Hi, I’m Lawrence
I think I’ll start this little “about me” story off with a true story about a young man who, on leaving high school, could barely speak English – it being his third language.
Out in the big wide world he was at a loss as to what career to follow – like a lot of kids were in my day.
In the end he landed up going to university where all the courses were in English – no other options were available. He enrolled in an engineering class as it sounded impressive.
Naturally he struggled but after a while he started getting a handle on things and towards the end of his second year he really loved what he was studying and realised he was pretty good at it too.
When asked his thoughts about his time in University he replied:
“Two years ago I didn’t even know how to spell engineer, now I nearly are one!” – true story including the grammatical errors.
That is precisely how I feel about Internet Affiliate Marketing – back in 2006 I had never even heard about Internet Affiliate Marketing, let alone understood anything about it.
My situation being what it was at the time I decided to give it a go and pretty soon – “I were one” – I was an internet affiliate marketer. Not necessarily a successful one but I was definitely on my way.
Lo and behold though I soon learned that the education is ongoing as the Internet evolves and Google keeps changing the algorithms. By the way there is another word I didn’t even know existed – maybe I too should have studied engineering!
Life, and all that it entails, is like an onion – you peel back one layer only to find there is another more intriguing layer beneath – affiliate marketing is no different.
How I Got There – The Early Years – School and National Service
Born and raised on a cattle farm I went to boarding school from the age of 6 where my social skills and ability to make friends came to the fore very quickly. In boarding school you soon learn how to survive and the most important place to do that is in the dining room.
Luckily for me I had a mother who was a great cook and I loved all food (still do) and I was quick to learn who didn’t eat what in hostel and would find a way to have them pass this food on to me – I had no intention of being an undernourished little runt!
On completion of high school I wanted to attend University but decided that I would get my National Service out of the way first. This was probably a very big mistake as national service dominated my life for the next three years – despite the fact that I initially went in for 1 year!
Three years in the military (or in my case police) changes the perspective of any young man and by the end of it I simply wanted to live and see some to the world. University was bypassed and all thoughts of a career put on hold until after I had seen some of the world. In this case Europe and something like 13 countries over a period of 9 months. Although I do believe that travelling broadened my horizons and I encourage everyone to travel as much and as often as possible.
Having ‘wasted’ the first 4 years out of school what was I to do? Sure I had worked in between the call-ups but nothing based on a long term career.
My First Real Job – An Actuarial Clerk in a Life Insurance Company
At school I loved math and was pretty good at it – funny how when you love something you get good at it.
Scanning the papers on a daily basis I spotted a vacancy for a “Junior Actuarial Clerk” with a large life insurance company and after looking up what an actuarial clerk did I was quite interested – especially as the company was less than 20 meters from my high rise flat/apartment. Right across the road in fact – the lift from my apartment on the 16th floor down to ground level was the longest part of my trip to and from work.
I got the job after having to sit a little test which comprised some math and a few out of the box type question, pretty easy for me as I never spend much time in boxes.
I loved the work and loved the industry and the next logical step with my character was to move into sales.
And So A Life Assurance Sales Career it Was.
This suited me fine as no university degree was required.
A bit of training on products I was already familiar with and I was off. All hours of the day talking to people and helping them with problems they never knew existed.
I must admit I always found it strange that people never thought they would die!
I had a friend from boarding school who knew better – he became an undertaker with the catch phrase of “Everyone is dying to do business with me” (true story). I remember talking to him once when he said that I would inevitably become his client and he would never become mine. He was wrong on the first count, as he passed away 2 years ago, but right on the second.
You just never know when your time is up.
During the course of my sales career I completed what is today known as a Certified Financial Planner degree – it made me sound cleverer but in reality did nothing to boost sales. I found that my success came not from the qualification I had gained but from the fact that I had a real empathy and understanding for my clients and advised them accordingly. Money was important but it was never the overriding factor when dealing with clients (who virtually all became friends).
Some 22 Years Later – New Country, New Life and Now What?
When I was 44 we sold our home and packed up the family to leave Africa for New Zealand and a whole new chapter in our lives began.
The permit we had for New Zealand was a 3 year work permit for me. During those three years we intended converting that permit to one of permanent residence but until then we were on my income as the permit expressly forbade my wife to work. I guess that the idea is that she would not be taking a local’s job and hence contributing to the unemployment stats.
It was pretty tough on us to come down by so much but we were determined to make a go of it for the children’s future – they were aged 12 and 10.
In a new country at age 44 with zero networks and zero contacts I realised I was in a bit of poo. Leaving behind a very successful business and starting fresh proved a real challenge, especially in a country that traditionally relies on the government to take care of them.
In other words they weren’t exactly falling over each other to buy life assurance, and especially not from some guy with a weird accent!
Here was a whole new country of prospects who never died and if they did well “the government will look after my family”.
And the government still does to a certain extent but the point is it was even tougher trying to sell life assurance to Kiwis and I soon realised I faced an uphill battle to gain a footing. I am certainly no Sir Edmund Hilary and started looking for ways to supplement my income.
But I wanted an easy route – like maybe a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest?
There had to be another way to make a living.
How a Lotto Ticket Changed My Life – True Story!
The year is 2006 and I am 51 – I had bought a lotto ticket and the draw had been made, but at this point I had no idea who the winner was or if indeed there was one.
To find out I turn to the Internet, did a search on Google.com (this was the days before we had a Google.co.nz) and …
BINGO!!!
There it was staring me right in the face – an advert: “How I made $72,000 in my first year!”
Throwing the losing ticket in the bin I clicked on the ad and was introduced to Internet Affiliate Marketing, one might say a life changing click.
I am one of the lucky ones and landed up at the best place on the Internet to learn the ropes to this new and fascinating way of making a living.
Yes I got very lucky that day.
Thousands of others have not been so lucky and have been scammed before landing up where I landed up on day one, others are still looking and buying every single shining object that promises easy money. All I can say to that is that in my experience as a very successful financial adviser (sounds so much better than Life Assurance Salesman) I have yet to find an easy way to make money. I can honestly say the easiest way to make money is to do something you enjoy doing. But even then it takes hard work and commitment.
But I digress …
The click led me to a website where this particular website owner was reviewing a couple of “Work from Home” programs.
The one that really appealed to me was the one where all you needed was a computer and an Internet connection – the rest you could learn and, by applying yourself, get up to speed fairly quickly and starting earning some extra income.
And so I found Wealthy Affiliate University.
They have since dropped the University from the title which I think is a bit of a shame because they provide an outstanding amount of tutorials and support for the millions of subscribers they have – yes millions and that is a true story too!
A New Venture – Internet Affiliate Marketing
Within the pages of this site you will find a ton of information on exactly what Internet Affiliate Marketing is and how it all works.
For now I just want to say that a whole new world opened up to me and what a fascinating world it is.
My first forays into affiliate marketing were horrible, the websites I built were terrible and I had no design skills whatsoever – sadly the latter hasn’t changed too much. These days with WordPress and plug-ins things are a lot easier and faster. What used to take me weeks to do can now be done in minutes as more and more people use the Internet and information is added at an astonishing rate.
I had some serious success with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in the early days but unfortunately I got “Google slapped” and my account closed by them. It happened to hundred of thousands of affiliate marketers who inadvertently promoted sites that Google deemed to fall foul of their “terms and conditions” although we were never told what the actual problem was.
To say this is unfair practice by Google would be an understatement but one has to remember it’s their playing field, their ball, they make the rules and supply the referee. If we want to play on their grounds we have to accept whatever they say and there are other PPC programs and thousands of other ways to make money online.
I played on …
13 Years later I am Still Here
Hard to believe that I have been at this for 13 years but I have.
- It has been frustrating at times, the Google slap was one such time, but most of the frustrations center around my slow learning and the time it takes to succeed (this is not a get rich quick scheme, I had to work very hard and still do but I enjoy what I do so it is also fun).
- Exhilarating at other times – the first online commission, regardless of the amount, is truly an experience you will never forget. Waking up on a normal morning to check your stats and see that you have made a sale and that your business has finally taken off.
- Humbling at others – just when you think you have it all worked out something somewhere changes and it means you have to adjust. That’s the Internet for you and part of what makes it so exciting and dynamic.
- Fun overall. No doubt about it working from my home at the hours I choose, on the subjects I choose (either my passions or something I am interested in learning more about) has resulted in a much more balanced life. Who wants to get up and go into rush hour traffic each day to work for someone else who probably doesn’t truly appreciate your worth?
- It has always been fascinating – when one considers the many ways to make money online affiliate marketing is just one of them – see the next paragraph for some of the skills you pick up on the way that you can use to bring in money.
What I Have Learnt – Which I never dreamed I could have done
Some of the skills I have learned along the way include:
- Affiliate Marketing where you promote other people’s products to a willing audience. There are literally millions of products you can sell. You don’t need to hold or distribute stock at all, the vendor does that and pays you a commission for the sale. A fascinating business if ever there was one and it is still very much in it’s infancy.
- Building websites and all that entails, including SEO and how to rank on Google. I have built sites for local businesses and got paid for doing it. And in addition I am able to host their sites far cheaper than they can anywhere else.
- eMail list building and marketing.
- Selling (flipping) websites – yes you can buy and sell websites just like any other property. And the same can be done with domain names. I told you it was a whole new world out there.
- Article writing. If you can write half decently you can get paid for your skills as not everyone is proficient in English (or any other language for that matter)
- Creating my own products to sell – the most common method is to create a PDF with tips and solutions to problems or how to accomplish certain thing. I have done that and I also have a couple of Golf Coaching Kindle books on Amazon.
The list is endless and you will find heaps of information as you go through my site so I’ll end that
Who Will Benefit From The information on This Site?
In a nutshell virtually every single person on the planet.
Seriously who wouldn’t want to earn a few extra dollars every month doing something that is mentally rewarding and potentially very lucrative.
What made me decide to start this particular site was my own story and I wondered how many other people out there are in a similar situation.
Just a short list in no particular order of those who will benefit – besides EVERYONE of course:
- Baby boomers with time on their hands and the desire to do something interesting or promote their hobby, passion and life experiences
- Immigrants who are restricted by work permits – actually if you plan to emigrate wouldn’t it be awesome if you arrived with a totally mobile business that is up and running?
- Expats in a place for a short or medium posting
- Single parents
- Those on the dole/government benefit/social security and want to be self dependant again
- The unemployed looking for work
- College students who want to earn a few dollars
- Sole traders who need websites and want to learn how to promote their business online
- Long distance drivers/sales people who spend a lot of time away from home alone in motels at night with time on their hands
- Bloggers – oh yes a lot of bloggers fund their travels with online marketing. Many of them are paid to promote company products to their large following
Enough for now – I think it can be seen that we can all benefit from learning a bit about the Internet and how it all works.
My Mission with LifeOfLawrence.com
Is not to talk about me (although on this page I did – far too much) but I think it is important to understand that if I can do this, you can too.
My aim here is to show you how you too can be a success and avoid the pitfalls of the internet scams that abound. There are thousands of them and it is often hard to tell the real deals from the scam artists. make a wrong call and it can be very expensive too. You will be bombarded with offers of bright shiny objects that promise a fortune overnight simply by filling in a form.
If it was that easy we would all be astronauts!
The internet is continually evolving and there is a lot of false information out there. I’m going to take you inside the genuine affiliate world with an array of the latest techniques and trends of affiliate marketing. I’ll provide you with well researched opinions from my 13 years of online marketing that will help you make informed decisions without huge cash outlays.
You will learn website design and building, the latest affiliate related marketing tools, programs and products. At times you may even read an opinionated review about something I think needs to be said. My mother always said if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything but where scamming people is concerned I do get hot under the collar.
The public and my potential customers, often with little or no money, rely on me and those of us in this industry for honest advice and guidance to get their businesses up and running as soon as possible, as cheaply as possible.
There are a lot of great programs out there who need to be encouraged while the fly-by-nights need to be exposed. This industry should only be promoting those programs that have their clients best interests at heart.
I hope you’ll join me for the rest of the journey – one that has been extraordinarily exciting and fun so far.
Let’s continue to have fun as we make money at Affiliate marketing.
Let’s make it happen together.
Lawrence
LifeOfLawrence.com