My relationship with InnoHosting gave me the confidence I needed to further promote myself as a one-stop-shop for website design and related services. I finally felt like I was with a hosting company that I could feel good about, as well as grow with. This gave me peace of mind in knowing that I could be confident in providing my clients with top notch hosting – knowing Inno would be there to back me up if any support issues should arise.
With my newfound confidence as a full-fledged web services provider, I started to make myself “more available” as a freelancer. I wasn’t aggressively pursuing this career, as it was more or less a side gig, but I’d still been hoping to take the leap eventually.
At any rate…within a year or so I found the impetus to focus on this new path… Without warning, I had lost my once rock-solid job of nearly 18 years.
Due to the increasingly rapid decline of record retail, the owners of the establishment I’d been managing had made a most untimely decision (for me, anyway) to close the location down. I was given four days notice and a severance package of two month’s pay. This news was given to me just 3 short weeks before my son was to be born. It was brutal news to say the least. Although I did foresee their decision coming at some point, the sudden nature of the announcement really surprised me.
I tried to make the best of this insecure situation I’d just been forced into by viewing it as a good opportunity to emerge as a self-employed freelance web developer. However, my wife disagreed – feeling that a regular paycheck was more important at this time than me beginning the long and uncertain journey of entrepreneurship. I ended up agreeing with her, so I updated my resumé with the intent of finding a job with a local web development company.
Within about two weeks it was pretty plain to see that my local area was saturated with individuals seeking the same thing – including loads of competing college grads willing to accept a low wage to remain in the paradise that is SLO County. As a result, the wages offered were less than what I’d previously been pulling down as a record store manager. And not only less, but a lot less. It was quite disheartening.
With my reluctance to take such a huge pay cut, which would also slow progress on me obtaining my dream as a self-employed freelancer, I was then forced to convince my disgruntled wife that me staying home with the baby and starting my freelance business was “a good idea”. I felt it was the only choice, as her job had been pretty secure, paid well and offered nice benefits. Reluctantly, she returned to work after her maternity leave was up and so began a new chapter in my life as stay-at-home dad and struggling entrepreneur.
At this point in time, I’d had a few clients, but not nearly enough recurring business to earn a sustainable income. Being that I’ve never really been a “salesman”, I mainly relied upon referrals, recommendations and my web presence – for new leads. Every so often I’d obtain a new client, but things were slow going.
Given that I was pretty locked down at home with a baby, I started looking into alternative ways to make money with my computer.
And so began my journey into Affiliate Marketing…