I remember when I first got into this industry back in 2002 the whole idea of “internet marketing” or “affiliate marketing” was still quite a mystery not only to me but all of my friends and family as well. 12+ years later and I don’t think anything has changed. As much as I have learned over the years, the technology, etc. is always evolving and my friends and family still have no idea what I do. While most people don’t continue the conversation after I give them the 15 word overview, but if they want more it’s usually questions like:
1) How do you work from home and still be motivated? I don’t think I could do that.
2) How many hours do you work? 3-4 hours a day? I would love to work like that.
And then I get the neighbor or new friend asking me if, because I do work from home, I’m interested in hearing more about some MLM opportunity.
I wanted to take some time to address all 3 of these areas and maybe alleviate some of the confusion. Albeit I am really “preaching to the choir” here.
Do you remember your first 3-6 months working from home? How did that go for you? What kind of “rules” did you have to put in place? I can tell you that the first 6 months I had a job for a company based out of San Francisco. I was able to work from home with a friend of mine out of his basement. We had the standard rules in place of keeping the door shut when we had important calls or things to talk about but other than that we had the door open and people were able to come in at any time and see what we were doing. This set-up worked well as we both fed off each other’s energy and motivation and always had so much to talk about other than just work stuff.
Then we found out that the company decided to bring the program in-house. Our fault for building the program to a revenue point where they thought it bringing it in house would be the best match for their resources. Shortly after that I was able to find a job with a friend’s brother in the “business development” sector of internet marketing, but this time I was on my own. Now I don’t need to go into the differences between the two aspects of internet marketing, affiliate marketing and business development because there are many but more or less wanted to just expand on the rules I made for truly working on my own. Since at this time all of my kids were young and not always in school the idea of Dad being at home all the time was a new one for the kids. I wasn’t able to work at the kitchen table but rather I had a desk set-up in my bedroom and used the same “closed door” policy as in my previous job. The idea worked well in theory and although there were several bumps on the road I can tell you that I never once lost a publisher deal even if one of the kids came in the door saying “Daddy, Daddy look at this”.
I tell you all this to get to the first question above, “how do you work from home and still be motivated?” The answer is quite simple. At the start of the game I had to put rules in place not only for my friends and family but also for myself. Now rules are only good if you’re self-motivated enough to follow them and I found out early that I was this type of person. I wasn’t as motivated in the early years as I am now but without some self-discipline you won’t last long here. I don’t have a desk in the bedroom anymore and the kids are all grown up now so it’s a lot easier to work and stay on task but believe me there’s always distractions that can knock you off task.
I don’t know about you but I’m sooooo tired of seeing all the ads online for “make $$$$$ with only 3-4 hours a day”. If you’ve been in this industry for longer than 6 months you truly know that this is a pipe-dream. I WISH I could only work 3-4 hours a day and still own a house (insert other sarcastic comment here) but this isn’t going to happen any time soon. These pipe-dream salesman have done nothing for our reputation. For most of us the day starts early and continues well past normal working hours. Now hit me if I’m different than you, but quite often after supper I’ll slip down to the office area and check for emails, social media updates etc. I know that work will always be there but there’s something about this industry that never shuts down. Maybe it’s the fact that the Internet is never off right? And with the advent of cell phones some of us are never off. I’ve been lucky enough to not own a cell phone so far and hope to keep that moving forward. The break in the day truly helps to keep me fresh. Like I said, I still feel the need to check my computer from time to time but its great to know that when I’m out of the house I’m FREE.
Do I need to get into the MLM stuff? What is it about being self-employed or working from home that your friends or family think that you’re a perfect fit for them to launch you into their next best business opportunity? We’ve all been there right? I try to hear them out and be the nice guy but this probably hasn’t done me any favors. That being said though I’m happy to say I’m still MLM free.
Like I mentioned above, this has been a great 12+ year journey and I’ve been truly blessed to work from home but you definitely have to have it in your genetic makeup to be in this industry. From time to time you get the questions like the ones above and I’ll continue to answer them happily.
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