It is super easy to join an affiliate program and start participating right away. You can start advertising the same day, as they give you your affiliate web page and link. That is literally all there is to it as far as planting the seed and starting out. The program provides the product or service that you can earn money from if you are able to learn how to sell it (‘practice makes perfect’).
So far you have invested practically nothing – not much time, not much effort (yet) and the only money you have spent so far are the membership dues for the current month, if applicable. You are getting a very fair deal in most cases if there are no contracts other than month-to-month. Many provide for a free-trial period so you can really see if it is something you can relate to.
Calculate what you would have had to spend to start a business without being able to join an affiliate program. Consider the cost of market research and product development, programming, website development, operations, management, etc. You are looking at years to build a program and it will cost big bucks unless you can do all of the things necessary to create a business online.
Hence, don’t ever begrudge the program their small fees. Realize that they need to operate their business and they could not provide all that they do for free and pay affiliate commissions, besides, without your contribution. That’s why affiliates are referred to as ‘members’ rather than customers.
Just consider that cost as ‘the cost of doing business’ and accept it gratefully. Any other attitude is going to impede you, such as being in a big rush to see results based only on the fact that you are paying monthly dues and quite possibly not seeing any return on investment in the beginning months (normal without experience). You have to start somewhere.
If you really engage in your business and use all of the resources that are available to you to learn how to earn money online – the more you apply yourself the sooner you will see your results. If you put in just a half-way effort, then that is what you will receive in return.
Eventually you may wish to add more affiliate programs to your portfolio of money-making ventures and again benefit from any and all tools and resources they will provide. These assets do include some level of training most of the time and you should take full advantage of everything you can so that you will keep learning more, which will make it more likely you will have a successful business.