John Thornhill had persuaded me that I could create my own products, but had linked this with a promise that he and his affiliates, which included some of the best names in the business, would promote my first new product. This could lead to success with my first product and promotion of subsequent products if profitable to them (and thus to me).

I would also have an introduction to promote products of John and his affiliates, which would save me setting up my own network. Even with the ‘done for you’ sales funnels, I had not given up the idea of affiliate marketing.

I had not seen such support promised by anybody else.

The second issue was his question – if it is all done for you, what have you learned? I was happy with my ‘done for you’ sales funnels, viewed them as passive investments generating passive income, with me only supplying traffic, but saw the risk that I would have nothing to which I could turn, should those investments fail to provide their anticipated returns.

Also, if I built my own business, I would build my own traffic and reduce my dependence on paid traffic.

Recently, I heard John savage paid traffic, claiming he had never made a profit from it. This shook me as paid traffic has its fans, including Dean Holland, who said it was the only way to scale up your online business. From the different experience of these two experts, I need to explore the issue more carefully.

Choosing to sign up with John, following a chat with his colleague Owen was the right move, though meant that other issues needed resolving. I had opened (though done nothing with) a Facebook account when joining Devon Brown. As a LinkedIn user, there were a number of surprises in store for me. The flood of people, personal details exposed to the world (which you can control or delete in LinkedIn)

and the sheer volume of messages was new to me. I use LinkedIn to give my accounting books and invite people to my professional courses. I have not made the time to contribute to groups, except for these items.

Am I the only one who wonders why there are 5.210 comments on a Guardian article today on

UK economy must endure ‘short, sharp shock’ after Brexit vote?

Do these people expect anybody to read the 5,209 comments before finding theirs? Did they read them before making their point?