Daniel Chou / Digital Entrepreneur. 7-Figure Coach. Affiliate Marketing Strategist

He was $35,000 in debt and getting sued by his credit card company.

He was delivering auto parts during the day just to feed his family.

At night, he was trying to figure out if there was another way.

There was.

Daniel Chou discovered affiliate marketing in 2021 with no product, no audience, and no technical skills.

In his first year, he made nearly $400,000 in commissions.

Now he teaches others to do the same.

In this episode of The Headsmack Podcast, Daniel breaks down why most beginners fail at affiliate marketing before they ever really start.

He talks about the 80/20 content rule that builds trust without being salesy.

He explains why high-ticket offers are actually easier for beginners than cheap ones.

And he shares the one thing he wishes he had done from day one that would have saved him months of frustration.

If you have ever thought about building a business online but felt like you had nothing to offer, this episode is for you.

GUEST BIO:

Daniel Chou spent 16 years as a defense contractor before the birth of his first son prompted him to find a way to stay closer to home. After an Amazon FBA venture with a supplement brand left him $35,000 in debt and facing legal action from his credit card company, he started over from scratch — working as a parts delivery driver for his brother-in-law while searching for a new path. In early 2021, he discovered affiliate marketing and, under the mentorship of Jonathan Montoya, generated nearly $400,000 in commissions in his first year. He went on to work with mentors including Dan Henry and Richard Yu, eventually earning the prestigious Two Comma Club Award from ClickFunnels for surpassing $1 million in sales. Today, Daniel is the co-founder of Wealth Warriors alongside Nathan Bokkers, where they run coaching programs including Elite Income Empire, Passion Over Profits, and Cash Society. He is a 7-figure coach who has helped hundreds of people build profitable online businesses without products, technical expertise, or massive social media followings. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, and is the father of two sons. You can find him on Facebook by searching Daniel Chou (C-H-O-U).

LINKS: 

Earn up to $1000 per sale without creating your own product - Passion over Profits 

Daniel Chou Facebook

Get his “Top 50 ChatGPT prompts for launching and selling digital products” for FREE https://tinyurl.com/top50prompts

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

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Transcript

Paul Povolni (04:26.05)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. name is Paul Pavolny and I have another misfit with me. have Daniel Chou and he is a digital entrepreneur and a seven figure coach who helps everyday people build online businesses that don't rely on constant grind, cold messages or technical skills so they can stop trading time for money. That sounds like an awesome thing. Daniel, how you doing, man?

Daniel Chou (04:52.741)
I'm good. Paul, very nice to meet you. Yeah, thank you for bringing me onto your show.

Paul Povolni (04:58.582)
Hey, looking forward to it. I think we're to have a fun conversation. think what you're about and what you do, I think is a great topic of discussion. And I think a lot of people can really be helped by hearing how to not be trading time for money and how to get out of that grind that sometimes they feel they're stuck in. And so I'm looking forward to this chat and just helping them, helping them out. Let's do it.

Daniel Chou (05:21.573)
Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (05:23.534)
All right. So the way I like to start the podcast is I like to learn a little bit more about you. so, you know, I call it the origin story. so share with me a little bit about your origin story. You can go as far back as would be relevant, but tell me a little bit about Daniel Chell.

Daniel Chou (05:38.205)
Yeah, so I will start from how I, how I started my online business. Okay. So I used to be a, like a defense contractor. So I, that was my previous career. I did that for 16 years. Then after my first son was born in 2015, I decided to shift, shift my focus because I don't want to travel to those dangerous places anymore. Right.

So I started looking for what other things I could do while I take care of my newborn. I try to spend more time at home. So my first online business I did was actually trying to sell stuff on Amazon. So I was an Amazon seller. I used to have my own supplement brand on the Amazon. However, after three and a half years, almost four years, that business didn't

Paul Povolni (06:07.213)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (06:24.265)
okay.

Daniel Chou (06:36.037)
didn't work out. Okay. And because at the time I didn't have any marketing skills. I know how to get the product, ship it to Amazon warehouse, then just try to sell it online. Right. But every, every month it was a struggle. So the day I shut down that business, I was actually $35,000 in debt.

Paul Povolni (06:42.51)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Chou (07:02.667)
a lot of it was from buying inventory, an e-commerce business.

Paul Povolni (07:03.093)
wow.

Paul Povolni (07:10.552)
So was the supplement something that you were familiar with or did you just see it as a good opportunity? Like why supplements? Why was that your first job?

Daniel Chou (07:17.431)
Why supplement? Because my partner at the time, he was a Hollywood actor, an Asian Hollywood actor. And his family is in traditional Chinese medicine. That was his specialty. That's why he is very passionate about health and also supplement, that kind of stuff. So it was his idea that we joined together, then we launched our product.

Paul Povolni (07:34.495)
okay.

Paul Povolni (07:45.592)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (07:46.925)
Yeah. But long story short, the day I left that business, I was in a huge financial trouble. I had to put my family on full stems and also credit card company was actually suing me at the time. yeah, so I, my brother-in-law at the time basically tried to help me out. So that's also one of the reason why I moved from California to Tucson.

Paul Povolni (08:02.45)
wow.

Daniel Chou (08:15.365)
Cause he has a vehicle workshop, like his own business right here. So I basically work for him during daytime as the vehicle parts delivery guy. Then at night I try to see how I can get my, get my family back on track, right? At least financially. So I was looking around, then I saw, I think that was an ad I saw online. People talking about, Hey, you can make money online without creating your own product. This is now.

Paul Povolni (08:32.63)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Chou (08:45.029)
We call affiliate marketing, right? You promote other people's offer at that time. Correct. That was a new concept to. Yeah, that was a new concept to me at the time. I was wondering how people can make money without having your own product. Right? So that's how I get myself into this rabbit hole back in early 2021. Then step by step.

Paul Povolni (08:47.222)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that was probably attractive to you because you just lost a lot of money with the product. so, so, so finding something that says without your own product. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:06.22)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Chou (09:14.777)
made all kinds of mistakes, learn from different mentors. Then now I'm in a position I can help other people. I can give back. Yeah. So that's basically my.

Paul Povolni (09:24.824)
So who are some of those mentors, who are some of those mentors that really kind of set you on a different track? Because, you you'd been in as a defense contractor, then you went into online sales through Amazon selling health products. so who was the person or who are the people that kind of set you on a different track that kind of were those head smack moments for you, are those turning points for you?

Daniel Chou (09:33.669)
Trust me.

Daniel Chou (09:41.093)
Yeah, my first mentor I hired, cause initially, cause I was dead broke. So I was just like everybody tried to figure out by myself, right? Then after a couple months of time, it really didn't work. I couldn't see, I mean, nobody can see the things that in your blind spot. So sometimes I learned that a hard way. Okay. Sometimes.

Paul Povolni (09:54.862)
You

Daniel Chou (10:10.595)
You just need to find the people that who have done it and tell you what you are missing. So I, my very, very first mentor was Jonathan Montoya. So he is big in the video marketing space. So I started with him and I found my first success. If you will, I think the first year I did a video marketing, I bought in almost $400,000 to me. That was big money, right? Big money. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (10:17.132)
Right.

Paul Povolni (10:20.833)
Okay.

Paul Povolni (10:36.974)
Wow. Well, yeah, especially when you're, when you lost a lot and you were pretty heavily in debt. That is pretty significant, especially for a first year. mean, that's almost half a million dollars in one, uh, in one year turnaround from being $35,000 in debt. So what, what was, what was the key to making that success? Because for a lot of people, they try affiliate marketing and they don't hit 400,000 in one year. So, so what do you think made the difference for what you were doing and how you were doing it?

Daniel Chou (10:41.314)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Chou (10:49.797)
So now, we'll have to do this.

I'm to be able to speak. just talked to him for a few minutes.

Daniel Chou (11:06.949)
Well, I would say, mean, along the journey, I also hired other mentors, right? To, to, to enhance different aspects of the business. Uh, but as a complete beginner, I would say number one, okay, pay attention to the trend. Okay. Like, uh, if you are a complete beginner, I mean, uh, you, you, the quickest way to make money, if we just talk about make money is that to sell something that's in demand. Okay.

I see a lot of people started with purely their hobby, purely their passion, right? We now paying attention to the market demand. So that will be like a fighting an uphill battle. So if you can find a product, service or solution that market already wants it, then you just simply tap into that, right? Simply ride that wave. So that's number one, okay. Pay attention to the market demand. Number two.

Paul Povolni (11:35.544)
Hmm.

Daniel Chou (12:04.973)
This is also I learned. will say, I will say this is the part I did it right. Somehow is we all want to make sales, but if you want to make sales, especially if you are selling a transformational product, like a coaching, coaching courses, whether that's make more money, lose weight, become more healthy, become healthier. You have to notice people buy.

from people who they trust. Okay, people buy from people who they trust. So a lot of beginner, when they first started their online business, they focus on pushing products. Pushing products, right? You see their content, they talk about why you need to buy this product. After you buy this product, what benefits that you can have. They don't focus on building that relationship, okay? They don't talk about their story enough.

Paul Povolni (12:36.216)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (12:59.554)
That's good.

Daniel Chou (13:01.989)
And that's why their marketing is not effective. So basically when I, when I, when, when I was in that dark period myself, right. That dark period of my life at that time, my goal doing content. Yes, I want to make sales, but the first couple of months, I just couldn't, I just couldn't figure out, but I still need to show up every single day.

The way I reminded myself is, okay, let me try this, but at least I can show, at least I have content out there. So one day if I'm not here, my, have two songs right now. They, my songs, they can see my content. Maybe I can put some like my life lesson, right? Or I show them how I overcome the challenges. So I found my power within the family.

when the external results was not there. Okay. So my intention was pure. I want to document my journey. And if I don't make this business work, at least I can leave something behind me. My sons, can see. So that was my, that was my initial intention. Yeah. So I tell story. I talk about my struggle a lot.

Paul Povolni (13:56.532)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (14:11.874)
Yeah, yeah. That's good.

Paul Povolni (14:18.894)
So with, uh, so I want to hit both of those points and talk about those little deeper. Um, when it came to finding, because it is, it's quite a, for somebody, it's a head smack to realize that you can go from $35,000 in debt to $400,000 in one year. And for them that seems unimaginable or unattainable. So I want to drill down just a little deeper into some of the, the, the methods or some of the, the, the ways that you did stuff. so.

Daniel Chou (14:24.261)
Thank

Daniel Chou (14:29.605)
So thank you.

Daniel Chou (14:44.261)
Thank

Paul Povolni (14:45.814)
In finding something that's trending, is there a way to do that that is simple or is it you have to do a lot of research, you have to have the right tools? Like how do you find what's trending or is it just, here's something that I think is cool. And it seems like other people think it's cool. Maybe I should sell it. Like how do you, how do you not make a mistake in that area and how do you make the right choices?

Daniel Chou (14:48.613)
Thank you.

Daniel Chou (15:09.689)
I always say finding a finding a trending product is the easy part. Okay. How to sell it. We can talk about that. So finding a trending product. I mean, you can literally go on Google, right? Let's say if you want to sell, let's say if you want to do what I did, which is to promote other people's products, they make money from the video commissions before you create your own. Okay. I think that's the safest way for beginners to get started.

So they learn marketing and sales first before they create their product. I've seen a lot of people, their first step, they have full of passion. Okay. They want to package their knowledge into a digital product. Then put it out there, make money that way. Okay. That's a great concept, but they don't realize creating product is one thing. How to actually sell it is another thing. Okay. So a lot of people, they spend three months, six months.

creating their product. Once they put it out there, they find out nobody buy it. They have to come back and fix the elements inside the product and try to launch it again. That's almost six months, one year gone already without the income. Right? So instead of doing that, go to promote other people's already proven to sell product. So you don't need to worry about the product. Product is selling already with you or without you. Right?

Paul Povolni (16:13.442)
Right.

Paul Povolni (16:23.65)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Chou (16:35.129)
That product is selling in the marketplace already. Now you come in, partner up with the product vendor to promote our product. When people buy from you, you make affiliate commissions. Okay. To go back to your question to find product, you can go on Google. Let's say if I want to say way lost product, I can simply type in way loss, affiliate programs. Then there are a bunch of, they will give you a bunch of information, right? Then you just pick and choose. Find the one you resonate with.

promote something that you really like. So find the one product that you can resonate with. Another way to do it is to go on public affiliate networks like ClickBank, JVZoo, Warrior Plus, right? Loads of affiliate networks out there. So yeah, finding product is easy.

Paul Povolni (17:26.146)
Yeah. And I like what you said there is find something that you like, because one of the things that I think somebody might push back on is say, well, if I'm trying to build my personal brand, if I'm trying to build, you know, who I am and what I sell and what I do, why should I sell other people's products? And so what do you say to that person?

Daniel Chou (17:32.485)
Hopefully.

Daniel Chou (17:49.987)
Like I say, depending on your experience level, If you've never sold anything online before, then the first thing you need to master is to actually know how to sell it, how to sell your product, how to sell your service online, right? And there are quite some small details you need to pick up, right? And if you promote other people's product,

It's going to save you time from creating something that market may not want it. Okay. Let's say you can create the best product in the, in, in the space. After you spend six months of time, you finish, finish the product. How are you going to sell it? How are you, how are you going to position it? That's another art of the game. Okay. It takes a lot of time to master marketing and sales.

Paul Povolni (18:25.005)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (18:45.689)
So why not just learn that first because you will need that when you want to sell your own product. So that's how I see it.

Paul Povolni (18:54.38)
Yeah. And so with, selling a popular product though, doesn't that mean that there's also going to be a bunch of other people selling the same product? So how do you, how do you differentiate or how do you get to a point where you're selling the product? If this, the market is getting saturated or if the market already has a lot of people trying to sell that same product.

Daniel Chou (19:13.573)
That's a very good question, Paul. I like it. A lot of people, will think, this product is popular, but there are literally thousands of other affiliates, other people are selling it, right? The market is saturated. I went through that phase myself, okay? If you do your marketing properly, if you know how to do it right,

there is no saturation, okay? So you can see on my wall, all these different programs from different people, right? I'm nobody special and I cannot even speak proper English, but how can I became number one affiliate for so many different programs, okay? Here's two things I want to give to the audience. Number one is remember, people only buy from people who they trust.

There could be 2000 people, they are all selling the same thing as you. But your audience, if you know how to create that no like trust effect, right? People trust you more than any other people. When they need to buy, they will buy from you. Okay, so number one, how do you build that trust between your brain and your audience? Okay, that's number one. Number two will be besides

Promoting that product. Do you have additional bonuses to make people they have to buy from you? Right? For example, when, yeah, when I first started out, I was promoting Jonathan, right? Jonathan, his product, his course, and literally there are 2000 affiliates out there, but I created my bonus package. At the time I was complete beginner. I was still going through my own challenges, right?

Paul Povolni (20:51.768)
that's interesting.

Daniel Chou (21:12.901)
try to learn the rope, but because I was beginner, I was making all the mistakes beginners are making. So I basically offer my bonus coaching for free. Okay. So I say, if you buy Jonathan's course from me, I will work with you for three months for free. Then I will share with you all my resources, all my templates, right? So, so two things. Number one is to know how to

tell a story so people feel you are relatable. They give you their trust. Then they will buy whatever you recommend. Number two is know how to create your bonus package. So if you can do that, even if you are selling the same thing as other people, people will want to buy from you just because of your bonus.

Paul Povolni (22:05.057)
I like that. like that. So with, when you were selling the affiliate stuff on Amazon, that got you to the 400,000, what, what product were you selling there? Was it health to do with health? Did you go back to that or did you find something else?

Daniel Chou (22:18.581)
no. No, the, the first $400,000 that I revenue in a year, I didn't do that on Amazon. I was actually focusing on Facebook. So what I was selling was Jonathan's course, like digital marketing course, teach other people how to do affiliate marketing.

Paul Povolni (22:35.121)
okay.

Paul Povolni (22:38.793)
good, good, good. And so you mentioned Jonathan was one of your mentors. What other mentors impacted you early on that really helped you out?

Daniel Chou (22:47.677)
I also along this in the last four years, I also work with Dan Henry. I also work with Richard Yu and also some other people, some like ads people in a space. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:01.421)
Yeah. And so, with, selling other people's products, you know, what, what are the ways that you, can think of, you know, the bonuses, you mentioned the bonuses that you offered the coaching and, and templates and things like that. Well, what if you're just starting out and you don't, you don't have templates, you don't have coaching to offer. You haven't got that recognition. Are there any other things that you've seen people do successfully in the space?

Daniel Chou (23:09.925)
.

Paul Povolni (23:31.417)
that just helps them get over that hurdle or that hesitation in jumping into what you're doing.

Daniel Chou (23:38.109)
yeah, I would say, it does take work. Okay. mean, building a successful business does take work and the best way, let's just talk about promoting other people's product. a lot of beginners, they think this is like, they treat online business like a, like a, like a get rich quick thing. Right. So they, they, they just, they, they buy.

Paul Povolni (24:02.402)
Right, right.

Daniel Chou (24:05.465)
they buy an offer or they jump into an opportunity because of hype. You will be surprised how many people, let's say they invest into a course, but they don't even actually go through the course themselves. Okay. And that's a big mistake because if you don't use that product yourself, when you try to promote it, people can feel your energy, right? Because you never did it yourself.

There's no conviction inside your messages, inside your content, every time you speak, right? So the best way to do this, I would suggest if you are a complete beginner, let's say you invest into a mentorship or you pick up a product that you want to promote or sell, the first 30 days will actually go through the process, okay? When you go through the process, you will be putting in the work.

Paul Povolni (24:57.817)
Hmm.

Daniel Chou (25:02.981)
For example, if I never made any Facebook posts before, right? I need to learn how to do it properly. So I'm going to learn it from the course. I'm going to utilize the resources inside the course. Then I will make my first Facebook post. But during this process, I also going to have my own resources. For example, how did I do my very first post? Do I have additional resources I utilize in order to make that happen?

When you go through this process yourself, you're going to have your own bonuses being created in the process. Right? For example, let's say first 30 days, you already created, say 20 Facebook posts. You can easily put those on Google document. Then give your future customer say, Hey, if you buy this from me, not only you're going to learn how to master Facebook organic marketing.

I also gonna give you my down for you templates. The actual posts I used myself, you can simply take it, copy paste or tweak it, use chat GPT, then boom, you don't need to worry about how to write proper posts again. Okay. So when you go through the process yourself, you're gonna have loads, loads of bonuses that you can give out.

Paul Povolni (26:21.037)
That's so good. That's so good. And so you talked about the second thing being about the building trust. What are some ways to do that? That, that for somebody that's might be starting up or maybe they feel stuck, you know, and I'm going to talk about, you know, ways to get unstuck. had mentioned, you know, about working, working hard and not seeing much income and not being able to take time off. And so maybe somebody is hearing this and they're like, yeah, I need some additional income. I need ways to get myself unstuck.

Daniel Chou (26:30.713)
This is the end of my speech.

Daniel Chou (26:44.997)
and I'll be happy to.

Paul Povolni (26:50.297)
from the nine to five, the grind, the cold messages and all of that stuff. But I don't have the audience and I don't, how do I start with building the audience and building the trust?

Daniel Chou (26:53.349)
might be a good place to it.

Daniel Chou (27:02.849)
Okay. Very good question. Okay. Number one, why I started from doing Facebook, every social media platform works. Okay. If you intend to use a social media to put your content out there, right. Get leads and sales, every social media platform works. But Facebook, I would say is the only platform. It already gather your ideal customers in the same room for you. Okay.

which is niche related Facebook groups. Comparing to if you do TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, I do all those, But if you are a beginner, do it in the right sequence. If you want to make quicker sale, you focus on how do I put the right offer in front of the right people as quickly as possible, right? So that's the key.

Paul Povolni (27:36.527)
Mmm.

Paul Povolni (27:57.891)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (28:00.353)
And Facebook, let's say if I want to sell weight loss product, instead of going on social media, then create faceless show from content, then hope algorithm will push that content to the right people. You can simply go to weight loss related Facebook groups. What kind of people will join those Facebook groups? They either want to lose weight or they want to sell weight loss product. But regardless,

I put myself in the same group. I immediately put my brain in the same network of right people. So go from Facebook groups because those you can immediately put yourself, your offer in front of the right audience. Okay. So that's number one, that's solved the zero audience issue. Cause everybody started with zero audience, right? And so that's number one. Number two,

Paul Povolni (28:37.859)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:55.619)
Now with many of those groups, they don't allow for selling. So how do you bypass selling in those groups? Cause a lot of them say, Hey, you can't post links and you can't post, you know, self promotion type stuff. how do you get past that?

Daniel Chou (28:59.679)
All right.

Daniel Chou (29:05.189)
As a matter of fact, you don't try to sell, you don't try to sell at all in other people's Facebook groups. Okay. So this I will use the, I will use how to build trust this example to answer that question. Okay. So you, we, we probably hear people talk about no like trust effect, right? People have.

People have to know you, then they will like you. Once they like you long enough, they will trust you. Once they trust you, they will buy whatever you recommend. Okay? So no like trust effect. But no like trust effect is built on one big foundation. Not many people talk about. What's the foundation? Relatability. Relatability.

If I don't think you are relatable to me, I won't even spend my time to know you more. If I don't know you more, I won't like you, I won't trust you, right? So the number one key is how do I make my audience feel I'm relatable? In content strategy, we talk about 80-20 rules. 80 % of your content should be telling story, building relationship.

Paul Povolni (30:03.471)
Hmm.

Daniel Chou (30:32.057)
providing value, that's 80 % of the content. Okay. Only after you do that 80 % of the content right, then the other 20%, when you ask people to buy like promotional content, that becomes easy. But beginners, don't do that 80 % at all. They do 100 % of the content, ask people to buy, right? Comment down below, buy this, check out this link. That will never work because there's no trust.

Paul Povolni (30:55.449)
Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Daniel Chou (31:02.073)
Does that make sense? So 80-20 content rule, if you go to other people's Facebook groups, right, or on your own media platform, you want to focus on produce those 80 % of the content. Okay? Yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:17.495)
Yeah, that's good. OK, so you had a second point that you were going into before I stepped in. What was the next thing that you were going to say?

Daniel Chou (31:25.797)
I think that's it. The readability, how to tell a story is the big part. Okay, it's a big part. And I want to remind audience here, if you are just starting out, okay, this is the one very common beginner challenge is that they will feel, hey, I try to sell this business opportunity.

Paul Povolni (31:33.742)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (31:54.905)
but I don't have results yet. Why people want to buy from me? That's a very common question I get from beginners all day long, right? Focus on the wrong thing because you don't really need to have a lot of external results in order to get people to buy from you. The key is if they trust you, okay? Now on this podcast, discuss, Paul and I discuss

Paul Povolni (32:04.942)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (32:19.971)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (32:24.131)
couple framework, right? How can you build a trustworthy brain is to show your audience that you are relatable. And that part, you need to know how to tell your story, especially if you are going through challenge right now, right? Challenge of building a new business. Your audience, they also have the same challenge. There is no quicker way to build that relationship between us.

Paul Povolni (32:33.464)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (32:52.459)
other than if we share same common challenge, if we share the common goal that we want to achieve. So you can demonstrate that in your storytelling type of content. Hey, I'm just like you, right? I also have this problem, but this is a solution. I try to get myself and my family out of that problem. Okay. And if you are going through that situation right now, right? Let me be your guinea pig.

Follow me, follow my journey. I will share with you everything I learned, right? Try to solve this problem. That's how you create readability and build a loyal following. When you can do that, you can pretty much sell anything you want.

Paul Povolni (33:36.353)
I like that. And so what does the opposite of that look like? Like what are people doing wrong when it comes to things like that?

Daniel Chou (33:43.077)
Uh, the people doing wrong is that they don't, they don't focus on doing that 80 % of the content, right? We talk about the, when they get online, because they are, they are having money pressure. So pretty much all they focus on is to ask people to buy something without, without a trust. So they will make a post say, uh, this offer can make you $300 a day.

Right? Click the link down below to check it out. That, that, that nobody going to buy cause I, people don't know you. Right? And people don't know what problem you can actually solve. Okay.

Paul Povolni (34:20.333)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (34:24.353)
Yeah. And so, you know, and I think what you, what you shared there too, is you mentioned they're coming from a place of desperation and because they're coming from a place of desperation, they're focusing on just pitching, pitching, pitching. They're always trying to sell, sell, sell because they're in their mind, they're desperate and they need income. And so they bypass the very rules about marketing that could actually help them as a business. Right.

Daniel Chou (34:27.973)
to the future of the economy and what it's going to do.

Daniel Chou (34:36.741)
Alright.

Daniel Chou (34:50.469)
That's all right.

Paul Povolni (34:52.855)
And so when it comes to doing affiliates, I'm guessing that, you know, most of, you know, what, what has brought you the success, you know, I see a, award behind you, several awards, have the two comma club award. Was that all through affiliate marketing?

Daniel Chou (34:58.533)
records.

Daniel Chou (35:07.077)
All through affiliate marketing. but affiliate marketing, I mean, right now I have my own coaching program, but they all started from doing affiliate marketing, right? Like when you go out there to promote other people's product, does that mean you can only sell that one product? The answer is no. Okay. Once you know how to do this, you can actually sell multiple offers. Like when we do, when we sell stuff online,

The one thing you need to focus on is how to build your email list. Build your email list. So once you know how to build that email list, you're have email subscribers. Using that email list, you literally can sell unlimited offers through email marketing.

Paul Povolni (35:56.365)
Now for people to sign up to be on that list, what is the offer? Like what is the motivation for them to sign up for an email list?

Daniel Chou (36:04.389)
You give them something valuable, right? Depending on who your target audience is and the nature of the offer you want to sell. Let's say if I sell weight loss offer, let's say if I sell weight loss coaching program. So I'm looking for people who want to lose weight. But the first step is to get them on my email list so I can use emails to nurture them, providing value, then show them offers from time to time, right? All this can be done through automation.

But my first goal is to get people on my email list. How do I do that? I might create an ebook, very simple PDF document to tell them here are the 10 things you need to do if you want to lose 10 pounds in the next 30 days as a busy professional, right? So they have like checklist. Then I will say, hey, give me your email. Then I will give you this checklist for free. Then people will sign up, give me their contact information.

Paul Povolni (36:53.615)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (37:01.775)
just because they want to get a freebie. So you can use different valuable freebies, giveaway for free in exchange for people's email contact information.

Paul Povolni (37:13.241)
So you'd mentioned that you can sell different products to the one email list. So are you saying that it's best to stay within a category of the types of products you sell? Because if somebody signs up for weight loss and then suddenly you're selling shoes, they're going to feel like it's a disconnect. Is it building an email list around a certain category? Is that what you're saying?

Daniel Chou (37:16.421)
Thank you.

Daniel Chou (37:24.835)
Thank you.

Daniel Chou (37:29.477)
Thank you.

Daniel Chou (37:35.493)
Yeah, building an email list around the main offer you want to sell, that main niche. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:43.339)
Okay. And so, so once you build a niche or an audience in an email list around weight loss or whatever, then you find other affiliates that sell weight loss products. And then you sell to that niche. You're not, you're not cross-selling different kinds of products to the exact same audience, right? You're creating different audiences for different kinds of affiliate offers.

Daniel Chou (38:01.061)
No, no.

Yeah, correct.

Paul Povolni (38:06.733)
So what are some other ways, you you mentioned affiliates through Amazon, you mentioned affiliates through somebody like Jonathan, who's selling a product. What are some other ways to get unstuck and to not have to do the nine to five grind, to not have to do the cold call messages, the, the trading time for money? Is, is, is there other affiliate type programs or is there other things that you've seen that are ways to get out of that place?

Daniel Chou (38:34.691)
Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of good offers out there. mean, from, from, from knowing what I know, if people want to get started, right. I mean, if you are working a nine to five, consider that's the, that, the, you are fortunate, right? You can use that job as your safety net. If your business doesn't work out, you can always go back. Right? So use that as your safety net, but build something.

on the site, okay. Build something on the site. And if you are a complete beginner, there are so many products that you can promote. Okay. If you are starting from completely scratch zero, then I suggest the start with higher ticket offer. Okay. Like a coaching program, like a high, basically, because when you say higher ticket offer, you, you get paid more per sale.

Paul Povolni (39:21.709)
Hmm, interesting.

Paul Povolni (39:31.373)
Right.

Daniel Chou (39:31.429)
And because you are starting from zero, you don't have an audience. So you want to focus on how can I just serve a handful of people? Let's say maybe just five people, 10 people a month. And five people buy this offer from me. Each sale, I make at least thousand dollars. Just five customers, that's $5,000 a month already. Comparing to...

Paul Povolni (39:57.795)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (39:59.493)
If you are selling a $10 ebook in order to make $5,000 a month, you have to sell it to 500 people. And if you are a beginner, you don't have an audience, making 500 sales, even though the product price sounds cheaper, but I can tell you, selling 500 sales a month without having a big audience is hard. Okay? But you're just focusing on serving a handful of people who have

Paul Povolni (40:07.586)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (40:22.615)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Chou (40:27.759)
big painful problem they want to solve and you give them the premium offer, the best offer that can help them solve that problem, right? Just few sales, you are hitting your monthly income goal already.

Paul Povolni (40:42.325)
Wow. That's, that's a really good tip. so for somebody that is, where you were five years ago, 10 years ago, and I'm sure along the way you've, you've learned some lessons, you've probably made some mistakes. you know, I'm sure it's hasn't been a smooth run from the get-go. So if you were to talk to yourself, you know, from a few years ago, what would you warn yourself to do and not do?

Daniel Chou (40:58.981)
Right.

Thank

If I can take the time machine and go back to the day I first started, try to start, try to start this business, I will say, find a mentor. Okay. Because success, success leaves trails. And if you can find that trail and follow the same path that people already walk on before you.

That's the quickest way for you to find your own success. Okay. And because I, I had a scarcity mindset, lack, right? I feel lack at the time. So I try to save every penny I have. So I thought with my hard work, I had time, but no money. So why not use this time to figure out myself? Right. But sometimes that's

That's actually delay our success. Okay. Because like I say, you cannot see the things in your blind spot. And sometimes those are critical things you need to fix in order to find your breakthrough. So why not just find somebody who already done what you want to do right now and find a trail and learn from that person. Okay. Step by step. That's the quickest way. Okay. So if I want to, if I can go back in time.

Paul Povolni (42:21.55)
Yeah.

Daniel Chou (42:37.175)
I would tell myself, I know you are scared. I know you have doubt, but if you decide this is the thing you really want to do, find a way to get proper support, proper resources, so you can put yourself in the best position in order to win this.

Paul Povolni (42:56.001)
That's good. you know, for a beginner, how do they sometimes overthink some of these things and actually make it harder for themselves? What are some ways that they overthink?

Daniel Chou (43:02.405)
So, over thinking is definitely not a good thing. If you have a big problem, Like I had a huge financial problem, credit card company was suing me. So I didn't have time to overthink. So a lot of people, especially when they have a steady job,

And I see they overthink all the time. Okay. You overthink will not, will not get you the results you want. We all learn from making mistakes. So I tell people all the time, okay. I rather you take imperfect action, make mistakes and learn from this process by solving those mistakes. Cause that's how you learn a new skill. Overthinking without taking action. I mean, it will never happen.

Paul Povolni (43:57.487)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:01.987)
Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. And I think for somebody that's listening today, you know, they've, they've haven't, they haven't considered the idea that you can actually make money without actually having a product, you know, and you know, what you shared, I think of some great pointers on the know like, and trust on getting online and creating content, showing like ability, showing that you're a person that can be trusted that you're

Daniel Chou (44:16.547)
that we can do after screen one.

Daniel Chou (44:28.485)
groups that are part of the United States, these kinds of things, right? And I think that's the way I

Paul Povolni (44:31.459)
person that has passions around certain areas. You can build an audience around health. can build it around photography. You can build it around different things and then find affiliates to then sell their products. And it's nothing that you have to create. You don't have inventory. You've got to manage. You don't have all these supplements probably in a warehouse somewhere that suddenly you can't sell. And so, you you don't have to worry about, you know, in a high investment now.

Daniel Chou (44:59.269)
and I think that's a really thing.

Paul Povolni (45:00.505)
you as you shared, you know, some of that investment could be finding a mentor, finding a coach to help you along the way, to get you set up and not trying to do it all yourself, because you can go a lot faster, a lot further by helping, having somebody else help you than you can by doing it yourself. And sometimes it is a little bit of a sacrifice to do that. What are the things as we, as we wrap this up, I know you've got to, got to get out of here. but as we wrap this up, the time has gone so quickly and you've provided so much value. And I appreciate that.

Daniel Chou (45:26.533)
I really enjoyed your conversation. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:31.804)
So what's one thing that I haven't asked you or a head smack that you'd like to share as we wrap this up?

Daniel Chou (45:40.133)
I would, I, I would say, okay, right now, especially with AI, especially with the internet business is so widely available to everybody right now. Okay. I will say to me, I mean, I, I.

I somehow against traditional school system, Against traditional like a nine to five, you grind 40 years, then hopefully you can retire, have a good life. With the current rising living expenses and unstable political environment, I would say consider, okay? If you feel you have more value that you can give to the marketplace.

I highly encourage you guys to explore the possibility to become an entrepreneur, okay? Or part-time entrepreneur, you can, besides the job, you can also have another avenue that you can demonstrate your value and get paid for what you truly worth, right? So I highly encourage people to look into whether that's side hustle.

or online, how to build an online business, right? It doesn't need to be a video marketing. Okay. I would say every business model work if you are willing to learn how to make it work. Right. So, but don't just sit and wait because the right now the AI is going like crazy. Okay. And learn it, learn it. Then that will lead to many, many different opportunities for your family.

Paul Povolni (47:17.411)
That is so good. Well, Daniel, this has been an amazing conversation. So people want to be a part of your world, learn a little bit more about you. How did I get a hold of you?

Daniel Chou (47:25.477)
Oh, this is a great conversation. I really enjoy it, Paul. And if you guys want to find me, I mean, just go on, go on Facebook, because I hang out on Facebook most of the time. So you can go on Facebook and just search for Daniel Cho, C-H-O-U. Then you're going to see an Asian guy look like me. That's my profile.

Paul Povolni (47:43.715)
Hahaha

All right, man. Well, and there's also going to be some links in the show notes. There's a free bonus to get top 50 chat GPT prompts for launching and selling digital products. And it's a free download. And so I'll have that link in the show notes as well. Be sure to check out Daniel Cho on Facebook and follow his journey, follow his adventure. And thank you everybody for listening. Thank you, Daniel, for being a part of this. It's been a great conversation.

Daniel Chou (48:11.461)
you

Thank you Paul. Thank you everyone.

Paul Povolni (48:17.08)
Alright, take care man.

Daniel Chou (48:18.821)
Take care.