Confessions of a Mad Marketer

[Dale King]

When I first came online nearly 2 years ago, I monetized my website with my marketing services, which included, consulting and copywriting. I immediately started making great money, and carved out a nice comfortable living for myself in a very short period of time. However, I was working 16 hour days in order to maintain that comfortable living. I completely shut out my friends and family from my life. All I wanted to do was work, work, work! I wasn't going to let anyone or anything get in the way of my success. I was willing to do whatever it took to get ahead - regardless of the cost.

It's safe to say that when it came to my business, I was a "mad marketer!" People close to me said I was obsessed, and they worried about my physical and mental well-being. I soon came to realize that everyone was right. I was obsessed with being successful. I also realized something else. I couldn't possibly keep up the torrid pace I was on, or I would quickly burn myself out. Then I wouldn't be any good to anyone, including myself.

Anyway, a few months ago, as a matter of self-preservation, I started looking into alternative ways to monetize my website, which would enable me to spend less time working and more time enjoying my family and friends, as well as the money I was making. So I started dabbling in affiliate marketing, and I'm happy to report that after only 4 months, my affiliate income has actually surpassed my consulting income.

What exactly does that mean? It means that I can now support myself at a very high level, without doing any consulting work whatsoever. In fact, except for servicing my current clients, I was able to completely shut down my consulting business altogether. In essence, I was able to retire.

I was able to retire because I achieved my goal of making more money in less time. I started working smarter, not harder. Now instead of working 16 hour days, I spend about 2 hours a day promoting the various affiliate programs I belong to. The rest of the day is my "free" time for me to do whatever I please - to enjoy life.

The moral of the story is this. I was truly passionate about my consulting business, as evidenced by the 16 hour days I was working. But I wasn't truly happy, because I was neglecting my family and friends. No amount of money is worth that.

However, through trial and experimentation, I discovered something else I'm just as passionate about, and I'm a lot happier overall.

And isn't that what life is all about?

Dale King

[tess47]

[eskimo13]

Mr. King

I'm pretty new around here and I certainly have enjoyed reading your posts. I'm glad to hear of your success in affiliate marketing and if you can do well even though 'dabbling' in it, then there may be hope for me.

Regarding your work schedule history I certainly would like to be where you are now without having to go through where you were then.

I'm just starting out and haven't made my first dollar online and I am sorta mentally stuck at the present time. I bought yet another book and the business model it put forth seemed completely logical. In fact, it still does. But as I've started to put it into practice there arise some factors which make me doubt the premise.

This question then is for you and anyone else kind enough to give me their input, and Lynn, if it needs to be moved to another forum, I apologize but here goes:

I signed up as an affiliate for a service. A monthly membership service. For each person who signs up through my link, I would recieve $250 plus a monthly percentage of their spend with the company. I chose them to affiliate for from a recommended group of monthly membership services, with the reasoning being that it's better to collect monthly from each sale, rather than a one-time sale that must be replaced each month to provide a level income. Sounds logical, doesn't it?

The marketing method aims to put most everything on auto-pilot by using simple article marketing with the reasoning that the more articles you have out there, the more directories you submit them to, the more websites they appear on, the greater the possibility of someone getting to your sales/referral site and then clicking through and hopefully joining the service. I now have a free blog page set up as a sales/referral page with my affiliate link.

Here's where the 'auto-pilot' part comes in: by paying someone to write articles for you and then paying a spinning-distributing service to multiply and distribute them for you.

Still, it seems logical doesn't it? Certainly a faster, better road than personally writing articles and personally submitting to individual directories, etc. no?

Here's the stumbling block I'm up against: The author of the book, having sold several hundred copies, has set up a forum for his buyers and now for the last few days we are talking to each other and I'm hearing that certain article writing services which were recommended in the book have a less than stellar performance record and some of the others like me are having trouble getting their articles written or are getting sub-standard materials or both. So...

I find I'm asking myself if (A) The business model is solid in the first place (B) If so, couldn't I just seek out other such services, albeit in a kind of hit-or-miss, hope to get lucky sort of way (C) Try to write articles myself (about a subject I know next-to-nothing about) and then take them to a submission service to distribute (D) And then, what about the spinning/multiplication type of service? Will I end up with decent articles doing that or just junk like some of the examples I've been seeing on that forum?

See how stuck I am? I want to avoid getting so bogged down in something that had no chance in the first place that I just end up wasting time and money. So I put it to you, Mr. King, and to the rest of the talent on this forum...

I would appreciate your input,
Quinn

[Dale King]

[Dale King]

Quinn, there's an age old saying: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"

Unfortunately, the program you joined sounds too good to be true. Its's been my experience that when a program starts out badly, it usually doesn't get any better. You have two options:

1. You can ride it out, and hope things turn around.

2. You can request a refund.

Also, do yourself a favor and educate yourself. Learn the best ways to market and promote affiliate programs. The link in my sig file will help you in that regard.

Dale King

[eskimo13]

Hi Dale and thanks very much.

Actually the only money I have in at present was the purchase price of the book and a quarterly membership at Article Marketer. Neither of which do I feel I'm entitled to a refund for.

Going forward though, If I were to write my own articles by becoming more educated about the subject, would you have any warnings against using a service such as Article Marketer?

What about a spinning/distribution service such as Content Spooling Network? Any thoughts against this?

Thanks,
Quinn

[Dale King]

[eskimo13]

When it comes to a service which will take an existing article and 'spin' it to produce many more 'unique' articles from the one, do you have experience with them? Will those articles suffer? Will they be less effective? If not doesn't it seem like a good idea to use them for the purpose of sheer quantity?

By the way, I did go and read your article about the 'Top 10 Article Directories' and enjoyed it very much.

Thanks,
Quinn

[Dale King]