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Business or Self-employment ??

by daprosperboi
19 replies
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Just want to know peoples take on wheather they consider affiliate marketing as a business or self employment.
  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    Both. It's your own self employed business.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      I think most people consider owning/running a one-person (or even larger?) business as "being self-employed", so they're the same thing. I happen to employ a couple of full-time people in my affiliate marketing business, but I still regard the business (from my own perspective) as being "self-employed": I don't work for anyone other than myself, after all.
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    • Profile picture of the author tagiscom
      I take it you mean, can it make decent money?

      Yes, but it isn't easy!

      I was with a group in which the founder made $10,000 from it, but it took him 7 months of failure, and he made it just before xmas.

      Well 4 years all up!

      It is probably still possible, but would take a fair amount of effort, failure, etc to extract the gold.


      But most real businesses online are more or less the same, most require a lot of effort and a fair amount of time to get somewhere with it.

      But usually when you find something online that works and can be scaled, then wealth is usually the outcome!


      I tend to stay with Graphicriver, since l know a lot about graphics, and it can be scaled, although it took me more than 5 years online to find it!

      Good luck.

      Shane
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    • Profile picture of the author whland
      Originally Posted by laurencewins View Post

      Both. It's your own self employed business.
      That's the way I consider it too.

      Chad
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  • Profile picture of the author daprosperboi
    Hmmm good point you all have but if we take a normal online/offline business there's things it can do that i dont THINK (im a newbie) affiliate marketing can do:

    1) if structured correct you can leave the business and it can run by its self without your part and still increase in value (thats if you have employees doing everything and the cashflow is right)

    2) you can sell it./or even take it public (IPO)

    Just my take on it. im not no genius on business or affiliate marketing so i could be wrong hence why i come on this fourm for learning
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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      Originally Posted by daprosperboi View Post

      1) if structured correct you can leave the business and it can run by its self without your part and still increase in value (thats if you have employees doing everything and the cashflow is right)
      If you employ competent and trusted staff with the appopriate skills and incentives, yes. You can do exactly the same with an affiliate marketing business, though in reality most of them are run by people in a more "hands-on" way (just as is true of offline small-ish businesses).

      Originally Posted by daprosperboi View Post

      2) you can sell it.
      You can do exactly the same with an affiliate marketing business. It's relatively easy to buy/sell them, on much the same sort of basis as offline businesses (i.e. on their basis of their proven assets and income, and quite commonly the interested buyers are people with the appropriate skill-set, knowledge and experience to run them themselves).

      It's relatively easy to buy and sell MLM disributorships (and it happens quite often), and affiliate marketing businesses tend to be a lot safer, more independent, and more asset-based than those businesses.
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      • Profile picture of the author daprosperboi
        @Alexa smith, In other words affiliate marketing can be approached and in its own right a business, as much as any other business out there ?
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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          Originally Posted by daprosperboi View Post

          @Alexa smith, In other words affiliate marketing can be approached and in its own right a business, as much as any other business out there ?
          I think it can, yes; especially if everything's set up accordingly, right from the start. (I'd agree that it very often isn't, but that's also probably true of offline one-person businesses? It depends on whether you really look at it as "a business", I think, or as "creating a job for yourself").
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          • Profile picture of the author tagiscom
            Originally Posted by daprosperboi View Post

            Hmmm good point you all have but if we take a normal online/offline business there's things it can do that i dont THINK (im a newbie) affiliate marketing can do:

            1) if structured correct you can leave the business and it can run by its self without your part and still increase in value (thats if you have employees doing everything and the cashflow is right)

            2) you can sell it./or even take it public (IPO)

            Just my take on it. im not no genius on business or affiliate marketing so i could be wrong hence why i come on this fourm for learning

            Yep, as others have said, create a team of people, teach them and then go away for a week or month, while they build your business is possible.

            But, doing the above and getting the income stream up to good levels, so even if your team quit you would still be making great money is more desirable.

            That is what l am aiming for!


            And putting in physical effort daily, (where the income would cease if you stopped) online or off is a job, eventhough you may own the business!


            Shane
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          • Profile picture of the author daprosperboi
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            I think it can, yes; especially if everything's set up accordingly, right from the start. (I'd agree that it very often isn't, but that's also probably true of offline one-person businesses? It depends on whether you really look at it as "a business", I think, or as "creating a job for yourself").
            Would you agree that its better to approach it as a business instead of just finding another income. What I mean is with a business its more long term and you focus more on making a solid foundation.

            I think really its more of a mentality question rather than the label. Do you approach it as a business, think long term and be more risk prone or do you approach it as another way for a income stream to live on and be a bit more risk averse ?
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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              Originally Posted by daprosperboi View Post

              Would you agree that its better to approach it as a business instead of just finding another income. What I mean is with a business its more long term and you focus more on making a solid foundation.

              I think really its more of a mentality question rather than the label. Do you approach it as a business, think long term and be more risk prone or do you approach it as another way for a income stream to live on and be a bit more risk averse ?
              I think it probably depends, to some extent, on people's aspirations and intentions and circumstances, but I instinctively agree strongly with your perspective (which was exactly what I tried to do, myself - starting it "as a business" right from the start. I did everything about it in accordance with the idea that one day I might want to sell it - or parts of it, though to be honest that probably wouldn't be easy for me, because I'd have to sell it to someone whose skill-set is the same as mine, having to some extent designed it around my own existing skills. And it's worth a lot more to me to keep it, anyway. )
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack Gordon
    It is an important question to know the answer to.

    Are you in a business, or are you the business?

    Whatever your answer is, I believe, says a lot about how you want to project yourself to the world.

    Ultimately, businesses evolve just like people, so current answers to questions about things like scalability, succession and investment don't necessarily lock you in to anything today.

    What is much more important, at least in the early stages, is using this question to help you define what your business's personality is. If it is an extension of you, it forces you to carry dual identities. Which can be awesome. Or a burden. It all depends on who you are, and who your business is.
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    • Profile picture of the author daprosperboi
      Originally Posted by Jack Gordon View Post

      It is an important question to know the answer to.

      Are you in a business, or are you the business?

      Whatever your answer is, I believe, says a lot about how you want to project yourself to the world.

      Ultimately, businesses evolve just like people, so current answers to questions about things like scalability, succession and investment don't necessarily lock you in to anything today.

      What is much more important, at least in the early stages, is using this question to help you define what your business's personality is. If it is an extension of you, it forces you to carry dual identities. Which can be awesome. Or a burden. It all depends on who you are, and who your business is.
      Hmm very true but "being the" business means that as soon as you stop "being the" business, then it wouldn't make income (depends how you structure it really). As in a business if you own it you can make income for life.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jack Gordon
        Originally Posted by daprosperboi View Post

        Hmm very true but "being the" business means that as soon as you stop "being the" business, then it wouldn't make income (depends how you structure it really). As in a business if you own it you can make income for life.
        I think you are attaching too much importance to a label.

        If you build a profitable business, it will have value. If you bring on good employees and teach them well, they will continue the business. If you decide to sell, a buyer will buy based on the value, not the name.

        As in all things, a well thought out plan goes a long way towards success.
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  • Profile picture of the author daprosperboi
    @Alexa Smith, very true indeed
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  • Profile picture of the author Lucian Lada
    Alexa, I assume another problem when selling a business like yours is that you've built up a persona and a relationship with the list using that persona.

    I'm curious (although a lawyer might be more helpful): can you sell your website (and list, obviously) together with your personal brand, and not tell your subscribers about it?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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      Originally Posted by Lucian Lada View Post

      Alexa, I assume another problem when selling a business like yours is that you've built up a persona and a relationship with the list using that persona.
      Yes, I think so.

      Possibly you can circumvent this, with a fully-written email series already set up and not add things to it? (Maybe not, though - you might need to change the products you're promoting, at some point?). I don't know.

      Originally Posted by Lucian Lada View Post

      I'm curious (although a lawyer might be more helpful): can you sell your website (and list, obviously) together with your personal brand, and not tell your subscribers about it?
      I don't know this, either ... maybe, since you're only a pen-name to them, anyway? Though you might still have a problem if you've described yourself at all, because the description wouldn't fit the purchaser? You are the person in this conversation who has been to law school, even if you're not practising, so why am I guessing, here?! :p

      These are good and doubtless highly relevant questions, though.
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