I’m an Affiliate Marketing Scumbag

No, not some mindless self confession but the outcome of a recent meet up with a couple of so called friends.

It all started out quite well, with general chit-chat and eventually the conversation moved onto the subject of my recent activities in the Affiliate marketing space, and as soon as I started to go through what it was all about, I was suddenly hit with a tirade about how I was involved in scamming people.  Clearly taken back by this, especially considering these people were so called friends, I found myself having to defend myself and the work that I do.  The upshot of the evening was that I was some sort of scamming scumbag and that I should be ashamed of what I do!!  I did my very best to explain that Affiliate marketing is a legitimate business model and yes, like every business, there are individuals who abuse the system and potentially end up scamming. However, this seemed to fall on deaf ears.  In the end, I made my excuses and left, feeling somewhat like a chastised school boy.

I sat back and reflected on the conversation, really to try and understand why I was subjected to such an outburst over something, which in my mind was trivial and I came top the following conclusions

1. Lack of understanding or more importantly lack of wanting to understand – I personally think that berating somebody for doing something and then blaming lack of understanding is a lame arsed excuse.  I feel that the reality is simply down to the fact that people do not want to understand and it is easier to pass judgment and hide behind ignorance.
2. Anything that does not involve doing a 9-5 job, with a commute must be a scam! – Maybe this is a British thing but it seems to be cropping up more and more with alarming regularity.  Us Brits seem to have this inbuilt mindset that we must do a “normal” job which involves commuting, do your days work and then come home.  If you attempt to do anything outside of the norm then you must be involved in some form of con, think pyramid selling etc etc.  I would like to think that this attitude is not confined to just the UK, but it does seem awfully prevalent.
3. Jealously- I am not sure why anyone would feel the need to be Jealous, especially since I am just starting out in the Affiliate marketing business.  It is not as if I spent hours telling them how much I am earning in commissions.  The reality is, the money I have made so far would barely pay for the hosting of this site!  Putting the financials aside, it is not as if the barriers to entry are particularly high so anyone can,  if motivated enough get involved
4. Being different is tough! – Yep, doing some different can be tough.  I recall when I left school to join the Military, people took great pleasure in telling me that I would not be able to hack it and that I would be home in a couple of weeks.  Well I did hack it and proved them all wrong.   Back to my point, at the time I joined the military, it was the norm to continue into further/higher education.  I was one of the few to break the mould and ultimately took some knocks on the way

I guess that I still have some unanswered questions as to why two people that I have know for sometime just turned their backs on me all because I promote products in return for an amount of commission, but I doubt that I will ever get them answered.

One thing that this unsavoury meeting has done for me is bolster my enthusiasm to continue plugging away and make a success of my affiliate marketing business, I am not sure if I will ever reach the heights of a super affiliate but it wont be through lack of trying and besides I have finally found something that I really enjoy doing and more importantly I am learning an awful lot not just about the affiliate marketing business but also about myself.

So there we go, I maybe a scumbag but at least I am a happy one!!

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