You and I have heard this many times before, but this is really what it comes down to. Having a business and having a profitable affiliate campaign is not the same. Heck, even a lot of brick & mortar businesses don’t get this right. Where I’m getting at here?
“Rich Dad Poor Dad” – what a great book. Although there are a lot of repetition and pretty much the same thought is repeated throughout the whole book, but it lets you realize something. Until you have a consistent cash-flow going on, you don’t have a business.
Robert Kiyosaki keeps on talking about the importance of building assets and how they differ from liabilities. Simply put, assets are what makes you money, liability is what takes money away from you. He is the real-estate buff, an investor. So these are the main areas how he creates wealth. He talks about creating passive streams of income as the main way to gain financial independence. And this is so true in affiliate world as well.
As affiliates, we keep hearing “keep on pumpin’ those campaigns”, “start 20 campaigns to find one profitable…” and so on… But even when you do find that one golden nugget that makes you profit. How long will it last? Sooner or later campaigns die out. You have no money. What’s then? Back to testing more campaigns. So is that a business? Nope. It’s a job. Job without job security as I look at it. If you want a business, you have to make money work for you, not you work for money. So what happens essentially is you’re spending all your time and effort into making these short lasting campaigns.
Ok, I’m not saying it’s bad. In some situations, it’s the only thing you can do, if you don’t have much cash. But keep on thinking about the future. Will you want to keep on cranking those campaigns or you want freedom and consistent cash-flow?
So how do you achieve that?
Well, as I keep reading all the wealthy folks made their riches by great ideas (Gates, Zuckerberg (well he stole that, but…)) or investments and real estate (Robert Allen (you can see his bizopp floating on CPA networks), Kiyosaki, Trump). So the route seems pretty clear if you’re not the most creative person in the world.
But first – you need money. You can’t start building assets, making investemnts until you have a huge pile of money in your bank account.
Or can you…?
Real estate requires some solid sums of money upfront. Well, if you’re good you can probably get around that, but I know nothing about it, so all I have is my narrow view. But on internet world, an alternative to real estate is – digital real estate. Yup. Websites, domains, email lists. That’s all an asset that keeps making money, consistently.
I wasn’t a fan of this before, but it seems like a no brainier for anyone starting out. Best of all, prices can be ridiculous. Let’s take Flippa.com for example. You can buy or sell websites there. I’ve seen sites than make $50-$200/month selling for $400-$600. In some cases you can make a real deal there.
So if you’re on a shoestring budget, and have $1000 to invest totally. Think what’s better. To blow $200 on Adsonar test, $500 on Pulse, $300 on PPV campaigns, just to have some data MAYBE, or have nothing at the end?
OR…
Take that $1000 and invest in a couple of websites in niches that are going to be strong. Websites with Google Pagerank and history. with unique content and SEO done? In my book, $200/month is much more stable than $1000 of cash in your pocket. Especially when you need to be blowing money on testing new campaigns on paid traffic anyway.
So think about building assets in digital world. You don’t need to be filthy rich, you can actually start with very little. But if you start building assets right now, after years you’ll realize how rich get richer. It’s the wealth they build. It’s the money making money. Passive streams of income that no temporary and competitive penny auction campaign can replace. This is the true wealth building. And you can start doing that right now.
If you’re not into buying/selling websites, it’s ok, neither am I. There are many ways to make passive income. SEO is one of them. Building contact database is another. You can come up with more examples. All I’m trying to say is start thinking of what you’re doing as a business. Long term, stable business. Even if you don’t have enough money now. Keep this thought in mind and you’ll thank yourself later.
Hey Michael,
Thanx for your comment.
Yeah, that book is really great. Have opened eyes to a lot of marketers. Congrats on your success. These principles are a no brainer. Shoemoney has some posts about buying/selling websites, you can check that out. Now Facebook Fanpages are sort of new type of real estate. Heard about folks selling those as well. Should be some guides/articles online. Once I’ll get more experience in this, I’ll release some guide as well. But def. check it out.