KBC-12: All costs included, I probably spent $700 gathering the leads (I didn't pay for the leads themselves ... as with GetResponse, they need to opt-in, so that would do no good).
I saw my first sales in the beginning of month 2, and I had made up my losses by the end of month 2.
It should be noted that I spent two years as an affiliate manager before I got laid off and had to start learning to make money myself. I wasn't a completely green newbie.
Big Guy: Unfortunately, my strategy is not replicable through hard work, necessarily. It could be altered and done through hard work, I suppose, but my exact method does require being able to acquire a few unusual, very unlikely resources. I don't want to go into too much detail, so as to preserve the profitability, as I'm sure if this was exploited ad nauseum, it would lose its effectiveness.
DarthMaul: One of my unique experiences as an affiliate manager was to meet a TON of the "not real" guys, and learn how real they are.
Guys whose names we toss around here like they're just pie in the sky really are often just down-to-earth guys who have an appreciation for being good at what they do. I won't mention names, but I've met several of them, and they're really just everyday guys with families and ambitions, just like you and me.