28 Jun 16 2:29 am
Interesting topic! Thought I might add my own personal viewpoint.
I've been an AffiloJetpack/AffiloBlueprint user for close to 2 years. Back when I started, I knew essentially nothing about building websites, and barely understood what the word "affiliate" even meant.
I threw myself into everything, and shortly after setting up my first AJP site and driving my first real batch of traffic, I'd made $1273 and 1300 subscribers in a single night, while I was sleeping, and over $1400 by the end of that 24 hour period. (I put up a post on it in the Jetpack forum back when it happened, if anyone wants to check it out).
Not claiming to be a pro now, but I've learnt a lot since then, and based on that, these are my responses to the topics mentioned in the original post on this thread. Keep in mind these are my personal opinions :)
It takes up more time than you thinkThat depends on what your expectations are when you start. For me, I'd already tried and failed at offline marketing for over a year prior, so I was no stranger to hard work.
However, when I started on AJP and ABP, I was able to turn it on pretty fast. (That said, I was probably putting in 3-4 hours AFTER finishing work each day, probably due to my obsessive and addictive personality.)
It costs more money than you thinkAgain, it's a matter of expectation and interpretation. Realistically, you could get away with spending less than $30 a month, and still have a site that draws a lot of traffic and sales. The tradeoff is that you have to learn to do a lot of things for yourself, like blogging, creating youtube videos, facebook fan pages, engaging with the audience, etc.
I know that for any sites that I personally build now, the cost analysis for a startup looks something like this:
Domain - $10
Hosting - $5/mo (or I use my existing hosting package that I run other sites off, at no extra cost)
Autoresponder: $15/mo (could get away with a cheaper one if need be)
Theme: $0 (use free ones)
Plugins: $0 (use free ones)
Traffic: $0+ (use free methods)
FB Page: $0
Youtube Channel: $0
Twitter: $0
Total: $30 upfront, and $20/mo. Not bad for a
business. Compare it to opening your own hardware store, restaurant, book store, factory, car dealership, or pretty much anything else. Not many businesses can be started on an extreme shoestring budget like this.
It's hard to keep going at timesI absolutely agree. But you have to keep in mind... the ones who DO keep going, are the ones who end up being successful.
No successful marketer ever reached the level they're at by giving up
The default Affilotheme - looks dated and I've had to hire Wordpress developers to replace mineAffiloTheme is not necessarily the ultimate in themes... but it was never meant to be. It's something to help get people off the ground. My first Jetpack site (the one which made $1273 overnight) was built on AffiloTheme... in fact, it still is!
But you're not limited to AffiloTheme. There's thousands of others out there, and everyone is free to experiment as they please.
The upsells - don't want to buy anything else thanks. Spent enough already.If upsells didn't exist, you might never have known about AffiloJetpack in the first place :)
The support - it's not the quickest. Sometimes you have to wait a whileThe non-instant replies are a tradeoff for the quality of information you receive. Every email they send is personally handcrafted, and not just a template shoved in your face like many other companies.
Suggestions for Affilorama... Provide one to one coaching sessions by the hour over the phone or Skype.This is a tricky one. I've seen it before, and I've been involved in it myself, where people think that having a coach means automatic success. But it's far from reality.
People need to be able to execute plans (eg. the ABP/AJP training). If they can't, then a coach isn't going to be of much use, because it'll just mean more instructions that aren't executed.
My suggestion would be to follow everything to the letter, and if extra guidance is needed above and beyond that, it probably wouldn't be too hard to find someone throughout these forums who'd be willing to give assistance, or even offer their own version of coaching.
I would be great to talk to someone and get an honest opinion instead of waiting 48 hours for a reply to a forum comment.Please, please, don't sit on your hands while you wait for a reply on the forums. There's ALWAYS things that can be done while you wait. Your website is never "finished", and can be constantly improved forever. Spend that time wisely, and then when you do finally receive a reply, you've accomplished extra tasks in that time.
Anyway, great topic, and I look forward to seeing what others have to say :)