Two Years at WA, Am I Making Money?

November marks my two year anniversary as a Wealthy Affiliate member. Am I making money? Yes and no. Yes, I am making some money with my affiliate marketing websites. But, not nearly as much as I HOPED to be making at this point. Yet, I am supporting myself with income from my business activities that I was inspired to start after I became involved in the WA community.

To be completely honest, at this moment - my budget requires that I eat lots of rice, beans, and chicken. No steaks or nice dinners out until I get my income levels up.

On the positive side, I am earning enough money that I am not required to eat a ramen noodle diet. Last month, I made enough in sales to cover my rent and utilities for my brick and mortar shop. I am blessed to live just outside of the Colorado Springs, Colorado area. So, I am able to enjoy a laptop, well actually an iPad lifestyle, and the ability to set my own hours rather than having a JOB in an office.

(Picture: Garden of the Gods - Colorado Springs.)

Thanks to my WA membership, I have learned about building websites, SEO, affiliate marketing, e-commerce and a variety of hybrid business models. Some things I learned from the WA training. Other things I learned about from reading people's posts and comments on WA.

I enjoy the WA community because it is full of entrepreneurial people with similar goals. We want to build profitable online businesses. We want to help other people also. We also enjoy the opportunity to be continually learning new things.

Affiliate Marketing Does Not Require a Lot of Money to Start

I own several horses. Like many other horse people, I have always spent a significant amount of my disposable income on horses. So, when it came to starting a business, I did not have a large cash reserve that I could tap into. So, being able to start an affiliate marketing business for the cost of a domain name and the monthly membership fee, sounded like a dream come true.

(Picture: Two of my horses playing in the snow.)

For the first year of my Wealthy Affiliate membership, I paid my fees on a monthly basis because I did not have the money to pay for the entire year at one time. I suppose I also wanted to make sure that I really liked WA before I committed to a yearly membership.

I started my business with less than $500 cash. Currently, I re-invest practically everything I make back into my business. Since I have opted to rent a store front, I am required to have inventory and I pay rent, utilities, property taxes etc. I have enjoyed operating a retail shop but it takes a lot of work. In the slow periods, I make time to work on my affiliate marketing websites.

The less money you have to start a business, the longer it generally takes to become profitable. This is because we are all limited by what we can accomplish in a 24-hour period. If you do have the cash reserves to pay employees or outsource some work, you have a greater chance of becoming profitable sooner.

Being involved in a training program, like the one that Wealthy Affiliate offers speeds up the path to profitability.

Affiliate Marketing is NOT a Get Quick Rich Scheme. Neither is Opening A Brick and Mortar Store.

Much of my professional career has involved working with people that own and/or manage a small business. As a former certified public accountant, I know there is no such thing as "get-rich-quick." Well, that is unless you manage to inherit a large sum of money or win the lottery. When I hear advertisements or promotions that suggest that there is; the scam alert alarm in my head starts going off. For the vast majority of us, it will take a few years to create a business that is profitable enough to cover costs and to provide an adequate standard of living.

Once you learn what affiliate marketing is, you will realize there is a significant amount of money that can be made with affiliate marketing websites. Individuals have affiliate marketing websites. So do larger companies. I believe in the affiliate marketing model of business enough that I am not going to give up.

Examples of Bloggers That Have Become VERY Wealthy Thanks to Affilaite Marketing:

Rhee Drumond, aka the Pioneer Woman, is a blogger that became very wealthy via affiliate marketing. Granted, her empire has grown to include TV shows, cookbooks, a line of products, a restaurant/gift shop etc.

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner Making Sense of Cents. In September, she reportedly made $104,814 with her website.

Wealthy Affiliate has numerous members that support themselves full time with their affiliate marketing websites. To see a sampling of Wealthy Affiliate success stories check out Grace, aka Little Mama's post, If you want to quit or have doubts, read these success stories first. She wrote this post last year, before she started REALLY making money with her website. (In August 2018, she made $4,931 in one month. I admire her determination and refusal to quit.)

Have I made that much with my affiliate marketing? No. Not yet.

I have made enough to know that the training here works. I have also had the opportunity to watch and learn from people that have created profitable websites over the course of 2-3 years.

If I am totally honest with myself, I know that I have not paid my dues yet. I simply have not done the required work on ONE website.

I can assure you, from my personal experience that if you do not focus on one website, it is going to take a lot longer than it would otherwise. When the results don't come in as quick as you would hope, there is a tendency to want to quit.

Why am I not earning more? What have I done wrong?

1. I have spread myself out very thin by attempting to have multiple websites.

2. If you don't write and POST quality content regularly, it is extremely difficult to earn a sizable amount of money. 12-24 posts are not enough. Likewise, 75-100 posts spread out over ten websites won't cut it either.

What have I done right?

1. The knowledge that I have gained as a WA member, allowed the "seed" of a business idea that was planted in my mind for decades to finally sprout. That seed of an idea has evolved into my opening a business that has both a physical store front and an online store front plus an affiliate marketing component. (I have chosen to follow a couple of different successful WA members advice when they cautioned that it is important to diversify and not rely on one stream of income - such as Amazon only.) In time, it is very likely that I will make more money from the affiliate marketing website than I will from the store itself. After all, affiliate marketing does not require the amount of expenses for inventory, rent, or labor that a retail store does. Additionally, affiliate marketing websites should still be working 24-7, 365 days a year.

2. I am not giving up. I have accepted my absolute inability to focus on ONE website. So, I choose to be like the turtle that is slowly plodding forward. I will reach my goals, it will simply take longer since I have burdened myself with a lot of extra baggage (like the turtle carrying his house).

3. I am supporting myself only with income from my self employment activities.

In conclusion:

I am about to celebrate my third year anniversary of being a WA member. My involvement in this amazing community has led me to embark on creating a new business.

The seeds of this business idea had been planted in my heart, mind and imagination ever since I was a girl. The seed simply needed a little technical training on websites, SEO combined with an understanding of how the online business world really works.

My idea flourished with the warmth and motivation that came along with being part of the Wealthy Affiliate community. It is amazing how much we can learn and be inspired by people that live all over the world. Thanks everyone!

Do not give up on your dream. Stay flexible and be willing to change your goals and plans if necessary.

Thanks for reading. If I can help out in any way, please let me know.

Sondra