First off, what brought me to this decision? I run a small but successful recruitment business which I started with my wife five years ago. It makes us a good living, we employ a couple of people, we don't want for anything, we have a couple of holidays a year, we get weekends off, and we work for ourselves. Fantastic!

And then we hit a credit crunch, unemployment started to rise, orders started to slow down. We will still be here in a year's time. We have a good solid business and our customers are loyal. However, we have had to tighten our belts, take a pay cut, take cheaper holidays and probably only take one holiday this year, and that really, really makes me mad! Something that was completely out of my control has seriously messed with my lifestyle!

When things started to slow down, in October 08, my wife and I sat down and brainstormed "Recession Proof Businesses". It needed to be cheap, it needed to have the potential to take off quickly and we needed to be able to do it in our spare time. It was a no brainer. The internet gave you instant access to millions of potential customers.

I started to do some research on the internet, found out about Affiliate Marketing and thought...Yeah, I can do that!

But how to get into it? My knowledge of the internet and computers was way below where it needed to be for this. I use Word and Excel extensively, I can format documents, mail merge and can build a pretty mean spreadsheet when I need to. I use Google a lot for research and can put together some fairly impressive search strings, even if I do say so myself.

Back to Google. Typed in "Second Income", tried "Work from Home", "Internet Marketing". If you've been there, you will know that there are a host of companies and individuals out there trying to sell you their version of how to make a great living on the internet. It quickly became obvious that if I ws going to get my head round all the information, I was going to need some serious help.

This was too big a decision to make just from reading a sales pitch. I soon decided that if I couldn't speak to a human being then I wasn't interested. That narrowed it down. A huge number of the ads, links etc are to automated web pages and I'm a great believer in customer service, so if someone wasn't prepared to speak to me then they wouldn't get my money.

I ended up speaking to about four companies who were offering to build a website for me and put me through the training needed to get my website earning a six figure salary for me. They all sounded very plausible but in the end I settled for one company that seemed to be offering me everything I needed. I was going to buy a "Fully tested Very Lucrative Pet Business" with full support. The company claimed that they only ever sold one of each type of business and that my site would be totally unique. What more could I want?

The company was a power seller on eBay with 100% feedback. Checking on their feedback, the majority was from satisfied customers who had bought website businesses and seemed to be trading successfully. There was a phone number to call and I got to speak to someone who answered all my questions and explained their 90 day money back guarantee..

So on November 12th, I parted with my money. Being a little sceptical I did buy through eBay and I paid by Credit Card to try and give myself some protection. After all, at least that way I had the leverage of the 100% feedback if things started to go wrong.

Where are we now?

A week after I closed the deal, I got an eBay message form someone who had bought the same business from the company. She had done the deal over the phone and had been watching the eBay listing waiting for it to close. We talked on the phone and alarm bells started to ring.

I raised this with the company who apologised for the mix up and offered me a full Amazon Affiliate site in place of the Pet Store. My future income flashed before my eyes, great, I'll be able to sell anything to anyone. How can I not make serious money.

How naïve I was.

Christmas came and went, New Year too. I spent many hours on the phone talking to the company agreeing which Affiliate companies to feature on the site. I signed up with several Affiliate marketing companies, Commission Junction, Click Bank, Affiliate Future to name a few. I opened an account with google for Adwords and Adsense. I watched the site unfold but it was never quite finished.

Considering that I had bought a fully working website, what was taking so long. I threatened to throw my toys out of the pram and asked for a refund. Furious back pedalling followed, I was offered a second site for free and like a fool I accepted.

It is now mid January. The site has gone live and isn't yet earning anything. It is not quite finished. The banner on the front page is missing so the site looks very white when you visit it and has little page appeal. I will be asking for a refund and will be suing them if I don't get it. The eBay feedback is still at a 100% for now. After all, it is a negotiating tool.

In the meantime? Never one to put all my eggs in one basket, I have been reading any material I can find on internet marketing and there is loads out there. Some of it is free and some of it is paid for. I have bought and downloaded several eBooks, some were a waste of money and some were worthwhile. After much searching I have found an on-line mentor who is showing me everything I need to know, through video training, emails and phone calls and it is working. I have four different projects on the go marketing affiliate products and am coming up with new ides all the time. I am blogging, building my own website for free and thoroughly enjoying it. I have learnt an increedible amount and can't wait to start work every day.

I am now earning enough to have stepped away from our business to focus on internet marketing. Not bad for a Newbie!

Copyright (c) 2009 Nick Bynoth