Johnson.

I just looked up “Johnson Kee” on Google and guess which website is on page 1, rank #1?

I mean, there were practically 0 monthly searches but SO WHAT? It looks awesome having a site up for a position like that.

Anyway, I cashed in my… 4th? Clickbank cheque today. Came to a total of around… $78 AUD? Yeah, something like that. Apparently, the Aussie Dollar shot up to 0.75, 6ish this morning. Less commissions for me, but at least my country’s economic confidence is returning.

At any rate, exams are coming round. I’m going to have to tone down my affiliate marketing activities and start shoving my nose in the books.

Really, it started this morning as I was walking to the train station to go to uni. I was feeling in a good mood, just thinking about Hope and how you can turn nothing into something positive. When I’m in a positive mood, I always find that ideas come to me.

Yeah that’s another thing about me. The reason I think that entrepreneurship suits me is because I find that I have many IDEAS that come to me on a regular basis. If I’d capitalised on every single one that I’ve had… well, I’d be a very busy man. They’re written here and there and hopefully, one day, I can pursue all of  them to some extent.

Hopefully, I’ll have the capacity to turn it from idea to reality like clockwork.

At any rate, here’s the business plan, scanned:

This scrappily drawn up business plan is going to get me a dependable, affiliate marketing income by the end of 2009.

Hmm… this isn’t Blogger, is it? Damn, I was hoping to be able to click on it and have it enlarge so people could see it.

I’ve nearly been an Affiliate Marketer for a year now. Once June 28, 2009, comes around, I’ll be one year old. It’s been one year and I don’t have any dependable affiliate income yet. I have worked pretty hard for the few sales that I’ve had and I’ve learnt a lot through the process:

1. I better understand my limits. I remember for one product I was trying to promote, my days were filled with article writing. I’d try to be writing up to 10 a day and frankly, it turned me off article writing even until now.
2. I learnt how to set better goals. Typically, a lot of my goals are really crazy and pretty much unattainable at my current “level”. What I’ll be doing in the next 3 months or so is attainable and I’ve “left room”, assuming that I get it up and running. =]
3. I learnt more about what it means to be a Marketer. Talking about this reminds me somewhat of something I read in some of Ann Sieg‘s material. She’s a specialist in Network Marketing and owns a hugely successful Network Marketing empire, employing “The Renegade Network Marketer” tactics that she learnt  through trial and error over two decades. Even though she’s in different industry, what she had to say rings very true across all forms of Marketing. She said something along the lines that the definition of Marketing was grossly misunderstood across the board and that’s why there were so many people who were unsuccessful with Network Marketing. This can be reflected in the Affiliate Marketing industry as well. A notable gem I gleamed from her is, “people purchase with emotion and justify with logic.” So true.

At any rate, I intend to approach this with much maturity and entrepreneurial flair. I’m still going to allow myself to dream, but I have to learn to see it from an external perspective, ie. practise metacognition, so that I don’t end up dreaming large but doing jack all.

We’ll see how this goes.

This post has been a long time coming. As an affiliate marketer, I draw inspiration from other affiliate/internet marketers who I can relate to, who have been in positions similar to me. The quality that attracts me the most is the fact that they stood headstrong in the face of adversity, even when all hope was lost, and they triumphed in the end. I’m no where near where I want to be as an affiliate marketer yet, but if I could meet the following people and thank them for their success that drives me, that’d make me happy.

1. Edmund Loh: A PLR expert based in Malaysia, Johor Bahru. My father is Malaysian, so just from that, I feel like I can relate to him. The thing that draws me to him the most is the fact that he’s looking after his mother. He’s a Man. His story is quite remarkable and he’s a really humble, down-to-earth guy. I’m also amazed at how perfect his English is. I helped review one of his membership sites early last year. Little did I know that I would see him as an inspirational figure down the track.
2. Aurelius Tjin: He started just doing graphics for other people. Now the New South Welshman owns his own apartment and works the coveted 4-hour work day. I’ve got to admit that he EPITOMISES the very life that I will live one day: single, independent, owning your own place and bloody good-looking. He again shows that you don’t have to have gone to the best schools and graduated with straight 1st Class Honours to get somewhere in life.
3. Ryan Moran: There seems to be a recurring pattern amongst these men who inspire me. Ryan Moran, again, comes from a single-parent family. He attended college in the US and, at the same time, ran and built his online empire. He says he often likes to purchase websites that have already been established, then to turn them into pieces of VRE and have them make him money with little maintenance. He’s well known for his social networking e-book, SpaceBankers.
4. Colleen Slater: Don’t worry ladies, I haven’t forgotten about you. I read through the fiction section of, “The One Minute Millionaire” last Sunday and I was amazed at the parallels that were drawn between the protagonist, Michelle, and our very own home-grown Colleen. She is the perfect example of an Aussie battler, someone who defies the odds and, armed with tenacity and love for her children, painstakingly built her blogging empire from scratch.

These are the four, main people that I draw inspiration from. They make me feel like there is hope in the world for someone like me, a full-time university student who knows that he is destined for more in life. Where they’ve come from and where they are now hasn’t changed their characters; their success hasn’t changed them, if anything, it’s made them more humble and thankful for their journey and where they are now. They are real people with real stories who have experienced real hardships but who have succeeded.

And if they can do it, so can I.