Silly claim, right? Well, lets get into the idea that marijuana is a gateway drug. I’m not going to argue about whether or not this is true because it’s being used for example’s sake. Once you get tired, burned out, or want to try something new, you take it to another level like ecstasy, meth, coke, x or y or z. Not everyone gets to x or any of the other Zs. While it’s not always a smart idea to start sniffing coke, if you aren’t already seeing affiliate marketing as a “gateway business”, you should be.

Affiliate marketing, for the individual, is a short-term business. At least that is how I see it. It’s an excellent way to take a calculated risk, invest some money into some campaigns, come out 100% richer, and abuse that system until you’ve got a heap of capital. Could I do this for the next 10 – 20 years? I suppose I could, but it’s not something I’d focus my money on for more than a few years. It’s time to start thinking long-term.

Lots of affiliates take this gateway opportunity to make their presence in affiliate marketing larger. Affiliate networks are a big step for hundreds of individual affiliate marketers. An even bigger step is owning and operating a traffic source. If you can build your reputation and cashflow up large enough, you’ve got many different choices. Consulting is an easy step for many, and one I’ve taken a liking to. It doesn’t have to be just to individuals, but you should now have the skills to move up to B2B consultancy. Some people take their money and buy a business.

The moral of this story is that if you aren’t thinking about your future or what you want to do with your money and skills once you get tired of the 20-hour affiliate hustle, you’re gonna be stuck doing just that.

Affiliate marketing gives you an excellent skill set, on top of financing. Analysis, research, data mining, communication skills and discipline are just a few of the things I can speak for myself on. Take them, use them, and build out an empire outside of affiliate marketing. All your eggs in 1 basket is an affiliate marketing killer. If for some reason I’m unable to run affiliate campaigns, I have a safety net of residual income from several different websites, services, skills I can sell, knowledge I can sell, physical manufacturing and product sales.

So, what are you doing with your affiliate marketing money? Are you building wide, breaking out of the gateway or stuck on your one campaign wonder? It’s time to scale outwards, my friends!

Some aspects of internet marketing may require you to have a US mailing address. Luckily, I was born in the United States, and can just list my parents address for these purposes, however, options are limited for those outside the country. One of my good buddies, needed a US mailing address for a large media buy. While you could go out and rent a PO Box from many post offices, there are several downsides to this. That is why I’d suggest you look at Earth Class Mail.

Earth Class Mail is a premium PO Box service that gives you options that a normal PO Box just doesn’t give you. You will be able to view, manage, and forward any mail via a control panel on the Internet to a real address anywhere in the world. It offers competive pricing, and you can even pick up a premium address like somewhere in Manhattan or Los Angeles. They will also shred and destroy any mail you don’t wish to receive to your real address.

Why else might you want to try out Earth Class Mail? A real PO Box can’t recieve larger parcels. Perhaps an advertising network might want to send you a gift for spending so much money with them. ECM can forward that straight to you. Maybe you get a ton of mail that costs you a ton of money just to sign for. With ECM, you can select what mail you want to recieve and which gets destroyed. Want to keep your real identity private? Using an ECM address, you can hide behind an address that isn’t really yours, even if you are located in the US.

Accounts start at around 10 bucks a month if you are paying for 2 years of service. I would recommend trying out the 15-dollar a month, 3-month plan to just test it out. It’ll cost you around $60 total to get set up, and there is a 30-day money back guarentee. If it’s not up to snuff, just let them know and get your money safely back to the bank. Prices will increase for more premium addresses and additional services. I’m assuming these costs don’t include the price of actually shipping any mail to you.

Go to Earth Class Mail and try them out.

Anyone have any other opinions on this service?