I’ve put this in the ‘affiliate marketing’ category because recent activities has me thinking quite a lot about whether most affiliates stay firmly within the ‘affiliate’ role (sending traffic to another business for them to close the deal - or not as the case is quite often), or whether they also Drop Ship or even buy items Wholesale and become a merchant. Having recently seen the view from the other side of the fence, I can say with hand on heart I wish I had become a merchant much sooner in my career.

I’ve been trying hard to make a go of affiliate marketing for about a year now, I have some reasonable sites that make some money, however, it is normally barely enough to cover the cost of my server, I’ve worked long and hard (as mentioned in a post below I’m often still found in my office after 18 hours of work), I’ve taught myself new skills such as mySQL and PHP and at times have been so stressed at the lack of sales that I’ve often wondered if it’s all worth it. Then I look at people who inspire me such as Keiron Donoghue and Keith Budden and realise what is possible if I could just find that magic formula, don’t ask me what it is as I am still searching myself!

So that brings me back to the main topic of this post, affiliate, merchant or both? Well as I said in the previous post I have now entered the merchant arena and I’m loving it! We have positive cash flow, we have stock, we have control and most of all we have a business! I cannot speak for other affiliates but personally I’ve never quite felt like a businessman, maybe it’s the lack of income, maybe it’s the lack of control once the visitor leaves my site, maybe it’s just me!

So what do you think, is it possible to be successful at being both an Affiliate and a Merchant or would you concentrate on just one or the other?

Mark

We are well into the new year and I thought I’d do a quick round up of where I am in relation to my goals for 2007 as I posted sometime ago.

1. To be making £1500 a month from my online activites by May 07: NET
Surprisingly this one is looking very good already, I started a new business venture with Steve (Carmod - from the competition I talked about in an earlier post, we have become very good friends and now business partners) and things are looking very promising for the future. This is not an Affiliate Marketing business but a full blown retail business, we already hold stock and have turned over nearly £500 in our first week, so I strongly believe that #1 will be easily accomplished.

2. To be up and running with my finance site by mid February
This one is definately not going to be achieved, unfortunately with so much work and such long hours going into making the new business a success I have had to put this goal on the backburner for at least 2 months. I still seriously believe I will get into this lucrative sector, it’s just that I need some positive cash flow now. My mlm business venture is getting a little tiresome and to be honest after 2 years of putting out catalogues I’m at the end of my tether with regards to making it work (it’s still an amazing earner for the hours I do though).

3. To finish Mad4Sport and make it a true price comparison site rather than a site which simply has several of the same products but no true comparison of them.
Hmm unfortunately this is another goal that has had to be put on the backburner, one of the biggest problems I feel with the sector is most of the bigger merchants have phone numbers plastered all over their site making far too many leakage points, so I am hesitant to put too many hours into this one at the moment as it would be at the sacrifice of making some real money in the new venture. On a positive note: Umbro sent me (through Sport-e) 2 tickets to the England - Spain game on Wednesday evening which was very nice of them (would have been even nicer if the seats they allocated had been together as they knew I was taking my 6 year old daughter - fortunately we were very lucky and some nice security at Old Trafford helped relocate us), other than nearly getting mugged by some Mancunian Drug Addicts as I mistakenly walked into an unlit car park, the evening was a complete success and thoroughly enjoyable (I’m fairly street wise and I can tell you even with my heart beating so fast it hurt, and as 4 blokes towered over me whilst carrying my daughter on my shoulders, my brain was fully functional, I briskly barged past the biggest one (I always go for the biggest one it puts the rest off guard) walked out into the road and called to some guys getting into a car after the match pretending to ask them a question, this gave us enough time and attention to get the hell out of there and back into the crowds, pretty scary though.

4. To have a site that I am totally happy with!
Hmm strangely this one is probably going to be fulfilled too, the new ecommerce site we have setup for our new business is very nice indeed (we are continually working on it tweaking things and changing the odd bit here and there) and I am very happy with it. Sorry I am not mentioning the new business name or sector, at the moment I want to keep my cards close to my chest to avoid unnecessary competition.

5 and 6:
To start and maintain a resource site, something that until now my portfolio seriously lacks
To live life a bit more, currently I work some days for 18 hours, I must find time to relax a bit more or life might just pass me by
I think theres enough information above to show that neither of these are likely candidates to win Goal achievement of the year awards

7. By the end of 2007 my goal is to be making at least £4000 a month profit
Hmm yes I seriously expect to not only achieve this but now I believe that I will surpass it, by taking what we learn from this new business and using that knowledge in additional ventures I see 2007 as being my most successful year ever.

I also promise to post more through 2007 - No really I do!
Okay this has been a long post, and I really don’t have the time to waffle on anymore, hope you enjoyed the read and I hope to see you here again soon.

Mark.