by: Marc Howlett
Are you a headless newbie?
I know I was when twelve month ago when I started looking into setting up an online business. Whichever way I turned people were willing to offer me advice, e-books, freebies, newsletters, amazing money making opportunities, advertising, search engine placement and much more. This was great but my head started spinning and my credit card started to melt and worst of all I wasn't making a cent.
I learnt a lot during this time and have started to see my commission cheques increase so here are my top 5 tips to help the newbie with the credit card rush to stop sit back and actually start earning some money.
1: Before you sign up for anything read the sales page fully and see what you are actually getting for your money. Many of these pages contain a lot of information and the tendacy is to skim them for the interesting parts ie: How much does it cost. This is exactly what they are desinged to do, so slow down and read everything fully. When I first started I signed up for several programs just because they seemed to offer a lot for not a lot of money, this was true but none of it was at all useful.
2: Join some relevant forums and ask questions about the affiliate programs you are interested in. People are only too happy to help and you will get some good honest feedback both good and bad.
3: When you decide on a program give it time and if it doesn't work straight away keep going. One of the biggest mistakes is to jump from program to program to find one that will work. As with any business it takes time to build and see results so stick with it and keep telling yourself what brought you to internet marketing.
4: Decide on a monthly budget and make sure you stick to it. With the ease of online credit card transactions you will often be tempted by amazing one time only offers, these are designed to get a snap decision from you.
5: Don't keep checking your emails for sign ups. Firstly you will be disappointed if you dont have any and secondly you will be sent lots of emails offering you the world. Its very easy when you are down to try something else and this often invloves your credit card.
Thats my top five but the biggest piece of advice I have been given lately is to take the odd day off and don't do anything, especially at times when you are down and nothing seems to be working. I did this recently and came back to five sign ups, the feeling was great and I went about my business with new vigour.
Copyright 2004 Marc Howlett