The Key to becoming a Successful Affiliate

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.This post will be long,but it will be worth the effort.
Pour yourself a glass of your favourite drink and let us discover the KEY.

What is the most important factor in becoming a successful affiliate? Let us explore this issue by taking a different, yet relevant approach. We will start by asking why do most Affiliates fail? There are many reasons, but let us focus on a few. They are:

• The Lone ranger mindset
• Information glut
• Haphazard marketing
• False prophets
• The magic wand myth

The Lone ranger mindset

Our society pays lip service to team work, yet glorifies and celebrates individuals. The reality is that there is little that one can achieve alone. Yet, most affiliates try to do everything alone, and that can be immensely stressful and boring, since the results are usually a far cry from the investment of time, money and skills (not to talk of the sleepless nights).Becoming a successful affiliate requires understanding the concept of synergy.

There are so many skills to master, to be a successful marketer, and it is very rare to find all these skills present in an individual. Imagine an affiliate who knows how to design effective websites, writes fantastic copy, blog, can effectively use all methods of traffic generation, and write impressive auto responder messages…

Information glut

The other day, I was watching videos showing some of the best marketers in the world: Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Yanik Silver…I saw an advert by Yanik,showing a guy in his library, the guy claims to have almost all the books and resources on copywriting, yet he looks far from being successful.
The web is a vast treasure house of information, that is one of the most beautiful things about the web. It is also one of the most dangerous things about the web, and one of the reasons why many fail. All you need to do is just click on another hyperlink, and you are transported to another world: A universe full of e-books and software you may never use or fully leverage in a lifetime! A simple click and you are taking miles away from the true path.

Haphazard marketing

I am embarrassed to say it, but we need plans to achieve our dreams. It seems very obvious and logical. But most of the time we approach our affiliate business without clear-cut goals, resources needed, tracking milestones…We jump from one program to another as if affiliate marketing is going out of business.
I believe we fail to plan because planning requires thinking and appraising ourselves. It requires dreaming, it requires demanding a lot from ourselves. It requires intellectually moving out of our comfort zones. And most of us would rather take things easy.
Successful marketing requires being proactive and strategic. If we are not, we will keep jumping from one activity to another, from one new technique to another, with little to show for our hard work.

I hope you are more structured in your work. I believe in being creative, and I also believe in serendipity, but most of the time, we achieve a lot more when we know where we are going, and we are taking the required baby steps on a daily basis.

False prophets

One of the world’s most respected management consultant, Alan Weiss, wrote about how easy it is to become a consultant. In a sense, it is also very easy to become a guru in internet marketing. There are false claims and many scams. I don’t know about you, I have been scammed before. Everywhere you turn, there is a guru peddling his new system that will wipe away poverty from your life, if you just pay $97! (The fine print does not show you may need $300 to implement the system. Assuming it will work at all).

The magic wand myth

We all know that one of the most endearing attributes of the PC is speed. If you believe some sales letters, you can make millions on the web in a few months! And all you need is just a few hours. There is a lot to be said for working smart and fast, but there is really no success without hard work and patiently waiting for results. We all secretly look for shortcuts and loopholes. Well, let me know when you have found one. Please call me when you discover the silver bullet.

Thank you for taking a walk with me, as I was saying, there are many reasons why affiliates fail. That leads us to what I believe is the most important ingredient for becoming a successful affiliate: Learning from the Masters.

Learning from the Masters

The most successful people usually have mentors, guides who are not only very successful, but also genuinely concerned about helping others. When we let go the myth of the lone ranger and we run away from the false prophets, we can exponentially increase our success by leveraging the hard –won knowledge of masters who have trod the path. It is logistically impossible to have one on one interaction with some of these people. Fortunately, they have captured their knowledge and experience in books. Some also offer seminars and workshops. I will be recommending a few on this blog.