Posts

Your "Net" After Taxes

 This is a quick bit of perspective and advice. Many business opportunities in our space never talk about taxes, other than to say that "taxes are your responsibility".  Right up front, you should know that if you want to build a long-term, sustainable business, you should learn about (and) pay taxes on the money you earn from your home business. As such, you need to know that you may be earning 100% commissions in some programs, however, you also need to know that these earnings are taxed at 15.3%.  As such, for every $10,000 you make, you "net" 84.7%, or $8,470.00. Some programs will send you a 1099 Self Employment Tax Statement.  Others may not. In either case, be smart and put the $1530 in a savings account (or any place you won't touch it) so it will "be there" when you need it to square up with the government at tax time.

There Is More To Results Than Effort

The level of effort you apply to your business is important, sure.  However, the road to (profitability) is paved with a lot more things that need to be in place - independent of how hard you intend to work at it. Mentorship - enables you to avoid unproductive activity and provides a support system that teaches how to transition from a newbie to a professional Home Business Owner.  It is the proverbial "shoulder to lean on".  However, it is a shoulder you are paying for and this is an important dynamic for both the mentor and mentee to understand. Leverage - there have to be components of the overall "system" that leverage your time and money.  You can leverage your time with tools and technology.  You can leverage money by understanding and ensuring that you are involved with platforms that employ compensation systems that have a leverage component. Onboarding - allied with mentorship, there has to be a "structure" that (at least in theory) provides you...

The Liability of Preconceptions

This will all make sense at the end... Preconceptions and predispositions relate to opinions and attitudes.  Both attitudes and opinions can be thought of on a linear scale from negative to neutral to positive.  In our industry, we deal with preconceptions, all day - every day.   To drill down one level deeper, an attitude is an established (predisposed) way of thinking about someone or something.  It exists as something that is pre-verbal.  It is also known as a mindset.  Everyone has attitudes and opinions that are a matter of degree - in someone's willingness to speak up (or) remain silent.  Either way, attitudes and opinions exist. As stated, once an attitude is articulated into words, it becomes an opinion.  The important thing to understand is that an opinion is something that is not necessarily based on facts or knowledge.   OK...  So, what is the point here... We build organizations in the context of person-to-person co...

Be the One They Choose to Work With

You can't blink credibility into existence.  It needs to be scraped and clawed for through the passage of time.   Therefore, for anyone new to Affiliate Marketing (in our niche and the way we do it) this is the reason we recruit people with whom you have something in common, with the supposition that they may not have a deep credibility base in our industry either.  Historically, this is why ventures typically fail.  It is a matter of the blind leading the blind.  With Vertical Industry Marketing, we start with our Relationship Building Accelerator and, (at least) we develop an understanding of each others' lived experience (as best we can). So, this begs the question, "What sets you apart from the pack?"  What makes you exceptional to the extent that someone would want to choose you as the person they want to work with?   Especially if you are just getting started, you may think there is nothing that makes you "special". I want to challenge ...

A Real Solution for the Vast Majority?

Everything should be simple.  Why isn't it? There is nothing hard to understand about truth and integrity.  It follows that if you are perceived as one who is honest and adheres to virtue, you should be someone worthy of trust.  So where does everything break down?   I think it boils down to understanding that trust is built over time.  It is not implicit, it is earned.  It is a thousand micro-actions that lead to the macro of trust.  It is something that evolves, it is not something that is granted, in most cases, especially when two people do not know each other, initially. Corresponding to this, "A Real Solution" is simply a statement and perception that (like trust) needs to be earned.  We have every confidence that our solution IS real for the vast majority.  However, in the process of getting people to adopt what we do as something they embrace, there is a significant amount of education that is necessary.  It is a thousand mi...

Thanks, but No Ranks

This post is a point of clarification.   Our business is in the Affiliate Marketing space.  Yes, we build organizations, however, Rank Advancement is a Multi-Level Marketing concept.  MLM's "rank advance" through the growth of business volume, which is typically associated with organizational size. As one advances in rank, they get a bigger piece of the pie.  If the first level is 5%, the rank advance may mean 3% or a total of 8%... along with a title change from (in metals) Bronze to Silver to Gold to Platinum.  The company tracks these transactions and pays the distributor on a predetermined schedule. This is not our model.  We earn 100%, paid directly - peer to peer.  The company tracks these transactions as an accounting and "scorekeeping" function, however, money is paid directly to you.  The company is not a middle man that holds your money, it simply is a portal for your transaction to take place. This is a huge difference.  We gr...

Funding Life and Financial Literacy

Many people want or need more money and know if they simply "found" something to plug into... that actually worked, it would provide the all-important grease that would make life a whole lot easier. I have used the expression many times, "There are a million ways to make money, you only need one". I have also said, "Money is the grease that lubricates life". Both obviously infer the "idea" that money plays a huge role in people's lives. Most people have a job to fund their life. It is a fixed income approach, working for a salary or a wage. Their only "leverage" is getting a 401K match from their employer and then hoping the Stock Market performs in a manner that supports growth. The goal of a 401K is retirement, so it is of little use until you are 59 1/2, unless you want to borrow against it and incur stiff penalties for doing so. So what are the alternatives in the "million ways" to make money? A second and/or t...