Unlucky for some!! Was finally getting your affiliate business off the ground / in order one of your new years resolutions? I bet there’s loads of people out there who stood up on new years day and said,
“RIGHT! 2009 is my year, this is it. I’m gonna get out there and rule the affiliate world!!”
But I know that 90% of people who made that promise will fail. I’m in contact with a lot of different people at various stages of the revenue generation process, and I thought y’all might benefit my insight into why a lot of them don’t progress.
So here it is… the definitive guide to stuffing up your chances of a flexible lifestyle. Follow it at your own peril!!
- You spend all your time reading about too-good-to-be true affiliate success stories and fantasising about what you’ll do with your millions, and don’t start any of your own projects.
- You stuff around on Facebook, WOW, A4uForum, Bebo, and pretend you’re working. You’re not!
- You don’t really want to put any work in, and keep on looking for get rich quick schemes. They don’t exist. They don’t work, and you keep on getting sucked in by promises of riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.
- You come up with good ideas and can’t seem to do anything about them.
- You keep on registering domains and researching niches but when it comes to the hard yards you can’t be assed.
- The first thing you try doesn’t work, so you give up. You idiot!
- You have a small success. You rest on your laurels rather than keeping pushing on. Much to your surprise your business doesn’t quadruple whilst you sit doing nothing.
- You can’t quite work out which of your ideas to pursue… so you do nothing.
- Google / Search engine of your choice changes something to do with quality score rules and you form the opinion that its Google in the wrong and not your site, so you do nothing about it. Much to your surprise, your revenue dries up completely. You take the huff and give up. (nb, nothing isn’t always the wrong thing to do where Google is concerned…. but youse know what I mean!!)
- Similar to 9, you have been making some money but your merchant or network changes the rules and you don’t know how to create other revenue streams because you’ve not been staying ahead of the game and diversifying into different areas. You take the huff and give up. Those rotten buggers were mean to you.
- Checking stats is NOT working!
- You want someone to tell you exactly how to make money. And nobody will despite repeated forum posts and e-mails to prominent affiliates requesting all their money making secrets. How Rude!!
- As a total newbie you decide to domainate the world of bingo / gambling. Despite the huge commissions on offer you discover that 25% recurring commisson on nothing is, in fact, nothing.
Well, I could go on and on… but I think y’all get the idea. I plan to try and write some more positive posts soon about how you can avoid these various common malaises. If you have any ideas for these posts do please Drop Me a Line.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Are you stalking me Kirsty?? Is it bad that I can identify with nearly all of those? (There are a couple of exceptions towards the end though, thankfully!).
I saw a blog post (there is number 1 on your list again….), the other day entitled ‘Procrastination – my other lover’ and it is so damn true. Must. Not. Procrastinate!
I have been getting better though after your advice, and am getting somewhere
Great post anyway!!
Rich
January 16th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Hilarious post!!! and very true. I think it comes down to being afraid of hard work and afraid of failing. I’ve been guilty of some of these but I am getting better!
I’ve learned a lot from your advice Kirsty, thanks.
Tony
January 16th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Great points and imo a lot of them are as a result of not having someone coming into your office now and again and asking for a report. Noooo, we wouldn’t go back to that again, but it did keep you on track.
My solution: an imaginary boss in my head that keeps butting in and saying ‘why have you stopped doing that copy ?’… ‘why haven’t you tried another PPC campaign with different ads ?’ ‘why isn’t this finished – you said it was 2 days work and now 2 weeks have gone ?’…. you get the drift.
I just hope he doesn’t come to life
January 16th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
@ Rich… yes, that is quite bad mate! But you will get there, don’t worry
@ Tony… No Problems, glad you like it.
@ Bob, that is a good way to deal with it. I myself set myself reasonable progress targets on a weekly basis. If I don’t meet them my bitchy boss gets mad at me!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
I think the most frustrating thing recently for me is the realisation of how many sites/content I just haven’t got out there over the last few years. I LOVE doing research! There are lessons from every site/campaign you launch so in my view, near the start just get stuff out there. This also means that you start to get little bits of commisions through, even a 50p commision and the little buzz you get can give you the fuel to push on a bit more.
My affiliate 09′ resolution – quit the overzealous research and just get building sites and content!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Ed, it’ll be the best thing you ever did. Get those ideas out of your head and onto the internet!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Another excellent post. You just keep hitting the nail on the head! Hope you win blog of the year.
I suffer from pretty much all of them, but in particular point 7. And in fact, it’s been going on for years (I’m ashamed to say). After a couple of reasonably successful sites, setup in 2004, I’ve found it hard to stay motivated. I do freelance web development too – but ultimately make much more from my existing sites. So I really need to knuckle-down this year and get some more stuff happening. I have some ideas that have been floating around my head for a while, which brings me nicely to number 8.. haha
Great post.
- Rich
January 16th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Kirsty, not your usually cheery post but I like it
, it’s real and to the point. I think the industry has waves of newbie (wannabe?) affiliates coming in, expecting to make millions over night with barely any effort; it is certainly one of them times. Hard work and dedication is a must in this industry.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:15 am
I’m a binge personality so I try to ride the positive waves of enthusiasm and minimise those stat checking urges – I feel my own blog post coming on now, better get on with it.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Hey Rich – it’s a well known affiliate malaise that one and I’m not saying I’m perfect either by the way!!
Ian – No, I decided to provide a bit of a mirror for people to look in. The cheery positive post about how to avoid the 13 step plan to disaster is in the making now, lol.
Joe – I look forward to your post. Always enjoy reading your thoughts.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I can relate to most of the first ones. I think I have gotten better though. I think sometimes the prob comes in that you try something, it doest work after a short while (with ppc a few days) and so you move on not wanting to loose too much beating a dead horse.
I had a great site going in oct/nov/dec, but the niche seems to have died out. It is strange, traffic for the products is still there, but no one is buying…very strange.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Also, I forgot to say… This year I’ve started keeping a “work diary”. That way I’m accountable to something. Seems to work quite well. The thought of looking back, at the end of the year, at a load of blank pages scares me into action!
January 18th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Marc – Thats the thing with AM, some niches only work at certain times of the year or are dreadful for X, Y, and Z months. The trick is to try and find a group of niches that will take you year round. I’ve just about managed this, September / October are my only dodgy months now!
Rich – the diary is a really, really good idea!
January 18th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Good post – I have been guilty of some of these
January 18th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
You should set up a ‘back to school / back to uni’ site then!
Oh such a spot on post again. “paralysis by analysis” is something I’m trying to avoid this year. Having (mostly) kicked the drunk domaining habit las year I’ve a select few nicely aging domains that are going to get my attention in 2009.
That and a long overdue merchant project that an upcoming office move will give me the space for.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Hi Stephen, yep I do need to pop something in there and I’ve been told by someone thats the one to go for. It’s all time though isn’t it?!
Good luck for your projects in 2009.
January 19th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Damn, I’m guilty of some of those things. Gives me a wake up call though!
January 25th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Good list! The main reason I think I will fail will not be not putting in the work but not knowing what work to do. I’m ready to go but not sure where to focus my efforts.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
“You don’t really want to put any work in, and keep on looking for get rich quick schemes. They don’t exist. They don’t work, and you keep on getting sucked in by promises of riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.”
You’re right, too many affiliates just look for an easy way to make money. Whether that be copying ads word for word or landing pages etc. Put in hard work, use your brain and there is plenty of money to be made online.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I read this when you first published it and thought I’d not make those mistakes .. lol, oh yes I did. Too many projects and not enough depth of focus.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Great post. I’m sorry to say, ashamedly so, I am guilty of all of these. I am new to this and wrongly I have been trying to concentrate on 46 domains very badly instead of a few. I think also registering domains for affiliate marketing is also addictive and everytime I get a good idea I want to register a domian. I think from reading this post and some of the comments I have realised that I need to start putting in the depth of focus for a few sites. Thanks all