Last month Brad Hodges Enterprises launched a new central, unifying website for the company. It has been long overdue. Prior to the launch this blog has served as the primary site. The new site is more conducive to our growth, large Internet presence and represents us as a company far better than my blog. It will now serve as the main company entity.

I will retain this blog for the time being and post as needed and deemed pertinent. For information on the company and up to date news please visit us at the new site: Brad Hodges Enterprises.

By Brad Hodges

Did you know that Affiliate Marketing is one of the best and fastest ways to make money on the Internet?

You would be surprised and perhaps shocked to learn that some of the biggest names in the business world use affiliate marketing and affiliates to promote their products and services. Household names like Sears, Dell, QVC, Allstate, Verizon, Yahoo, HP, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Amazon.com, The Home Depot, American Express, Delta Airlines, the Sierra Club and thousands more ALL use affiliate marketing and ALL are willing to pay approved affiliates money in the way of commissions per sale or per lead and for bringing them business.

Affiliate marketing has been going on for decades, long before the Internet, by companies like The Fuller Brush Company, Avon, Amway and Kitchen Craft “Waterless Cooker.”

As you can see from the major companies that have affiliate programs it is here to stay and a lot of money can be made selling other peoples goods and services.

At the beginning of this article notice I said that; “Affiliate Marketing is one of the best and fastest ways to make money on the Internet?” “Best and fastest” however does not equate to “Easy”. Affiliate marketing is by no means a “get rich quick scheme”.

Affiliate Marketing is an art and just like anything worth having or becoming an expert about, you have to work for it as well as learn as much as you possibly can about it in order to be successful.

Make no mistake however, that their are thousands of individuals who have become millionaires by selling affiliate products and using affiliate business websites to accomplish this.

Think about it for a moment. One of the most difficult tasks in becoming self-employed and making a full time living is coming up with a product or service to sell. Unless you have a PhD in computer science or engineering or are a gifted inventor, how many people have the ability to envision, create, manufacture and market a new product from scratch…Exactly…

With affiliate marketing you don’t have to worry about all this because you have thousands and thousands of products to choose from and sell that people want to buy! In addition you can market these products with simple affiliate business websites that are easy to set up and maintain.

The trick, the art and the key however to being successful at affiliate marketing is to learn how to pick the right products to sell that people are able and willing to fork out their hard earned cash for and more importantly how to market the products to these people.

There are hundreds of online “courses” created exactly for learning how to do affiliate marketing efficiently and lucratively. Some are excellent and some are a waste of your hard earned money. A key is to look for courses that help you learn how to set up affiliate business websites, as well as how to market them in order to drive targeted buyers of your affiliate products or services or “traffic” to the websites.

Educating yourself is the first step and I hope to provide an ongoing resource to point you in the right directions to become successful at affiliate marketing.

A good place to start, especially if you are a “newbie” at affiliate marketing is at a web site called Affiliate Business Website at http://AffiliateBusinessWebsite.com

I have found this site to be an excellent place to get an overview of affiliate marketing and to help you determine if it is right for you. The site has dozens of pages and links to help you get started. Even if you have done some affiliate marketing but feel you could learn some more it is a good resource.

All in all affiliate marketing is a great way to earn some part time or supplemental income and once you get your feet wet and learn about the “art” you can progress to making a full time income as a self employed Internet Marketer. Who knows maybe you will become the next affiliate marketing millionaire.

I am pleased to see that my daughter Lauren is following  (although reluctantly at times) in my footsteps.  With a little (a lot <grin>) help and a lot of encouraging from Dad, Lauren launched her own woman’s heath blog last week at http://LaurenHodges.net!

Lauren has for awhile now been the Executive Director of woman’s health for our website at http://MenstrualCrampsHelp.com, but now she has stepped out on her own with her new blog dedicated to woman’s health, beauty and fitness.  Dad even helped set her up with her own Twitter account at http://Twitter.com/laurfaceiam where she Tweets about these subject matters.

I am encouraging Lauren to get her foot solidly in the world of Internet marketing since she has aspirations of starting her own beauty salon in the future.  She enrolled in beauty college this past August and is committed to learning everything about this field over the next 9 months and obtaining her required State of California cosmetology license at the end of her tenure in school.

These days not having a background and experience in Internet Marketing is a handicap so getting her started early is my kick in her butt.  By having her own blog she will learn to communicate her thoughts, experiences and ultimately her business to the world and no doubt increase her future business clients and exposure for the business.

I am proud of my daughter and look forward to her success in this and future endeavors.

I don’t know about you but I’m just an average guy trying to make a living on the Internet marketing good, honest  products and services.  I’m not a “Guru” and to be completely honest even when I get to the level I could claim “Guru” status I will pass thank you very much.

You see you do not have to be a Guru to make a decent living on the Internet.  In fact I personally am very weary of the designated Guru’s and their products. Sure I have purchased many of them and many of them are good, worthy products.  But did you ever notice how they are like a pack of hunting dogs in the way they all stick together?  It is always the same group hunting the same game; you and I.

It would be one thing if they stuck to creating new and innovative products on an ongoing basis and offered them at affordable prices, which to be honest, I have noticed prices dropping significantly despite the all too often heard quote of Guru’s that “You can make more money than God in any kind of economy.” They have finally realized they cannot con us into believing this any longer.

What gets me more than anything else is when one so called Guru comes up with a “new” or “rehashed” product you suddenly get the offer from 20 of their cronies and more often than not it is the EXACT same email!  It seems to me that desperate times create desperate Guru’s.

I recently received an offer from one of “The Group.”  Now I usually read the offers because I feel compelled, or maybe I am just an Internet Guru Voyeur, I don’t know, to see what they come up with and how often it is duplicated.  In this offer the unnamed Guru had several “testimonials” on the squeeze page. The amazing part of it is that I happen to know who the support personnel are for this person as well as who some of their cronies are, and they actually had testimonials from these individuals!  Talk about not being objective or for that matter even honest!  Now the average consumer/Internet Guru wannabe, stumbling across this product would have no way of knowing this and therefore would be taking an “inside” testimonial as face value and perhaps relying on it to purchase the product.  Of course how many of any of the testimonials you see are real and true anyway?  If you have been on top of the news recently you will have seen a crack down on the use of phony or illegal testimonials especially in the case of products such as Acai Berry and the use of celebrity names.

I don’t do business like that. Many of these Guru’s are honest, straight forward people. You would recognize many of their names in a flash but come on guys STOP flooding us with the same offers from your buddies over and over. Stick with developing good products at reasonable prices because, as you so often state; “I was once where you are, broke, living in a trailer, living out of my car, going through <name the tragic story here>, and I am now offering my great <name the product here> to you so you can be successful too” if you truly were there and truly were broke and truly are now a millionaire, you would truly price products to help, as you say you want to, and stop pitching everyone Else’s products over and over. It makes you look desperate and makes you look like you have run out of innovative products and ideas (and maybe YOU HAVE).

I prefer to make money quietly in the background as many, many excellent and if they chose to be such, folks who could call themselves Guru’s, are doing and have been doing for years. This term has lost its luster to be sure and it is a rusting, meaningless designation.

American entrepreneurship, ingenuity and success were built by those who can stand on their own with innovation, dignity and integrity.  Let’s now allow the world of Internet Marketing to get the same black eyes as the world of Mortgage’s, Investments, Bad Real Estate and many other once honorable career paths now have.  We need to police ourselves and stop being snake oil sales people in the methods and marketing we use or who knows we may be the NEXT government takeover!

If you follow us on Twitter you will notice that a large number of our posts are related to health and wellness. There is a good reason for this and it is that health and wellness are a major focus of our overall company strategy and products.

We are especially fond of natural health and women’s health. Personally health has always taken center stage for our family but unfortunately this is not always the case with the average person. Often health is the last rung on the ladder when it should be the first. The reasoning behind this is simple; without good health nothing else matters because without it you cannot possibly enjoy life and live life to the fullest. Poor health will hold you back from everything else you want to accomplish or dream of.

It is important you make health the center of the hub and this includes eating healthy, exercising at a pace that is both comfortable and fits into your lifestyle just as long as you exercise in some form, investigating alternative health products when applicable as opposed to making drugs and other pharmaceuticals the first choice you seek out, and adopting an overall “healthy attitude” that will help you make it a habit rather than an after thought.

Starting a healthy lifestyle can take place no matter how old you are or what stage in life you are at. Make it a decision to start today. As always before you set out to moderately or drastically change your eating and exercising habits consult with your health care provider to be sure you take the right steps and to pace yourself appropriately so as not to make sudden changes that could impact you in a negative manner.

Here is a list of some of our websites and blogs to help you learn more and to educate yourself on the product options you may have:

Alternative Medicine

Anxiety, Stress and Panic Attacks

First Aid

Menstrual Cramps Relief

Natural Breast Enhancement

Skin Care

To your health!