Having spent many years running traditional "bricks and mortar" type businesses, I didn't buy for one second numerous heavily hyped, or worse yet, scam operations that touted instant and fantastic riches that could be achieved (often with little or no effort required). While doing my research as to which business I would eventually pursue, this type of claim became an instant trigger for me to move on to check out some other "opportunity".

I mean, give me a break, if those claims were close to being true, why would they share their "secret" with anyone else? They would just execute their "magic system" and in short order would have made all money that exists in world...yeah, right!

In course of my investigations, a few other natural filters surfaced to help me narrow down realistic and legitimate opportunities from among far too numerous unfounded offers. Early on, I determined that "get in on ground floor" offers were essentially smoke. After all, if I wanted to take a chance on lottery, I would have purchased a ticket. Because of my business management experience, it soon became clear to me that three of primary factors that would influence my choice would be:

So how do you do it?

Quite simple really, you become an affiliate.

An affiliate is somebody who sells other people's products for a share of profits. There are loads of companies on line who are eager for you to become their affiliate, and will pay you very well for generating sales for them.

Did you know for example that mortgage companies and other financial institutions will pay up to $50 per referral? Normally your prospect doesn't even have to take mortgage in order for you to pick up money, you get it for them just filling in form.

Satellite TV companies are another example of big payers, and there a lot of "high ticket" software products that can earn you $100+ commissions. There are loads of other companies in all walks of life that want you as an affiliate, do a search on Google for affiliate - you'll be amazed at what you'll find!

Sign up with an affiliate program that interests you and that you would be happy and enthusiastic about promoting. If you don't feel anything positive towards what you are trying to promote you will be less likely to commit your energy towards it. When you do sign up for your affiliate program, you will be allocated an affiliate "link", a short piece of text with company's website and your unique ID in it. Always be sure to use this link in any promotions you do, or you won't get paid!

So how do you get these commissions from your affiliate program? Google Adwords!

If you've been living on Mars for last couple of years, Adwords are little boxes on right hand side of search results page which show up when you do a search on Google and other search engines. They are paid sponsor's advertisements and your goal is obviously to get as near to top of search results page as possible, so that as many people as possible will see your ad.