that brings in money. Suddenly you are

turning a profit.

That does wonders for your psyche.

Whether you know it yet or not, you will have an affiliate program of your

own one day. I won’t try to convince you of that here, but just know that you

will. It’s the single best way to explode your online business.

And when you promote others’ affiliate offers, you learn how to do that.

Amazingly, after spending nearly a decade running affiliate programs for

everyone from Lewis Howes and Michael Hyatt to multi-billion dollar

companies, I learned more from promoting offers myself.

To quote Pablo Picasso: “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

And boy, have I stolen some good ideas.

(7) Learn How To Run Your Own Affiliate Program

I learned what I liked in an affiliate program. Every single promotion gave me

at least one awesome idea to use for our clients.

I also learned what I didn’t like. If something bugged me, I assumed it

bugged others and I vowed to do better.

Seeing things from the perspective of an affiliate has made me ten times

better at helping our affiliates.

Promoting affiliate offers taught me how to sell long before I ever had a

product of my own. I understand how to warm up my audience, how to

engage them, what copy worked best, and what worked and what didn’t.

In other words, I got to test my sales skills out on other people’s products,

not mine.

I learned when to email during a promotion, what length of emails worked

best, what subject lines worked and so much more.

Promoting affiliate offers taught me how to sell but most importantly it proved

I could. Instead of being reluctant and doubting myself when I launched my

first product, it was like second nature.

(8) It Teaches You How To Sell (And Proves You Can)

When I launched my affiliate marketing training course, No Product No

Problem, earlier this year, I had absolutely no stress about the marketing. I’d

done it 20+ times already. Creating the promotional plan for the course

launch was, quite frankly, one of the easiest things I’ve done in my business.

Here’s a little secret…even the biggest names in the online marketing world

like to get noticed.

They like to see their names on affiliate leaderboards. They like when they

promote something and are recognized. They like beating other marketers.

When you start in affiliate marketing early, you get better at it earlier and you

get noticed earlier. That means you are able to connect with other people

who can help you massively scale your business.

I know this happens because it’s exactly what happened with me. I began

promoting affiliate offers, I started getting on leaderboards, and people

started reaching out to me. Today, I consider many of those people friends

(and clients).

(9) You Begin To Get Noticed

Realistically, you don’t need to be at the top to get noticed. Being listed

anywhere is enough to give you credibility and raise some eyebrows.

I cannot stress how important this is. When you get a taste of success, you

want more.

When I made that first $588 commission, I was thrilled. But I also saw what

was possible. And I wanted more of it.

$588 became $1,124. Then I made more than $7,000 in my next one. In my

fifth promotion, I made more than $10,000 for the first time.

These amounts were game changers for my business and my life. And it all

started with that first $588.

(10) You Get a Taste of Success

Do you want to learn affiliate marketing? Do you want to learn how to use it

to explode your online business without creating a product AND set yourself

up for an awesome product later?

I'm going to show you now how you can do just that with the most in-depth,

detailed course on affiliate marketing -- in the world.

From start to finish, beginner to advanced, from your 1st commission to

competing w/ the big dogs, my course, No Product No Problem will show

you how to achieve your goals with your online business – without even

creating a product.

Click here to take the next step in your online success by investing in No

Product No Problem today.

Ready To Take Your Affiliate Marketing To the Next Level?