South West eCommerce

We’re plugging away at the affiliate marketing game and our results are steady but unremarkable.  One of the things that’s happened is that we (that’s both Graeme and Dave) have had opportunities come across our desk and we review them.  This process has often meant that we are on mailing lists and we get more and more opportunities. 

One thing we really want to do is show you our path to success.  So it figures to me we should tell you what we do with all these opportunities.  The first is that in the great majority of cases we glance at them, that's all.  The second is that if they have something to recommend them, we review them a little.  The third is in a tiny minority they impress us enough to get us to take some action, which usually means putting our hand in our pocket.

The guiding principles in this process for us are  1- there is opportunity out there, do nothing and you stay where you are.

2- Even if it’s a great opportunity, there is only so much time and cash to utilise on them, pick the percentage shot.

We’ve seen a level of success in this affiliate marketing process.  It’s slow, but we can feel the movement and we are absolutely convinced that anyone reading this is watching the process of us succeeding, even if we confess there’s still the chance of the crash and burn scenario.  Opportunities come in that look to offer the chance of making enough money to be able to ease up, maybe hire a couple of staff really quickly.  The choice for us has to be “between the option that might get us there quickly and the option that will get us there surely, where do we want to put our resources?”

I’m here to say that we are taking the percentage shot.  We will choose to not get involved with things that might do really well really quickly, until we have made the progress we need to in the steady but proven processes.  Really soon you’ll see the monthly update on how we’re doing, and it’ll show that we’ve still not “made it”, but there are steps forward and we feel better all the time.

The opportunities we’ve taken so far have been

Commission Blueprint – first big training package we signed up for, and still the foundation of our escape from day to day wages.  This was a risk for us but they’ve turned out to be a winning strategy.

Market Samurai – recommended by Commission Blueprint, they have showed us things we genuinely wouldn’t have got done by ourselves, and in a business where we don’t have enough time as it is, save us hours every week.

Niche Blueprint – another product by the Commission Blueprint team.  This has shown us some fairly quick turnaround strategies and is making us pocket money after less than two months.  It’s spreading our techniques and reducing risk as well as promising real income.

Tweet Tutor - This showed us how to make Twitter work for us.  Social networking is something we're just coming to grips with, but wading through the lessons here took us to where this blog is now read by many multiples of our previous readership, and we all know you can't do this business without traffic.

Two others under review.  We really believe they’re both good options, but nothing is worth taking our eye off the ball at present.  We need to make steady, small steps at the moment until the momentum gathers and we have built a bedrock of success that’ll support us.

If it all seems unremarkable, I guess that’s the lesson.  Anyone who sells you something that’ll make you rich overnight without a bunch of work, is just taking your money.  When you choose your path and start down it, do the smart thing every day and the success really is there to be had over time.