If you’ve read The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris, you may be wondering”is the 4 Hour Work Week Possible?” The idea of working from anywhere, lying around in your hammock on the beach appeals to nearly everyone! So how come most people are struggling financially and stuck in jobs they hate?
A recent Gallop poll stated that 85% of American workers are dissatisfied in their work. Why be dissatisfied in your job when you can have a lifetime of ease, laying on the beach?!
In the early 2000’s I was working on eBay, dreaming of Tim Ferris’s idea of a lifestyle business where I could live anywhere and not have to work! I was buying and selling things and dealing with customers. But it was a million miles away from the laptop lifestyle of working from my villa in the Maldives and sitting on the beach!
I knew there had to be a better way, and it set my on the path of becoming an affiliate marketer.
Is The 4 Hour Work Week Possible?
The main problem most people have is money! We could all live amazing lifestyles if it were not for money, or rather the lack of it! When you go on holiday, you’re spending money and borrowing time from your job. But what if you could automate an income from the internet which came in month in month out, whether you work or not?
This question haunted me for some time while I struggled to make an income juggling countless jobs and lugging items to the post office to sell through eBay. I knew there had to be a better way to use the internet to create both time and financial freedom.
I first started with the idea of trying to sell an ebook from a website. With a digital downloadable product, I could automate the entire process. That meant I wouldn’t have to be there to deal with customers, returns and questions. The customers simply found my website and downloaded my ebook. I get paid and they get their book. I could operate such a business on a beach with zero input once it was set up!
The problem was, I couldn’t make any sales! So I put myself on a marketing course and learned how to get traffic to my website. However, I also learned that through selling someone else’s product I could make a lot more than through selling my own ebook. So I dropped the ebook idea and switched to a business model called affiliate marketing.
Is The 4 Hour Work Week Possible: Affiliate Marketing
Not only is the 4 hour work week possible, but many people have created it already through a business model known as affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing you don’t need anything of your own to sell. You can “piggyback” off other people’s products and make commissions based off the sales you generate online. Because this process can be automated and you can sell products globally, it lends itself well to a transient lifestyle and financial independence/freedom.
All you really need to learn affiliate marketing is a laptop and internet connection. So why isn’t everyone doing it? While a lot of people start learning affiliate marketing, with the end goal of financial independence and geographical freedom, it’s not easy. There’s a 95% drop out rate in the industry. This is for many reasons such as the low bar to entry, finding customers online, education and experience. Many people think affiliate marketing is going to be easy and therefore quit too quickly when they realise there’s a lot of work involved.
Can affiliate marketing give you the laptop lifestyle Tim Ferris talks about in his book? That’s down to you, but it is a vehicle you can use to get there. You simply need to become the “engine”.
Is The 4 Hour Work Week Possible?
When I started learning affiliate marketing I had a lot of problems. I couldn’t get people to my websites, I chose the wrong products, I made next to nothing in commissions. But I didn’t know the best way to approach it. I was choosing low valued products from Amazon and eBay. As such when I eventually did make a sale, it would only be for peanuts!
The long battle to make a sale online was tough. When it eventually did materialise, it was a little disappointing. How come some affiliates were financially free, living their best lives while I was struggling so much, I wondered!
I eventually found the answer, but by this time I had been struggling for some time. I expect most people would quit by this point, and I wouldn’t blame them! But I was determined to create a passive income from my online sales. I eventually came across a video of a guy on a pedalo who was talking about online business. I clicked on his video link and joined his program through the free video series he was offering on his video. You can access it here.
Affiliate Marketing Business Models
I was about to discover what I didn’t initially understand, and what could have shaved years off my struggles! This is a major key to building a lifestyle business from the internet which can give you a very flexible and free lifestyle, or “the 4 hour work week”, as Tim Ferris calls it. Before, I was selling low valued items and I was working far too hard trying to get traffic. I needed a better business model and a better marketing strategy.
By using high ticket digital products and subscription affiliate products, I was able to make much more from fewer sales. (Read that again! It’s a major key to success online.)
By using paid marketing, I could get traction much more quickly than through using the old tactics I had learned years before. I was attempting to get free traffic. But with all the noise on the internet, this is incredibly difficult and very time consuming! Plus, paid marketing is scalable, while organic marketing isn’t so much.
While paid marketing can get expensive, with a sales funnel like the one you see above, you can make more per sale than you would for low value products which only pay you one time. With high ticket and subscription products in your funnel, the value per customer is much higher. This makes it easier to access the more expensive marketing tactics, which are also much better than cheaper and free ones.
Summary
The 4 hour work week is entirely possible yes. But don’t expect it to be an easy ride! The affiliates who succeed are generally workaholics and in order to get to the point of having complete time and financial freedom, they will usually work consistently at their online businesses for some time, months or years, before they can achieve this.
While this may put some people off, knowing it’s not just some push button system they can automate with little work, it’s worth remembering that this can set you financially free for life. Despite the difficulties and challenges of building an online business, it’s worth it if you have the ambition to create more time and financial freedom.
‘Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in two or three decades.’ – Ton Robbins
If you’re ready to get started you can access a free video series here, or create your startup membership here.