I’ll be answering why affiliate marketing has a negative reputation.
There’s a lot of phonies out here claiming they’re gurus so it’s my calling to draw attention to this travesty.
It’s important to talk about this because there’s a lot of people I believe would be great marketers, it’s just that they’re steered in the wrong direction.
I consider myself a little better than a beginner but just short of a seasoned vet.
However I have connected with plenty of professionals and such that’s help start me off with great examples on how to spot the fake from the real.
Plus since the name of the blog’s called Real Talk it only seems appropriate, but without further to do let’s move on.
Why Does Affiliate Marketing Have a Negative Reputation
Affiliate marketing has a negative reputation because of a number of reasons:
- fraud/misleading names
- The amount of time that has to be waited for a screening process
- The time it takes to start earning in the industry
- The illusion of fast money
- Bad products that are promoted
I think it’s a good method of making money online while at the same time having an opinion that’s respected.
Fraud and misleading names
In an article from Forbes they believe affiliate marketing has a bad reputation because of fraud and misleading domain names.
There’s a chance you might’ve even heard of them being compared to Pyramid Schemes which are completely false.
There are scams in the affiliate marketing industry but to protect yourself best from them takes knowing what to avoid.
With that also comes the responsibility of knowing the difference between MLM and affiliate marketing.
The best way to put it is MLM usually requires a purchase on your end in order to to start making money with the company while affiliate marketing can be started with zero capital.
There’s a legal system in place that allows companies to pay affiliates that refer a sale their way to be perfectly clear.
a brief look at MLM
MLM is a separate online identity that I’d like to discuss.
The most common requirement to make an income with their services relied heavily on the membership of its visitors.
Because MLM companies will (when as popular) be promoted as a business and have yet to even earn the reputation of having happy customers, it impacts potential buyers in the market as a whole.
Most of the time it’s a situation that could be fixed with the right book or mentor for the goal gets wasted on a product that the seller’s clueless about.,
Sometimes marketers will promote a a product or service that’s value just doesn’t match what they’re asking for.
It’s pretty common actually where you’ll see someone advertising a product that’s sometimes not even a product.
Next is you’ll pay for a service that teaches you something that you can learn from a simple Google search or a trip to your local library.
Now everybody has a different definition of what’s a scam specifically but we can agree that it’s anything that you can say you got ripped off on after the purchase or exchange of funds.
Bad advertisement
You might’ve had a point in time where you got something expecting something completely different.
There’s been numerous mlm products that’s been shut down within the past decade from simply having an inaccurate presentation of their product.
You can do your research on some of these companies yourself but the point is that presenting a product as something when in fact it’s different is bad business practice.
And that’s what we wanna do, treat this hustle as a professional business so this off-limit rule has to be addressed.
You’re gonna know that the product is indeed what’s being advertised based off reviews.
Get your questions that you may have about the product and see if any reviews address your question directly.
This could make all the difference in if you end up paying for something that’s different from what’s being advertised.
The Time It Takes
There’s a time factor that most people attach to anyone who does affiliate marketing and it’s the strangest thing because everybody sees success at different stages.
Some people had to wait numerous years before they saw their first affiliate sale.
There’s others that earned that same accomplishment much earlier in their career.
We’re talking the first month or 2 by the way to get an idea.
It’s useless to care about how long it takes to see success as an internet market, because the benefits always outweigh the consequences.
The potential for passive income, creative freedom to earn sales (based on a marketing campaign) that you see fit.
If you’re committed to the art of affiliate marketing then you’ll be will willing to put in as much time needed to get it done.
Of course there’s things that you can control with speeding up your likeliness to get that first sale.
There’s a hope you can have that someone with a large following shares your name with your affiliate link and you get sales that way.
You can continue to criticize that person you saw share that post about the benefits of that weight loss tea that just made another $2,000 this month as a result.
There’s very low chance you’ll get anything doing that but you could also sell a service that you remembered you’re really good at.
You got over 3,000 friends that you have on Facebook and think you can make enough money to cover your next trip.
But wait, you’re getting used to that lifestyle and prefer a schedule that includes more trips like what you just took.
You decided you’re going through with it but now Facebook updated their policies and now you have to go through verification tests in order to keep your friends.
You refuse and now you’re out of a platform to continue promoting.
Conclusion
It deserves a representative of the culture as a whole.
I personally prefer Wealthy Affiliate when it comes to keeping such an open mind about affiliate marketing as a whole.
They’ve provided a community that have legitimate affiliate marketers.
Everything taught about affiliate marketing is backed behind a service that speaks for itself.
I feel strongly about having the right guidance when it comes to these professions because it could make the difference in choice of career if only it was demonstrated by a professional.
Wealthy Affiliate delivers in all of my checkboxes there.
What do you think though?
Share your comments below, and as always any and all are welcomed.
RealTalkAJ 
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