Greetings blog fans and do excuse the longer than normal pause from my direction.  I decided to go completely offline for an entire week whilst in Austria. This was followed right up with a trip to Ireland during which I also went internet “Cold Turkey”. Very daring I thought!  I have to confess I didn’t think much about work up until I had a very interesting experience at the hands of one of our lovely hosts in Austria.  Keen to ensure we experienced the best the area had to offer they treated us to a wee go on their burgeoning business – a high rope course!  Needless to say I nearly had what we call in Scotland a “hairy canary” when presented with the need to clamber over difficult rope arrangements high up in the tree tops.

As you can tell I survived, but experiencing something that was so far out of my day to day comfort zone did give me a fair amount of food for thought.  You really realise what’s important in life when despite the many safety harnesses they strap you into your treacherous bloody brain convinces you that you’ll die if you make a wrong move!

Now this kind of experience does two things

1. It makes you proud you went so far outside your comfort zone, learned something new, and survived the experience.

2. It highlights that your daily concerns and “what you know is important” is perhaps not as important as you’d previously perceived.  A good dose of perspective is achieved!

How Does This Translate To Affiliate Marketing?

Well guys and gals, I’m not asking you to dangle off a rope high above the forest floor to improve your affiliate performance, but taking a good look at yourself to see if you are stuck in an “affiliate comfort zone” might be a dashed good idea.  I’m not just talking to affiliates here, this applies to anyone involved in the glorious technicolour world that is our beloved industry.

I believe there are a number of areas that many affiliates start to get “over comfortable” with, and I do include a number of my own sins here which I frequently strive to remedy!

• Falling victim to the belief that something which didn’t work for you once ago won’t work ever. You tried it, things didn’t work out, and you’re never going near it again.  Sound familiar?  We’ve all had it at one stage or another.  However, there’s nothing that annoys me more than when I later discover that actually I was just trying with the wrong merchant or at the wrong time and that I’ve been missing out on a juicy revenue stream.  Same can apply with the names reversed for those of you on the other side of the fence!
• The cardinal sin – I Know It All And Nobody Has Anything To Teach Me – This could so easily turn into an undignified rant from me about some of the notions and attitudes of underexperienced network or agency staff who seem to have attended the Reginald Perrin school of customer relations.  However I shall leave that one for another day.  Anyhow, affiliates are the bloody worst at this.  Don’t get me wrong, the strongly held conviction that their own methods are good, effective, and the best is the reason why there are so many damned successful affiliates out there.  But would it really do any harm to consider there might just be some rare soul out there who has something to teach ya?
• The flip side of the above coin – Believing Everything Anyone Ever Writes About SEO And / Or Affiliate Marketing. This is more of an area where beginners can get dragged down.  Approach every bit of information you read with a bit of scepticism.  Treat nothing as gospel until you have thoroughly tested it yourself.  The sad fact is that there’s rarely a “cut and dried” answer to anything very much in our industry.  Google is one prime example of this – never, ever expect consistency from that direction.  They might well have rules, but they don’t enforce them with anything approaching a steady hand.  Lets face it, if they did clever black hat types would exploit it in an instant!
• What I’m Doing Works – I Have Nothing New To Learn – Although you definately shouldn’t muck about too much with tried and tested methods, I believe it’s important to keep up to date with new things and push yourself a little out of your comfort zone to learn about them and test premises you hear about on the grapevine.  Similarly, maybe you could try dipping a toe in the water with a new niche that is strongly related to an area you’re in already.  Sometimes the results can be very surprising, and even if it does turn out to be a load of old crap – you always learn something!

Whatever your affiliate comfort zone is, step outside it a little bit today.  It doesn’t have to be a massive change of direction (in fact I strongly advise against that sort of carry on!).  However, take a wee step into the unknown, feel the fear, and reap the benefits!

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