If you are reading this blog post, chances are you are looking at ways to generate income online, building your online empire that could eventually provide the financial, time and location 
freedom you deserve.
But wait! You may have heard that over 90% of wantrepreneur failed in their online journey, and the question of whether it is still worth looking at is lingering in your head.
Having been in the game for quite a while and seeing many come and go, I think there is no right or wrong answer. Well, the thing that you need to ask yourself is, what’s the alternative?
If you enjoy your work, are happy with your job, have a great boss, and make a good salary, that’s great. Probably, you should stay in.
But for a lot of people, that’s not the case, including myself, of course. I’ve always wanted the freedom to have my own business where I could scale my income.
There are just so many different ways to make money on the internet these days. You could have a dropshipping business, e-commerce, start a digital agency, sell other people’s products, or even create your own course or digital product.
Regardless of which business model you choose, I believe there is one definite path we all need to go through; The Emotional Cycle of Change.
I remember vividly the very first program that I bought a few years back, talking about building a profitable online business. My adrenaline was pumping while holding my credit card just before paying for the thousand dollars program, and soon it was all replaced by excitement and a sense of hopefulness when the transaction was completed. I was officially in the program, and the image of financial and time freedom kept flashing in my mind; the hope to finally leave my 9~5 job could soon materialize.
This is where the Emotional Cycle of Change starts.
1) Uninformed Optimism
This is where we always start. We get to the point where we realize we need a better quality of life, either to add an additional income stream that allows us to travel everywhere we want or simply to quit our 9~5. Then when we find an opportunity that could fulfil our goal, regardless of whether it is affiliate marketing, dropshipping, or creating digital courses; it feels amazing; even though we don’t know anything about it yet. We just feel so hopeful and optimistic this is going to be great and work out at the end of the day.
2) Informed Pessimism
As we go through the program and learn what we need to do, the excitement subsides, and the feeling of pessimism starts to set in. It seems like building your online business is a lot harder than you thought. You didn’t expect you need to go on camera, create content, build that website and deal with all those technical stuff. Doubts start to creep in, and your progress slows down. You start to skip a day working on the program, then two days and before you know it, a week has passed.
3) Trapped In The Valley of Despair
What happens next is as you learn more and more, you realize there are even more things that need to be done. You are telling yourself that you are not capable of completing the tasks and they are just too difficult. The imposter syndrome struck you hard, and you are trapped in this valley of despair. This is where most people give up; they go on to find the next thing that looks easy, and the cycle repeats (jumped back on the Uninformed Optimism).
4) Informed Optimism
So we really need to get to the point where we get past the Valley of Despair; into Informed Optimism. This is the mindset we all need (most people consider mindset as a kind of “woo woo” stuff, but it is just so important in reality). The right mindset could push us through difficult times. With the right mindset, you will understand that you must complete the tasks even if it is uncomfortable. You realize that change happens outside your comfort zone; just something you got to do no matter what. Once you get to the Informed Optimism and past that point, your chances of success increase dramatically.
No matter which business model you choose to do, it is extremely crucial to commit to one and stick with it. But, there is one business model that is going to be advantageous among all, especially for beginners and that’s Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate marketing is pretty easy to start, and all you need to do is to partner with existing product owners or companies, market their products and earn commissions. You don’t need to carry any inventory or fork out huge investments; you can start fast, and this is the path of least resistance you could take.
This business model is practical and beneficial if you are working full-time or super busy with kids in life and all those stuff; but still want to build an online business that eventually allows you to quit your job and have that financial, time and location independence. This is because you can start fresh fast by leveraging on existing successful systems already in place and scaling up without the burden of fulfilment. Why is this point so important that it dictates your chances of success significantly?
Let’s imagine you are creating your own digital product to sell. You would need to fulfil 5 main pillars, which are;
1) Product Creation
2) Marketing System
3) Sales Process
4) Customer Service
5) Fulfilment (either shipping, coaching or training)
Where fulfilment would normally utilise the biggest chunk of your resources.
If you get started as a solopreneur (which I presume you are, in most common cases), that means you need to spread yourself in fulfiling various pillars to get the business up and running, which is very hard for a beginner or newbie, with extremely low success rate. It requires massive efforts in doing market surveys, testing, trial and error, developing your marketing system and sales processes stuff like that.
That’s why the affiliate marketing business model is perfect for beginners, as you don’t run into the issues mentioned above since you can focus 100% of your effort on marketing (driving traffic) and let the product owner take care of the rest (sales process, customer service and fulfilment).
What you need to do is basically do some homework to find an established product to partner with and focus your effort on marketing only. No worries about product creation, sales process, customer service or fulfilment whatsoever, as all these concerns are being taken care of by the owner.
So, it’s a really great business model since it allows you to leverage the system already in place, enabling you to start faster in generating the income that you desire and scale further easily.
But to put things into perspective, affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Even with the indisputable advantages of this business model, you still need to put in the work, time, and effort to learn how to do it correctly and establish a good foundation.
It’s definitely not some kind of silver bullet that can get you rich overnight because, after all, it is a real business, and you gotta treat it as one. And if you’re unwilling to do that, then you’re not ready for it, or should I say any type of business. But if you are willing to do that, you can achieve some pretty incredible things.
And if you are looking to start your affiliate marketing journey on the right foot, check this out to learn more.
This is a guest post from Marcus Lam if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.
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