How many of you guys went full time to try to succeed? (21)
Hi, I have full time job, 9-6, with good salary, but i have other dreams..
My contract ends in a week, and my boss offers me a bigger salary + contract for two more years.
I have serious dilemma here, because i'm trying to make it in affiliate marketing industry and finally open a business,
but if i sign the contract, i'm stuck for another two years with my boss.
I have savings to start a business and buy traffic for at least 6 months,
but the problem is that i didn't had any big success yet.
My question is, how many of you went full time with affiliate marketing to try to succeed without previous big success?
and how many of you really succeeded or failed..
I will appropriate any advice, comments, thoughts..
Hey , if you sign a new contract, what do you lose if you decide to resign apart from the wage? Any penalties?
I always suggest people keep their job until the hit a consistent 6 months of steady revenue from AM.
Take the job! Works you balls off on your campaigns before and after the 9-5 until you succeed.
Originally Posted by bbrock32
If you're in a position to quit and do affiliate marketing full-time, you'll be in a position to pay a $1,500 fine.
I'd keep the job and moonlight for now.
The guarantee of fixed income will remove some of the emotional drawbacks of fronting your own cash on campaigns. You can afford to be less risk-averse if your dinner is already on the table...
Personally, I only considered full-time AM once I was making a lot more from my campaigns than I was from my day job. And even that was a dangerous move. I lost the campaigns in my first week!
This game is hard, with a steep learning curve. Work your 9-5, then go home and work some more till you fall asleep. Only the ones willing to work hard, put in the time will make it, and that right there is step one.
Originally Posted by paradise
If you are already succeeding with IM part time, but you need more time to scale these activities, then yes, going full time may be a solution to your problem.
But if you cannot make IM succeed even while part time, then going full time is not going to solve your problem.
Keep the job.
a) There's a huge emotional aspect to launching campaigns and handling the money losses that come with it. It's easier to keep campaigns going knowing you have $4k a month coming in from a job, rather than a "do or die" mentality.
b) More time for campaigns doesn't = more money. Some guys can actually perform worse because they can't handle the freedom and don't have the discipline. When you ONLY have 3 hrs a day to work on affiliate marketing, you're going to make the most of it. It's a forced timebox.
c) Are you really worried about a $1,500 penalty? You can easily make that in a day when you're full time AM'er and pay it off.
I think a lot of guys are too impatient and wanna rush the dream before they're ready for it.
Create a successful campaign, MAINTAIN the success, Develop a system so you're not a one hit wonder, Save up some cash, then quit.
Originally Posted by paradise
Originally Posted by cmdeal
"Work fills the time that is given for it". You'll do 3-4 hours of productive work every day anyway... whatever the situation. Join me in the moonlighting club, OP. And kill it on weekends. 
Remember that in the first days of AM, you don't need a full 8 hours to work on campaigns. 4 hours/day will be enough. Im sure you have 6am-8:30am and/or 6pm-11pm
In the beginner stage, money is a little more important than time. Currently, I'm keeping my job until I get mobile profitable for a month or 2 or until I feel like I have a solid system in place.
I would keep your day job, for like bbrock said 3-6 months when you're still profitable in affiliate marketing, reason is when you're starting out it really doesn't take all day to keep the campaigns going and most of the time you won't be using. Once you've proven to yourself that you can remain profitable for a few months in a row, and you have enough belief and confidence in yourself I would take the plunge 
If it's any help, I was faced with the same decision and decided to keep the job. I'm glad I did, because it is far easier to be liberal with risk when my rent is paid!
In other words you're not alone. 
After reaching 1k earning quite my job, it was too hard to concentrate there..
After two weeks I got banned and my income flushed and I can see it happens to many others so if you short on money wait until you have few income streams and not just one,
I was lucky to have enough saving to continue and not return my job..
I quit my job in 2007 when my campaigns were doing great, thousands of dollars and good life for 5 years. Now i cant even pay my gym. Sometimes life can work against you, so you never know, it's up to you to decide. Different person, different faith.
One other thing is that it definitely helps to have a freelance 'chargeable' talent if you decide to make the jump early.
If you run in to problems with AM but have, say, good writing skills or an eye for design or the ability to code, then you can find freelance work to patch over the bad months.
I'm pretty convinced that even if AM had failed, I would still be working for myself.
The Internet isn't just for affiliate marketing. It's a fucking metropolis of opportunity for anybody with skills and the ability to market them.
Originally Posted by Finch
so I checked it, and from what i saw in Elance & oDesk it is very difficult to compete with developers from India
they take a very cheap price, i can't afford to take such rates, it's not even enough to pay the rent
Yeah, programming/developing is a tough one for the reasons you mention.
There are still opportunities out there.
A lot of people aren't comfortable hiring on Elance/oDesk when the job is a biggie. They'd rather pay the premium to get it done well by somebody who is easier to work with, or who a friend has recommended.
The people scouring oDesk for employees aren't your market.
The people asking on Twitter/FB for a good developer, a friend of a friend and etc, those are the people you can target.
Ultimately though, from a freelance point of view, content is still king. Being able to write well makes you desirable for jobs where you can't be undercut so easily.
The alternative is to focus less on the skill itself and more on the quality of service.
Only quit your job if you have enough savings to last you through at least 1 year. After I quit my job, my campaigns died and I went 2 straight months without earning anything. I had a decent amount of savings, so it wasn't so bad, but not fun either.
Also, it wouldn't make sense to go into affiliate marketing full time if you never had any previous success.
It's been said already, but it needs to be said again:
Keep the job, work your ass off until you hit consistent revenue with aff marketing, ideally something comforting, then it'll be easy for you to quit even fi you lose a chunk of $ from the contract.
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