I remember the cold chilly day like it was yesterday...
I was at my 9-5, sitting deeply into my office chair inside of my 15 inch by 15 inch cubicle, just taking my break and waiting for the time to strike 2:30PM, and then it happened....
An old friend of mine named Tyson send me a Snapchat message, and I look at my phone to send him a message back. We must have chatted back and forth for about the whole duration of my 30 minute lunch break(good thing I didn't have a huge lunch), and we caught up. He told me about how he was in the trucking business now, and as for me?
I was looking for a way out of this place that never had valued me enough, I was underpaid, A post college graduate thinking that this job would get me above, but I was mistaken. I replied back to Tyson with an "Hey that's good, how do you Like it? I'm doing fine man, I'm good too. I've been thinking about going back to school to finish one more year for my bachelors, or take up some EDX training courses.
After I said that he immeiedetly replied back with a "Hey, have you heard about affiliate marketing?" UHH NO I said. Well, there's people making a side-hustle, a part-time and even full-time job out of it. No way right?
It sounded crazy but I thought to myself: "When I get home, It's research mode. I couldn't remember my car ride home that day and If I even worked, I was so distracted by trying out affiliate marketing. After watching One YouTube Video After the next, a blog post after another, I thought Ok, Let me do this!
I first put up a website, applied for the amazon affiliate network, put some content on my site and threw the products there. I also went onto Instagram and started placing my links in my Bio. BOOM, it's so easy....
NOT! I completely failed! I tossed up a Weebly and even Wix website that didn't get me the attention I needed on my products. No one on Instagram bought from me, they clicked but they didn't purchase. That's when I felt defeated as HELL. I closed my laptop after putting in work for a month straight and said tomorrow is another day.
When tomorrow came, I had work to Overwhelmingly go through - It was at the point where I knew I should have left, but I needed stability and to build up more on my resume. But it wasn't worth me staying much longer, grinding physically as well mentally at a minimum wage job that should be paying me well over $20/hour. Bad right?
Imagine not sleeping, and OH Yeah, 30+ people go relieved and I was one of them. Not my fault, just a company thing. Back on Benefits I went feeling ridiculous that I couldn't go out and spend money on a good meal, I had family supporting me, being in debt with school bills rising over $10,000!
This research really possessed me, and I wasn't going to stop until I knew there was a better way. So on google I typed in "affiliate marketing training", and I found a few training. I tried out one called Wealthy Affiliate and BOOM! (Happy Boom this time).
That's when I finally had a plan to do this "affiliate marketing thing" the right way. I used the skills I learned to publish blogging content for my health and wellness site, applied back to amazon associates program and started producing something valuable that was done correctly. But I still faced issues.
My traffic was low, and every time someone would purchase from me, it was only a front end purchase. So I went back and added email autoresponders so I can collect people information to resell to them and or build that trust with. After the first few months it worked, I drove them to my main offer as well other products suited for them, and I was making good money for months on end. Then google came out with updates for health and wellness websites and I was knocked down.
Should I turn it into a Shopify Store I said? I did for a time but it wasn't my cup of tea. Over the months my numbers drastically reduced and then some days I went up to $100, while others less than a dollar, seriously. So I went back to the drawing board after a year of focusing on my site and learned that people were making recurring monthly commissions off products that were like 30% and up on EVERY Sale. That's when my whole world changed...
I went from just having one source of income to another one that would guarantee me take home money at the end of every month. I became much more confident, I didn't have to rely on other people to buy a meal for me, feel socially anxious about being myself, driving without thinking about gas, and letting down my family. My finances got in order and my debt has been payed off.