PhilFAQS

I’ve been very busy this week.  Haven’t had a lot of time to write general interest articles about living in the Philippines.  Maybe next week will be more conducive to writing … who knows.  It’s also been hotter than I have ever seen it before here on the outskirts of Metro manila … I’ve been feeling the heat for sure … it can really sap you.  And I can’t just sit in front of an air conditioner all day.  Even though I have been very lucky compared with huge areas of the Philippines … no blackouts.

Anyway, I tossing out something that has been very popular on my Retired Pay blog.  This is an explanation of one of the ways people can make a sustainable, long-term income on line without writing a blog and doing some of the other things people seem to jump at, without realizing the time and effort involved.  Might be interesting reading for some.  But there is a sales pitch included, and I am an affiliate (commissioned salesperson) for the program I’m talking about, so if that turns you off, don’t ruin your day, skip over it and I’ll try to chat with you again tomorrow, sans salesmanship.

Being a management consultant is one way many folks have found to make a good living for themselves.  And if you have the education, experience, patience and personal skills to keep yourself employed as a management consultant on at least a semi-regular basis, it can certainly work well for you.

After all. many of my readers here are retirees.  Perhaps retired from the US military and now looking for a way to supplement that retirement annuity without having to search out and hold down another regular J*O*B. (My shorthand for “Just Over Broke” by the way.)

I also have many senior citizen readers … welcome, I am one myself you know … who want to empower their retirement and not live, heart in mouth, in breathless anticipation of what the “benevolent government” is going to do next to try to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly.

Or perhaps you are any age but unsatisfied with how your life is going and wishing there was something better out there.

Maybe you are a person living in one country, say the US or the UK or Australia, who dearly wants to move to another country, perhaps the Philippines, because you want to completely change your lifestyle … but you have no idea how you would support yourself there.

They say to always write blog posts for your readers … how can I write an article of interest to all those different folks?

Let me take a shot at finding some common thread that pretty much applies to all of you .. Making Money.

They say money can’t buy happiness, and perhaps they may have a point, but having been broke in the past and very much ‘not so broke’ now, I can assure you that it is one hell of a lot easier to be happy if you have money in the bank.

How do most of you figure that you will ever put money in the bank?

Well, if you are like the majority, you have been brainwashed for the last couple hundred years that you go into debt to go to college, then “sell yourself” to some faceless company who “owns you” for the next 40 years or so, and then if you are lucky enough to live that long, spits you out the door at the age of 60-something or 70-something with a mediocre pension that can be taken away in the blink of an eye.

Notice how government pensions didn’t get a Cost Of Living (COLA) increase this current year?  What do you think is coming next?  Notice how many people who were once sitting pretty with their income from Money market Funds and IRA’s (Individual retirement Accounts) now have to scrimp and save just to deal with semi-important things, like keeping the electricity turned on?

What if there were a better way?  A way that is not based on the generosity or management skills of the government?  Or how much a corporation like BP decides to dole out each year (I’m sure glad I don’t have a J*O*B with those sons-of-bitches at the moment.)

What if there was a legal, sustainable way to be sure you didn’t have to go without getting your teeth fixed because the “bright young star” manger of your investment fund lost everyone but him billions last year by buying insanely stupid mortgage derivatives that an imbecile on the street is smart enough to know are phony?

Well, forget the what if’s … there is a way.  This is not the only way, for sure, but it is something I can recommend and still sleep well at night.  It’s called Affiliate Marketing and I know it works, because I have the deposits in my bank accounts and the paid income tax receipts that prove it works.

I’m not talking any investment at all .. except perhaps a how to do it manual which I’ll talk about in a minute … with absolutely zero risk.

I’m not talking any sort of investment, like stocks or chasing pips in the Forex game

I’m not even talking “putting up a web site”, although many affiliate marketers do, there are proven ways to make good money with no web site at all.

I’m not talking building mailing lists or pestering relatives and friends with those stupid multilevel marketing programs … you need never email or speak with a single stranger.

I’m certainly not talking sales .. that’s totally the job of the folks you affiliate with.

And I am certainly not talking blogging .. because although I love what I am doing, making money with a blog is really a long-term investment of a lot of time and more than little effort .. and 99% of the blogs you see out there never make one thin dime.

A word or two about what affiliate marketing is:

… In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is an arrangement between an online merchant and affiliate (you), in which the affiliate earns a commission for generating sales, leads and/or clicks for the merchant’s web site.

For example, many credit card companies will pay you between $5 and $20 in commission for each visitor that you send to their site who completes a credit card application, and up to $55 for those whose applications are approved.

That’s a great commission, and although many companies pay less, there are also many companies that pay much MORE!

Here’s another example.

If you promote this Elite TR6633 Treadmill which sells for $6,495.00 as an affiliate of MegaFitness, they will pay you a 10% commission… or $649.50!

"Fantastic!", you say.

You’re absolutely right!

How much you will earn depends in part on the products you choose to sell, and in the Super Affiliate Handbook I show you exactly how to find the best companies and products to promote. …

Sounds pretty simple Dave, so with all this lead-in, where is this going?

Fair question.

If you want to learn how to make money with affiliate marketing, I suggest that rather than spend months or years putzing around, you get a simple course from a real expert, study it AND APPLY IT (no course is worth a hoot if you don’t take action … this is the reason 99% of the people who “think about” or “study” making money on line never will … they don’t ever take action).

Seems sensible, Dave, but there are seemingly millions of people out there selling information on Affiliate marketing .. how do we know your recommendation (or anyone else’s for that matter) is worth reading?

Again, fair question.  Let me answer with a little story from real-life, pre-Internet days:

Years ago, long before the I
nternet came along my mom worked for a fellow with a really cute little work at home business.  He literally worked from home … his one car garage was filled with printed products, mailing supplies and my mom’s desk.

She would sit and open mail for a couple hours in the morning, writing names on address labels and putting checks and cash (yes people used to send cash in the mail) into neat piles for bank deposits, and then she spent the afternoon stuffing the product into envelopes and applying the address labels and stamps.

On her way home she went to the post office to drop off the outbound mail and through the drive-through window of her employer’s bank to make deposit of the checks and cash that had come in that day.

The product?  Simply a little 12 or 14 page manual about how to fix hydraulic jacks that, well, wouldn’t jack any more.  It’s something the business owner had learned in a couple years working for a repair company who paid him a pittance to repair jacks.

When he lost that job, instead of schlepping around to find another dirty, low-level job fixing other people’s jacks and making at least three times his salary in profit for a new employer, he tried something different.  He just took what he learned and wrote down the simple parts, and had a little mini-booklet printed and set out to sell it.

Now how did he sell it?  Well that’s the interesting part.  With no Internet (this was years ago, mind you .. in the 1960’s) and no chance of making mass market media like TV or radio spots work, he looked at special interest magazines … “Popular Science” was one of his best advertising venues .. world-wide circulation and not too high a price for a little classified add in the back.

But could you start a business from a classified ad?  How would you know if it would work?

Well my mom’s boss explained his secret to me, and it was dirt-simple.  Read magazines you think your prospects might also read.  Look at the ads to see if one of yours would ‘fit’.  Then go to the library and look up issues of that magazine from 5 or more years ago, noting who was advertising then who still is advertising today … if you see many ‘familiar faces’, bingo … ads in that magazine produce, since people have been paying for them for years and years.

Today, the Internet is my “Popular Science”.  But the same key ways of deciding what is worthwhile hold true.  At least 5 years ago I started making money online, and one of the ‘regulars’ I came across was a lady name of Rosalind Gardner.  And she’s still here today as a leader in the field, and still selling a very popular “repair manual” after 5 or more years.  There HAS to be something to it, no?  Or how could she even afford to run a scam that long.  I can assure you this is no scam.  Here’s a little excerpt of her journey….

This is the amazing true story of how a woman with NO business experience became a Super Affiliate earning $500,000+ (*) per year selling other people’s stuff online .

July 23, 2009

Dear Aspiring Affiliate Marketer,

Although I hate the term and don’t own a tiara, my colleagues call me the "Affiliate Marketing Queen". A January 2009 trade magazine pegs me as the female affiliate marketer (since 1998) with the most experience.

Over the years, thousands of ‘regular, non-technical folks’ (just like you — and me) have learned how to start and run their own successful affiliate marketing businesses using the methods I teach in the Super Affiliate Handbook (and as an industry expert speaker, magazine columnist and consultant) and YOU can learn them too!

I teach by example – using  my own affiliate sites. From blog installation, to design, content creation and all methods of marketing – I STILL do it all. (Note: Many other affiliate training packages use MY affiliate sites as examples without my permission. That’s because those so-called ‘trainers’ don’t have affiliate sites. They pretend to be working affiliates to take your money, but they don’t have any real experience.)

So, if you’re tired of bogus claims and hype and want to learn how affiliate marketing really works, keep reading … here’s a lady who has been succeeding at this game more than 5 years now … she has staying power, her methods work, and they can work for you, if you chose to actually stop "searching" and start "doing".

As Rosalind says, your search can end here, just the way my mom’s employer built a whole successful work at home business out of a simple magazine ad … merely by leveraging knowledge and common sense he already had.  Well you leverage yours? This is a fork in your road, as Yogi once said, “Take It”.

Popularity: 7% [?]