Successful Affiliates Create Their Own Luck

I’ve been reading lots of books lately about success, and I always look at them from the perspective of Affiliate Marketing. I’m still convinced that this business is the best one in the world, and I won’t be doing anything different any time soon. Even so, when you read inspiring stories of how people created success, you can always find nuggets to pull out and apply to your own business and life.

Luck

The only one of these posters that I would actually put on my wall.

The best tip that I have found lately that I think can be directly applied to Affiliate Marketing is this: successful (read “wealthy people”) create their own luck. For many people, when they look at someone like Bill Gates, they look at him and say, “He got lucky.” Same thing with Affiliates. They look at [insert name of most popular super affiliate at the moment] and think to themselves, “Man they got lucky. If I could have jumped into this business when they did and had that big campaign fall into my lap, then I could be making bank too.”

Not so.

The successful campaign, the “big one”, the huge moneymaker that sets the men apart from the boys in this industry, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That’s just the visible part. These guys didn’t wake up one morning and stumble across that campaign by sheer dumb luck. What you don’t see is the hours spent setting up campaigns, the days testing campaigns, the weeks tweaking them, and the months trying out different offers and traffic sources that lead to that massive success.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t easy. You can’t logon to your laptop, press some buttons for 30 minutes, and expect money to come falling out. Are there people who make a good income spending only 30 minutes a day on it? Yes there are. But they didn’t get that way by spending 30 minutes a day. They most likely worked 12 hours a day on those campaigns until they got them to the point where they could be maintained at a high level. Also, if you are resting on your laurels while you’ve got a big campaign running, you are just asking for a world of hurt when it dies (and it will someday).

My point is, don’t waste your time wishing that you were as lucky as somebody you know that is banking it with Affiliate Marketing. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. If you just got into this business when a massive campaign fell into your lap, you wouldn’t even know what to do with it. It’s the time spent learning that will let you maximize opportunities when you see them and take the money to the bank while you can.

Keep setting up campaigns, keep trying, keep failing, learn from your mistakes, rinse and repeat. That’s how the pros do it.

It’s Quiet… Too Quiet.

There has been a major lack of posts on this blog lately. Why is that? Quite simply, because I’ve been too busy making money to blog! I’ve found that my post frequency is inversely proportional to my income. When I’ve got lots of irons in the fire and paychecks are rolling in, I barely can squeak out a post every other week. But when I’m in plotting mode and thinking about the next campaign, sometimes I will post every single day because my brain is working overtime with ideas.

The good news is this: despite what you have heard, Affiliate Marketing is not dead. There is still plenty of money to be made out there, and most of it is in the same old verticals and niches that have been around for years now. So if you are struggling still trying to find that first big break, do yourself a favor. Spend some time studying what people are doing in the big niches. I’ve heard them called “evergreen” niches because they seem to have a never-ending demand.

TMNT Pizza Time

Raphael truly understands the concept of supply and demand

The plus side to these verticals is that they have so much potential and longevity. The down side is that there is more competition. But competition can be good. It keeps everyone on their toes. The next question is obviously, “How do you beat the competition?”. The answer to that is simple as well: BE CREATIVE!

Just because there is a lot of competition on an offer or a niche does not mean that there is only one way to promote it. If there are too many people bidding on the offer domain in Traffic Vance, then take a different approach! Think of who the offer appeals to. Think demographically. Think globally. Think of new landing pages or different ways to sell the offer that aren’t so obvious. This is truly what separates the men from the boys in Affiliate Marketing.

The bottom line is this: people are making money hand over fist right now, every single day. Are you going to do what it takes to be one of them?

Getting Down To Business

I’m feeling motivational today.  You might think that motivation is for wimps and losers.  You might think that motivation is cheesy.  You might want to think again.  Affiliate Marketing can be a very isolated industry.  Communication is all done over wires and screens, and it’s every man for himself out there.  You don’t have a manager telling you what to do.  You don’t have anyone setting goals for you.  If you aren’t careful, you can slip into a downward spiral very quickly when things go wrong.

I’m a firm believer in goals.  You have to set them, write them down on paper, and put them somewhere you can see them every day.  I have never missed a goal that I have written down this way.  Try it, you might surprise yourself.

These three videos have been viewed over and over again in my office.  The first one is about getting your mindset right.  The second one is a purely emotional motivating speech that gets me fired up every time.  The third one is inspirational simply because it is so fun to watch someone that has completely mastered his talent and ability.  You can laugh these off, or you can think about the difference that it would make in your paycheck if you take them to heart.  The choice is yours.