There are lots of statistics bandied around about why so many people fail with an online business. As with all statistics, we never really know how accurate they are and what the actual aim of the people bandying them around might be. Personally I think success online is very much down to the quality and level of business mentoring available – particularly in an affiliate marketing online business.
Despite the comment above on statistics I’d like to offer a few of my own courtesy of Jay Kubassek from the Digital Experts Academy. I’ll also tell you why I think the level and quality of business mentoring they offer their business partners is in a league of it’s own.
The stats: The figure often used for online business failure is touted as around 95% – see my separate blog on why this is. This figure takes into account all types of online home-based businesses. The highest failures are amongst untrained Internet marketers selling their own products without a mentor. Affiliate marketing and franchise based online businesses have a much higher success rate – traditional franchises also have a high rate of success compared to non-franchise start-ups.
Where Does Mentoring Come In to The Picture
Here’s another couple: 85% of home-based businesses succeed beyond Year2 compared to only 5% of traditional businesses. 53 percent of US businesses are now home based and generate $1trillion dollars per annum. The majority of these are run on a part time basis by married, college educated women between the ages of 35 and 54 (Success From Home Magazine) I don’t have a figure on how much of this is from online home based business but would bet my bottom dollar it’s a lot.
So where does business mentoring come in to this. For starters, digital marketing takes training and time and if you are doing that from home on your own it can be a lonely game. This is what people trying to market their own products often find creates a brick wall quite soon.
With affiliate marketing or franchises you get a lot more support – It’s in the affiliate program owner or franchisor’s interest after all as they spend a lot of money setting up the program, marketing and support. But still this doesn’t always extend much beyond an online support ticket system that will help with technical problems. There are no business mentors or even facilities for peer to peer mentoring.
The Power Of Peer Mentoring
The Digital experts Academy on the other hand is genuinely like being part of a family. Yes there is a ticket system in place but beyond that there is a private community. I can’t stress the importance of this enough for anyone starting an online home business. This is a live forum where members and fellow affiliates help, advise and support each other with ongoing peer mentoring.
We are able to set up sub groups and mastermind groups on specific subjects and even take this offline on a local basis. Members can connect outside of the private forum via social media and can liaise on Skype, phone and video conference. We also get to attend live meetings where members, students, staff and indeed the company owners meet for networking, workshops, one to one mentoring and just general friendly networking.
If you think about you will probably have a mentor of some kind in your life. Teachers are mentors. Leaders are mentors. Generally they arrive in your life when you need them just as you may well be a mentor to someone. A mentor is really just a person or persons who has achieved what you want to achieve.
If you are looking for a mentor to guide you in starting a home based online business I would definitely look at The Six Figure Mentors. As the name suggests they have taken the notion of business mentoring to a whole new level and built a business and community around it.
