The following checklist was prepared from point of view of one seeking a program to affiliatae with. But it can also help a program initiator compare current programs in order to make his better.

A. Does Program Offer a Strategic Fit to Your Business?

1. PROGRAM PURPOSE - Define in broad terms 2. COMPLEMENTS YOUR PURPOSE - Does it help you better realize your website long-range goals? 3. VISITOR LEARNING - Are your visitors interested and will program help them learn?

B. Do You Trust Business Initiating Program?

4. SUCCESS - Does business have a history of successes? 5. BELIEVABLE ADVERTISING - Does it promise impossible rewards: get-rich-quick and MLM schemes? Or is it honest and realistic? 6. REPUTATION - What does business literature tell you about their past operations? 7. WHAT CLIENTS SAY - Contact current clients and ask for their opinions. Would they recommend this business organization? Are they benefiting from it? C. Is Program Well Designed?

Before advent of Internet, a business required a massive investment to get started. People would think in terms of at least 3-5 years before they recovered what they had paid out, and were making a profit.

Nowadays you can start an online 'business' for next to nothing, but for some reason people expect to make a profit from it immediately, and are then disappointed when it doesn't happen.

If only people could put in same level of commitment, as they would if they had spent tens of thousands of dollars setting up an offline business, then far more people would be successful.

If only people could stop thinking of their online business as if it were a lottery ticket. There are no instant winnings, and instant gratification.

And don't forget fact that most people with a lottery ticket are losers!

Success is not easy. It takes time, but rewards you eventually receive are worth far more than any lottery win!

No one successful ever said it was easy. And if people do say it is easy then they are lying!

As you probably know, most people start off trying to make money online, by signing up with an affiliate program.

An affiliate program allows anyone at all to start up a business for virtually nothing.

But just because it is so easy, and free, to sign up for an affiliate program, it is easy to make mistake of thinking that there is no work involved either, or to believe that you will never experience problems like you do with any other business.

Most people also think that because they have a great looking affiliate website, then that is all they need.

Yet 95% of people fail with their affiliate sites. Why do you think that is?

I would say that fact that it cost them nothing to get started accounts for a lot of it!