What do I mean by taking the plunge?
The plunge is the point where you stop treating this business like a part time hobby and make a decision, that this is it, this is what you’re going to do. You’re not going to use your job OR your spouse’s job as a fall back.
Taking the plunge is crossing that bridge and BURNING it behind you. The plunge usually happens when you quit your job and go full time as an affiliate marketer, it could also be before you quit your job, if you’ve mentally made the decision to burn your bridges.
If you want to make it big in this industry there will come a time where you will have to take the plunge, and I won’t lie to you, it’s going to be painful before you take the plunge...the doubt, the indecision, the paralyzing fear.
I gotta tell you, taking the plunge and leaving my day job was one of the TOUGHEST things I’ve ever done.
Here’s the story, and listen up, there’s an important lesson in this :
It was around May 2006, thanks to my affiliate efforts I had paid off all of my consumer debt, all $20k of it! Plus I had about $700-$800/day profit coming in from my affiliate campaigns, which was more than double my job income, which was $250/day.
Needless to say, at this point I was on top of the world. For years I had dreamed of being financially free, to leave the rat race and enter the land of the living.
Real Freedom!
It was especially rewarding since I had struggled financially for years, and failed in several previous business I had started.
So I handed in my resignation to my boss, my last day was June 15th, 2006.
Everything was rosy, but then reality hit HARD…
Around the end of May, my affiliate manager (for the ONE niche I was in) had to make a change to their conversion model otherwise clickbank would shut down their site. Needless to say after this change my conversion rate plummeted!
And so did my profits!
I was stilling going to work, but I had handed in my resignation and now my affiliate income had dropped so low that it no longer covered my living expenses. Plus keep in mind, my wife is a student, so I was the sole source of income.
Now I had a decision to make, a decision that would probably determine where I would end up 1 year from now, 5 years from now, and even 10 years from now :
PLAN B (what most people would do) :
Come to my senses and realize this whole affiliate marketing thing was a dream. Revoke my resignation and plan on working for the next 40 years!?! Still continue my affiliate campaigns, but forget about ever becoming financially free.
PLAN A (what a “crazy” person would do, by most people’s standard) :
I had already taken the plunge, I had make a COMMITMENT TO MYSELF, that NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, I’M GOING TO MAKE IT WORK.
And this is exactly what I did, I stuck to my guns and scrabbled to optimize my campaign and improve my landing page conversion to adjust for the new changes. I cut back my personal expenses, and within a few weeks was able to get my profits up to the point where my living expenses were covered.
I’ve never looked back and my business has absolutely exploded to new levels since.
Now a lot of you may ask: “Amit, how were you so sure that everything was going to be OKAY?”
“Amit, what if things didn’t work out, what if you couldn’t get your profits back up? What would you have done then?”
Here’s my answer to those questions :
WHEN YOU KNOW YOU’VE ALREADY WON, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!
This is what separates job people from entrepreneurs, it’s called faith, it’s called the entrepreneurial spirit. I had burnt my bridges and absolutely made a mental decision that this was it, there’s no looking back or turning back.
Would YOU have chosen Plan A or Plan B??
Next time I’ll talk about why my drop in profits in May 2005 was the best thing that has EVER happened to my business, and two quality you absolutely must have, before you take the plunge yourself. These two quality are essential to becoming a highly successful entrepreneur.
That was a great post amit, plan b all the way!
Your blog is sooo inspiring! I have made the decision starting Feb 1st to do whatever it takes to become a super affiliate. I am testing and tweaking campaigns. I started my first campaign on Sat. and actually made a sale! That was motivation enough for me to really learn PPC affiliate marketing.
Your blog really speaks to the mindset you have to have to be successful. The fact is a lot of people are scared! I know I am. OMG…”the indecision, the paralyzing fear” is so me!! But I SEE NO OTHER WAY to get out of this JOB and provide a better life for me and my family.
Thank you for your inspiration. Now it’s off to do something with this inspiration! Keep the knowledge coming.
Don’t take this wrong… but I think that’s an easy decision. You’d ALREADY proved you could make significantly more than working fulltime. Not seen someone else do it, but done it yourself. Yeah, it’s scary that you didn’t have the income right then… but once you’ve done something it’s FAR easier to repeat it.
I think the problem most people have (after just starting and being a bit serious about it by doing some testing, keyword research etc) is scaling to the level where they can make as much on affiliate marketing as they can at their job. It’s the “I’ll start at $20/day and see if I can make money there and scale” issue. And, while I hear a lot of people say “screw that, put $200/day at risk!” again it’s easy once you’ve made that leap. Thinking you can jump the chasm is one thing. Having done it once, you don’t think you can… you KNOW you can.
Rick Gregory,
Yes he knew he could make that much, but being an affiliate marketer or entrepreneur in general takes skill and practice thats for sure sometimes you can be riding the mountain high then other times your getting ready to go under.
When your working for your self you have to make sure you have a stable income thats one of the tougher parts, but once you get it figured out things should continue to grow, but what Amit is basically saying is to take chances and give it everything you got and don’t look back, so in other words the entrepreneur type spirit
.
You did it correctly, to an extent. While you did culture your skills and it paid off to a point where you felt confident to quit your day job, the mistake would have been to put all your eggs in one basket (you mentioned only have ONE niche?)
With that being said, that is what entrepreneurs face everyday: sacrifice security of a position, or hedge and risk a bit (educated gambling, I like to say) and reach for the sky.
You had the skills, but you may have been speculating your skills a little too early (that was because you mentioned that the business model with your affiliate manager had changed on you, and your only affiliate “nest egg” at the time had cracked.)
To anyone starting up, maybe the best would be to have a system designed where your WORST case month would be just barely breaking even
Kunal
@tyler,
I got what he was saying. My point is merely that it’s an easier decision to take those risks when you’ve seen that you can do it. Of course, he could have simply been lucky at first and never replicated that luck… so there was certainly risk. But the message shouldn’t be “Just jump in right now!!” Read his post carefully.. he’d paid off 20k of debt… he’d recently made more per day than he did at his day job. All he had to do was have faith that, having done it once, he could do it again. It’s that faith in your ability to do things, esp when you’ve had some sucess, that’s key.
But the message shouldn’t be – just quit your day job tomorrow and HOPE you can make affiliate marketing work. I think Amit did it right – his job covered his expenses, he did aff. marketing on the side, figured it out, got profitable, paid off debt, then made the leap. It’s to his great credit that, having made the decision, he stuck with it even though his risk went way up right at the start.
Earning $250 per day on day job is a LOT, it’s not poor by any means in any country.
Amit can afford to fail because he has money backing up his failures. how many of the newbies can afford to do that?
Most newbies does not have any money left to fail. (they didnt even have enough to pay the bills!)
It’s great that Amit posts all these details so that people starting out wont have unrealistic expectation on affiliate marketing.
A great post.
Another aspect that I took from Amit’s approach was that an apparently ‘bad’ event (the drop in conversions from the aff program) was completely managed by a positive mindset AND taking action.
Positive thinking on its own wasn’t going to be enough but expense management, focusing on one course of action and utilising experience/skills already held took Amit to the next level.
I think the choices we make in how to view situations are critical to our success, it’s all about mindset which I guess is Amit’s point throuoghout his blog.
Amit,
Excellent post. Your posts are very helpful. I am planning to get googlecash ebook. Is there any other one you came across which might help a lot in PPC marketing?
Thanks in advance.
Siva.
A long time ago, a friend told me this quote: “Leap and the net will appear.”
You leapt, built your wings on the way down, and never needed the net.
Thanks for sharing the experience.