You might have heard from most internet marketing gurus that affiliate marketing is the most lucrative and best online business model of all. Because unlike traditional and even other internet marketing models, you do not need to have any inventory and best of all, you can work anywhere and anytime you want while still earning unlimited income at the same time. In other words, you get to write your own paycheck without being accountable to your boss and colleagues;

Now what they never told you is that like everything else, there is a right and wrong way to do affiliate marketing. If you do it the right way, you certainly get to enjoy all the rewards as mentioned above. But if you do it the wrong way, you definitely ended up poorer and even worse than what you are as an employee. That is if lack of money and not being able to support yourself and family and pay the bills become your main issue.

Before I go and explain further, let me tell you what affiliate marketing is for some of you who are new to this internet marketing game and do not know anything about promoting things online at all.

Affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products and services in exchange of a share of commission fee. It is much more like sales and telemarketing offline in which you get paid for recommending prospects products and services you helped your boss to promote. It can be digital products like e-book, video tutorials, software tools and even website and WordPress themes. It can also be physical products people like you and me buying from shops and malls everyday. It can also be CPA offers in which you get paid just for recommending people to try the free time limited trials as leads for the company.

Firstly, given the wealth of content out there – which can be true or false, it is very easy to get bogged down by information overload. For someone who is completely new to this, that can be a major problem even with a step-by-step action plan. Because everyday they will have gurus emailing them on the benefits of so many different courses and resources which they may not need. So instead of marketing what they should in their particular niche, they ended up buying all those products and not doing anything at all.

Secondly, most people have a misconception that they just do the work once and get paid over and over again. That is another lie implanted by the gurus into their minds. I am sorry if I offended any of you with what I just said but it is important for me to tell you the brutal truth than beautiful lies. What I mean by work is push a button and all the money they are promised to earn potentially will come flooding into their bank accounts. You don’t earn money by doing the work once. You earned money by doing what you are supposed to do every single day until you started achieving results. That is without getting distracted by those gurus emails promising you the untold riches and deception of achieving them.

Thirdly, since you are learning and applying what you learn on your own, it is best to consult with someone who has actually walked the talk rather than the other way round. Many marketers realized the greater earning potential of creating and getting others to promote their own information products rather than promoting someone else. That is why when you are on their email list as their subscribers and customers, they will keep sending you information hoping you will buy more to supplement their income. A real successful expert will never do that. Even if he or she does, they will be products and services that can help you get things done faster and easier rather than just earning money alone.

Finally, it boils down to your mindset. You have to discipline yourself on not just learning but actually applying what you are supposed to do. In schools, we are constantly learning not just by studying but by doing homework as well so that we become familiar with what our teachers teach and able to have a better chance at passing our exams. The same rule applies to internet marketing whether you are doing market and keyword research, writing content in the form of articles, blog posts and free reports, commenting on other people’s blogs, Facebook groups and forums in your niche, video marketing or a combination of all.

When you are not achieving results initially, it is very easy to get drawn into the web of deception. By both marketers who are interested in earning more out of you than caring for your well-being and families and friends who do not understand what you do and asked you to get a real job.

My advice is very simple. Go and find someone who has actually succeeded in what you want to accomplish. Suppose if you want to be better in basketball and cooking, does it make sense to learn from a coach and chef who are already established in those fields? It makes total perfect sense.

With that said, here are the two sides of my affiliate marketing coin having experienced the ups and downs of doing for 7 years.