I never know Will Smith was a motivational speaker. I watched this video and was blown away by his passion and sincerity for what it takes to succeed in this world. Very good watch!!

So thanks to google, I think, I came across a number of websites and forums that listed numerous complaints about the Shoemoney System. Most say it’s basic garbage that anyone can learn and find in the numerous forums. A few say it is a good starting point. I emailed the support team about 4 hours ago and haven’t received a reply. Granted it was 2am and now its 6am, but when do us crazy affiliate marketers work? The answer…. 24/7.  So the support system should be the same.

So I’ve broken down and shelled out the $4.95 for the 14 day trial offer for the Shoemoney System. I figure I am planning on shelling out whatever it takes to get my business going so what’s $4.95 to see if this system is worth the $197.00/month to study and hopefully learn everything there is to know about affiliate marketing.

Day 1 of the trial offer:

I logged in and browsed around the site to see what it was about. As I expected there were videos about a minute in length that explain all of the basic terminology of affiliate marketing. Since I’ve been in the industry reading for the past few years I was familiar with most of the videos subject matter. I then checked out the second set of videos that talks about which sites I need to sign up with. There were about 15-20. Sites like digg, reddit, myspace, youtube. So I spent a few hours watching the videos and signing up. Then I checked out a few of his weekly Q & A webinars which had some good questions and answers, especially for the newbie affiliate. I haven’t watched them all, I believe there are 6 total.

Day 2 of the trial offer:

I logged in and watched a few more webinars and then was looking to move this program along. I looked for the training videos/material, however  I was unable to find it. Could it be that my $4.95 trial was a skimmed down version of the real site? After looking around I sent an email asking for more information on where I could find the actual course. So we’ll see how fast someone gets back to me and whether I am going to get the “sorry, that information is only for our full paying members”. To be continued.,,,

It always happens, you write a long article and your laptop freezes up. Ugh. Here we go again.

I entered a contest being offered by Laura Burke at www.skipthescams.com where she is going to mentor a newbie affiliate. I found the contest on warrior forums. She allowed anyone to enter with the application being in the format of writing a few paragraphs on why each person deserved to be picked. I am happy to say that out of 5 I was picked as one of the top 3. Now Laura has to decide and will be announcing the winner later today. Yes, I said later today. It’s 4:49 am, I am at work and tired as all heck. The nice this about my work is on the slow nights I can read (albeit too much) and work on affiliate marketing.

Me and the family went to Southern California to visit a few friends that moved there a few years ago.  I know, I know, adtech was going on 7 hours north of where we were. I REALLY wanted to be there. I thought about driving up and spending a few days but I have two little girls and one bigger petite girl that wouldn’t be happy if I left our annual family vacation for a few days. I talked to Jonathan Volk before I left about getting the audio and video from the conference. Jon and David from PPV Playbook spoke about Facebook advertising and PPV marketing. Not sure whether there will be any audio or video out there to buy or watch, I’ll be keeping an eye out for it though. I’m sure there was some great information being given out.

We hit San Diego for a weekend and Vegas for a weekend. Wow, is the weather out there nice! Everyday it was 75-80 degrees with clear blue skies. Vegas was even hotter, as expected. Close to 90 one of the days. I’d never been to Vegas so I was a Vegas virgin. I did get to see the Palms hotel from a distance.  A hotel that has hosted many affiliate marketing “events” over the past few years. My goal is to be one of those affiliates that either attends an event or summit or is invited to speak. I am hoping the latter. That’s my goal. I want to be able to help others and become a Jonathan Volk like icon. Not for the fame, but just as a re-assurance that I am making progress and that I can offer to help others with confidence. As I said earlier in my blog, I’ve been reading and reading for too long. I am going to invest in my business and move forward. Either I spend a lot of money, fail and move on, or I spend a lot of money, succeed at my goal of doing this full time and dive into this industry full tilt.

Back to work.

Sign up for Shoe’s 12 week marketing course for free! Rumor has it that it’s a pretty bad ass course that he could easily charge for and make a nice chunk of change. I’m gonna check it out and will write a review once I’m done. If you wanna check it out…… sign up http://www.shoemoneyx.com/?ref=2t1Km66zSYkiidLZ

Here I sit, the new guy who has been reading and suffering from many symptoms of trying to make a go of affiliate marketing. I have been reading about this affiliate marketing for about two years. I’ve tried a few small campaigns on google but didn’t feel comfortable that I set everything up correctly so I paused the campaigns. I think I suffer from analysis paralysis. I love reading about this ever changing industry. I read the top dogs blogs, Volk, Johnson, Chow, Shoemoney and several others. I just found affportal.com which is dangerous in itself. I understand this is a business and that I have to invest money into this. Some say you don’t need much others say you better have a few bucks stashed away that you can afford to lose. I have a decent amount of money saved up, problem is……. I’M MARRIED! So me and my wife have a joint account and taking big bucks out to test campaigns or buy monthly subscriptions or products  isn’t in her cards. I have a plan to get some money together without sinking myself and hopefully not causing too much commotion should my better half find out. Nothing illegal, just moving money around within my banking system.

I digress. So which system should a newbie start with. I contacted Jonathan Volk last week and asked him that very question. His answer. PPV. Cheap to start out, low initial investment, easier to learn, direct linking allowed.  So that’s what I’m going to focus on.

Well I made a banner for the top of my blog. This is no uniqueblogs theme or design much to your amazement I’m sure. I contacted them last year to have a nice design made for this blog. The price was about $35oo. I am not that rich so I am starting here in hopes that someday I can have them design my blog the way I want it. It’s tough trying to sift through the wordpress PHP code and figure out how to edit a file to make the theme more to your liking. I don’t know a thing about PHP and like any code if you make one change you can bring the whole theme down. Well, on to the reading. I am going to grab a copy of the PPV Playbook. I’ve been wanting a copy for a few weeks but would rather buy access to the affportal site that includes the forums, coaching and also the PPV playbook. $67.00 a month is a little steep for me. I almost can’t afford not to sign up but I’ll start with the playbook and go from there.