What do you need to be successful in affiliate marketing?

What do you need to be successful?  Good question I hear you ask.  I bet you’re now wondering “will I be successful?” or even “CAN I be successful” – i.e. do I have what it takes?

Well I don’t know if each of you reading this will be successful.  We will each have our own beliefs about what success means for us as individuals.  Success for one person may be very different to success for another, based on your own personal preferences, personality, expectations and skills.

For some, success might mean personal happiness.  For others, it might mean being able to pay the bills on time.  It might mean being able to travel the world.  Or have enough money to buy their children a house.  Or being able to give back to the community.  Your success goals might also change over time, as you gain more knowledge and experience throughout your career or various careers.

Can YOU be successful?

Yes you can! It all depends on you!

 

Whilst it’s hard to predict success, I believe there are some attributes that go a long way in building success, if you want it enough and your goals are SMART.

The top 5 attributes you need you need to be successful

When it comes to affiliate marketing, I think there are some must have attributes that you either need to have or need to have the ability to develop if you are going to make it.

1 Resilience

Resilience is all about getting up after falling down.  Setbacks happen to EVERYONE at different times in life.  They could be big or small – it’s how you handle those setbacks that is critical.

Let’s think of a time when something didn’t go as anticipated.  You planned and worked and were expecting a particular outcome.  “Surely if I do X, Y will happen.” However, after doing X, Y does not happen.  You didn’t get the outcome you had worked so hard for.

How do you respond in situations that don’t go as planned?

Do you wallow or dwell on failures? Or do you acknowledge the situation, learn from your mistakes, and then move forward?

In the world of affiliate marketing, you may not always get the outcomes you think you’ll get, and it will take resilience to adapt and bounce back.  You may want to understand why you got the outcome that you did through your own review and analytics.  You need to learn from what didn’t work, and try a new approach.  You’ll need to dust yourself off and keep at it.  Get up one more time than you fall.

Many people give up before they achieve success.  If only they’d kept at it.

 

2 Growth and improvement mindset

Having the belief that you are in control of your own ability, and can learn and improve is fundamental to success.  Knowing that YOU are in control of your own destiny is the key.

Having a growth mindset is the thing that helps us build resilience, because we believe that we learn and improve and fix whatever didn’t go right the first time.

We also need the mindset that we are always improving – that we are always on the lookout for ways of doing things better.  We might build a website when we are starting out, then as we learn more and more about affiliate marketing and e-commerce, then realise that we need to go back and re-look at our earlier work to improve it.  This means that we can’t assume that everything we do is perfect – we’re always open to new and better ways.  That includes being open to new tools and new techniques.  Even if we think we’ve mastered something we always need to be open to the idea that we can learn more and keep improving.

As well as a growth and improvement mindset, we need to think positively. This is true across every profession and throughout life.  A bit of positive thinking never hurt anyone!

 

3 Effort

Being a successful online entrepreneur requires EFFORT.  Hopefully everyone knows by now that there is no such thing as making easy money online, or getting rich quick, even though you may hear stories every now and then of someone’s friends’ cousin who became a millionaire overnight.

Read my article here “Want to make fast money online? Think again …”

Like all other professions, affiliate marketing requires effort.  You will only be successful if you put in the work.

Your website(s) will require focus from you.  If you put in the effort, rewards will come.

4 Long-term outlook

You need to build your knowledge, and understand that this may take time and patience.  You need to keep building out your website.  Adding more content.  Doing more research.  Finding new affiliate programs. Finding out how to keep adding value to your readers, and keeping them engaged.

Online careers are like any other careers.  They need to be built on a solid foundation.

Think of any profession. It requires study and training to know what to do and how to do it.  Sometimes a profession may take years of study, followed by on the job learning. It may also involve long hours on little pay while you are learning the ropes and establishing yourself.

An online career is no different.  There isn’t a magic formula where you just know what to do and it will turn into your own personal cash machine.  You need to work at it.  You shouldn’t expect this profession to be different from any other – effort is required.

5 Willingness to invest in yourself

The investment in yourself I’m referring to relates to your own development, and also the resources that you need to be successful.

If you consider the cost of going to college or university, or the cost of setting up a business or a franchise, you will be paying big dollars.  If you are going to have a career in affiliate marketing, I would strongly recommend investing in online training, such as the training available in the premium membership offered through Wealthy Affiliate.  In my view it is a very small price to pay for the knowledge that you will acquire, together with the tools and support available to you.

Whilst you don’t need to, there are a few other things that you should consider investing in to help you with your online journey.  Such as .com domain names rather than free sites such as .siterubix.  These are very small costs in the scheme of things.  A .com domain name is about $14 per year, and most of you would spend more than that on a take away meal.  Your site will be more professional, and if you plan on doing it for the long-term, it’s a very small investment.

Down the track you might want to invest in an email autoresponder, and a tool to help you take online videos.  Again, these tools are low priced and will provide you an excellent foundation for your business.

You need to take your online business seriously, just as you would any other business.  If you had any other business there would be a multitude of costs.  Having an online business does represent a very low cost business with low barriers to entry, but it still needs to be treated as a business if you want it to generate a full time income for yourself.

 

 

Are there any other attributes you think are important for success – either in affiliate marketing or other aspects of our lives?

Leave me a comment or question below and I’m happy to help.