hey what's going on
welcome to the Doug show this is Doug
Pennington and in this episode we're
just gonna chat a little bit it's gonna
be a little bit of a meandering
conversation with I guess just myself
but I have a few topics that I want to
cover one of them is a question that was
sent in and I actually hear this one
pretty often so that's why I wanted to
cover it and it is why do you create
courses Doug why don't you just keep
doing more of what you have been doing
that's sort of the core of the question
I also want to talk about asking
questions and finding answers and I
think actually a mastermind partner of
mine a good friend of mine from actually
a few years ago she mentioned to me that
I asked good questions and this was in
the scope and in the context of us
taking a course together and I showed up
for the office hours this is a virtual
online course and I showed up for the
office hours and I would ask like good
insightful questions and it got the
attention of the instructor and I was
able to get you know great insights from
asking good questions I didn't even
realize it but I see the value in it
for a few reasons so I'm going to talk
about asking good questions and also
trying to find answers as well and like
I said we're gonna be under a little bit
so I have another couple topics as well
and we'll see how long it goes because
you know sometimes it's gonna be a short
episode sometimes it's gonna be a little
bit longer and sometimes you start a
sentence and you just don't know where
it's going or where it's gonna end just
just like this one here so let's get
into the first sort of meaty thing the
question about creating courses and this
was actually sent in by a person who was
interested in buying my course and
rolling in five figure a niche site
which that's a course where I show you
start to
how to create an Amazon affiliate site
and I usually try not to push it too
hard in fact if like if the course is
out of your budget or something like
that I highly encourage you to just
check out my free material on YouTube
this podcast the niche site project blog
and do some self studying on your own go
ahead and get started and if it's
something that you enjoy and you like
and you want to you know check out the
course that's great
my general sort of assumption is if you
start getting some traction you will
want to join the course and you'll
actually have some revenue coming in to
either supplements the course cost or
pay for the whole thing so let's get
started
with this question so I'll just read it
to you as well this may be the most
uncomfortable question for you but
please don't take it personally I just
want to be sure about the decision I'm
taking since there are a lot of courses
and consulting offerings on the internet
regarding this particular it says issue
but this particular you know pursuit I
guess why do you sell a course instead
of building up this kind of site
systematically and sell them like sort
of an Amazon affiliate sites Factory I
guess you would be making much more
money with that business model now ago
actually I I commend myself you know I
can pat myself on the back here since
there's no one else to challenge me I
think I gave a pretty concise answer
which I'm going to tell you in a second
while giving a lot of background in
multiple levels to this so first off
this is this is a wasted part of it but
it this is a good question it's valid
and I think when I first got started and
I got started taking courses and stuff I
was wondering why people were spending
time creating courses right so this is
actually a good question I had it myself
now I don't really really don't really
question that sort of thing I guess okay
so here's my answer
this is what I wrote back to this
gentleman it's a good question I like
teaching and I asked
have you heard of the keyword golden
ratio I said I've helped so many people
and it feels great and I could earn a
lot more money but I feel like I have
enough so why not help people and you
know what I'm gonna backtrack a little
bit and just mention the keyword golden
ratio like that is a thing that I was
scared to share right I thought that was
the most critical most important piece
of like the five-figure niche site
course and like a really valuable piece
of content a valuable concept where I
thought that was like the thing that was
so precious but I kept hearing other
people people that were you know far
advanced far ahead of me in there you
know journey whatever that journey is
they were saying whenever they shared
something that was like their best piece
of content whenever they did something
that was a little bit scary and they
weren't sure but they knew it was gonna
help a lot of people hands down always
seemed to be a great decision to share
information right the information wants
to be you know free it wants to be out
there so I was like I'm gonna do it and
see what happens and it is it has been a
great thing for me to do let me get back
to what I wrote back I said yes I could
earn a ton more money but I I have
enough so when it helped people and I
could have selfishly kept the keyword
golden ratio a secret further I now have
a platform where people will listen to
me thus diversifying my business and
this is the deeper part that sometimes
people don't mention so the platform
niche type project like any like I guess
YouTube this podcast the platform that
I've created also allows me to contact
people and network with interesting
folks that probably wouldn't respond to
my email or pay attention to me at all
if I didn't have a platform and an
audience that trusts me right so I can
literally email people and say hey do
you want to be on my podcast do you want
to be
on the YouTube channel I'd like to share
your story with my audience and some
people say no right a lot of people say
no but I also have a lot of people who
say yes because I've spent the time to
you know build a community and share
information right and part of that is
the course right so the other thing is
the platform allows me to contact those
people and there are a lot of pros to
helping people which are better than
more money and you know I pretty much
I'm pretty comfortable with that that
answer there I mean it number one I'd
like to help people I like to teach and
one thing that I learned in the past is
that if you're able to you know you can
learn a concept right you could study
you can read books you can even you know
in this case create your own site
basically you could implement whatever
you're learning but you really go a
deeper level of learning and
understanding a concept the material a
framework whatever if you could teach
someone else to do it and if you could
teach a lot of other people to do it not
only is that you know part of the
learning process for you but it's sort
of demonstrating your mastery of a
concept right so and I'm not saying I've
mastered all the things that I'm
teaching but teaching other people is a
great way to solidify the learning
process for me not just for the students
or whoever is paying attention to you
know what I'm teaching so I think that
is you know I guess that's part part of
part of that is like you really learn
something well when you when you write
it down and you're trying to teach it
because when you write something down it
really solidified I mean you're
physically putting it on paper or typing
it out or something like that and at
that point you are really able to look
at those thoughts look at the concepts
and then evaluate it and edit it and
then refine what you know further
you don't even release that sort of
intermediate you know I guess it's
thinking on paper right when you write
something down you're thinking through
your processing the idea is the concepts
and when you actually teach it to
someone else that is amazing right so I
enjoy that and as I've done more it's
it's been awesome then the other part is
the Amazon affiliate business model and
I I've mentioned this a few times but I
guess I don't talk about it as much
because it's a little bit less
interesting people don't care that much
but the business model has some flaws
right it has some flaws in a few areas
just like all business models do but in
this specific case the traffic that goes
to my sites is it's like 90 to 95% from
Google so I am definitely dependent on
Google traffic so if something happens
to the Google traffic that's bad it
really impacts the bottom line directly
to the point where it's like the revenue
can go down by you know 90 percent
overnight Veon algorithm change
something like that which is why I'm so
conservative with my link building
activity and just in general just very
conservative wanna stay on the good side
of Google on the other side of the
equation right so one is the this is a
supply and demand situation here so on
the money side of the equation is Amazon
in there Amazon Associates Program which
is fantastic I obviously am a big fan of
it but they have a lot of power over the
whole profit side of the equation right
so if the commission rates are adjusted
like they were in March of 2017 that can
impact the bottom the bottom line in
fact for me it was a hit of about 35%
like just I looked at data for the
previous two years and basically of my
affective commission rate dropped quite
a bit luckily you know the the levels
are still great so it's okay but for me
it totally you know still makes sense to
work with Amazon there are a lot of
other programs out there but for me the
volume is good so I stick with Amazon
and it's just a low-friction way for
people to make purchases the other part
is Amazon has very strict rules which
they outline in the operating agreement
which is freely available they update it
you know from time to time the problem
is like many legal documents which this
is the operating agreement it's
literally a legal document you end up
having a hard time reading it and
understanding what is going on there are
a few areas that are very common for
people to make a mistake because of the
common practices that are out there and
just things that are you know air quotes
like things that are easy people just
don't pay attention to the rules which
like I said can be a little bit
confusing a little bit long-winded and
it's easy to you know make a mistake
just as an aside some of the common
things that people make a mistake on are
listing the prices without pulling the
data from the API from Amazon is the
Amazon advertising API you can pull a
ton of data from it and if you pull data
from there including images prices
ratings other information that's
available which I don't even know all
the information it's available but if
you pull it via the API that is okay but
if you say download images from Amazon
and then resize it and then upload it to
your WordPress installation that is a
violation of the operating agreement can
you find examples of people operating
like that without getting in trouble yes
but you could also get kicked out really
quickly by doing that and you can get
kicked out of the program with very
short notice
by you know violating things so let me
come back to the point that we were
talking about
and that is I am reliant in the Amazon
affiliate business model on the traffic
side from Google and the revenue side
from Amazon it is a fact of life right
even if I was working with another
affiliate program that could be an issue
if I was getting all my traffic from
Facebook ads or something and Facebook
changes you know some piece of the
equation or there's a lot more
competitors in Facebook running ads that
could also be an issue so gotta remember
that now the Amazon side also a little
bit risky don't control the Commission
rate if I break I mean I should follow
rules everyone should follow rules but
if I inadvertently make a mistake that
could be a problem all right so any
business model has its flaws I can go
into examples of that as well the reason
why I'm bringing that up is by having a
course where I'm sharing knowledge so
one it's fulfilling right I get to teach
people it's helping folks and the other
side of the equation is I control a lot
of the situation there so it's my own
digital product all right so it's my own
digital product and profit margins are
high on digital products I don't
physically have to ship anything out I
can create the product once do normal
maintenance do updating which I do and
provide support which is one of the
highest value pieces that I provide I
provide support and answers and that
sort of thing for any of the students
and that that is like one of the highest
value pieces I think I said that like
four times but you really want to
emphasize that point it's not just the
material it is how the material fits
together and it's the ability for
someone to ask me a question and then
take a few minutes I can potentially go
look at their site and give them direct
feedback about the exact thing that they
have questions on versus
you know a generic answer that I can
give on like a YouTube livestream not
super helpful for many reasons but one
of them is you know you can't ask a very
detailed question in that format and I
can't give you a very detailed answer so
you end up with some watered-down
version of you know help
it's a watered down version of help so
that is another reason I early on I made
a decision where some of my peers in my
mastermind group for example they double
down on building affiliate sites and yes
they are making more money than me hand
over fist they still have the same risk
sort of areas that I mentioned and I
decided that I wanted to for whatever
reason to have a platform to spend time
on the blog to spend time on teaching
creating courses and to just branch out
as far as a content creator and someone
who is you know I guess putting my ideas
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