You are an engineer. Can I ask you a leading question? Did you find this article when you were looking for opportunities to make money online? Please let me know in the comments section below. Do you think engineers can become successful entrepreneurs? Specifically, are engineers a good fit for affiliate marketing?
If you know what affiliate marketing is, great. If you don’t, worry not as I will tell you about it below. But first, may I ask you some questions?
- What kind of engineering is your profession?
- How long have you worked as an engineer?
- Is your planning for retirement on track?
- If you are retired, do you feel you are financially in excellent shape?
- If you are, congratulations, If you are not retired, what plans do you have to change that?
These questions are only for you to think about and provide answers for yourself. When you have these answers at the back of your mind while reading this article, they will provide you with solutions that will meet your specific needs.
Peace Of Mind
Most of the nice things in life cost money. If you want to help your kids in their lives, that costs money, When your spouse needs something to meet their needs, that costs money. Vacations? More money. Saving for emergencies? You guessed it. That also requires money.
When retired, your income is totally dependent on your pensions and the returns on your investments, assuming you have investments. For most people, even if they did all the right things to prepare for retirement, a shortage of funds to meet every need is the norm. If you think that Social Security will protect you, don’t bet on it.
These shortcomings can cause a great deal of stress. And stress is a major contributor to making you sick. What you need is peace of mind. The best way to get that is, to take back control of your income-earning potential. That is my main goal in writing this article.
Out of all the options that are available, I want to share just one, affiliate marketing, and how becoming successful in this can give you peace of mind.
But first, can I tell you a little about my engineering career and how affiliate marketing has been a big help to me?
My Brief Engineering Story
I graduated from The University of Liverpool in Electrical Engineering and Electronics. When I was looking for a job, I discovered the world of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and started my career in this very specialized field.
From there I morphed to Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD). Finally, the fields merged when I developed LCDs that were backlit with LEDs.
After retiring I lost a small fortune during the Great Recession and found myself in a financial hole. My pensions from several companies I worked for as well as Social Security were just enough to sustain my wife and me. We didn’t have much left over after paying our bills. That was when I started looking for opportunities online and discovered affiliate marketing.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
If you know what affiliate marketing is, great. If you don’t check out this article I wrote by clicking the banner below:
I will summarize this article for you below. But first, I want to share some stark truths.
Critical Truths You First Need To Know
No matter what people tell you, there are no get-rich-quick programs. You may stumble onto what may appear to be so, only to find out they are get-poor-quick programs. I kid you not. Been there, done that.
Finding something that has proven to work is the first step. I felt that affiliate marketing was a good fit for me. It may also be for you. But then it may not. After you read the article above, you can decide. In case you think this is something like Network Marketing, it is not. You do not have to help others earn money in order to make money yourself.
Affiliate Marketing is totally dependent on you, and you alone. Of course, help is available to get you on the right track. However, it is your actions that will help you succeed.
Are you willing to create a plan to get properly trained and do the work consistently? Even though it may take a while, like several months before you begin to see results? And a year or two before you start to earn a consistent income so that you can quit your job?
If you feel you cannot do that, then I suggest sticking with your job. Or look for a higher-paying job. Unless you are retired and have a regular pension that gives you the time to develop an online business. Even so, planning and hard work is still required.
There is no way around that I am sorry to tell you. Hence, it is critical to find the path that will lead you to the income you need.
Summary Of Affiliate Marketing
Do you know that companies like Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, Best Buy, and thousands of others use affiliate marketers to boost their sales? When you scroll down to the bottom of their websites you will find a list of additional links in small print. That is where you will find a link called Affiliate Program.
Go to Amazon and do this. I took a screenshot below to explain what I mean:
Click the Become an Affiliate link. Here you will find details on how to become an Amazon Associate. It costs nothing to join, except approval from Amazon. Be aware that you must make three sales within three months to maintain your Associates status.
First, you will need to create a website and succeed in driving traffic, meaning loads of people who find your posts online and click them. That is what companies want. Second, it will take training and applying new skills before you can get to that point.
Ask yourself, where do these customers come from? If you were looking for more information on a product you want to buy what would you do? You would probably go to almighty Google and enter your query in the search window. Lo and behold, Google shows you a long list of sources for the information you seek.
What happens next? Each of the items in this list has a brief summary of what that link is about. The one that comes closest to the query is what you will most likely click.
Unless this link is directly from Amazon, you will land on the article of the affiliate marketer who wrote it. Here you will find a review about the product that will help you make a buying decision.
If you decide you want to buy, there will be a call to action to click a link to Amazon. When you buy the product, the affiliate marketer will earn a commission. The price you will pay is exactly the same as if you went to the Amazon site yourself.
The concept is simple. As always, there is more to this process that you will need to learn to make this work for you.
The Challenge
The challenge for the affiliate with the website is to write content that will clearly answer the query entered into the search engines. Several conditions need to be met before the article link will appear on Google and especially on that coveted Page 1. Even on the top of Page 1.
Google and the other search engines will need evidence that you are serious about this business. The best way to show you’re serious is to add value to your articles to help those who are searching. In other words, you have to work on your website to become an authority on what those who are searching for. Then, you need to keep at it by writing helpful articles on a regular basis.
How To Become An Authority To Satisfy Google
This is not as difficult as it may sound. Here is where the hard work comes in. Nobody can become an authority on everything buyers are looking for. So what can you do?
You chose a very narrow slice of products or services that fall into a specific niche. This niche must be an area you have a lot of expertise in, and/or are passionate about.
Engineers have a rich cache of products and services they can help others solve problems and meet a need. Look for tips on how to pick your winning niche as an engineer in a future article.
Once you are clear about what your niche is, you create a lot of content that is information in the following categories:
- Product Reviews – Details about the products including pros and cons
- Best of Articles – Compare several similar products and make your best recommendation
- How to articles – How does this product or service meet a specific need or solve a problem
I think you get the idea. There is a cycle involved in this process before you earn a commission. The following diagram will explain it visually.
The various stages of this process are explained in detail here.
The Mind Of An Engineer
Perhaps the above diagram looks too simple for the mind of an engineer. I know how engineers love to use flow charts to show more details to solve a problem.
Aha! Is the following diagram detailed enough? Here I show the steps on what goes into creating a website. And how this website is used to attract customers. It is the training that ties everything together by teaching you how to do all of this and make it work.
Don’t worry about all of this now. The Best Way To Do Affiliate Marketing will lead you to the training you need to learn everything about this process.
Famous Entrepreneurs Who Started Out As Engineers
It is challenging for most people to think and act like an entrepreneur. Engineers find this especially challenging. Yet, history has shown us that some of the most successful businesses were headed by engineers. Here is a list of just a few:
- Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft
- Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
- Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple
- Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
- Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and Space-X
- Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
Detail Oriented
Being detail-oriented is a trait that shows engineers care about the people their products serve. This is a critical trait to have as an entrepreneur. When shortcuts are taken, disaster strikes. This usually occurs when attention to detail is compromised.
Engineers are not immune to this negative trait. However, in my experience, that is the exception and not the rule.
In affiliate marketing, the individual initially does all the work personally. Once the business is successful enough to deliver results, meaning cold hard cash, it is necessary to scale up.
This is where business systems can be very helpful. Attention to detail, though always important, is especially critical at this phase. The reasons are simple.
When you are working alone and make mistakes, the damage is small enough to work around and correct. However, when your business grows using a systematized structure, mistakes can be catastrophic. Recovery will also be more difficult.
Hence, the trait of engineers being detailed oriented makes them a good fit for affiliate marketing.
Ideal Training Online
If you are an engineer, how would you like to be trained to become really good at affiliate marketing? Being an engineer myself, my experience could help you.
I searched on the Internet to find resources that could help me in my quest. Sadly, what I discovered were organizations that tricked me into taking my money and providing me with very little benefit.
Unfortunately, the approach most often used was to suck me in with a lowball price. Once in, I discovered that in order to learn what I actually needed, I had to pay extra. A lot extra. The courses were in modules and each had a price that exceeded hundreds of dollars.
Then there were others who charged very little and gave very little value too.
The ideal training program for me was a company that taught me the skills I needed as well as providing the tools necessary and the support and mentorship I would need. All at a fair price that was transparent right from the start. Preferably with no upsells.
I found such a company through trial and error. After being with them for over three years and earning regular commissions, I highly recommend them.
Would you like to read my review of this company? Click the banner below to find out more. You can also find this link in the article I shared with you at the top.
Keeping Track
I highly recommend you create a success plan based on the training you receive. This is a combination of scheduling your training, writing content, and tracking your progress.
Create a daily schedule. As you complete each task, check that off. As much as possible, focus on one task at a time until you complete it.
For example, when you schedule writing content, stick with it until your article is complete. The training you will have access to is a combination of live sessions where you can ask questions and receive immediate answers. As well as recorded sessions where you can also ask questions and receive answers later.
Take about a couple of days off from your business. These can also be used to catch up when you fall behind. If you schedule and do work every day of the week you will suffer burnout. Plus, you will not have time for catching up when you fall behind. This can actually add stress to your life. Please don’t do that.
Are Engineers A Good Fit For Affiliate Marketing
Do you feel the information I have provided in this article as well as in the links answers this question for you? If you are not retired please let me know in the comments section below. I’d like to close loose ends by adding some Pros and Cons about engineers doing affiliate marketing.
Pros
- Engineers enjoy solving problems
- Have an analytical mind
- Engineers are hard-working
Cons
- Engineers don’t usually have a sense of urgency
- Love to analyze a problem to the extreme before making a decision
- Communicating clearly can be a challenge
Mindset
Engineers have the option to change their mindset to overcome the Cons as stated above. It comes down to changing habits. This is difficult to do, but once achieved, will help the engineer do exceptionally well. Especially when combined with the strengths in the Pros.
The Formula For Success
As an engineer, I feel confident you will find the formula for success in affiliate marketing. But only if you decide this option to make extra money is for you. Please leave me any comments or questions below.
I wish you all the success in the world.
Edwin Bernard
Hi, Edwin, thank you for your well-written and articulated post. Although you address Engineers, I see your blog touches anyone who is or has been in the employment sector. For instance, I am a Biochemist/Microbiologist and employed at a University, but I figured out what I would be doing seven years from now when I retire. This question rang in my head for some time and I looked on the web to find any work-from-home job. As you clearly say, many are there to milk you the small money you have through upsells at every step. However, when I discovered affiliate marketing, the concept convinced me that that was the way to go. As you rightly put it, engineers and indeed scientists are critical thinkers and look for what others may consider minor details. Their style of writing is factual and never humorous. But with good training, I am starting to get some of my posts ranked in the three search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and I am happy. Yes, even engineers and indeed scientists can make affiliate marketing their retirement career. Thank you very much for this post.
Thanks so much for your comments. You are right. The points I made can apply equally to many other professions. Since I wanted to make a strong connection to my target audience I plan on creating numerous posts aimed at different professions.
In that way, I hope to create that special personal touch that will resonate more effectively with those who click through. My objective is to make them feel that I am talking personally to them.
I think you understand what I am trying to do.
All the best to you.
Edwin
I’m a firm believer that anyone, regardless of their career path, or their education, anyone can become an affiliate marketer. I started out not even knowing what those two words meant, and now I have my own business with traffic flowing in every single day. Having an extra source of income is truly so important because as you’ve said, social security and even your pension will not 100% cover all of life expenses.
Hi Stephanie,
What you stated is so true. An extra stream of income can help anyone. My approach it to write a series of articles related to specific professions I chose. I started with engineering because I am an engineer. However, this can apply to any profession.
Your experience proves this. Thanks for making your wonderful comments.
Edwin
Very intriguing article! We all know engineers are some very talented people. They should look into using their skills as a great way of learning even more new skills! Like you say, engineers should be very confident in their capabilities, as they will guarantee find success in what they strive for. All long as you want it, you can achieve it. Great post!
Hi Alex,
You hit the nail on the head. Although engineers may be talented, they also need to be flexible to learn new skills. Thanks for making that important point. Perhaps I should edit my post to address that situation.
Thanks for commenting.
Edwin
You are very on point. As Engineers, we are analytical, and we enjoy solving problems. These attributes play a lot of roles when we enter into other ventures. I am also an electrical engineer, and I started with affiliate marketing in 2019. My analytical mind and a strong drive to succeed have played a lot of roles and have helped me achieve also has an affiliate marketer. So engineers should feel free to get started with affiliate marketing, and they must be ready to learn new things
Glad to meet a fellow engineer. I graduated in Electrical Engineering and Electronics. Your attitude and experience are proof of the points I made. Thanks for commenting.
Edwin