On May 4th 2016, sitting here in Toronto, Ontario Canada (Yup Canadian Here!) - and I just decided to quit my full-time job of 8 years to grow my affiliate marketing business! Here is my story…
Like many of you affiliate marketers I was trying to make 2 income streams, one from a full time job and one from my “side business”. Using what I learned in college to make some extra “play money” sounded like a great idea – who ever knew it would be what it is today! In the beginning, I was just running AdSense on my sites (had about 65), which in total was paying me $50-80 a day for a few years after working on getting traffic. In addition to Adsense I was doing web design on the side (since I was a web designer at the time). But as time passed, I started promoting more offers like ClickBank products, lead gen, and pay per call offers especially! I was really trying to grow my affiliating marketing experience and income. Since SEO was easier back then, I didn’t do any paid ads – so life was good, balancing my affiliate marketing with my day job and I wasn’t married at the time (so that helped). But over the last 8 years many things changed - let me explain.
My fulltime job was a job of passion - well so I thought. Throughout my working career of 12+ years in the field of online marketing at various companies, I gained experience in building websites, to understanding consumer behavior, to media buying, to building graphics and banners, to conversion and click tracking, to building digital and social media strategies and tactics for large corporate brands and managing multi-million dollar budgets – I lived and breathed digital marketing! As time passed and I accelerated my career to the role of “Senior Lead of Digital and Social Media” at a large corporate brand, I was happy. While loving my day job, I was still doing affiliate marketing on the side. You know how it is, every day driving 1 hour to work I would listen to YouTube videos about affiliate and social media marketing or business motivational videos, after work I would work on my affiliate offers, I would work all weekends on promoting new campaigns, building landing pages, doing keyword research, buying and creating ads etc.. As the years went by I got married, had a kid, and my day job was getting more and more demanding. My affiliate business was growing at a good pace too, but there was a problem - I was getting burned out managing essentially 2 job and making time for my family! The hours I was working was pure madness! I never had much time for family or friends. So one day I asked myself - “Do I quit my full time job, or quit affiliate marketing because I cannot sustain both”, my family couldn’t sustain both either. At this point I needed to make a decision. I took a moment to reflect before making this life changing decision to quit my job. Yes I was making a solid income with my fulltime job and affiliate marketing, but really “where was my passion?”. I thought to myself, when I had to work a late night or after-hours for my fulltime job, I would pissed or frustrated, but when I had to work late nights or weekends for my affiliate business – I had nothing but pride and never complained! I would be working until I couldn’t keep my eyes open! I realized the little time I did spend with the family was a major stress reliever and also made me happy to give them some of my time. I was lucky my wife was understanding (most of the time lol) with the limited time I had each day trying to manage these 2 jobs. Finding that work life balance while trying to raise my son was getting very difficult. So this was my answer – I needed my own business and it needed to be affiliate marketing.
THE PLAN
So in early 2015, before I can quit my day job, I really need to start focusing on my business for one whole year and get it above my full time job salary for at least 4-5 months. So I used all of my sick days and all of my vacation days to work on my business (including all weekends and all weeknights) not going out, no parties just the hustle and grind for a solid year! I needed to prove to myself and my family that I can make enough income which either achieved or exceeded my salary from my day job. Thank the lord! As this was achieved in about 10 months of major hustling and focus, (by the way my goal was to beat my fulltime salary of $XXX,XXX range)! I was able to pay off my new car (Audi RS5) and my wife’s SUV as well, along with make some good size lump sum payments to my mortgage. So then on April 25th 2016 I resigned, and my official last working day was May 4th 2016 (2 week notice) – this was the beginning of living my dream of the dotcom lifestyle.
WHAT'S NEXT?
So what’s next? Now, for long term stability I believe in a little diversity in my income streams (just like multi-millionaire business tycoon Kevin O’leary suggested). So I have a few of my own products I sell online (digital products like courses, ebooks, etc.) and I also promote pay per call offers. I am also looking to explore some new things like app installs and zip submits later on. I feel with all the knowledge I have gained working directly with Google, Facebook, Twitter (actually going to their offices in downtown Toronto and sitting with a dedicated account team while managing and spending millions of dollars with them all), and large media and creative agencies I can now leverage all the learnings and tips for myself and my business. Finally, I can proudly say no more “part-time” affiliate marketing, no more “side business” now I am so excited to focus, and give it my all without the interruption of a day job and gain the freedom of a dotcom lifestyle! This honestly has been a longtime dream for me (much like you guys I assume) sometimes you just need to take the risk and make it happen - its NEVER TOO LATE!
So that’s my story – in a nutshell. Hope it inspires you.
Thanks
Raj
Like many of you affiliate marketers I was trying to make 2 income streams, one from a full time job and one from my “side business”. Using what I learned in college to make some extra “play money” sounded like a great idea – who ever knew it would be what it is today! In the beginning, I was just running AdSense on my sites (had about 65), which in total was paying me $50-80 a day for a few years after working on getting traffic. In addition to Adsense I was doing web design on the side (since I was a web designer at the time). But as time passed, I started promoting more offers like ClickBank products, lead gen, and pay per call offers especially! I was really trying to grow my affiliating marketing experience and income. Since SEO was easier back then, I didn’t do any paid ads – so life was good, balancing my affiliate marketing with my day job and I wasn’t married at the time (so that helped). But over the last 8 years many things changed - let me explain.
My fulltime job was a job of passion - well so I thought. Throughout my working career of 12+ years in the field of online marketing at various companies, I gained experience in building websites, to understanding consumer behavior, to media buying, to building graphics and banners, to conversion and click tracking, to building digital and social media strategies and tactics for large corporate brands and managing multi-million dollar budgets – I lived and breathed digital marketing! As time passed and I accelerated my career to the role of “Senior Lead of Digital and Social Media” at a large corporate brand, I was happy. While loving my day job, I was still doing affiliate marketing on the side. You know how it is, every day driving 1 hour to work I would listen to YouTube videos about affiliate and social media marketing or business motivational videos, after work I would work on my affiliate offers, I would work all weekends on promoting new campaigns, building landing pages, doing keyword research, buying and creating ads etc.. As the years went by I got married, had a kid, and my day job was getting more and more demanding. My affiliate business was growing at a good pace too, but there was a problem - I was getting burned out managing essentially 2 job and making time for my family! The hours I was working was pure madness! I never had much time for family or friends. So one day I asked myself - “Do I quit my full time job, or quit affiliate marketing because I cannot sustain both”, my family couldn’t sustain both either. At this point I needed to make a decision. I took a moment to reflect before making this life changing decision to quit my job. Yes I was making a solid income with my fulltime job and affiliate marketing, but really “where was my passion?”. I thought to myself, when I had to work a late night or after-hours for my fulltime job, I would pissed or frustrated, but when I had to work late nights or weekends for my affiliate business – I had nothing but pride and never complained! I would be working until I couldn’t keep my eyes open! I realized the little time I did spend with the family was a major stress reliever and also made me happy to give them some of my time. I was lucky my wife was understanding (most of the time lol) with the limited time I had each day trying to manage these 2 jobs. Finding that work life balance while trying to raise my son was getting very difficult. So this was my answer – I needed my own business and it needed to be affiliate marketing.
THE PLAN
So in early 2015, before I can quit my day job, I really need to start focusing on my business for one whole year and get it above my full time job salary for at least 4-5 months. So I used all of my sick days and all of my vacation days to work on my business (including all weekends and all weeknights) not going out, no parties just the hustle and grind for a solid year! I needed to prove to myself and my family that I can make enough income which either achieved or exceeded my salary from my day job. Thank the lord! As this was achieved in about 10 months of major hustling and focus, (by the way my goal was to beat my fulltime salary of $XXX,XXX range)! I was able to pay off my new car (Audi RS5) and my wife’s SUV as well, along with make some good size lump sum payments to my mortgage. So then on April 25th 2016 I resigned, and my official last working day was May 4th 2016 (2 week notice) – this was the beginning of living my dream of the dotcom lifestyle.
WHAT'S NEXT?
So what’s next? Now, for long term stability I believe in a little diversity in my income streams (just like multi-millionaire business tycoon Kevin O’leary suggested). So I have a few of my own products I sell online (digital products like courses, ebooks, etc.) and I also promote pay per call offers. I am also looking to explore some new things like app installs and zip submits later on. I feel with all the knowledge I have gained working directly with Google, Facebook, Twitter (actually going to their offices in downtown Toronto and sitting with a dedicated account team while managing and spending millions of dollars with them all), and large media and creative agencies I can now leverage all the learnings and tips for myself and my business. Finally, I can proudly say no more “part-time” affiliate marketing, no more “side business” now I am so excited to focus, and give it my all without the interruption of a day job and gain the freedom of a dotcom lifestyle! This honestly has been a longtime dream for me (much like you guys I assume) sometimes you just need to take the risk and make it happen - its NEVER TOO LATE!
So that’s my story – in a nutshell. Hope it inspires you.
Thanks
Raj
