Affiliate Dogma

Affiliates Guide To Going Full Time

This can be one of the most important decisions of your life. The upgrade from being a hobbiest / part time affiliate to making affiliate marketing your full time employment.

I don’t think I have ever met a fulltime affiliate who hasn’t used the phrase ‘never regretted it’ though it is a very big step and a life changing decision.

I suppose that the first thing - before all else is to ask yourself “Why Do I Want To Become A Full Time Affiliate?” If the answer is (truthfully) “because I can!” then your battle is just about won.

Financial considerations are one of the most important. Can you earn enough money to keep yourself (and your dependants) to the manner that you (they) have become accustom to. Remember that in becoming a full time affiliate you will be loosing a second income! Does your affiliate income cover your costs of living? You cannot be too sure about this question.

Financial fallbacks. You need this. If you are relyant on one source of affiliate income - natural/organic SEO traffic, PPC etc - be aware that these markets can change overnight, search engines can change their algorhythm, PPC terms can change. There are two things that you must to to cover this.

1) Have Savings. Have a pile of untouched money sitting in the bank. Usually covering the equivalent of 6 months rent or morgage and other most basic bills. This is the fallback position. If things start to go wrong you know that you have financial support to get you through the worst and start building back up - and then if the worst comes to the worst get another fulltime job.

2) Diversify. As soon as you have the freedom of time from dumping the full time job, don’t spend it all on the golf course. Move into new sectors, finance, retail, utilitys gaming etc and if you are a PPC person - build a website , if you are a SEO person invest a few pounds a month in PPC to start building up your ppc budgets.

Another pointer, as you will be stepping down in income (hopefully just temporarilly) you may be entitled to some tax benefits, you will have to inform the IR if your income changes dramtically for things like working family’s tax credit. This should server to help you in the first few tight months.

One other consideration other than going full time affiliate - you could phase out the day job by cutting back on hours, and moving to full time affiliate status in phases.

There are other considerations than financial.

Will full time affiliate marketing make you happy?

For most (aslong as the finance is covered) I am sure that the answer is YES. But you have consider the fact that you will be working for yourself, by yourself! You will lose out on the daily contact with people that you may have had at your employers. So spending some time on the golf course each week could be a good move afterall. Also don’t coop yourself up. 95% of affiliate marketing is done on a computer / at a desk. Get out. Network and have a little fun during the day away from the PC. Join a gym or whatever takes your fancy.

There may never be a good time to start full time. There will be times that you definitly shouldn’t. The key point is that taking up affiliate marketing full time is a big step and sometimes it is a little ste of faith. Do all you can to prepare for the worst, but don’t think of the worst. Put your best efforts in and ~~you’ll be a man my son~~ you can make it in affiliate marketing full time.