Affiliate Marketing Secrets

I started a carpet cleaning business in May of 2012. I spent over $3,000 on training and certification for carpet cleaning, fire and smoke damage restoration as well as water damage restoration. I spent about $3,000 on some entry level equipment. I spent about $1,500 in advertising only to get about $3,500 in sales, all ads in the local weekly newspapers, all 13 week contracts. Each paper used a different Google Voice number so I could tract the source of the calls. Three out of six papers led to exactly 0 inquiries. One led to a single inquiry and a $400 job that took too much time complete. I put in 3+ hours per day at the end of every day for 5 days. It was for a landlord. It was10/31 to 11/4 . He had 5 vacant apartments in his complex. After they were painted, I came in to clean the carpets. Originally I planned on them taking 2 hours each, but with 10 hour shifts subcontracting for someone else doing Sandy clean-up I was working slow and they were dirtier than I anticipated.
The person who I sub contracted about 100 worth of Sandy clean up has offered me a part-time job for $12.50 per hour, 2-3 days per week. It is over an hour commute to his company.
Quite frankly, 2012 was horrible. i have about $5,000 in my checking account right now that I can spend. I was just approved for a $12,500 business loan, that would require me to fund $2,500 of a $15,000 business plan. About $1,500 of that would go to marketing. I also had to promise to spend another $1,000 in marketing out of my own pocket. All I have to do is sign the papers.The loan is 84 months @ 4.5%. That’s just under $175 per month, not a big deal.
It will tremendously expand my ability to do work. It will give me a nice marketing budget. I don’t know if this will actually boost my business any however. The local economy sucks. A lot of money is going to make repairs to homes not covered by FEMA or insurance. It is hard to find clients. Our local unemployment rate is still going up. It is 9%. I have cleaned out more vacant apartments and foreclosures than anything else. Maybe that’s my niche. Problem is the foreclosure rate is slowing down too. To me, it looks like the economy is flat lining. That’s the worst for me. If it is going up, people spend money. If it is going down, foreclosures need cleaning. If the economy is doing nothing, neither am I. That’s where I am at now.
I could take this part time job as a sure thing. I could limp along with my business until it picks up or I find a better job. I don’t know if things will get better. Like I said, I’d actually do better if things got worse.