If your 9-5 rut is taking its toll on you, you’re probably thinking of quitting that job.
The reality is, it’s easier said than done. Quitting a job means no more regular paychecks to expect.
Deciding to quit a job poses many questions. How can I support myself? How can I have a stable income? Would it be enough to pay the bills? Won’t I end up on the street?
The decision to quit a job is a huge leap to take.
Well, when you probably thought of quitting your job, you instantly sought alternative ways to keep the income stream coming.
And I’ll guess that you’ve considered starting your own business as how you could make ends meet.
So this article will consider how you can start your own business, what business to take, when to do it, and why choose that business.
Affiliate Marketing
Start your own business with affiliate marketing.
But why affiliate marketing?
Well, because starting your own business with affiliate marketing only requires a low start-up cost.
Basically, you just need to have a computer and a decent internet connection.
Then you choose an affiliate marketing platform that could work for you and has tons of products to choose from.
You can find affiliate marketing platforms where you can sign up for free. They even include free lessons to get you started in the business.
Can I Quit My Job After Starting Affiliate Marketing?
No, don’t quit your job just yet. It would be wise and practical to stick to your job until such time that your income level is enough to sustain your monthly needs.
Many people that pursue affiliate marketing started working on it part-time. They have steadily built the business until it could equal or surpass their current job income.
Some unrealistically quit their job prematurely. They get so excited to live their dream life that they end up going back to work on a 9-5 employment because their business could not yet sustain them financially.
Eventually, though, with a steady income stream, you can start saying goodbye to the rut of a day job.
But this will depend on many factors like the niche you are working on and the success of promotion efforts.
A number of people earn a lot by choosing unusual niche angles while some opt to follow a proven and tested model.
In the end, by working steadily on the business, they were able to earn an income that is sustainable.
What to Consider in Order to Earn Sustainable Income in Affiliate Marketing
First, select a profitable niche you are interested in.
Why is interest important? Because if you are interested in what you are doing, you can keep ongoing even when the waters may be rough at the start or somewhere along the way.
The profitable factor is more than understandable. Of course, you are doing the business to earn, so you need a niche that is “moneymaking material”.
You can find many niches that are profitable but there are niches that are not, so you will need to be smart in choosing a niche to work on.
I mentioned earlier about unusual niche angles. Why does this work?
Unusual niche angles mean less competition and authority in the field which gives you a solid footing in the industry.
Next, be a member of an affiliate program. You cannot make money if you do not have products to advertise. So, you have to register with an affiliate program for that.
Many affiliate marketers are working with Wealthy Affiliate because it works to their advantage in addition to other perks that they offer. I will tell you more about that later.
Next, start advertising products. After finishing the first two steps, you can get on with this step and start generating income.
However, before starting with any of these, there are vital questions to consider in order to make this a successful venture.
Ask Yourself
Am I being conservative in making decisions? It is important to ask yourself this question because many people are so excited about making the jump.
Their transition is too untimely, so they fail in sustaining themselves and end up running back to the rut.
Why take time? Let’s just say that you’ve chosen a niche, joined an affiliate program and started making your website. But then your campaigns die.
You end up with no savings and nothing to sustain your business and basic needs.
This leaves you demoralized and makes you lose the motivation you initially had. This will then be a major setback for you.
Before quitting, ask yourself: Am I already a good affiliate marketer? Is my income a result of chance or of my business skills? If my income is down, can I still be financially stable?
Just think, the game rules can change anytime catching you off guard. Your websites may work out great then suddenly, one day not so well.
In line with that, ask yourself, what errors have I made? To find the answer to this question you might need some help from a mentor of the affiliate community.
When can I quit my job? Your website or websites can now steadily bring you income, is it time to quit the rut? I will suggest that you do so when you reach an income that is at least twice your monthly job salary for a minimum of 3 consecutive months.
This will ensure consistency.
You will need this consistency so that when unexpected things happen (your website is less profitable) you could still sustain yourself until you can create another website that would replace the one the brings less profit.
Actually, you could create a new website when your first one is doing very well. Also, if you’re a good affiliate marketer, you’ll know how to keep your website performing well despite all the changes that happen all the time on the internet.
Do you have outstanding debt? From a loan or a credit card may be, this might not be the best time to quit. You might need to pay it off first or you might end up struggling to pay it off from an unstable income or worse miss making payments and accumulate interest.
Some even had to sell dear possessions so that they could pay the debt. Later on, when the business was well-established, they were able to purchase a similar item or an item with a higher value than what was initially sold.
Short-term needs might sometimes need to be sacrificed for long-term gains.
Do you have enough savings? Make sure you have some cash stashed for the rainy days. This will be your safety cushion in times when not much income is coming in. I would suggest that you have savings that could suffice to cover a few months’ worth of living expenses.
Now if you could ensure positive answers to the questions posed, it might be the time to quit your job and focus on your business.
Wealthy Affiliate
Earlier, I mentioned that many people are drawn to this affiliate networking platform. We’ll consider why.
You can join Wealthy Affiliate for free. Upon sign up, you will gain access to the first affiliate marketing lesson they provide.
This will be a great opportunity to test the waters and see if it could work for you. If it doesn’t, no worries, you didn’t shed funds.
If it does work for you, you can then choose to sign up for the paid membership and gain access to the succeeding lessons.
The great thing about this is that there are no upsells. After the membership is paid, no additional fees will be needed to unlock other perks.
It is not an MLM, so you will not need to recruit other people for you to earn.
As for the lessons, these are recognized as leading educators in the affiliate marketing industry.
The lessons teach you how to start the business from scratch how you can steadily build it until you start earning. You will learn all you need to know to become a successful affiliate marketer.
Wealthy Affiliate also features a support system of like-minded business experts that will help with any trouble at any time of the day.
These experts immediately come to aid when issues and concerns are raised.
Aside from helping you build the website, they offer various themes for a fully-customizable website.
Another important feature is its own keyword search engine called Jaaxy.
Jaaxy aids in finding relevant niches that give heavy traffic. It also provides low competition keywords that are important for ranking.
Jaaxy also gives information on the competitiveness of a keyword potential traffic that could be expected from a keyword.
This is important to drive relevant traffic that could highly convert leads to sales.
All these can be enjoyed safely with Wealthy Affiliate’s secure web hosting.
Conclusion
Can you quit your job? Yes, as long as your own business is sustainable enough to make your ends meet and let you enjoy what your 9-5 job couldn’t offer.
It will not be instant because you will have to build it slowly and surely, but it will be worth it, especially if you choose a business like affiliate marketing under a very profitable platform called Wealthy Affiliate.
If you start your own online business now, who knows, in a few months or years (it’s better to build your income slowly for a few years and quit your job late, than to be stuck with the job you don’t like for a lifetime), you will not have to wake up early and endure traffic to go to your day job.
And eventually, you will get to enjoy having control over your time and your life which a 9-5 job couldn’t offer.
Hello Chris, I must say that this article is very helpful and informative. I plan on starting affiliate marketing but I was not sure where to start. Many people say me it is not worth it and that it can’t pay me like my regular job but I know it is wrong. You shared some very useful tips and advice I will follow, thank you for sharing.
Hello Danijel,
You can make much more money from affiliate marketing than from a regular job.
Thank you for the comment.
Thanks a lot for such an amazing review about How to Quit My Job and Start My Own Business and explanations are given.
We should quit our job 9-5 and focus on creating our own business. If we dedicate time and work smart we can succeed. A very good article on how you can open your own business. I will definitely try these tips.
Thanks, again for this post. If you don’t mind, I will share this article on my social media account. Good luck!
Sure, you can share.
Actually, as I wrote in the article, I would not recommend to quit your job right away, unless you have a lot of savings. Otherwise, it’s better to quit when you already get some steady income from your online business.
Thank you for the comment.
Thank you so much for this excellent post!
I’ve actually been working on my sites and almost fell victim to the premature job quitting. The fact is, affiliate marketing fluctuates. A 9 to 5 job is, for most, a steady income that doesn’t fluctuate (unless you take unpaid time off, etc.). As such, you can rest comfortably, knowing that you can pay the bills and so on. This, of course, assumes your job is secure and not at risk of being cut or whatnot.
I actually have a well-paying tech-related job. I like it and I started my sites as a means to build other streams of income for the day that I do retire. I want that income but the freedom of time to enjoy my life. When a site does well, it’s easy to think, “Oh, I can move over to this now” but it can do great one month and OK or poorly the next. That’s why your consistency recommendation is so important.
I can tell you, interest plays a huge role in my site’s success. When I’m engaged in something I’m passionate about, I actually enjoy it and don’t see it as work. That’s not the case with another site I started just because the market was big and the niche was a hot topic. That said, despite its energetic niche, didn’t excite me and my effort put forth showed.
Thanks again. I think this post will help many and wish that I had run into it when I started my first site.
Scott
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Such a refreshing article, showing the positives and the negatives associated with quitting the 9-5 rat race and becoming your own boss. Unfortunately nowadays there are far too many sites out there promising the earth and not delivering when push comes to shove.
Having you own website with affilated businesses attached is one of the most rewarding results you can hope for when starting out on your own. You’re an entrepreneur. As you said though, it can take time. This is one of the issues. There are many schemes out there that say ‘just do this and that and watch the money flow in’ That’s not realistic.
I agree with your advice totally. If you can stay working while you are building up your business in the background, then do that. There are some that hit the jackpot and find a very profitable niche that brings in high commissions in the first few months, but they are the exception, not the rule. Stick it out and use your spare time to work on your future. The more time you send on it now, the quicker you’ll be free from the shackles of your current job.
Thank you for the comment.