Affiliate Marketing Mentors – For Your Success Online!
Category: Affiliate Marketing Mentor Blog
Here’s my affiliate marketing mentors blog! I’ve been an affiliate marketer since the early 2000’s and I ran into a lot of problems which, perhaps you have too?
I tried all sorts of strategies at first from building niche websites, running Google Adwords ads, blogging and using free blog platforms such as Hubpages and Blogger.com.
The struggle was pretty real but I was determined to make affiliate marketing work for me because life was so difficult in the many jobs I juggled to keep the wolf from the door!
In 2014 I found a community of online marketing mentors. I decided to start agains from scratch and “empty my cup”. It was tough and it’s hard to let go of thinking you know something when you really don’t!
I don’t consider myself an affiliate marketing mentor, although I hope that this website helps people who are learning. No, I’m still, and always will be a student, which means I can keep emptying my cup when it gets too full of the idea that I know something. The online world changes a lot and very quickly. So just when you think you are getting somewhere, everything is different and you’re starting all over again!
What is the best micro niche for blogging? Well this is completely objective of course. What might work well for one person, won’t necessarily work for someone else. A good micro niche site should attract some free traffic from Google and the other search engines. But it doesn’t necessarily “deserve” free traffic! You have to build a good resource and it has to out-rank other content to get found on Google.
But how do you do this? How can you rank a site and get free traffic? Micro niche sites usually capitalise on un-tapped keywords within a certain area. If you’re a blogger and love writing, chances are you’ll write better about subject you’re passionate about, or at least interested in. Write about something you don’t give a hoot about, and your content will reflect your lack of interest. Chances are good that it’ll bomb, or someone will overtake you because their interest in the topic is more genuine.
Best Micro Niche For Blogging – Start With “Why”
If you’re building a blog website to eventually monetise and earn from, you’re going to have your work cut out. There’s no two ways about it! Blogging is tough and it takes a long time before you’ll see the fruits of your labour. One of the biggest mistakes I made, although I like to think of it as a lesson, was building a niche blog site I had no interest in.
I was passionate about the process of course, but naive about what to expect. I thought, just by having a site rank on Google, I’d be in the money. Oh dear, how wrong I was. I researched a number of keywords and was keen to get started building a niche website. I found a keyword which appeared pretty un-tapped on Google and had a number of monthly searches. The keyword? “When To Harvest Garlic”.
Yep! That was one of my earliest niche website which I built! Not very exciting is it? Well for some people, that would be their passion. But not me. I just wanted the end result. The main problem with aiming a blog starting with the “end result” is a lack of purpose. I didn’t care about mushroom harvesting. I just wanted a site to work and make money.
So I built a lot of content around this keyword. For each article I wrote, I had to do tonnes of research because I knew nothing about the topic. It took a long time and eventually I ranked the site. But over time, other more passionate people took first place on Google, because they were genuinely passionate about their topic.
An Un-Tapped Niche
Finding an untapped niche for blogging is tough these days. There’s a lot of competition in most areas. Your best bet is to find a keyword which is somehow linked to your passion and which you’re able to rank for. This might be a challenge and you’ll need to work hard at creating content for it.But you can give yourself a head start by doing your research first, before you start out.
Finding your topic should be your primary concern. Once you decide what you would most like to write and create content on, you can start doing some keyword research. There’s lots of keyword tools available online and some of them are free. You can use Google’s free keyword planner as a start if you don’t want to pay. Type in your main keywords, in the area you are thinking of.
You should get a bunch of keyword come up in the planner. Then compare the monthly searches for the keywords agains their competition on Google. See micro niche blog ideas for a breakdown of how this is done. Ideally, you want to find a keyword which has monthly searches and low competition on Googles search results.
Best Micro Niche For Blogging – Ikigai
Ikigai is a Japanese term which means “reason for being”. If you can find the areas of your life which you’re passionate about, and which also you can earn from, it’s likely to be your “ikigai”. The best micro niche for blogging should relate to your own personal ikigai.
Many people segregate their lives into earning money, to do what they enjoy and they jump between the two. But if you find your ikigai, you can do both simultaneously.
A blog should represent your ikigai in some way. If you blog just for the money, eventually you’ll come up against a conflict. If you blog just for the passion, you’ll eventually have to go back to another unfulfilling job. Finding a happy medium between the two means you’ll be able to write about what you love, and make a living from your blog too!
Balancing Your Why With Making Money From Your Micro Niche Site
Blogging is definitely a slow method of generating traffic and sales online. So if you’re going to start a blog, it’s well worth laying down the foundations which will help you rank a site. This means building a site on some good keywords. Building a niche site to get traffic is only part of the process of course too. You also need to “convert” your traffic into leads and make sales to monetise.
This means you need to carefully balance your ikigai (passion and purpose) with a topic which reflects your products and/or service. The content I create links to affiliate marketing mentors, online business tools and various related products and services.
If my blog was about mushroom harvesting, I probably wouldn’t sell any products and so would soon have to go back to working in a job! So the best micro niche site for blogging isn’t simply one which gets traffic, or one which you love writing on; it’s both! For that reason, nobody can tell you which is the best micro niche for blogging.
Take a look at micro niche blog ideas for a basic keyword targeting strategy which I’ve used to build a number of micro niche sites.
There are many problems with affiliate marketing, and making money from it is not as easy as it can sound. One of the main problems is that those who wish to sell you courses, can offer a biased view of it, and how “easy” it is! That’s because even if an affiliate is being honest and genuine in their copy, they still really want a sale!
Google, of course is on to this. There’s been huge changes in Google algorithms which reflect their distain for many affiliates who spam the internet with their links, without giving any actual value in their copy. Algorithms are much cleverer now than they were in the past. Google can see many factors which relate to content, and rank or demote it accordingly.
This of course causes untold problems for affiliate marketers who are attempting to get traffic the old-fashioned way – free! Free traffic is a huge problem for affiliate marketers.
Getting Traffic To Your Affiliate Offers
Getting traffic to your affiliate offers is perhaps the biggest problem for affiliates. Either you pay for traffic and risk capital, or you work hard at getting traffic from the organic searches. Either way, it’s a risk you take and there’s no reward for trying! As an affiliate marketer you only get paid for sales. So you can work for a long time without any results.
Getting traffic from the organic search engines is something many affiliates start out with as a strategy. It’s free after all, right? But there’s another cost in using this strategy and it’s time and frustration! You can work hard for months and years and still get it wrong. Even with traffic to your blog or website, you still have to convert that traffic into sales; which brings more problems with affiliate marketing. Get the wrong kind of traffic and you could have wasted your time. Traffic needs to be well targeted to your buyer audience, or you won’t make sales. See why targeted traffic is important.
Of course the long term goal is financial freedom. This is something affiliate marketing can deliver. But in many cases, affiliates will give up long before they have figured out a strategy which can deliver this. Organic traffic too is slow. It will take considerably long to build a good stream of traffic and sales from organics than from paid marketing. You can’t scale up organic traffic in the same way either; so if you hit upon a good strategy, it’s difficult to scale.
Problems With Affiliate Marketing – Not All Doom And Gloom
But it’s not all doom and gloom. If you never give up with affiliate marketing, and keep going no matter what, your chances of succeeding rise dramatically! But that’s quite difficult if you’re giving up your precious time every day and are also holding down a job and bringing up a family.
When I started out doing affiliate marketing, I took many courses and tried many strategies. Checkout my article digital profit course review where I share some of my experiences. I was tempted to throw my laptop through the window on more than one occasion. Affiliate marketing can be very frustrating. There’s lots to learn and if you’re desperate for success, this can make it all the more difficult to keep your head and be patient. See 23 affiliate mistakes newbies should avoid.
Yes there’s many problems with affiliate marketing. If you’ve tried and failed as an affiliate, you’re probably aware of many of them. The main problem I see with affiliate marketing is that it’s performance based pay. But, this is also the main benefit too!
Problems With Affiliate Marketing – Performance Related Pay
Performance related pay means you don’t get paid unless you start making progress and actually sell affiliate products. But this is a massive plus when you discover how to make sales, and start to see a good return on investment. If you are making sales through organic traffic, you don’t even pay for advertising, bar the cost of a website and hosting. Or better still you use a free social media account such as Facebook or YouTube. If that’s the case, you get 100% profit and there’s very few costs involved.
Paid marketing is much faster than working away at an organic strategy. Plus you can scale up quickly with paid strategies. But you can still fail over and over again before you succeed. Failing is indeed what is needed as an affiliate. “Failing forwards” is a term I heard in the community I am now a member of (see video series on this website).
It’s hard to fail forwards when you’ve no money for paid adverts, or time for organic content. But the main job of affiliate marketers is to test strategies, fail, and keep trying out new stuff. Keep going long enough, and eventually you’ll find a strategy which works. Once you you do, you can rinse and repeat. The long term benefit of this is free money, or an easily scalable income and a completely free and flexible lifestyle.
What stands between an affiliate and this goal is the journey they take, their own particular mindset and mental baggage and any other obstacles which can be physical, financial or mental. See also what psychological factors limit the growth of a business.
Why Do Many Affiliates Fail?
Affiliate marketing is a business model which is in demand. Anyone with a laptop and internet connection can learn how to become an affiliate. Anyone with a website, can join an affiliate program, grab a banner and put it on their website. Hey presto – they’re an affiliate marketer! It’s an massively accessible business model which has super low barriers to entry. A normal business wouldn’t attract so many people because there are far too many costs involved.
However, this also means there’s a huge drop out rate among affiliates. Only around 3% of affiliates who attempt to build an online business will see it through and become successful. Why is this such a small figure? Partly this is because many who attempt it aren’t prepared for what is ahead. They see it as an “easy win”. Once they are confronted with the truth, they quit rather than stick it out.
There’s also a lot of conflicting information on the internet. Who do you trust when you’re sitting in your pyjamas by the telly? It’s almost impossible to know the difference between the charlatans and the real mentors in the online world. When you get burned a few times, you lose interest in trying. You become risk averse and you decide affiliate marketing is not for you!
Rabbit Holes In Affiliate Marketing
Yes there’s many rabbit holes with affiliate marketing. I’ve fallen into quite a few! In the early days of affiliate marketing, I was convinced I would rank around 20 websites for their keywords – just by throwing them up! I followed an organic strategy I had learned on a course. None of my websites worked, bar one, and I spent months on them. The one site which did work was called tedssheds.net and I sold a digital product (shed plans from Clickbank) from it. It was exciting but the success was limited to one sale. I eventually let the site go, since it proved unprofitable over a few years.
Each little success such as ranking a website, making a single sale, kept me going though. Even through the difficult times, I was certain I didn’t want the jobs which I was doing; HGV driving, office jobs, and basically employment alternatives. I kept building sites which made little or no money, and I wrote thousands of articles which got lost in the black hole of the internet and produced little or no results. I gave up more than once!
But, little by little things started working. I took something from every little victory, and each “failure”. If I had been working at a strategy for over 6 months with very little results, I would consider changing tactics. But the key is to never quit! Ultimately it took finding the help of affiliate marketing mentors to turn my affiliate career around. I would recommend doing the same! Good luck on your affiliate journey and remember it’s up to you!
You can join an online community through this website. Just sign up to the free video series on the side (or below) of this article.
What psychological factors limit the growth of a business? For a while now I’ve been contemplating an article on the psychology of business growth and factors which stand in its way. I’ve been involved in online business for a while now and have had a fair share of struggle too. Plus, I’ve always had an interest in self development for a number of years, and of psychology.
So it seemed a good idea to combine two of my favourite topics: affiliate marketing (online business) and psychology. So what psychological factors limit the growth of a business? Here’s a few of the things which I have personally discovered regarding my own personal journey.
What Psychological Factors Limit The Growth Of A Business? Needing To Be “Right”
You’ve probably seen the TV program which is hosted by Gordon Ramsey “Hotel Hell”. If not, it’s a very telling overview of this topic. Gordon comes into a hotel or restaurant establishment where the person in charge is ‘stuck in their ways’. They have become so stubborn and ‘set’ that they refuse to see the light even when a top chef and hotelier is telling them as it is. Swearing and abuse aside, it’s a very good watch, or maybe that’s because of the swearing!
Wanting to be “right” is definitely something I’ve personally experienced in my online business journey too. In fact, I have become so stuck in doing things “my way” that I suffered for it for several years. In my defence, I was attempting to build an online business by blogging which I knew was a long term strategy. But when I was able to let go of “being right” about my strategy, I was able to apply other, more effective strategies and get faster results.
However, nothing is guaranteed in the online world. It is after all a business and not a hobby. Which leads nicely to another subject – mindset. Knowing when you have lost your way is a good thing, even if it hurts your pride. And taking advise it tough for entrepreneurs who want to be “the boss”. However, if your need to be right outweighs your desire to succeed, you have a problem, especially when you don’t recognise it.
What Psychological Factors Limit The Growth Of A Business? How You “See” Your Business
Whether you think of your business as a job, hobby or passion will have an effect on its outcome. Do you see yourself as “playing” in your business to keep yourself entertained? Or are you serious about using it as a tool for financial and time freedom? What does your business mean to you, really? If you’re using it to keep busy and “buoy up” your self image to “show off” or big up your ego to your friends, you’re probably seeing the results on your bottom line as a reflection of this.
A business owner must have a long term view of their business and be able to see a ‘vision’ of where it is going. If they don’t, they will likely get caught up in low impact actions which don’t drive their business forwards. Often this might be things they enjoy rather than are really needed. I’ve definitely fallen into this trap. This happens especially if someone is transitioning from an employment into a business. In employment, you’re paid the same amount however productive you are. In business this isn’t the case. So habits you take from a job don’t necessarily apply to an online business for instance.
Dwell in the long term outcome you want from your business and then use the outcome to inspire a daily plan which is aligned with that goal. If you haven’t set a goal for your business, it’s likely you won’t hit it!
Psychology And Your Business – Self Image
Yes self image is massive in your business growth. Unless you’re growing, chances are good that your business isn’t either. Your business can’t outgrow the thinking you are bringing to it. So you will always be the glass ceiling of a business you own and run.
Are you putting yourself in the company of other more successful business owners? Or are you struggling on alone amidst the complainers and moaners who secretly want you to quit (more on this later). How do you see yourself, honestly? Are you secretly quitting in your mind, or do you see yourself as a success? What tired thoughts dominate your mind when you are feeling up against it? Do they outnumber the positive encouraging ones?
How do you feel in groups of people and how do you talk about yourself when meeting new people? All of these interactions can say something about how you perceive yourself, which in turn is going to, in some way, determine your results in life.
See Psycho-Cybernetics for a good resource on developing the self image.
Psychology In Business – You And Your Peer Group
Peer groups are another useful indicator for your business. Ideally, you would surround yourself with a number of positive people who are doing much better than you are in business. They would be encouraging and helpful and give you something to aspire to. But in reality, we often have a mix of people around us who offer differing levels of help and support.
There’s a common thread which says you can tell how much someone earns by the average income of their closest circle of friends. “Birds of a feather, flock together”.
Your group of friends is therefore pretty important to the success, or lack of, of your business. If you are surrounded with others who don’t want you to succeed, your journey will be that much harder. Why don’t your friends and family want you to succeed? For a few reasons. Often your success will change the status quo and your status among your friendship group. This will be felt by those around you not as something to celebrate, but as a sign they are falling backwards! So even if on the surface they are with you, secretly they can be trying to undermine your efforts and get you to quit. That way, it’s much easier for them.
Ideally, find a group of people who want the same as you and hang around them; not the doubters and haters who want you to quit. If you’re worried about losing friends if your business succeeds, consider what kind of friends they actually are if they don’t continue to support you!
Childhood And Your “Money Blueprint”
A list of limiting factors in creating more abundance and wealth wouldn’t be complete without a mention of your childhood and “money blueprint”. Everyone has a past which isn’t necessarily supportive of their new goals. Particularly if someone has never had much success before, it can be difficult to overcome the many internal conversations which don’t support your new outlook towards money, income and wealth.
Just think back to the many discussions, arguments or conflicts which you may have been privy to as a child. What did your parents think about money, spending and saving, for example? How did they talk to you about money? Did they agree about money issues or was there a conflict between them? It’s possible your life is a result of attempting to resolve your parents’ conflicts around money, particularly if you’re struggling yourself in this regard.
It’s also possible to take unhelpful behaviour patterns from childhood which once worked to gain attention from a parent, but which no longer work as an adult in business. One example of this is a “poor me” control drama which works as a child but as an adult it stifles your growth. You’ll actively create problems and limitation to give more weight to your “oh dear poor me” persona. Look for ways you relate to others and how much you complain to notice this trait.
Unconscious Beliefs Around Success
As a child, you don’t get to stand up for what you believe in. All that information just goes straight in to your subconscious mind and this becomes your money “blueprint”. So if your parents had beliefs about money and income which were not very supportive, this could have affected your subconscious beliefs about money and income.
For example, many people pick up beliefs such as:
Money doesn’t grow on trees
Rich people are greedy
You just need ‘enough’ to get buy
Money isn’t important
Work for love and not money
If a parent has “installed” an idea in your mind about money, it’s very difficult to get past it if you don’t want to be judged (in their mind) as “greedy”, for example. Trying to please a parent might just be the barrier to your business growth if this is going on.
What Psychological Factors Limit The Growth Of A Business? – Fear Of Success
Fear of success is a big factor in curbing your own business unconsciously. Perhaps you’re worried about a large tax bill? More money equals more worries? Or maybe you’re thinking about all the responsibilities you’re projecting into the future if you start doing really well? I was definitely worried about tax implications until I started learning about tax laws and caught up with by book keeping.
If you’re anything like I was, the thought of more tax dealings and keeping up with added book-keeping was a huge factor which kept me from moving forwards with my online business. I got some good advice from the online community I am part of and also spoke to my accountant who gave me some great advice. Just having some more information gave me the confidence to overcome a lot of fears around this subject. (You can join an online business community by signing up on this site for the free video series. See affiliate marketing mentors for more info.)
Internal Conflicts Around Money And Success
Here’s another very subtle key to why your business might not be growing at the rate you truly desire. If you in any way are envious or disparaging towards those with money, or wealth, you could be sabotaging your own success.
If you’ve never had money or success, you can carry some negative ideas about those who have had and particularly those who display their success. The first time I owned a BMW car I noticed quite a lot of anger and resentment coming my way. It was harder getting out of junctions and I received some unpleasant attention. I had only bought the thing second hand and it soon dawned on me how expensive it was to run! But it was a glimpse into some people’s attitude towards those with money. I have to say I’ve had my moments of envying those who have done well too.
But by carrying resentment towards success, you set up a blockage towards your own success. How can you strive towards attaining something you despise?
General Outlook on Life
What’s your general outlook on life and the world? Do you have an optimistic outlook? Or do you see the world as doomed to self destruction. This is something I recently uncovered about my own personality. I had a fatalist personality in that, I pretty much expected bad things to happen not good. This trait isn’t great for a business because you can’t fail to include your overall outlook in the workings of your mind. And if you mind is somehow involved in your business (which it is), you’ll create what you expect.
Two attractive forces which are mentioned in several books on the law of attraction (see law of attraction pdf for a few of my favourite books on this subject) are that which we expect and that which we desire. If these two forces aren’t aligned, and if we really want to succeed, but really expect to fail, we’ll work against our best efforts to prove our deep seated view and model of the world.
Old 9 To 5 Mentality
Many would-be entrepreneurs look to building an online business as a means to escape 9 to 5 life. Unfortunately many of them bring their 9 to 5 mentality with them. With a regular job you get paid for just turning up. A 9 to 5 can teach you a number of bad habits. For example, on the tough days in a 9 to 5 job you can avoid work as much as possible. You still get paid even for a sloppy job. So long as you don’t get caught slacking off it’s no big deal. This can train you to be unproductive and take your pay check for granted. An online business requires a different approach.
With an online business your earnings are in your hands. You must take full responsibility for your income or lack of it. If you don’t accomplish much your pay reflects this. So check your mindset when it comes to working. You’ve got to be far more productive in an online business or you won’t get paid at all. Make sure you are focused on money producing activities and not being a busy fool: working on actions which you prefer rather than those which pay.
Did I Miss Anything?
I hope this article has given you a few insights to what psychological factors limit the growth of a business? Please leave a comment or share the post. If you’re interested in learning how to start an online business from scratch, please sign up for the free video series on this website.
What is six figure mentors? The Six Figure Mentors is a company built by Stuart Ross and Jay Kubassek which helps people learn the skills to build online businesses, even without any experience.
Stuart and Jay have created an online community of mentors who help others learn the digital skills to build either an online digital business, or use those skills to build other businesses.
What Is Six Figure Mentors? My Story
When I joined the Six Figure Mentors, I had my own business and I wanted some help with my marketing. I also was intrigued by the online business system which is offered through the SFM.
The Six Figure Mentors offers a range of digital business services, software and training, including one to one tuition and mentorship at the higher levels of membership.
At the basic level membership, you can earn commissions from promoting The SFM itself, or benefit from the online community and support network that Stuart and Jay have built. This can be useful for business owners and budding entrepreneurs. For me, it helped me understand and build my fledgling martial arts school with various online marketing techniques.
Since then, I’ve also been able to make a number of high ticket sales through promoting The SFM program itself, something which I was unable to do for a number of years attempting affiliate marketing with low value products.
What Is The Six Figure Mentors? The Community
Online training and support for entrepreneurs
Unlike the many other affiliate courses I had taken previously, The Six Figure Mentors are actually a real company and run real live seminars throughout the world.
I met Stuart and Jay on a training event in London and they’re real people!
Here’s a picture of me with Jay:
Who Are The Six Figure Mentors For?
The Six Figure Mentors are definitely not for those who want to ‘give it a go’! If you think you’re in this camp, this company is most definitely not for you. More than 90% of business owners fail and quit within the first year of their online business. Only something like 3% actually make it through and build a successful online business.
The Six Figure Mentors offer the software, training and support to make this a real opportunity for those who have no idea how to start an online business, but want to escape their current lives through earning online.
Even with no technical experience, or business experience, anyone can be successful online if they have the desire to succeed and the right mental attitude. Previously, building an online business has been out of the remit of most people. 20 years ago you needed more technical experience and know-how for it to be even a possibility.
Stuart and Jay have done a lot of the work for you in this respect. Take a look at the video below (click on image) to see how the software can make things much easier for building a website, for example.
Who’s A Member Of The SFM?
The SFM has thousands of members worldwide who are building successful online businesses.
From teachers and engineers to HGV drivers and office workers, The SFM offers the ability to work from anywhere in the world, and build a business using many different online marketing strategies.
One of the main things that attracted me to The SFM was the ability to work under my own steam and in my own way. An online business gives you the ability to work in many different ways, and operate your business from anywhere, while working around current commitments.
You can also build your business around existing employment too, which makes it an attractive proposition to those who are unhappy in their work or worried about retirement.
You can access a free video series by signing up on this website (below or by the side of this article). You’ll get a video each day directly to your inbox from Stuart and Jay! Feel free to email me back with any questions and I’ll get back to you.
Who are The SFM Mentors? The SFM (Six Figure Mentors) are an online digital training and education community. Their purpose is to help people transition into the digital economy by building a business from the internet, or learn digital skills which can be used to build an existing business.
A Number Of SFM Mentors On An Online Live Webinar
SFM Mentors – Founders
The Six Figure Mentors was founded by Stuart Ross and Jay Kubassek, two successful online entrepreneurs who have created a support network for people who wanted to escape their jobs and live more fulfilling lives.
Here’s Stuart Ross explaining some of the software used to set up an online website which can be used to generate an income from the internet. Click on the image to watch the video.
Here’s a picture of me with jay Kubassek at a London training event:
What The SFM Mentors Can Do For You?
The SFM Mentors have built an online training and education facility and community. They run events globally to help their members learn and develop their online businesses. If you are interested in starting an online business with The SFM, you can sign up to the free workshop series of videos on this website.
From anywhere in the world, anyone can now learn how to use their laptop and internet connection to earn an ongoing income. This can eventually replace their full time job. This isn’t an easy thing to do; but the SFM Mentors offer the means to achieve this; if they are committed enough.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
The business model used within the SFM is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a kind of referral marketing in which anyone can sell someone else’s product over the internet; and earn a commission on the sale. This model, combined with online marketing strategies, can be used to build an ongoing and scalable income from anywhere.
Who Is The SFM For?
The SFM Marketing training offered within Stuart and Jay’s program can also be used to market any business. When I joined the SFM, I used the program’s training to market my martial arts school. So, you can use the training offered with an existing business, or you can use the products and services which are built into the SFM Digital Business System, and learn online marketing strategies to build an income even without an existing business.
The SFM is an ‘all in one’ business system and training and education tool. It offers a means to connect with many other people who are also building online business. The online community is incredibly valuable too, because you can network and connect with other like minded people through the community.
How Difficult Is It To Build An Online Business With The SFM?
It’s definitely not an easy thing to build an online business from scratch with no experience. You need a strong work ethic and it will take at least 12 months before you can experience any results. There’s a few things standing in the way for most people:
Hard work – This isn’t some magic ‘pill’ system. It’s a genuine business and so it takes time and effort to make it work
Mindset – most people have been programmed to follow the herd and this means usually work a 9 to 5 job. Although the time period is arbitrary, this also trains you to do a nominal amount of work and get paid for it. Affiliate marketing is different because it’s based on performance related pay.
Old habits – so you’ll need to learn new mindsets and habits to become an effective affiliate marketer. Time spent doesn’t automatically translate to income, like in a job. You need to focus on money producing activities.
Affiliate marketing offers a means to an end. Most affiliate marketers choose this path because it leads to more choices. If you can make an affiliate business work, it means you can choose your own hours, work from anywhere, and write your own paycheque.
For many it means:
Escaping a job of boss which is no longer tolerable
Never having to do the 9 to 5 commute and sit in traffic hours on end each side of the day
Choose how to spend their time and work around existing priorities
Affiliate marketing can also be used as a side business which can be built up around existing work in order to provide an ‘escape route’ from a job, career, limited income or boss.
Over time, if you take the right action steps, you can use affiliate marketing to build a good stable income which can replace your current income. This means the same money or more, but no longer needing to have to go to work in a job.
Many of the systems and strategies used in affiliate marketing can be automated and scaled up too. This means once you start earning, you can repeat the same actions and automate sales globally. Over time, and with the right products, you can earn an ongoing income from sales you made previously: subscription affiliate programs.
SFM marketing can take many forms. The Six Figure Mentors (SFM) offers a training and education community and a digital business system. The SFM Digital Business System, gives you a number of digital products, a website from which to market your products, and a ‘plug and play’ sales funnel which can be set up with a few simple steps through the modules in the back office.
The SFM back office
SFM Marketing Strategies
Once you’ve set up your marketing funnel (sign up on this site to get started), you’ll need to market it. This is often the biggest challenge for affiliate marketers. Having a sales funnel with a range of products in it is just the first step of starting your online business. Once you have achieved this, you’ll need to sent targeted visitors to your landing page.
Marketing can be done in many ways but the main two fall into the categories of:
Content Marketing
Paid Marketing
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a much slower strategy than paid marketing. If you choose a good strategy and work hard at it, you’ll start to see some progress as people sign into your email list. See autopilot marketing. How long this takes will depend on your strategy, how hard you work at it, and how long you work at it for. See how long does it take to make money from affiliate marketing. Some marketing strategies which are free include:
Blogging – creating content on a website, like this post for example. (See Niche Blogging For Profit)
Video marketing – creating and uploading videos regularly to YouTube
Social Media marketing – building a list of followers and offering value to your groups
Creating and hosting webinars or creating podcasts.
Any other form of content marketing which is used to engage an audience.
Paid Marketing
Using paid platforms for your SFM marketing strategy is arguably the best method. Paid marketing is the best because of two things:
It is fast – Start a marketing campaign and you can have instant traffic to your sales funnel
It is scalable – Once you ‘hit’ on a marketing strategy which works well, you can leave it running and scale it up; moving on to another campaign once doing so.
The downside of using paid marketing is of course that it costs money. If you haven’t got a lot of money to learn this strategy with, you need to be very careful. A paid marketing strategy will burn through cash pretty quickly if you don’t keep your eye on the ball. You can spend money and not get it right on your first few tried. Ideally, start with a small budget and test and measure – making sure you track everything you do. This lets you learn from your bad campaigns as much as you can from the good ones.
Over time, you’ll come to realise which marketing tactics produce the best results and which aren’t worth doing. Then, you can cut back on the ones which don’t perform, (or keep running) and scale up those which do. Expect to spend money while you’re learning this process.
If you’re using paid strategies for your SFM marketing, it’s best to at least be at Gold level in the SFM. Elite level will still give you a high ticket commission, but it will be much harder to recoup your expenditure with when using paid marketing. See Six Figure Mentors Compensation Plan.
SFM Marketing – Which Strategy To Choose?
If you’re a member of The SFM, it can be a difficult decision to make which marketing strategy to choose. There’s training and resources within the community for all kinds of marketing strategies:
You Tube
Instagram
Blogging – Digital Bloggers
Video Marketing
Facebook Marketing
And so on.
So which strategy should you choose for your SFM marketing campaign? Which digital products you place within your digital ‘store’, will give you some idea of which strategy to choose from.
For example, if you position at the top level (DEA Partner), you’ll be able to earn the most from the product range. At basic membership level, you won’t be able to access the high ticket commissions. Ideally choose paid marketing only if you can position yourself at DEA Gold or above. If you can’t do this, focus on content marketing and free strategies instead.
How Long Does It Take?
The length of time it takes to start seeing progress from a digital business system like the SFM’s, will depend on a number of things:
Your marketing strategy – and what you can afford.
Your success with your marketing
The level of commitment you put in
Your ability to learn from your mistakes
It’s impossible to say categorically how long anyone’s journey will take, since it’s different for everyone. With content marketing strategies, it will take considerably longer then with paid marketing. There’s no guarantees in business though whatever you do! The key is to keep going and learn from your mistakes. Think of failure as ‘feedback’ rather than failure and keep working on yourself, and the business.
See this article “Why affiliate marketing does not work” on this topic. Only around 3% of people will actually continue long enough and make an online business work for them and allow them to go full time with it. If you’re in the 3%, you’ll need to be stubborn, determined and very patient! A rare combination! Good luck! If you want to learn more, you can access the workshop series on this site. Sign up by entering your name and email in the sign up box.
The SFM digital business system offers an all in one online education and training community for anyone who wants to:
Build their own internet business from scratch – using variety of different strategies
Market an existing business using their training and education resources and community
What Is The SFM Digital Business System?
The SFM Back Office
The SFM (Six Figure Mentors) offers a variety of online digital business software; and an online training and education portfolio. Their back-office offers a digital business set-up which allows a member to set up their own digital business ‘store’. This offers some of the SFM’s own products and services. This is one of the simplest strategies to build an income from the internet. Depending on the products you choose to put in your ‘e-store’, you can have:
A ready made affiliate website – with your affiliate i.d already installed. This is easily set up within a few minutes.
A sales funnel containing a range of digital products for you to earn commissions from.
A modular step-by-step set up process allowing you to set up automated systems and strategies for building an email list and sales funnel.
You can also use the online community and a range of training and education tools to build a pre-existing business which you own. When I joined the SFM I was struggling with building a martial arts school. I used the online marketing strategies to build my school. See my website on this Martial Arts Marketing.
Training And Education – The SFM Digital Business System
The SFM Digital Business System offers a strategy which anyone can use to earn money from the internet by selling other people’s products (affiliate marketing). The system itself lets you create an online ‘digital store’ with a range of products and services within it. Depending on which products you purchase yourself, you can earn commissions based on the products you ‘place’ in your digital ‘shop’.
Products range from $29.95 for the SFM ‘App’, which is a ‘taster’ product which lets you access module 1 and a consultant. This lets you see if The SFM is a good fit for you. If you decide to join as a member, you’ll need to upgrade your membership. See more about membership fees here: Six Figure Mentors Cost.
High Ticket Commissions
Each product in the system offers a larger value in terms of access to the training and education community. You can also make larger commissions on the products themselves as an affiliate for the SFM. Ideally, join at least as an Elite member, if you go this route, since this gives you access to the high ticket affiliate commissions.
The top tier product is the SFM ‘partner program’ which gives you personal one-to-one access to top leaders in the community. You can also access a retreat run by the SFM founder members Stuart Ross and Jay Kubassek; and the ability to earn the largest level commissions on top tier products. You can also earn multi-tier commissions which are commissions based on sales made by your team.
Products at this level are priced at $20,000+. They offer the ability to sell these products yourself and earn 40% commissions on a single sale. That’s $8000 on a single sale (*please check current prices). The personal tuition and mentorship available at this level is also very personal. You can connect with six figure earners personally and book regular appointments. There’s also a community of people to network and connect with who run regular webinars and training sessions.
Online Training Community
By far one of the best things about The SFM digital business system is its online community. The SFM has recently partnered also with Microsoft Lynda and DigitalMarketer to offer some of the best training and education resources available online:
Microsoft Lynda (Under the Linkedin umbrella of companies) recently partnered with SFM as a way to offer their own 6,500 training courses as part of the SFM curriculum.
DigitalMarketer (The world’s longest standing and most highly respected B2B and B2C marketing training company) also partnered with SFM and now offer their own training as part of the SFM curriculum.
The personal tuition and one to one support I have personally received from the community has been a huge help in my online business. Without this direct help, it can be incredibly frustrating and difficult to know whether you are taking the right actions and steps to move your online business forwards.
Building an online can be incredibly frustrating, especially at first. When you have access to people who are in the same boat, it’s a huge help in terms of mindset, technical hurdles and emotional support. Especially when they are much further ahead of you in terms of results.
Learn More
You can join this online community and learn more by accessing the free video workshops. These are available by signing up on this website. Enter your name and email on the opt-in form. You will receive a daily video from one of my personal affiliate marketing mentors Stuart Ross.
Getting an affiliate marketing coach could be the best thing you can do for your online business. After getting a coach, I started taking a different view of affiliate marketing. Before I found a coach, things were pretty bleak. I tried many different strategies within affiliate marketing but couldn’t get any traction.
A coach gave me a different view of the actions and activities I should be focused on, to move my online business forwards. Everyone has different circumstances to work with, so the same answer isn’t appropriate for everyone though. Some affiliates will want to build slowly over time using only content marketing; other will want faster results with paid marketing.
According to your own personal situation, circumstances and ultimately your reasons for doing affiliate marketing, your ‘why?’, you will need to choose a path which is suitable for you.
Affiliate Marketing Coach – My ‘Why?’
An affiliate marketing coach can help you find your path and start making faster progress because they have already made the mistakes you are likely to make! There’s a huge learning curve in affiliate marketing. If you haven’t got a clear path, it’s easy to get distracted by the many ‘shiny objects’ and all the different strategies. Before you know it, you could be working for months and even years, without making any real progress.
Knowing your ‘why?’ in affiliate marketing keeps you going when times are tough. If you don’t have a strong enough ‘why’, you could easily lose momentum and are more likely to give up. See Why I Do Affiliate Marketing And Why You Should Too!
Avoiding Affiliate Mistakes – Find An Affiliate Marketing Coach
A coach will hold you accountable and give you information which will help you. Here’s a few things which I’ve learned which have made a dramatic difference to my affiliate marketing business:
Your ‘state’ of mind effects your productivity. Unless you control it, it controls you. If you continually find yourself depressed, anxious and annoyed with the way things are going in your affiliate business, this can effect your productivity.
Subscription affiliate programs can give you a massive advantage – yes subscription affiliate programs offer ongoing commissions for previous sales. Choosing products to promote which offer a lifetime value to the customer is therefore worth the extra effort. The same sale (and effort) could make you $40 or $40 a month for life!
High ticket programs allow you to scale up, offset advertising costs and use more easily scalable marketing strategies. Small value items are harder to sell as a newbie because you have so much competition when using only content marketing strategies. High value items give you many advantages.
Affiliate Marketing Isn’t Easy!
Affiliate marketing sounds like it should be easy, but it really isn’t! You can spend time and money on affiliate marketing and still fail! Knowing what to expect from it is a useful thing. It takes time and effort and you should learn your trade if you’re going to do well. Affiliate marketing has some huge advantages over other business models too:
Offers a way to earn from the internet using a laptop and internet connection
Can be worked from anywhere globally
Work around other commitments and build your business around existing work
Uses scalable systems and strategies which can offer products globally
Uses automation and systems which can run, selling products 24 hours a day
So, in theory, affiliate marketing is an amazing business model which anyone can do. But there are some downsides too. It’s not always going to be easy:
It’s a performance based business which works both ways – unlimited earnings are possible but so is no earnings, and that’s more likely too for most people!
You need to fail a lot to learn what works and what doesn’t work
Content marketing is a slow strategy and although free, takes a lot of time and effort.
Paid marketing isn’t guaranteed either and although it’s fast, it doesn’t guarantee sales! You need to test and measure and learn from your failures before you can automate a profitable business.
But It’s Not All Doom and Gloom!
If your’e serious about earning money from the internet, you should get an affiliate marketing coach. Join an online community of entrepreneurs and marketers who have already failed more times than you’ve tried! You can’t fail to learn from them if you take part in regular interactive webinars. Sign up on this website for more information and to join.
Affiliate marketing takes time and it should do. Just because it’s an online business doesn’t change the fact that it’s a business. A brick’s and mortar business needs a lot of energy, time and money putting into it. An online business is no different. There’s much lower overheads with an online business.
Advertising is a main cost if you want fast results. If you don’t want to spend money on advertising, and you have time, expect a much longer journey. If you have little time, and you have the income to spend on advertising, you can build an profitable online business much more quickly. Still there’s no guarantees, so you need to tread carefully.
Finding an affiliate marketing coach can considerably shorten your journey to a profitable online business though. Sign up on this site for the free videos to learn more and get access. See also affiliate marketing coaches.
