How to Build an Online Affiliate Marketing Empire with Minimal Employees and Maximum Profits with Spencer Mecham

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down how to build an online affiliate marketing empire with minimal employees and maximum profits. To drop these value bombs, I brought Spencer Mecham into EO Fire Studios. Spencer fired his boss in 2017 and now makes his living doing things he loves, including affiliate marketing, content creation, and short-term rental cabins. Today we're going to talk about the edge in the journey, what actually works, when to pivot, bigger than your size, scaling without burnouts, life after leverage, and oh, so much more.

0:35John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Spencer and our sponsors. If the thought of getting your business up and running is overwhelming, then here's my advice. Keep things simple. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing, sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash on fire. Go to shopify.com slash on fire. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award winning 24-7 support.

1:14John Lee Dumas:Get a 30 day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15 minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. highlevelfire.com. Spencer, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, Fire Nation. Long-time listener, so excited to be here. Thank you. I think probably the biggest thing that most people disagree with, and I disagreed with till probably fairly more recently, is kind of the idea of hard work and hustle. And I think that most people think you've got to just work till 2am and you've like the people that really make it have sacrificed so much to get there.

1:59And I believe that while that was true up until fairly recently in today's age and the way things are today, you don't necessarily have to be a crazy hustler to make it pretty big. It's about other things like team tools, timing, things like that. So anyway, you don't necessarily have to be a crazy Elon Musk hustler to make it in today's world. Yeah.

2:23John Lee Dumas:A question I always ask myself and I have for 14 years now is, is working harder better in this situation than working smarter? And sometimes working harder is what it takes to do. If doing a big launch, a big push, you're gonna have to work hard. But a lot of times my answer is, oh, it's actually working smarter. And how do I do that with a team, with AI, with systems, with processes. And today, Fire Nation, we're talking about how to build an online affiliate marketing empire. That's the word, empire, with minimal employees and maximum profits. Let's go. So I want to talk about the edge and the journey, because your story, Spencer, gave you an edge that allowed you to succeed in a space where so many others fail.

3:01John Lee Dumas:Tell us more. Yeah, no, affiliate marketing really is, I don't know what the numbers are, but probably 90 % of people, they hear about it. It's talked about constantly on TikTok and wherever, and people dive in and last very few months and disappear. So I guess my story probably started, I think I found out about it in about 2015. And very, very typical college student, typical maybe in the subpar region, and came out of college working at a marketing agency, making about 30 ,000 bucks a year. And my, my, my wife had an eye on our first, our first baby at, I think 2017. And it was just this huge eye opener for me because she quit her job and her job was half of our income.

3:47It was all of our insurance, all that stuff. And my eyes got huge. I realized how much our expenses went up and our income just went down. And you know, my job 5 % a year, 10 % a year, none of that was going to work. So that was my eye opener. And it started with just like simple freelancing, like doing my same thing on the side, hustling and just doing a little bit of, you know, make 500 bucks a month doing the same thing I was doing at my main job. And then I heard about affiliate marketing and actually heard about it on your podcast. And I don't remember the episode. What a full circle moment, Spencer.

4:18John Lee Dumas:I'm emotional. Here we are. And I met you actually. I'll talk about that in a minute as well. But I met you at some point in there too, but I found out affiliate marketing started doing it and similar to everyone else, right? Just kind of like bump it up against walls, not doing great. And then, uh, I talked a little bit earlier about timing, uh, hit a product at the right time, right during the launch. No one else knew about it. I was early on and I was able to, to do really well in a, in a, in a product launch with an affiliate marketing push. And, uh, and that was kind of a, my wake up call into the potential for success and then my route for success.

4:54Um, and that's when I actually met you, we were up in Boise and I met you at a, they kind of had a bunch of the top 10 people. Yeah. I was a book, a book launch. Anyway, it was awesome. Met you and, uh, you told me some of your numbers and your affiliate marketing stuff that you were doing. And I was like, are you kidding me? Like I was thinking so small and you know, it was a side hustle. It was 500 bucks a month. It was something just to cover like the minor bills, get a vacation here and there.

5:17John Lee Dumas:I'm like, that's a day brother. Let's do this. Let's go. Exactly. It's like, let's go. And, and so from then on, I've been doing all kinds of things and getting smarter with it and better with it. And, um, you know, similar numbers to what I was hearing from you back then, which I'm sure are low on your account now. Well, it's crazy. I mean, and this just shows you everybody starts somewhere. I mean, I can so clearly remember Spencer 2012. Um, and I had this on my show for many, many years because they just work so well, but I would always have my guests recommend a book, like one of their favorite business books.

5:48John Lee Dumas:And after every one of the recommendations, I would say, hey, by the way, Fire Nation, if you haven't already, you can actually get this book for free on Audible. Go to eofirebook.com. It was like my first brilliant affiliate marketing move because obviously people will take a free book to somebody who just recommended it. It sounds awesome. It's a free book. And guess what? Audible would pay me like 30 bucks for that. I think actually I ended up sending them so many eventually. like it was like up to 75 bucks per person. Cause like that became like a client of theirs that they then, you know, where they knew what the long-term value of that was.

6:20John Lee Dumas:But I remember in 2012, when the first one came through, like Kate came home from work and she was still working, she was still paying the bills. And I was like, babe, I just made 30 bucks today. Like I lit, I was literally happy. And we should celebrate that because it is a big deal. It's validation. And then you say, okay, now this works. How do we expand? How do we go bigger? How do we make 30 bucks, 60 bucks, 60, 120, 120, 1000, et cetera, et cetera. But I want to shift back to finding what actually works. I mean, it's a noisy market, Spencer. You know it, I know it. There's opinions, there's quote unquote experts everywhere.

6:53John Lee Dumas:How the heck did you find out what truly works and who's actually worth trusting? I mean, it's kind of cliche, but you got to be like the Thomas Edison. Like you got to, you got to try 10 ,000 things and you to flop 9 ,000 times and probably lose a lot of money and a lot of time in that journey. So I can remember specifically a day I lost, I was trying like a new paid ads method. I hadn't seen it online or anything. It just came to me. I was like, this is going to be awesome. I tried this kind of like high bidding Google ad strategy and I lost$18 ,000. And this is long ago and I'm on my personal credit card still running and stuff.

7:29And I lost in an hour. I was like, I can still remember it because it was like such an iconic moment. I was in this like Christmas concert with my family and I popped open my phone. Like, oh, I was going because I launched before I left like a dummy and pop it open. And it's like, oh my gosh, what did you do? But that same method has literally brought seven figures since then. And so, so many flops and failures. And I think just being a doer of like, hey, I'm going to go try this. I'm going to go try this. I'm going to go try this versus like, I'm going to research and I'm going to think about this.

7:58I'm going to watch 40 videos on it. And I'm going to like make a plan. I'm going to read a book. And like so much of the, I'm going to gain a bunch of knowledge versus I'm just going to like throw darts around as I have good ideas. And then when one hits, I'm going to figure out why and get better at that.

8:11John Lee Dumas:Three words, Fire Nation, education ain't free. You got to pay for it. You got to pay for it some way, shape or form. It just ain't free. I want to talk about knowing when to pivot, Spencer, because how can Fire Nation know when they're on the right path versus when it's time to quit or pivot? And just to kind of give a sidebar here, like Seth Godin has a great book called the dip. I mean, every entrepreneur, you know, you start off, you're excited. Maybe you get a couple of quick wins. Like you're on this mountain going up. We always hit the Valley of Despair. And we always come down off that mountain and we're in this plateau and, and it's, it's, it just, it stinks down there.

8:43John Lee Dumas:And sometimes you just got to get through it, but sometimes you stay there forever. I mean, that's just the reality. So back to the question, how do you know when you're on the right path versus when it's time to quit or pivot? Because I throw so many darts at the walls, I pivot a lot. And timing is hard because a lot of times you're like two days in, this sucks. This is stupid. And I think what I usually do is I don't pivot without new information. Like if it was a good idea and it made sense upfront, it probably still does make sense unless you get new information that changes that. And so maybe that's a little vague, but you get data with time, right?

9:16You try it, you try it, you try it. And as you get data, then you can make smart decisions. And so I usually tell people like, once you've decided to do something and you know it works and you know it's working for other people and it makes sense, then put in two to three good solid months of hard work until you have enough data to say, oh, I actually just don't like this, right? That's the biggest thing for me, I think, is I validate the idea, but I realized two months in like, oh, I just don't like it. Even if I was making$5 ,000 a month, $10 ,000 a month at this, I don't like doing it. I don't like this kind of content, right?

9:45I don't like this style, right? And so you need to put in enough time to get the data. And I think most people quit after a week or two, primarily just because they think it doesn't work. But even when they get past that stage, to get those little validations. They don't realize like six months in, like, oh, I just don't even like doing this. Why am I doing this? Why have I been working for six months for something that I don't love? I think if you love something, eventually you'll find a way to make money off it. Like you'll enjoy doing it enough that it'll just come. And like TikTok and Instagram are so full of people that have figured that out.

10:12Yeah.

10:12John Lee Dumas:There's a lot that I think about when we talk about this content. I mean, number one, it's, you know, how you spend your days is how you spend your life. So really do some deep thinking fire nation. Like how do you want to spend your life? I mean, we have one trip around this earth. Like let's, there's something out there that you can be financially successful at and also love, period, end of story. And there's another great quote by Naval, which is play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And so many people, and Spencer, you see it more than most because of what you do. So many people are out there playing stupid games.

10:44They're just playing stupid games on TikTok, on Instagram,

10:48John Lee Dumas:you know, trying to like do the latest dance. And they're like, I got 11 ,000 views. Like, but nobody cares. That's leading to nowhere. You're playing a stupid game. You're getting stupid prizes. What are stupid prizes? Nothing of you alike, like an eyeball that's like kind of like blinking as they're seeing like you do one dance move. And like that, that means like you have to sit down and say, how can I become a person of value in this world? Like that's a Albert Einstein quote that I love. Try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. What are you doing that's adding value to this world?

11:22And we have a lot more to talk about on this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

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14:37John Lee Dumas:When we're small fish in a big pond, what strategies can help us compete without getting crushed? Ooh, good question. Because we all start as the small fish and having been the big fish, a lot of times it's harder to be a big fish. Since you said strategy, I'll kind of get more specific. I would say niche down. So I worked at a startup, probably 15 years ago. We were one of the first companies to come out with the little portable chargers that like everyone on the planet is giving out for free basically now, right? But it was novel back then. And so we launched 100 bucks. People loved it. It did well.

15:13And within a year, every single Chinese company on the planet, it seemed like had their own version of it. And it seemed like it was over like that quickly. And we did like the quickest pivot I've ever seen and pivoted and niched down into hunters. we said hey we're gonna make portable chargers but we're gonna make ultra durable camo like super psych awesome looking chargers and we're just gonna market and do everything around hunters and like huge dip turnaround instant right like suddenly they connected better with us and by niching down now we weren't competing with 10 000 chinese companies we were competing with like two um so i say niche down and then the second big thing is is big fish always go for big money like the big guys out there they want they want big wins they want a hundred thousand dollars this month.

15:58They want a million dollars this month. And when you're starting now, like, you don't care about that stuff. You want a thousand bucks this month. You want 5 ,000 bucks this month, which means that you can go for like, well, you're typically out there putting content out there. You can go for content that they're not making because it's not big enough for them, right? Little, little videos about subjects that they may not find worth it or a keyword that they're just not really thinking about because they're going for the single keyword. Right. And so the more you kind of niche down and kind of hunt around the fringes, there's tons of stuff happening there.

16:27And the big companies don't tend to focus on it because they can dominate the main stuff and they do. Um, and then probably the number one thing for me, the number three here is, is the thing I talked about earlier is, is timing. The big guys, the big fish, they always have like teams and systems. The bigger guys have like lawyers and those are like just big cogs in the wheel. They slow things down so much that, that when, when timing matters, they fail. And so to give a good example of this, like, um, chat GPT is launching ads, uh, ad capabilities here in a few weeks, at least from the time that we're recording this.

17:00And, uh, there's going to be this massive opportunity for a few weeks where the small fish, they can have ads running in like an hour, right? They can be doing all these things. They can be talking about on YouTube, Instagram, this huge opportunity because the big guys, they're going to have to do all these tests. They're going to have to run it through their marketing systems. They're going to make sure that it gets approved, compliance, illegal, blah, blah, blah. And so if you can just cut that off quick and you can be the one to have, you know, first to market with everything and be the one that's quick on the timing, you can get these big wins as a, as a tiny little fish.

17:29John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about scaling without burnout because as things actually start to grow, which of course we want, how do we scale the business without losing our sanity? So I scaled eventually up to six figures and that was with a team of two people. So I have a VA and I have a video editor and we'll do like contractors on and off, but that's what we'll see. You don't necessarily need to have a big team. There doesn't need to be anything big behind the scenes. I would say the number one thing is to figure out what's working organically, especially in affiliate marketing, but really in marketing in general, figure out what's working organically and then switch to paid.

17:59And paid can take one piece of good content or one good idea or concept course, whatever it is you're doing, and it can just blow it up. So you test the waters that organic. And as soon as you have a win, you go wild with paid and you make that switch and you're kind of constantly be going back and forth between the to. And you can even use your organic budget with the money you're making from organic to just push it into paid. Paid ads tend to be so much easier. One person, one part-time person can manage millions of dollars of budget and get crazy results once you have the right pieces of content and the right data and pieces in place.

18:33So kind of finding that balance of paid and organic. And the second thing is I would say when you, I like firmly believe that there's the phrase like like life gives you lemonade or when life gives you lemons, go make lemonade. But I believe that like everyone, at least like two or three times in their life is actually given like a chocolate chip cookie, something that just like awesome happens. And, uh, and they, they typically, they miss it and like goes by, you know, like a Bitcoin opportunity or something. And so when you're out there doing affiliate marketing, you're going to have like a chocolate chip cookie moment where you make a video or something or something really good happens.

19:08And then most people kind of go back to throwing darts again. Like, wow, that was awesome. Like, let's keep doing this instead of like, let's do that exact thing 10 ,000 times. Let's redo that same piece of content 40 different ways, put it on every platform, repurpose it 14 different times, like take that one cookie we were given and really just hammer that. So that's probably the second way I do it.

19:27John Lee Dumas:I mean, Fire Nation, think about entrepreneurs on fire. I mean, my cookie was, I came up with six questions and I asked them to my first 2000 guests. Yes, my guests were different, but the questions were the same. I just kept doing it over and over and over again. Now, my last 3 ,000 episodes, it's been a little bit different because I've adjusted, I've pivoted, I've continued to evolve, so to speak, but that was 2 ,000 episodes. That was like seven years of asking the same six questions to just a different human being. So think about those cookies. And that was netting six figures plus a month every month, which now for 14 years.

20:00John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about life after leverage, Spencer, as business creates more freedom, what do you intentionally do with the free time it gives you? I didn't have a game plan. And it was funny because everyone told me I should have a game plan. And like, you're going to get it. You're going to get that point where you're getting all this free time. You're working so hard to work, passive income and free time, and it's going to hit you and you're not going to know what to do with it. And you're going to get depressed. And I was like, that's stupid. I'm going to play pickleball all day, every day.