I have a very important question and please be blunt and honest

Learn the ropes via affiliate marketing......

And then develop and sell your own product!

Plenty of money to be made without having your own product!

No. Just the opposite. Beginning as an affiliate is a great way to understand the business before any attempt to made to undertake greater responsibilities as a product seller.

Many people are quite successful promoting affiliate offers and CPA without a product of their own...

So, NO, you don't need your own product, but the steps involved are priceless later on.

If that makes sense

Absolutely! There are many affiliates that make their living without having a product. My suggestion would be to build a list while marketing affiliate products. You will kick yourself if you start marketing without a list building method in place.

We have made a lot of money over the years with other companies affiliate products and services. The hard part to respond to is your phrase "in order to be succesful". Every person measures that differently and many of us don't use the amount of money we make as the yardstick.

However if you're going to promote
affiliate offers, make sure you offer
massive value in-between each promotional
email you send otherwise you're going
to get a lot of friction in your list, lots
of unsubscribes.

Tyrus

Absolutely, consider affiliate marketing like a 'boot camp of sorts getting you ready for the trenches.

You will learn so much by doing it that way. Is it possible to start out by creating a product, yup.

What is easier to do? In my opinion, start with affiliate marketing first. Then graduate to making something.

As far as 'gurus' go. Be careful. Tread lightly. We are ALL gurus of sorts.

If you know anything more than a friend, or a co-worker or anyone you are a guru of something.

BTW - Did you know with one line of code put in your address bar the 'pay tables' showing the clickbank money in your account can be edited.

Take a quick snapshot of it and post it to your site and You TOO are a guru!

Ever stop to wonder, if you discovered a secret traffic method and was getting $248,983 a month 'secretly', would you spend the time to go through ALL the trouble of making and marketing a website to sell the 'Whole' method for $37....

and to only the next 27 people?

Seriously? Really?

Take everything with a grain of salt.

Greg

You absolutely do not need your own product to make money As an affiliate. Does that help? Absolutely.

The reason being is you can use it as leverage. You can leverage the affiliates that are promoting your product to build your list to promote other products.

But, here's the thing...

You do not need a product.

What you absolutely need is a list.

So, make sure you concentrate on building a list from the very beginning and you will be able to successfully promote affiliate products and make money.

The need for a product? No

The need for a list? Absolutely.

Talk soon,

Shannon Herod

Agree with the list input from everyone. Also agree that there are plenty of ways to make money, depends on what your interests or talents are.

There are plenty of people who 'make money' (even here) offering services to others.

for example:
copywriting
programming
seo
website creation
graphic creation
consulting

you get the idea...

Greg

Affiliate marketing + list building is the way to go.

I think it is a great question, and it may be promted by a lengthy guru video that is making its rounds again...

However either way you choose will work if you have the knowledge and resources to make it happen... If you do not know what you are doing you will fail anyway you choose to go... So get that handledf first, then go with what works...

I would like to add a strategy to make your efforts even more profitable either way you choose to go and you may want to do a combo platter approach, meaning do both in the following way... In all your traffic stategies keep them focused on list building, Then sell your list a combination of your products and affilaite products or if you are lazy like me I mostly do affiliate or plr I do my now now then it just I am lazy and have to be really motivated to make my own stuff...

So there you go honest and blunt, if you do not have the skills you will fail no matter which you choose so take care of that and do what works for you... And BUILD YOUR LIST!!!!

Well, I wouldn't say always. Most of the time maybe.

A lot of the guys do make huge money. Sometimes the screen shots are real. Sometimes.

Sometimes they come from selling their products, not necessarily from the use of the actual product they are selling.

Greg

No matter what, stay focused!

Pick one thing and run with it. I learned that the hard way. I had no mentor. Just went at it.

I was all over the board. I spent thousands (not proud, but am in a way) of dollars and thousands of hours 'chasing' all different things.

I never faltered on one thing, I KNEW money could be made online to create the lifestyle I wanted.

Good advice:

Stay Focused. Take Action.

Greg

Yes, that dress does make you look fat.

No

Yes

People fail for a lot of reasons but having or not having their own product is not one of them.

The major benefit of having your own product is you get 100% of sales. Being an affiliate you're only getting a percentage.

This is why it is suggested that you create your own product, why make somebody else rich for your 10% commission. Problem is, not everyone can create a quality product. Unfortunately too many people think they can which has created a flood of crap products.

On the flip side, being an affiliate is easier and has less headaches.

Also, you are confusing terms. An Affiliate is somebody who sells somebody else's product.

What many product creators forget to tell you is the most successful ones are usually paying out commissions to other people also to sell their product/service. You can receive commissions or pay out commissions and both models work well if you do them right.

I DISAGREE!!

The outfit doesn't make you look fat, your fat makes you look fat.

Greg

I also disagree...I made my first $50k with IM as an affiliate without even having a website by rinsing and repeating and scaling up something that I discovered was working for me to make sales.

I also think it is important to know how affiliate marketing works before you make your own product and try to market it. You will learn a lot as an affiliate which you can apply when selling your own products to make it a more successful venture.

I made money without having my own product. You absolutely don't need to have your own product, you just need to know how to market stuff right.

It also helps if you have bought and used the products that you are promoting.

Well having your own product is the next step in IM if you're already familiar with how everything works.. Being an affiliate and a product owner can be quite different. Good news is product owners usually earn more in the long run..

I think a lot depends on your definition of what "successful" means. If it means making a decent sum of money via affiliate marketing, then yes, you absolutely don't need to create your own product in order to become successful.

On the other hand, if your definition of "successful" is consistently making high five and even six figures a month just like what the Super Affiliates do, then you'll probably need your own product. Having your own successful product on Clickbank or elsewhere is absolutely necessary to gain admission to the Super Affiliate club.

By having your own product you have something to bring to the party - not only can the other Super Affiliates promote your product and earn huge commissions from doing it, they'll know that you'll return the favor and promote their product launches as well. There'll be this beneficial and continual reciprocity occurring, BUT this will only happen if you have your own product first.

I hope this explains things better for you. If you just want to make good money on the internet doing affiliate marketing, then no product is required. But if you want to make Super Affiliate type of money promoting products, then you're absolutely going to need at least one product of your own.

Paul

what would be potentially the highest money made per month without owning a product? $10,000? $15,000? $20,000?

what about autobloging? Is it truly a set it and forget it method where you only work hard once?

about product creation, does it have to be a templated fancy clickbank product with all the sales hype with earning proofs or can it be a simple short ebook that I can give away for free?

Absolutely not. It's actually BETTER if you sell OTHER people's products first, because then you know the process and what it takes to sell to people. You'll usually have to learn how to tweak ads, write reviews, generate traffic, and other stuff. Once you learn all of these selling skills, THEN you can sell your own products because you have the knowledge and experience already under your belt. You can get your own affiliates then, and even coach others to sell well so that they get paid, and so do you!

It's definitely possible to sell other peoples products....I do it all the time. I'll be honest, it's hard at first... that is, until you learn the process, and then it becomes much easier.

Since you are new, learn from those who came before by starting with affiliate products.

Creating your own product is the tip of the iceberg. You need good copywriting skills, a well-developed sales letter, know how to drive targeted traffic and capture visitors to build your list and how to market, market, market!

You can learn a lot of these skills as you go along and from promoting affiliate products and paying attention to how they write their copy and sales pages, etc. Each skill is a learning process and takes time. Start making money with affiliate products as you hone your skills.

Lee

Thanks for all your responses.

Hello everyone, although im new to IM, i think starting out as an affiliate is a good place to begin but having your own product is better in the long run.

Oh yeah, man, for sure! I always recommend doing affiliate marketing first to get a good grasp on how things work.

I think what you're seeing is marketers that build a list with their own product & then promote related affiliate products to their list afterwards. It's a smart way to go (but not the only way) once you're established & know how things work.

I still say go the straight up affiliate route first to get a feel for things.

As an affiliate, you get to learn how to find buying markets, what's their hot buttons, what makes them tick, what they want to buy, how to get them to your site, & how to get them to buy through your site. All of this, and you don't have to bother with customer service, delivery, etc like you do with your own product.

That stuff can become a big time suck, especially if you go full bore as a newbie.

Once the affiliate checks start coming in & you prove to yourself that you have a system that works & now what a buying market is going for... you could make your own product & just do the same promotion, but send the visitors to your own site & keep 100% of the money yourself. There will be customer service, etc to deal with at that point though.

Personally, I made money with my own products before I ventured into affiliate marketing. But that was just simply because when I was making products, there wasn't really anything such as 'affiliate' marketing 'online'. (Hadn't been 'invented' yet).

But I did get into affiliate marketing about 7-8 years ago.

John