If you are looking to get away from your traditional day job but don't have the money to quit and start a business, affiliate marketing may be a good choice for you. You can easily start a business like this with only a little capital and one or two days a week of free time. As your business grows you can start getting away from your traditional job. Read on to learn how to start an affiliate marketing business in your spare time.
Make sure that the companies you choose to work with will take care of packing and shipping orders for you. As your business starts to take off, the last thing you want to do is spend your days working and your nights packing boxes. You want to spend your little bit of time taking care of customer service issues and building your brand, even if it means a smaller profit margin.
Make sure you are honest with yourself about how much time you will be able to devote your new business. This will depend greatly on your family and social obligations, as well as what you are mentally and physically able to handle. There is nothing to be gained by sacrificing your health and happiness for a little bit of money. If you are getting tired and burned out, don't be afraid to take an extra day off and cut your hours back a little. The goal is to slowly build a business while still maintaining a full time income. You are running a marathon, and starting out at a sprint will hurt you in the long run.
Even if you consider this a casual venture, make sure you are selling a good product. You will get bad reviews and little repeat business if you carry poor quality products. These two things will help your business flourish even if you are not actively promoting, so don't underestimate them. Choose products you would use yourself as a way to test whether or not products are worthy of your efforts.
Don't forget to develop a business plan and ensure that you get all required documentation and permits. This will take a lot of extra effort in the beginning but is essential for your long term success. A business plan acts as a guidebook for running your business so you will spend more time building it and less time planning what to do with your time as it starts to grow. Just because this is a part time job does not mean that you don't need to get any business licenses. As you want this to grow into a full time gig, it is best to avoid legal trouble and make sure you get this out of the way right away. Basic licensing is usually very inexpensive to obtain, so there is really no excuse for not taking care of it.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to work your way into business ownership. Unlike a traditional store, you don't need to have staff on hand at all times or have a large amount of capital. Once you are earning a decent income from your business, you can quit your day job or find part time employment.