(Not) Leaving The Day Job
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It was June of last year when I set up this blog and, at the time, “Leaving The Day Job” seemed like an achievable goal. I was hoping that by the end of the year I’d be free from the 9 to 5 yoke.
Yet here I am, eight months later, still working in the same day job with no sign of ever making it into even part-time self-employment let alone taking the plunge full-time.
So what went wrong?
Well, it turns out to be harder than I might have imagined to make money online. I had a bit of luck initially and made about 50% of my monthly salary in my first month as an affiliate. And I thought that was it. I thought I was a genius. Of course, it turned out that what I was doing (advertising gambling on Google) was a bit naughty and the big G caught up with me and cut off that lucrative revenue stream.
After that I tried numerous other ideas but they all had one thing in common. I wasn’t doing anything original. The usual suspects: dry, me-too, feed-driven sites; Adwords landing pages; gambling; insurance; mobile phones. And I wasn’t doing any of them particularly well.
Most of the time I was recycling retailers’ copy from their product feeds or when I did write my own copy I did it with little to no regard for SEO or indeed coherency to the reader. I wasn’t writing salesy copy, I wasn’t pre-selling the product, I wasn’t adding any value.
Of course, I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. It just seemed too hard. I knew I was getting it wrong but nothing I tried seemed to work. Despondency kicked in.
I don’t take well to failure. I don’t like not being able to do something. If I can’t do something right first time I tend to give up and sulk. Needless to say this isn’t a very helpful attitude when you’re trying to be self-employed. There’s no one there to tell you to get on with it. If you give up, the whole enterprise falls.
Meanwhile, at the day job, things weren’t going well. The company’s doing poorly but not so poorly that there’s any immediate threat of redundancy. So I’m feeling dragged down but without the fear of unemployment that might give me a kick up the arse to get on with my own thing.
Christmas came and I had some success with Facebook Ads, doing direct to merchant for one particular merchant. I closed out December with a profit of several hundred pounds. Better than nothing but nowhere near as good as I had hoped.
January was cold and barren. Motivation at an all time low. This is the point at which I could have given up.
Then something happened. Spring sprung. The world started to wake up a little. The mornings and the evenings were a little lighter every day. I started to see where I was going wrong. I had been looking for the quick win. Looking for a get rich quick scheme then running off after another idea when the first one didn’t start to deliver in time. I realised no one else was going to do this for me. Friends were starting to say that they didn’t think I had it in me to succeed in this business. That did it. If there’s one thing I hate more than failure it’s people telling me I can’t do something.
So I have renewed enthusiasm and a new strategy. It’s all about the content. My goal is at least one new posting on one (preferably more) of my sites every day. Every day do one thing that will add value to one of my sites.I’ve got a new site which is soft-launching at the moment. I’ll blog about it in a few days when things should hopefully have started rolling a bit more.
I think the theme of this blog will be shifting a bit as well. I’ve got away from telling the story of my efforts to leave the day job and been blogging more general affiliate stuff recently. I’m intending to go back to my roots and talk more about the ups and downs of getting started. Expect more coverage of motivation, organisation and fitting self employed work in around fulltime employment and the demands of friends, family and household chores.
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February 13th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I think this post will resonate with many affiliates, new & experienced. You’ve probably passed stage one as you know what you were doing that was not working. Stage two is even harder - doing the right things well. However, is the prize worth the effort - oh yes!
February 13th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Fantastic post which resonates strongly yet ironically is very motivational. I’ll be following this soap opera with interest!
February 13th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Your whole post rang so true to me. I’ve been struggling/juggling the whole affiliate marketing/make money only deal since 2005. I can say, I’ve tried more ideas than you can shake a stick at, and there have been many times when I’ve thought about giving it up - but then not giving up because I just “have” to prove a point.
I’m looking forward to hearing how you manage to put it all together and push your online adventure forward and prove your friends wrong!
February 13th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Great post and one which i can relate to. Being in a similar situation and wanting to get out of the 9-5 day job, i’m halfway towards my goal as far as income goes from AM and each day i seem to learn a whole load of new things. It’s just having the time to implement the ideas around the day job.
Keep up the work and doing the right things and you will get there in the end!
February 13th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Thanks to everyone who’s commented so far. Seems like I’ve struck a chord with a few people. That makes me feel better that I’m not only one to find this making money lark hard work. I hope you’ll all follow the RSS feed and we can learn together.
February 15th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
That’s a fantastic post. I’m really glad you didn’t pack it in, it’s very easy to get caught up with some small early successes, but earning enough to make a living takes a lot more work, and patience. You really sound like you’ve ‘got it’ now.
One post a day, one link a day, but every day, and I’m sure you’ll be writing something very different in a few months.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Since first reading this post (RSS) Ive been meaning to ask what you were doing with mobile phones… i.e. what kind of site / promotion were you using?
Jez
February 27th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Hi Jez
I just did some PPC direct to merchant on mobiles from what I recall. I think I was bidding on the model numbers. Managed to get one commission but blew the lot by bidding too much for competitive terms instead of finding long tail variations. Live and learn I guess.
Monty