Is Amazon Affiliate Websites Still Profitable For Passive Income?

I'm definitely the wrong person to ask as far as that question goes. Personally, I've never built a list, except for a monthly newsletter mailing to clients that I have acquired along the way.

Common sense would indicate that growing your list organically, via double opt-ins would result in a premium group of people to market to, and I guess that's fine, if you are young. It will take years to build a sizable list while maintaining that quality - regardless of what many here will tell you. They mean well, but are under the misconception that because they have an affinity to excel in a particular area, you should be able to, also. We know that's a fallacy because numbers don't lie. Only a very, very small percentage of folks that set-out to build a list, are successful at it, unless you think a hundred addresses is being successful. Everything is relative, I guess. If it were that easy, who wouldn't be doing it? Exactly!

I'm a firm believer in purchasing targeted lists of people that have opted-in to the list and agreed to receive emails from 3rd party mailers. These list only work in one of two ways.

1. Your product or service is generic enough to possibly be of interest to anyone on the list. This is the best scenario for mailing to purchased lists.

2. You are able to procure a list of individuals that are good prospects for your more specific product or service. If the two are NOT a good match, you are wasting your money and doing nothing more than annoying your recipients. Epic fail.

Marketing my services has always required an intelligent conversation with a prospective client. I guess I could have used an email as the first step in the process, but since a call was still going to be required, I always viewed it as a wasteful step.

While there are a few simple basic rules of marketing that should always be employed, the secret to success is understand the best way to market your specific product or service to your extremely targeted audience of prospective clients/customers. The more you can precisely tailor your presentation the less time, money and effort you will waste.

Forget that pitfalls that will keep you from taking immediate action.

1. "Building Trust." That's a joke. The fisrt time I call someone I want to make a sale. Should I put that aside and wait weeks or months while I prove to them they can trust me? No. That's what satisfied customers are for. Use them as references.

2. "Developing a Relationship." More hokum. I'm not looking to ask for the guy's daughter's hand in marriage and I ain't looking for a lover. The only relationship we need is a banking relationship. lol

3. "Give Away Something for Free." Yeah - that'll make you rich. I have queried many a business owner on this issue and they all say the same thing. "If you have something of value that I need, I'm happy to pay you for it." Or - "If I don't need it, I don't care how "free" it is - I don't want it." Or - "If it's free, I've been in business long enough to know that it's probably worth nothing."

4. "Whatever You Do - Don't Ever Quit." This could be the quickest way to the poorhouse. Of course you want to realistically evaluate your offering and your game plan. You want to put it into play, competently and and with total commitment. You want to make sure that you have budgeted enough time and money to support your efforts honestly and faithfully - and you certainly don't want to quit at the slightest sign of rejection or impending doom.

No - first you do all you can to fix the problems you are facing. Learn from your mistakes and vow never to repeat them. Look for creative ways to do the same old thing. Monotony destroys enthusiasm. Work smart - of course, but if you believe that you will get there just by doing that - and not also working long and hard - quit, now!

Just keep in mind that most people fail, more than once before they succeed. If someone tells you that they haven't and they can teach you to not have to suffer that fate - hold on to your wallet and run like hell. Even if you have a mentor or a coach, you want one that has failed - more than once and is happy to admit it. Failure builds character and creates fortitude, as long as you don't let it beat you.

If you see that after a long, hard struggle of doing everything you can to be successful you are no closer to realizing your goals, you need to stop and evaluate your situation and your game plan. There is NOTHING WRONG with deciding to choose a new path for your life and business. Only a fool will keep doing something that will lead to financial and emotional ruin, because someone told that that, "Quitters, never win and Winners, never quit." If's there a bigger line of bullshit on the planet, I'll need someone to point that out to me. I missed it all through the decades. lol This is something that people say to validate their own inability to make drastic changes in their life based on common-sense, experience and the reality of what they are currently facing.

Now, this is where folks will post their stories of how they were failing and that because they refused to give up, they are rich, today. OK. That's fine. The only thing you need to ask yourself is, is that how you think YOUR life will wind-up if you spend it beating a dead horse.

There's a large cadre here, devoted to the mindset that, "If you believe it, you can achieve it." That's true, of course. What they don't tell you is that the possibility exist that if you believe it, you can crash and burn. They want you to believe that there are guarantees in life. Well, only your innate intelligence will determine how you feel about that. The younger you are, the more prone you will be to accept that. lol

I have no idea how I got off on this tangent. That said, since I put in the effort to write it, I'm not going to delete it, even knowing how many people it will piss off. That's half the fun, actually. That they would allow it to do so is what keeps me doing it.

If one person finds one sentence valuable, my work was not in vain. As the OP, you have my permission to ask the mods to delete my post, it you find it of no value. I have no problem with that. :-) Like I said - I kinda went berserk. lol