How To Be An Affiliate Marketer Online
It seems as I scour the internet these days in the make money online niche, everyone seems to agree that Affiliate Marketing is the best avenue to take. It also seems that all the "shiny objects" out there that we all seem to get distracted by entice us into the same thing. Yep, you guessed it, how to be an affiliate marketer online.
In fact, almost of the "click bait" I see online seems to try and reel us in by giving away some cheap or free version of training pertaining to teach us affiliate marketing. But, as many of us have seen, not all affiliate marketing training is the same.
Not only that, but what many of us who consider free to actually mean free, typically encounter is really some crafty way to give us a trial offer that we think is the answer to our money making problems. But, then we find out later, that we only get part of the story, and to get "the rest of the story" we have to fork over quite a bit of dough.
The Beginnings of A Scam
So, my question is, has this happened to you as well. Many of us have heard about the Ponzi schemes that have come and gone. We had a slew of them within the "ad pack" schemes disguised as advertising platforms. Then there was a bunch of Crypto Currency scams that also had to close their doors.
Granted, these are a bit different from the affiliate marketing scam, but you may remember MOBE and Digital Altitude. These two company's were shut down by the FTC because they were defined as scams.
What troubles me about these two company's though is I actually got reeled into both of them. I didn't complete the scam, thank goodness, but I took the bait. What I found very interesting about the bait though was they were both very similar. They both started off with the same click bait. Yep, a free way to learn how to be an affiliate marketer online.
Let's Take A Look At What MOBE & Digital Altitude Had In Common
As I got sucked into their click bait, they both started off selling you on the idea of how great affiliate marketing really is. I totally agreed with that part of it. Yes, affiliate marketing is indeed the best way to make money online. Selling other peoples products is awesome. No overhead, you don't have to worry about customer service or giving refunds and that sort of thing.
In fact they spend many "steps" telling you all of this information. They also both compared the affiliate marketing model with the franchise model of doing business, comparing it to running your own McDonalds or Subway franchise.
The other thing they had in common was what I call the "step lock" system. This means you could not move to the next step of the process until you completed the last step. They would unlock the next step once you had proven you completed the last step. Then they both had on one of the steps the famous "coaching call"
The coaching call was actually a big sales presentation in disguise. With MOBE, if you didn't spend the $2000 dollar package, you simply could not complete the rest of the steps and no longer had access to the free training. They may have changed that, but when I was in it the "coach" plainly told me they were not going to unlock the rest of the 21 step training. I think the coaching call came on step 7. What a rip!!
For Digital Altitude, they let me go through the rest of the training after the coaching call, but very reluctantly and was not really happy that I did not by the "big package". I had quite of few friends that lost a lot of money from them.
What Can We Learn From This
all, let's realize that not all affiliate marketing training is a scam. Defnitely not. There are, however, good programs and bad programs. The other thing is, free is free. Free is not a free trial in my opinion. If someone offers you something for free, find out how long it's free for. Is it a 7-day trial, 14 day trial? Or, is it free for ever.
The just OK programs will give you free forever, but with not a lot of value. What do you actually get for free. Is it training that is missing the most important steps? Or is it training that you have to purchase extra material to fill in the gaps. These are questions we have to ask ourselves. Or is it free and if we don't upgrade we get our website taken away or they will "lock" the rest of the training?
It is really about value isn't it? If I am given a free version of something and I don't get a lot of value from it, why should I upgrade at all? I only upgrade in programs where the free version give me enough value where I actually learn something or get something.
So, What Do We Get With Wealthy Affiliate?
One thing that always happens if I get steered away by a shiny object in the money making niche. I end up realizing how much value Wealthy Affilaite really give us. When I was a free member, I got two free hosted websites with the opportunity to keep them always.
I was also given excellent training. It was totally up to me whether I wanted to utilize the training or not. Also, as a free member, I actually had the opportunity to make money. I did not have to upgrade in order to earn commissions with WA. Now, how cool is that?!
I did not stick around long enough as a free member to really test that out though because I wanted to really make money online and learn the way 6 and 7 figure earners practice affiliate marketing. So, I upgraded to the premium membership.
Now I have two high ranking websites that get boat loads of traffic. Ladies and gentleman, our affiliate marketing training here at Wealthy Affiliate works! Plain and simple.
For all of you free members who are not taking action. TAKE ACTION. Go through the training and do what the rock group Switchfoot sings about.
"I dare you to move, I dare you to move, I dare you to get up off of the floor. I dare you to move, I dare you to move, Like today never happened before".
In other words go through the training just like you were 100 percent sure it would result in you making money online as an affiliate marketer. Why? Because it is has for others and it can happen for you as well.
So, Where Do We Go From Here?
Take action!. If you are a free member and if you haven't already, click on the big green button that says training and go through the Certification course!
If you have completed the Certification course, then upgrade to premium and go through even more valuable training and really kill it with Affiliate Marketing.
Recent Comments
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Great post, Ralph, and really encouraging for the newer members.
We are very fortunate in that we were never got into that 'shiny object' syndrome and Wealthy Affiliate is our first experience of making money online. It is certainly working for us.
Colette and Philip
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Thank you for writing such an excellent post. This is the way to as long as you find a good program such as WA. WA is the best and honest program on the internet.
We don't hide any extra costs we are upfront about all the cost and we give the complete training for Affiliate Marketing. And we get lots of help from the community.
You can't get this kind of training or help from anywhere else on the internet. Everything else is a scam.
I have been scammed before writing reports for a recovery company and for another affiliate marketing company. I didn't lose too much money thank God but I still felt bad about the situation though.
But I learned a lesson and when I can to WA I didn't know what to think but I still took that chance and here I am. I have made sales but no cheque as of yet still working on that part.
It will happen in all due time. Because success is right around the corner for all of us.
Mary