I Could Have Only Dreamed of This When Starting Out.

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Starting out within the online world was an erratic and tumultuous experience for me (albeit it fun). There are many

reasons for this, but the main one was that it was a journey of self-education to truly comprehend how the online economy worked, how affiliate marketing worked, and how I could take "ideas", some content, some affiliate products, as well as traffic, and turn this into a thriving affiliate marketing business.

An important thing to take into consideration and something that I have always naturally done my entire life is focus a great deal of importance on progression of "knowledge". My opinion is this...

"The only way to positively progress in life, is to educate oneself."

Whether this is through hands on experiences, through reading, through watching videos, or through things that we are taught by others, we all continue to educate ourselves.

ALL education is not equal though. All education isn’t incorrect. And truly comprehending something happens at different levels of efficiency, depending on the source and style of the education.

What am I getting at here?

Well, in the content of learning how to build a business online, I was very much “ill equipped” in today’s standard. When I started out, I didn’t have any skills building websites, technology was 15 years LESS advanced than it was today, and I basically had to figure out EVERY element of affiliate marketing on my own.

Most of which I learned by doing. In fact, I would say 90% of my education was by trying new things, not knowing the result. There weren’t really any quality educational resources back in 2002 when I got rolling and there certainly wasn’t anything close to what we offer here at Wealthy Affiliate.

The people succeeding online back in 2002 were typically self-reliant and very much self-sufficient. E-books just started becoming a thing in 2004/2005 and so did big product launches. Domain technology, website technology, SEO, these were all very much in their infancy and social media didn't even exist.

I had to learn everything on my own. Every day I was heading into foreign territory, not knowing what I was going to come across but to a certain degree that was something that I really started to embrace.

It led to me taking MUCH longer to get a handle on things, but I also got the opportunity to learn very quickly what didn’t work, and then what did work, and now all of this education has given me the ability to teach others in the industry.

And this is the EXACT reason why we created Wealthy Affiliate back in 2005. We understood the need for speeding up the education process and helping people understand what are the PROPER practices for building a business, and what are things that you should avoid doing.

Wealthy Affiliate was our platform and way of creating something that we had always “wished we had” when we started out.

Affiliate Marketing Platforms, They Simply Didn't Exist.

Since 2002, there have been MANY attempts at creating a great service. I remember back in 2006 a membership program in this industry that was charging $800/mth. They lasted a few years before they folded. There have be 10,000’s of ebooks that came and went and that continue to sizzle before the candle wick is even lit.

There are membership sites out there now, and these days there are companies pretending to be “affiliate marketing” whereas they are nothing more than schemes inviting you to spend a lot of money so you can promote that same opportunity to others.

There has been ONE consistent company and platform in the industry. Wealthy Affiliate.

Since our inception in 2005, we have always stayed true to the roots of affiliate marketing and how to properly build a business online and we have not deviated from this in our 12 years in this business. And through the arc of time and the 10,000’s of improvements and updates we have made at WA, we haven’t increased our price point.

It's apparent. We care. It's also apparent. We know what we are doing, but we don't think we are perfect. That is why we continue to evolve literally with EVERY day that passes. Our best is truly yet to come and we will always view our service and platform in this light. You help us improve. You help us get better.

In fact, the price at WA has never been more affordable and on Black Friday to Cyber Monday (November 24th - 27th, 2017), it is going to be the lowest pride we have ever offered ($299 for an entire year).

Our goal is and will always be, helping YOU succeed online and to do so with the most efficiency as possible. The training, the tools, the services, the help and the networking you need is going to be instrumental in this process and we are going to continue to led the industry in every respect, with 2018 going to be our biggest breakthrough yet.

Something I Am Really Glad I Did NOT Know When Starting Out...

Like running on a treadmill, it is always easier to put in a good workout when you are not “watching the clock”. If you have a 30 minute run on a treadmill you know what I am talking about. It feels like eternity and a lot more hard work if you are watching the seconds go by (and are staring at the wall in front of you).

Compare this to an outdoor run at the park or a trail run, the 30 minutes seems to come and go with a lot more efficiency and it seems to be a lot more fun.

Watching the clock on your own personal success is a HUGE trap. One that many falls into and can never get out of and as a result, people fail at a high rate because of this one item alone.

What I am really glad I didn’t fall into was the “clock watching trap” that many (I would say MOST) people fall into when they are trying to create a business online. They want success now and they give themselves a time limit in which they must create success by, or they give up or move onto the next thing.

I can tell you plain and simple, if I had a 1 month, 3 months or even 6 month rule I would not be where I am at today.

A Significant Reason I Became a Success.

One thing that I understood early on is that building a business cannot be approached in the same way as an hourly job. Perhaps it was because I had jobs where I did piece work in the past where I only got paid for what I did (just like business). I applied the same principles to building a business online.

I didn’t break things down into an hourly wage. If I did, I would have failed.

This is logic that I see many folks instituting in their online business and it leads to immediately failure. In fact, I know right away if I hear someone complaining about the hours they have spent in their first month of business with no payoff, they are going to fail and unless they change their attitude, they are NEVER going to succeed in business.

The time and energy you put forth now, typically pays off MONTHS from now. If you are looking for an instant reward from your efforts, then you are approach business in the wrong way and you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

I have had single posts that I have created over the years that haven’t ranked for months from the time I wrote them, but then all of a sudden as my site gained authority the blasted to the top of the search engines and single handily drove a full time income.

I have had PPC campaigns that took 3-4 months to truly refine, but once I set them up they generated YEARS of profits. I have had single KEYWORDS that I have discovered over the years through trial and error that were gold mines.

This is the sort of stuff that happens when you treat this like a business, not an hourly job. Not everything you do will translate into money, and not everything you do that translates into money will be evident at the time that it is the reason why.

But that is what happens in this business and that is what will happen as you build out your business. Treat it like a job, and you will never have a business (and likely fail very quickly). Treat it like a business, and that is exactly what you are going to create.

So this is a key takeaway you should run with here. Don't treat business like an hourly job!

You Have Much More Than I Could Have Dreamed Of.

Now you need to take advantage of it!

I could have only dreamed of a platform like Wealthy Affiliate online. It would have saved me months of effort, time and waste. Sure, I learned a lot as a result of my failure, but it is also nice to follow those that have "been there and done than" to save you from going to the effort just to fail.

You have access to absolutely everything you need here within the WA platform and community to create and grow a business online and do so with more efficiency than ever.

A website can now be built here in 30 seconds. That same process took 30 days when I started out and that is without an ounce of exaggeration. I had to code from scratch, I had to design my own theme and menus, I had to copy code from page to page just to create new pages of content. I could have only dreamed of a platform like WA when starting out.

Quality images were impossible to find back in 2002. Finding an image you liked for your website, was a pure pain in the rear. You now have access to over 1 MILLION+ images as a Premium member using the SiteContent Images platform. This I could have only dreamed of when starting out.

Finding keywords was quite the process. There was a platform called Overture (which was the advertising network for Yahoo) at the time that had an OK keyword tool within it, but most of the great keywords I ever came up with I had to think of off the top of my head. I could have only wished for a platform the WA keyword & research platform here at WA.

The training was sparse, if at all. Anyone that was successful was usually "hush hush" about it and wouldn't share what they were doing with you in fears of you stealing it. I could have only dreamed of a progressive education and live weekly classes like you have access to here at WA.

Support was through forums and most of it was the "blind leading the blind". Support forums and chat rooms were filled with people that were handing out bad advice and anyone that new what they were doing were unwilling to share this information with you. I could have only dreamed of a community and a networking opportunity like you have access to here at WA, where we all care about each other and are willing to pay it forward when we learn something.

There you have it. My dreams have come true, but it is through you that I get to experience the efficiency that someone can build a business, from a cost perspective as well as a time perspective.

I hope you can take away a few things from this post, not only the passion that we have behind the platform here at Wealthy Affiliate and our tireless strive for perfection, but some things that I did through the years that made the difference between success and failure. The two main ones were not watching the clock on my success and not breaking things down into an hourly wage. If I did either of those, I likely would not be writing this and surely, WA wouldn't exist.

I would love your feedback, thoughts, comments or questions if you have any! Please drop them below and I wish you an exciting Black Friday ahead and I hope all of your are able to take advantage of our amazing yearly offer of $299 for an entire year of Premium. :)

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Recent Comments

256

Hi Kyle,
Is excellent your post, many thanks.
Several times I thought about leaving WA because my economic situation is not the best. As you explain I am learning a lot inside WA and I also learn a lot outside of WA. When I make a post on my site I try to teach the reader to gain their trust. Then I try to take him by the hand so that he registers in WA so he can continue learning. I consider it very important to also explain that I am not an expert and that surely someone inside WA will be able to clarify all your doubts. Conclusion: In spite of everything, I'm still in WA, above all for its creators, whose evolution that the business demands is OK.
Regards!

The thing that is very interesting is that you do not have to be an expert at something to offer value in a specific industry and offering value prior to being what is deemed an expert will lead to an incredible amount of learning.

It is a matter of communicating and there are many facets of the Internet world that I am not close to being an expert in that I hope to move the needle towards through time.

It is always refreshing to hear the experience, good and bad, that someone that is successful has gone through to get to where they are. Thanks for sharing and being honest. Having dabbled in a few brick and mortar businesses I am fully aware that to make any business successful you have to put in the time. When everyone has gone to bed or still asleep, you have to be motivated to use the time to work on parts of that business. It is easier to give in than to stay the course, but the rewards are mind blowing and I am not just speaking of money generation.

Hi, Harvey.
I did not fully understand.
Kind of makes sense though. Please help me to understand.

Kindest regards,
Paul.

Are you referring to what I wrote Paul or Kyles? If it is mine then basically a lot of us read books on how successful individuals became that way. I view what Kyle posted in a similar light, but geared towards Wealthy Affilitate. One of his main points is not viewing your online business as a regular paying job or watching the hours. What I have found is he is correct. When most people are in bed as the owner you do not have that luxury. It usually turns out to be a 18+ hours and be staggered.

I still have a library of PERL, Dreamweaver, ASP, XML and basic HTML among others Kyle. I did some imaging in Adobe Writer in 2000 and 2001 when the dotcom bust occurred.
Now I'm so glad instruction and practice has reached the automatic stage and we can run with self and augmented education here!

Bitcoin and other Alternative Currencies.
We had this conversation, Michael almost a year ago.
Everyone should have acces to WAU. Alternate currency exchanges will provide the access.
I do not want conflict, Michael. I am merely providing sources of solution.
Kindest regards,
Paul.

Hi Kyle

That's a wonderful post. I decided very early on that the best thing about being part of Wealthy Affiliate is the ethos of the Directors. You guys really care and it shows in everything you put your hand to. You richly deserve whatever prosperity you enjoy for creating this platform.

You are a shining light within the sometimes quite dark online environment.

Wishing you every success going forward.

Cheers
Rod

It definitely can be dark other sometimes but we want to provide people with an environment that they can trust, and that they can operate their entire businesses within (ie, no need to look elsewhere).

We are going to continue to evolve at a rate much faster than anything else in the industry and we have some really exciting stuff planned for the year ahead!

Hi Kyle, you sure have come a long way since back then!

The passion that you and Carson have truly shows in the work you do, and the help you give us all. A massive community of 1.2 Million, that's quite a handful.

Thank you for this post, I appreciate you guys and WA more than you will ever know!

Yeah, quite the bunch and to be said, a TON of brilliant, helpful and truly awesome people have chosen to make WA their home. ;)

Yes we truly are brilliant, haha... thanks!

I'm happy to be part of it all...my home it is :)

I am grateful that you made those efforts and persevered...the only reason someone like me can actually have the opportunities for success through the combined offerings and updates here at WA. No other platform or promise out there even comes close! I wholeheartedly agree with continual learning...especially in the online realm. Your self-learned knowledge has enlightened so many lives...thank you,Kyle and the entire team, for everything.

I can't take full credit for anything. There are 100,000's of people here that have and continue to shed their knowledge they have acquired over the years and are continuing to acquire.

We learn more efficiently when we ask those that have "done it" already, and that is the case with the pay it forward community here and the way knowledge gets shared and transmitted.

We hope to continue to enlighten as a community and do so at the most efficient rate ever in the year ahead!

Your and Carson's names were my first exposure here...other than dear Nathaniel who led me here....while I realize the universe of all other members and successes within WA...it is always that beginning nucleus that keeps me in awe of just how much we can accomplish.

I joined about a year ago for the black friday offer - will of course continue my membership with this years black friday offer:-)

Appreciate all I have learned here and the tools that are available, and especially that you are continously developing the platform and listening to the members. Grateful to have found this platform.

All the best,
Mikael

Awesome Mikael, that is wonderful to hear and I really look forward to working with you in the year ahead!

I would say a realistic expectation to establish when getting started would be to at least put in two years worth of work before expecting any success online even if it's just generating £100.00 in revenue/mth as the final result. It's still a success.

With a mindset like this and mass effort put in the rewards will pay off if you're patient enough in the long run.

Failure is guaranteed because this is a learning curve where mistakes and setbacks will happen but without them, you won't learn what works and what doesn't so really they're positives in their own little way.

Since getting started in 2014, I've had 6 websites fail and two succeed to generate what is considered to be a full-time income and if I didn't fail with my other sites I would never have experienced any success especially if I gave up.

Great post.

Sam.

Well said Sam. Like you I have had many things fail over the years, but once I got the formula down within the online world I was able to scale as well as replicate with much more efficiency. Not to mention teach others what I had learned over the years as well. ;)

I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish in the year ahead with your respective businesses! Onwards and upwards!

Well done Kyle and Carson in building the number one platform for affiliate marketing. I have been here 6 years and seen many changes , the platform now is so much easier to use to build a website and online business. Hey it even can be applied to other business ideas including bricks and mortor.

Hey Mark, you're totally right by saying that what is learned here at WA can be applied to other businesses...it can be applied to any business :)

Every business in 2017/2018 needs a website and needs an online presence. So, whether you're someone who is promoting Affiliate marketing products, or someone who owns a brick and mortar business, you can build your website and drive clients to that site from what you learn at WA!

2018 is going to be incredible - we have the largest pipe of improvements I'm the works that we've ever had and as we hit 2018 we'll be making some of the biggest updates ever to WA and the platform!

Glad you'll be here to see what we've got up our sleeves ;)

Carson

If the changes ahead are anything like what has happened here recently then we are in for a treat for sure. :)

You can rest assured Mark!

This is an amazing platform, thank you to you and Carson for building this! I was so happy to have found it when I did! Incredible value you guys offer here that I wish many would see as well. I hope to continue to open people’s eyes to see what is offered here and how they can really build the online business of their dreams too!

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