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I really hate the term side-hustle. It sounds like something a marketing exec came up with to try and get credibility with millennials. But it is what it is.
I can complain about the wording all day but the idea behind it is sound. Side-hustles are great for earning a little cash. Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money online out there.
The issue is this. People think that is all affiliate marketing is at times. Is that all it is?
Is Affiliate Marketing A Side Hustle? It certainly can be. As a side-hustle affiliate marketing is a great way to generate a little income. But it can be so much more than that if you are willing to put in the time and effort.
Using affiliate marketing as a side hustle is a great idea. But that’s is not all it can be. Read on for some of my insights into what it takes to make affiliate marketing a full-time career.
There Is Just Something About Owning Your Own Business. Being Your Own Boss. Building Something From The Ground Up With Your Own Hands. Especially When It Is This Easy To Get Started.
Affiliate Marketing As A Side Hustle?
Affiliate Marketing is simple really. Take someone else’s product and promote it You can promote on your website, video and social or email. Or in person I suppose. Although that would be pretty inefficient.
You are simply acting as a middle man for the products sold. Free advertising for a product or company and in return you get a nice commission for your efforts. The commission varies depending on the industry and the partner.
But the bottom line is that you tend to get paid. Affiliate marketing works great as a side-hustle. But what is a side hustle exactly? Other than being an annoying word I mean.
What Is A Side-Hustle
This is just a term, one I cannot stand as mentioned previously, that is used to describe a small side business or way to earn extra money in addition to your regular job.
Driving an Uber on weekends is a great example of a side-hustle.
Selling homegrown vegetables at the farmers market is another great example. Gardening in general makes for both a great side hustle and affiliate marketing niche. Check out our insights into the gardening niche here.
Side-hustles are great. Affiliate marketing as a side hustle is great as well. It is a fine way to earn some passive income that you can use to make your life a little easier. But it can be bigger than that. Affiliate marketing can be more than just a small side hustle.
Why Affiliate Marketing Is More Than A Side-Hustle
Scalability.
That is one of the major reasons why affiliate marketing can be so much more than a side hustle.
Scalability.
If you drive Uber as a side-hustle there is a limit to how much you can really do with it. Sure you can make it a full-time job but you have to be in an area with a lot of potential clients and you can only drive so many people each day. There are limits.
With affiliate marketing, there are no limits. Well not really. Your potential audience is the entire planet that is connected to the internet.
That is your limit technically. It would take a 1000 lifetimes to reach everyone so you don’t have to worry about running out of potential customers.
So start small with your affiliate marketing business. Start as a side-hustle. But always keep in mind the scalability of your niche and content in affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Can Be A Career
Affiliate marketing can be a full-time job if that is where you want to take it. You don’t need to dabble in it. You can build your business into a passive income powerhouse. There are no limits to what you can achieve with this business model. Not really.
You need time and hard work but you can scale it indefinitely if you keep creating great content. Or you can build it and just let it earn you a nice income passively. That is really what people mean when they say side-hustle for affiliate marketers.
You still have to put in the work. You still have to build the foundation over the course of a few months and then it will become a passive side-hustle later on. But affiliate marketing is so much more than just something you can set up in your free time.
It is a job.
It is a great business model.
And you can do it. But it will take time.
Affiliate Marketing Takes Time
Time. That is really what we are all looking for. Think about it. Why do we want more money? To buy more stuff sure. But the real reason we want that wealthy lifestyle, that wealthy mindset is so that we no longer have to trade time for money.
Anyone can be wealthy. Everyone is worthy of wealth. It is just getting there that is the trick. Time is one of the biggest factors holding us back.
Affiliate marketing takes time. People start their affiliate marketing business, then they don’t see results for a few months and they quit. The great irony is that most people quit affiliate marketing right before they start to see progress.
The time affiliate marketing takes is frustrating. Especially if you are trying yo get you blog to rank on Google.
Or trying to build up a following on Youtube. If it was easy, if you could do it overnight then everyone would just do that for a living.
But it’s not easy and it takes time. A lot of time and a lot of hard work. When someone asks me what the most important trait a good affiliate marketer should have is, I always tell them patience.
Patience is the acceptance that what you are doing will take time. Once you accept that fact then your hard work will seem much more reasonable and you can move forward with your Affiliate marketing side-hustle or career if you choose to go that route.
Affiliate Marketing Requires Patience
Patience my friends. Affiliate marketing is a bit of a leap of faith, I’ll grant you that. You have to have faith that all the hard work you pour into your business today will benefit you in the future.
Not tomorrow or next week. Often times it takes months to see the real fruits of your labor come good. And that requires a huge amount of Patience.
Patience is a virtue, so the old saying goes. And there is no more vital virtue in all of affiliate marketing than patience. Hard work is a constant.
That has to be the foundation.
But all the hard work in the world won’t matter if you get impatient and just quit before that the results of all that hard work come to fruition.
Training Programs For Affiliate Marketers
There are ways to lessen the impact of impatience on your marketing business. The best way is to simply not waste time. This is going to be tough for affiliate marketers. Beginners and experienced alike.
Nothing wastes time more than trying something and having it not work. Then you are back to the drawing board to start again. With more knowledge this time for sure. But with a little bit less patience and a lot more wasted time.
The best way to alleviate this is to find some great training programs that can guide you around the potholes. That can make you use your time more efficiently by teaching you what works and what doesn’t.
But that type of training comes at a cost. $200, $500, $600 dollars or more for many of these training programs. There are cheaper options but many are worthless from a value perspective.
Good training costs money. But think of it as an investment and not an expenditure. Spending $200 dollars now on A to Z marketing training that saves you months of trial and error will make its money back for you in no time.
But there is no one size fits all. Everyone has different budgets and different needs. So I am going to leave you with 3 great training program that you can research.
See if any of them are something that might help you on your journey of making affiliate marketing from a side-hustle to a full-time career.
Don’t go it alone. Get the best learning tools and community to help you build your online dream. Check it out here.
Final Thoughts On Side Hustles And Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing can be so much more than just a side hustle. But if that is all you need it to be then it is a great business model for earning a little bit of side income.
I urge you not to just dismiss it like that, however. Even if your intention was to use it for a small income source, you may find that it will offer you a chance at financial freedom and more importantly the freedom of time that can be truly life-changing.
Good things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
–Abraham Lincoln (Probably Misquoted)
Always keep moving forward. Always work hard. Always hustle. Full-time hustle, side hustle. Talent won’t get you paid hustle will.
Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful day.