My online business flopped. How do I get out with my pride intact?

Dear Grace, 

I’m worried and a little embarrassed. For the last year, I’ve been trying to make money with affiliate marketing. I’ve only spent money and so far haven’t made any profits. I signed up through this group and paid $200 to join their program and fast track my business. All of the training materials say that this is a sure thing, and I did all the steps they suggest. I’ve posted about it on social media and all my friends and family know I’m trying to make it happen. Am I just not smart enough to get it rolling? I don’t know if I’m just wasting time and money at this point. When should I call it quits?

– Anxious Affiliate in Arizona

Dear Anxious Affiliate,

It takes a lot of courage to set a goal for yourself and really go for it, so despite how this has panned out, you should be proud of all your determination and hard work. 

Since the boom of the internet age and the blossoming of social media as a new online marketplace, it seems like there’s a never-ending stream of new ways to monetize our online lives. Affiliate marketing is a legitimate way to earn money for lots of people around the world. However, that doesn’t mean that every opportunity is equally safe and straightforward. 

Here’s my advice:

Zoom out. It can be hard to see a situation clearly when we’re smack in the middle of it (something about seeing the forest through the trees), so let’s take a second to get some context. Not all affiliate marketing opportunities are scams, but enough are scams (or at least shady) that you should be alert. One of the affiliate marketing scams that has gotten people into trouble is the pay-to-join scam, in which you pay a fee to join or start your affiliate business. I hate to break it to you, Anxious, but that sounds an awful lot like your situation. 

Pump the brakes. Any job that requires you to invest financially for a year without getting any money out is not a job worth keeping. It’s easy to rationalize staying in after investing your own money, even if the future looks grim—it’s so common that there’s a name for it, the sunk cost fallacy. This is the kind of thinking that would convince you to go to a concert even though you’re sick because you already bought the ticket, or stay in a crappy relationship because you’ve already been together for several years. What’s done (or paid in your situation) is done. Making the best decision for your future is all you can do now. 

Don’t sweat it. I can understand feeling awkward or embarrassed to bow out after your friends and family have seen you work so hard. None of us like to fail, particularly in public. But instead of beating yourself up over it, ask yourself who in your life hasn’t hit a bump in the road? The short answer, Anxious, is that anyone who has had the courage to try something new or hard has also experienced failures, made mistakes, and had to pause and pivot. 

The question is not whether you fail, it’s what you learn from it. Take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned from this experience and try to drum up some pride for how hard you’ve worked this past year. Just because you didn’t get the return you were hoping for doesn’t mean your time and effort were meaningless.

I imagine you probably have some career changes on the horizon, Anxious, and while change can be stressful, it’s also full of potential. Instead of thinking of this moment as an ending, think of it as a new opportunity. You’ve proven that you are willing and able to dive into something totally new and give it your all, and I’m confident that, once you find the right thing, that get-up-and-go will take you to great heights. 

You’ve got this, 

Grace