It had long been an ambition of mine to retire to the waterways of Great Britain…
To Live A Carefree Life On Board.
It sounds Idyllic, doesn’t it? Life onboard a capacious narrowboat, chugging around at walking pace. No roots, no ties.. just waterside inns and countless ports of call…
As I openly shared my vision (so vivid and well planned out), my beloved wife – who is ever the realist – went on to say: “Well, that sounds wonderful darling, but how do you propose we live?”
“Sell the house, buy a boat and live off the surplus of course! These modern boats are extremely comfortable all year round… Fully heated, all mod cons with washing and drying machines built-in. We’ll have everything we could possibly need, my love!”
A high volume discussion followed at that point… and after 27 years of matrimonial bliss, we nearly didn’t make it to 27 and a half.
How To Pay For – A Life On Board
During this disgraceful display of insubordination for the Captain, The First Mate
(AKA ‘The Wife’) calmly pointed out the several “tiny” flaws in my vision.
I won’t embarrass myself or bore you with the details but it became very clear that my well-planned ambition (or Plan A) had not been as well-planned as I thought.
I realised that selling up was not the best option for my family, and to indulge The Captain's dream, I would have to devise to a better, more realistic “Plan B”.
I had to find a way to substantially increase our net worth, as well as our ongoing income. On top of that, I needed to do it in a way where I wasn’t trading in all my time. To realistically make my dream a reality, I needed something that I could “set and forget” …
At this point, The First Mate felt pretty confident that she had headed me off at the pass. She didn’t think she’d hear any more from Captain Harebrain, but boy was she wrong.
So, How Do You Earn a Significant, Autopilot Income?
Determined to make my dream a reality, I decided to get started without delay. I hopped on the computer and spent hours googling “how to make money” …
After looking through Biz Op (Business Opportunity,) after Biz Op, after Biz Op, it seemed that every “opportunity” I found was a way to LOSE money as opposed to EARNING MONEY! I was dissolutioned and was about to lose hope until I stumbled onto something that really caught my attention.
After weeks of research, enquiries, and lots of sleep lost, I finally found someone who was talking my language. This guy was leveraging the Internet and talked about earning money by working smarter, not harder. He was making money on AUTOPILOT which was something I desperately wanted to do, but thought was just a pipe dream!
After coming across so much garbage up to that point, The First Mate and I were hugely skeptical. Despite that, I decided to learn more and watch this guy very closely.. He was doing something that I desperately wanted to learn and I was prepared to do whatever it took to make it happen.
How Do You Establish a Business With Zero Products and Zero Storage Space
So after spending some time learning, watching and basically stalking this guy online, he revealed the very thing that would rock my world forever…
Enter Affiliate Marketing:-
“Affilawhat?!” I hear you ask. Well here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as ‘retailer' or ‘brand'), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate'), and the customer.
The market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC – Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content marketing and in some sense display advertising.
On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner. Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer.
[1] However, both are distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales.
[1] Affiliate marketing is frequently overlooked by advertisers.
[2] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.
In layman’s terms, Affiliate Marketing is like incentivized sharing. By promoting (aka marketing) other people’s products through your own strategically designed websites, you can create multiple streams of income when the products are sold. You don’t have to hold stock, invest in premises, or participate in the delivery of the product. You’re basically a middle man and don’t need to get involved in any of the other gubbins that typical businesses entail!
As a 50- something truck driver who was struggling to turn a computer on, knowing where to start was extremely daunting. It was a complete paradigm shift for me, and despite not knowing where to start I knew I had to make it work. I had a very strong reason why I needed to succeed, and this was more than enough to keep me determined to push through the inevitable obstacles
Let's Start At The Very Beginning
As Julie Andrews sang in The Sound Of Music … It was “a very good place to start”.
I knew I had a lot to learn, and that I’d have to go back to school. I was scared about being ripped off, but I tempered my fear with the knowledge that if I took no action, my situation would slowly but surely deteriorate.
When I married “The First Mate”, I promised to “cherish, and honor her, and endow her with all my worldly goods!”. I was determined to make good on that promise and wasn’t going to let fear stop me.
What scared me more was the specter of a retirement spent in poverty and in all honesty had little to do with boats. If anything, the boat would be a reward for the effort I put in to establish a life of quality choices. Not as a means of getting by.
So despite the fear, I did it anyway… I decided to take the plunge and invest in my education.
Was it easy? Yes and No…
The discovery, learning and actual work was all pretty straight forward. I think the most difficult thing was keeping the discipline to do it all! To come home after a hard day's work, roll up my sleeves and start again was tough! Fighting the temptation to crash out in front of the TV was difficult at the best of times. But then that small voice in my head would start nagging at me, “Is doing that going to get you the life you deserve?”
I worked hard, but more importantly, I made a decision to trust the people I am working with and see it through. I pushed past the challenges and simply did the work that was required.
Has It Changed My Life?
With a great team of mentors, business coaches, peers, and product developers. People I have been able to access through my growing circle of associates. I have been able to invest in tools and systems to build the business correctly so that we can optimise our lives. With our lifestyle choices being the core of what we do. Putting the money-making activity, around how we want to live, not the other way around.
Will The Business ever be truly on autopilot? Let's just say that we have systems that will enable us to set things in motion, and have our own support staff in place to look after things for us when we are not around. You see each aspect of building a profitable lifestyle business is covered in the training, and that training includes outsourcing and learning the true art of delegation…
Now I understand that your lifetime ambition may not be bumping around the waterways of the British Isles… but if money and the earning of money were taken care of in a way that gave you enough time and freedom to do the things that you actually enjoyed, just what would you be doing tomorrow morning? I bet you would not be getting up at silly o’clock, to get in a lorry and drive that for the rest of the week. That was Monday Morning for me for far too many years
If You would like some more information
Do yourself a massive favour Break Those Chains!
You Can Contact Steve Greenhalgh By Email use steve@steve-greenhalgh.com
*DISCLAIMER:-
No Results Are Guaranteed. Individual Results Will Vary…The Training, products and business systems we provide are for educational purposes. The Testimonials here are real, however just because others have achieved a certain result, should not be taken or even implied that you will have the same result. There will some people who do make money and others who do not. Individual results will vary greatly but will be determined by effort, determination, hard work, and the ability to follow directions.
Steve Greenhalgh T/A BCM Marketing Ltd. 19 Main Street Worthington, Ashby-de-la-Zouch LE 65 1RQ
ern Marketing can help you achieve Persona