Affiliate programmes cost nothing to join and present an almost infinite choice of products and services from which to build a niche business.

If you're not familiar with Affiliate marketing, let me quickly explain.

An Affiliate acts as an independent "middle man" between a Merchant and consumer by introducing new prospects and customers to Merchant. In return Merchant pays a commission to Affiliate on all sales that result from his or her introductions.

OK. So now you know what Affiliate Marketing is, how do you find suitable affiliate programmes for you niche?

Here are a couple of options to get you started - Search Engines and Affiliate Networks.

Search Engines

Go to www.Google.com and type in your Niche description e.g. "low carb diet" followed by a plus sign (+) and word "affiliate" - search query should look like this :

low carb diet+affiliate.

In results you will get all pages with term "low carb diet" and term "affiliate".

Go through first and second pages and list all of sites that show relevant products with affiliate programmes. Hopefully this will give you 10 or more affiliate programmes to choose from.

You could also repeat this exercise on www.Yahoo.com to give your self more options.

Affiliate Networks

An Affiliate Network acts as "middleman" between Merchants and Affiliates, providing a centralised service where Merchants can list details of their products and Affiliate programmes, providing Affiliates with a broad and varied selection of products and services to promote.

Here are some highly reputable networks you should visit to find suitable niche products and services to add to your list of prospective Affiliate programmes :

• ClickBank - http://www.clickbank.com - specialises in downloadable digital products.

• Commission Junction - http://www.cj.com - probably most popular affiliate network has a broad range of mainly physical products. CJ has a gate way to "Be Free" another huge network.

• LinkShare - http://www.linkshare.com - runs largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on Internet.

No matter how big or small project, Lone Ranger handles 100% of it. Either because they're afraid to let go of control or because they feel they can't afford to hire help. Can you relate? I know I can!

So what's wrong with doing everything yourself? Well it's tough to grow your business if you're busy managing every single detail. I know it's a bit scary to let go of control or to consider actually hiring help, but I also know it's necessary if you want to grow your business to its fullest potential.

Take my 10-question quiz to determine if YOU are a Lone Ranger. And don't worry if you are, I've got some suggestions to help you rid yourself of this business-stifling affliction!

1. Do you work alone?

2. Do you feel no one can do your work quite as well as you?

3. Do you often feel there aren't enough hours in day to get everything done?

4. Do you maintain your own website?

5. Do you do your own accounting and billing?

6. Do you write your own sales and marketing copy?

7. Do you get your own mail?

8. Do you buy your own office supplies?

9. Do you create or deliver all your products and services by yourself?

10. Do you fulfill and ship all your sales yourself?

I think you can see this list could go on and on and on, but you get idea. So if you answered "Yes" to most or all of these questions, guess what, YOU ARE A LONE RANGER! That's okay, I've been one, too.

When your business is small you have to wear many hats because you can't afford to hire help. But at what point do you make a decision to start delegating tasks to someone else? ANSWER: When time you're spending on administrative tasks involved in keeping your business running prevents you from spending time growing your business.