Give up the rest, because the best is free and easy...

Having joined ClickTrackProfit on July 29, 2012 I found every day was just such an awe inspiring, jaw dropping experience.

Got me thinking, how did I stumble upon CTP?

I've kept a spreadsheet of my internet activity - more or less a diary or journal of daily activities - going back to April 18, 2009; that was the day I joined Clickbank, and began my affiliate thingie adventure.

Why Clickbank, you may ask?

At that time, I was in a business partnership with my sister-in-law. We had a small commercial cleaning business. I was not well so I could not work the business from the ground floor. Rather, I did the back office, getting jobs, sending off invoices, and making sure we got paid.

To offset the modest revenue we got from cleaning, we ventured into network marketing and from there on to internet marketing.

Sean Rasmussen was Australia's #1 internet marketer at that time. In 2008, he earned over $12m from his online activites; that's greenback, not AUD. An event management company was giving out free tickets to Sean's weekend conference, so off I went.

Saturday, May 2, 2009 was the first day of the event. Sean explained how he used social media and blogging to reach out to his audience. He built trust and that's how he sold his wares online. His speciality: training materials. Hmm, if only I could find a social media site that let people earn as they learn.

He said the secret to online success was simple: brand yourself; use your own name as the handle for the social media accounts, go onto gravatar and upload a photo, and just be yourself. In that way, you will build up trust and then be able to connect to your audience. In time, they will trust you enough to buy from you.

Sean tasked us all to go home and set up social media accounts on the three core sites he found worked best for him. Here they are: 1. Facebook, 2. Twitter, and 3. LinkedIn.

That night, I went home and I joined all three.

At that conference, he also told us to set up blogging accounts on WordPress. He showed us what we needed to do, and I still have the handbook on how to set up widgets and other fun stuff.

Leap forward 10 years and what do we have?

ClickTrackProfit is back, and with a vengeance. We now have a site refocussed on affiliate marketing, combining all the fun stuff: social media, blogging, and getting paid!

Here's my diary note: “August 24, 2019: CTP had major upgrade, now using Uphold as payment processor so had to join that site, still have 43 referrals but no pro members and last activity was in June 2019 so I'll need to stimulate action, lots of new training to check out and will take time”.

What is the vogue vernacular in 2019? Personal branding using social media and blogs.

Give up the rest, because the best is free and easy...

Ian Ballantine
Wellington, New Zealand
October 7, 2019.