How Affiliate Marketing has changed our lifes

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Gary · Posted in General

homeless coder Paul and I started Affiliate Marketing just over 1 year ago and we’ve both found that our lives has already started to change. I thought it would be interesting to share this with others and for others to feel free to share their stories on what has changed in their life since taking the move from a typical job into the world of AM.

1. We’re working our butts off every single spare moment we get. We do far more hours work than before. I guess this would be the same for any new start up business. If you want to succeed then you have to put the time and effort in.

2. I get far less sleep. Paul still manages his time better and hits the sack earlier. I’m slightly different as I cannot switch off that easily, plus I have a 6 month old little boy who still likes his milk dream feed.

As we are both still working part time, most of our AM time is in the evenings and with a few odd hours at work. Shh!!!

3. I didn’t use to drink coffee at all. I’m now drinking 2 cups of coffee every day, probably because of the lack of sleep and the fact that Paul and I like to meet a couple of times a day to discuss affiliate project stuff, and the odd dream that one day soon we’ll be out of our day jobs having the meeting on the golf course, where as I think we both know that there will be far more work at that stage. Nice to have these thoughts though.

4. There is so many more rewards and a sense of achievement which motivates us to do more. We do get lots of ups and downs like when we get a google slap or our sites drop in position or the merchants data feeds are just crap, but this only challenges us further to get to the next stage

5. Paul is now keeping the local brewery in business and I’m on first name terms with the lady at my local grocery store. Not sure if this is a good thing or not, but we do tend to drink more beer now.

6. Take aways and convenience foods are becoming a twice weekly event for me because we have limited time with full time jobs, kids to look after and then Affiliate Marketing on Top as well.

7. Our wife’s are getting less attention. I even forgot about our anniversary but it wasn’t the marriage one. It was the anniversary since we got together. That’s what I keep saying though to try and dig myself out of this mess.

8. We both have more ambition, where as before we were clock watching until we could get home and just chill out thinking is this 9-5 job what I’ve got to do for the rest of my working career, feeling stuck in the rat race as changing careers is almost near impossible without having different skills and all that crap that comes with looking for a real job!

9. Everything we buy now is almost always online. I have to look to see if there is a merchant affiliate program and then I’ll even start thinking of new potential niches

10. I’m getting softer as I get older or maybe its the fact that A. I still owe my wife for forgetting her anniversary or B. I know that one day soon I’ll be able to pay for all these extra things. I know this is not a good thing and should live to my earnings rather than more than them and I do try. Trust me my friends know that I’m frugal with my spending!!

I’m sure we could probably go on more and I’m sure in the next year we’ll have a load more to add.

We still wouldn’t want to be doing anything else right now. There is some exciting times ahead for us with a massive site we’ve been working on with another Affiliate we’ve partnered up with. More on this will be announced nearer the time.

How has Affiliate Marketing changed you?