Affiliate marketing or MLM? Do you ever ask this question when thinking about having your own business? That was a question I asked a lot over the years. I have been involved in several MLM or direct-selling businesses over the years.
I’m not knocking any of them and I won’t say anything negative about them here. I believe different things work for different people. I learned a lot from some businesses I was involved with and still implement some of what I learned in my daily life. I certainly made a lot of connections. Some of those connections turned into friendships that have lasted over the years.
My first direct-selling business was Amway. It was years ago when a friend from church introduced us to the business. I enjoyed going to home meetings and I met a lot of new people. I really liked a lot of the products and still use some of them today.
I graduated later to Juice Plus and Take Shape for Life as a Health Coach. I am still completely sold on those products and still use them today.
I also tried “Send out Cards ” and “Scentsy” for a short time but mostly to get the discounts on the products.
I also tried Mary Kay.
These businesses all had one thing in common. Training.
I enjoyed the training so I can’t say I didn’t get anything from being a part of those businesses, but I didn’t make big money. I did make a little for a time and I was happy. I had the opportunity to make more but my personality wasn’t such that I always felt comfortable selling to my family and friends. I was even more uncomfortable trying to meet strangers and get them on board. The big money was signing people up as distributors under you so that you duplicated your efforts.
Fast forward a few years later I was recently confronted by a family member who asked me to take a look at a new business venture. I was open to what he and his up-line mentors had to say and it sounded very interesting, but I had decided a few years ago that I was not going to do anymore MLM type businesses. If I decide to in the future it will be one that I’m familiar with and have already forged connections with.
To make a long story short I wanted a business I could do from home to earn a little extra income. I found myself wondering “couldn’t there be more to working and making money from home or anywhere I happened to be?”
AFFILIATE MARKETING
I have researched affiliate marketing on and off for the past few years. I knew I loved to build websites and found I liked to blog. In fact, several years ago I had my own website and I kept it going for over a year and I was looking into affiliate marketing at that time but then started working a full-time job.
I kept researching and I found something that works for me. I ran across a site called Wealthy Affiliate. I was researching online businesses one night and I stumbled upon someone’s website who was describing an online business where you could make money at your own pace, on your own time, and have a wealth of learning opportunities. I had to check it out!!
I quickly became interested and signed up for the free member account. I was amazed at all the training you get on this one website. I began to tell my husband about it and a friend of mine who has always been involved in MLMs also. The training is exceptional.
I have learned more in just a few months on Wealthy Affiliate than I learned in a year of college. In fact, I look forward to the training and I go back and read or listen to a lesson just to make sure I’m grasping everything. Being part of the Wealthy Affiliate community has become the affiliate’s dream.
THE WEALTHY AFFILIATE OPPORTUNITY
One thing I really liked about the Wealthy Affiliate opportunity is that no one pressures you into signing up for this “business that is going to make you a lot of money.” You have the option of signing up for a free account and to build two free websites.
As a starter member you go through approximately ten lessons and this gives you a good feel for it you would like to continue.
There are pieces of training that take you step-by-step through the process of building your own website, using keywords properly and maximizing your content for SEO so that your website will be indexed and found, and a lot more. You can build a website at your own pace and no one pressures you into spending money on things you don’t need. You do spend a little if you decide to upgrade to become a premium member, but it is well worth it.
As a premium member, you have access to all the training and you have the option to build up to fifty websites.
THE BENEFITS OF WEALTHY AFFILIATE
With Wealthy Affiliate, there are numerous benefits to consider. First, no one pressures you into signing up for a business where you need to “spend money to make money.” There is no distributorship. There is no up line or down line. You become proficient through the free training and learn how to build and monetize your website so that what you earn is based on your own efforts. You pace yourself to build your website, your own niche, and begin posting about the interests you have. It’s a win-win situation.
Other benefits to becoming a member (whether it is free, or you upgrade to Premium) are:
1) Site support – The support with Wealthy Affiliate is the best I’ve seen. I have looked at a lot of website building platforms. If you have a question, you send it out and you get immediate answers and sometimes links to the very thing you are looking for. Not only do you have access to “site support” but you have access to thousands of members who have been there longer than you and you benefit from their knowledge and their willingness to help others.
2) Step-by-step training – Wealthy Affiliate offers step-by-step training opportunities split up into two Sections. One is the Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) training and the other is the Affiliate Bootcamp training. The OEC training has 50 lessons and Affiliate Bootcamp has over 70 lessons. In each training, you learn to build your own website, learn to use a keyword research tool to maximize your exposure, and much more.
3) How to use WordPress and upload plugins to optimize your site – The trainers at Wealthy Affiliate want you to be successful so they teach you the latest and greatest tools to use. You will be taught how to build your site on WordPress, upload plugins that will help to optimize your site, how to upload affiliate links, and much more. The training makes it so easy to understand and help you build a site.
4) Other Training – There are hundreds of hours of live training that are all recorded and can be watched at any time. There are Wealthy Affiliate members constantly posting training on the site to help others. If they learn a trick or two then they share it with the community.
5) Online Network Community – there are hundreds of members in Wealthy Affiliate. From the time you sign up as a new member, whether it is a free member or Premium member you begin to feel welcome in the community. And everyone helps each other. It is a whole networking community. I have made many connections and make more every day. The overall theme for all the members is to “pay it forward” and it really shows.
I have really enjoyed being a Wealthy Affiliate member. I have made a commitment to continue my journey to build several websites and to follow the training to become successful in affiliate marketing. Wealthy Affiliate truly is the affiliate’s dream.
Visit Wealthy Affiliate now to find out if it’s for you! And when you get there, look me up!
Happy Building,
Pamela