It seems like everyone wants to have a side-hustle. With today’s economy that seems logical. Wages are lower than they should be. Everything costs more. Extra income isn’t just a wish anymore it has become a necessity.
The problem then becomes, if money is tight, how do we get our business started? Also, what type of business should it be?
Should you create your own product? Maybe write and sell eBooks on Amazon? Or, how about creating a course to teach folks how to do a particular skill?
If you have that kind of skill…great! Then it becomes just a matter of setting up a website, an eCommerce account, a CRM site, a fulfillment platform. And then you’ll need some Creatives to advertise. You’ll need some type of Call Center to handle questions and you’ll also need a way to offer Refund for the few people who changed their mind.
Remember, you wanted this business because you need extra money to pay the bills. What I just described would run you around $5,000.00 to get set up. That expense will come before you earn your first dollar.
Now let’s look at Affiliate Marketing. Everything is already done for you. The Website, Customer Service, eCommerce, Shipping, Returns, Creatives and Products are there and ready to go!
All you need to do is signup and start advertising the link they gave you. Cool…you’re in business. Now what?
It will soon become apparent that selling a few little bottles of something won’t really generate a lot of income. For example, if you sell a $40 bottle of pills and your commission is 15% you’ll make $6. Okay. You’d need to sell 100 of those bottles in order to earn $600 for the month. That’s approximately $150 per week which would mean you’d need to sell 25 bottles each week or 5 per day if you worked a 5-day week.
Is $600 extra per month enough? Can you sell 5 bottles per day? Did you happen to check and see if Target, Amazon, or Walmart sell the same or similar items…usually for less?
You can’t compete with their AD Budget!
Of course, you can recruit people to work in business with you but they will face the exact same problems you’ve experienced. It’s no wonder 97% of people drop out of networking. It’s a huge uphill climb. At the end of a year if you enrolled 100 people into your Team, you’d end up with 3 still producing commissions and trying to build their own businesses!
So, if you’re making 15% yourself, typically you might be making 4% on your next level team members. Your $600 commission for your own sales plus your 4% on their volume.
Do you see the main issue here?
The main problem with all this is: Neither you nor anyone on your down-line is probably going to sell 100 little bottles of anything! It’s just not going to happen.
For one thing there is too much competition. Everyone is trying to sell little bottles of pills or oils or lotions. The only reason anyone is talking to anyone else nowadays is they're either trying to sell you something or they are trying to have you join them in their business so you can sell their stuff!
The only people selling a lot of product are the few that already had a big following and they brought them all into your business opportunity to begin with! Hardly anyone builds a business up from scratch anymore. The system is stacked against you. Don’t believe me?
Go out and try to find someone that has never heard of mlm or network marketing before! Heck, it’s hard to find someone that hasn’t been in network marketing!
Now, while looking for that person, find someone that has ever been successful in network marketing. They are few and far between.
Do you know who really, really makes the money in network
marketing? The owners. They rake in all that enrollment fee and/or monthly ‘administrative
fees’ and they profit on every little bottle that leaves the warehouse! They don't care if you're a success. They care only about Volume!
And no…I’m not suggesting you become an owner. What I’m
suggesting is, you should find an Affiliate Program that doesn’t have Products! Huh? Yep! This will automatically eliminate 90% of all the issues we just mentioned.
So instead of selling products, find a business that offers Services! If you’ve read this post this far you’re still on my Blog Page at Living Beyond 9 To 5. If you look to the right on this page, you will see at least two Service Oriented Offers. They also happen to be our Top Income Producers.
Just saying…:-)
All the best,
Donald