It’s easy to become distracted when you’re working online which is why affiliates need focus. Social media platforms are designed to suck our attention and they do a good job of it. Unless you’re mindful of that, you can spend all your available time online scrolling Facebook feeds and reacting to your notifications and alerts! Before you know it, your day has gone; wasted on unproductive activity.
Even if you don’t use social media much, you can still get distracted by other things. Unhelpful habits can lead you down paths which lead nowhere. You can get stuck in “training mode”, watching endless hours of training videos; but without taking any action. Or spending all your time on a logo, but without having any website visitors.
It feels as though you’re working, but affiliate marketing is a performance based business. So unless you’re working on a marketing method somewhere in your daily routine, nothing comes from it all in terms of sales.
Why Affiliates Need Focus – Training Vs “Doing”
When you’re juggling your time between family, your job and your affiliate marketing business, you need to zone in on the things which matter. Time spent unproductively is dead time which you’ll never get back! Spending time on the small things, which don’t drive your business forwards is known as being a “busy fool”. As an affiliate you must determine which actions are going to move the “needle” on your affiliate income.
In the beginning, you’re likely going to be watching training videos and setting up your sales system; your website and email marketing campaigns, for example. 90% of your time will be in “training mode”. But once you have some knowledge, it’s important to shift this to a 80/20 split, spending 80% of your time on a marketing strategy, and less time on learning.
You’ll still be learning. Only you will learn by experimentation not just from learning materials. If you want to learn to swim, you have to jump in the water. Trying (and often failing) at a marketing tactic is the “water” when it comes to affiliate marketing. Unless you get your feet wet, you’re not going to succeed as an affiliate.
Why Affiliates Need Focus – Spreading Yourself Too Thin
As an affiliate there’s so many possibilities and strategies you can venture down. One day you can “try” blogging and the next day you can run an ad. The problem is, you can easily spread yourself too thin, jumping from one strategy to another, and never getting any traction in any.
Far better to pick a single strategy and focus on that wholeheartedly over the longer term. Become an expert at your particular marketing tactic. I took the scattered approach as a beginner, and jumped from course to course, looking for the “easy path”, “magic bullet” and “quick win”. Sadly, this approach is another example of spreading yourself too thin.
It can be very difficult to get traction if your attention is scattered across multiple marketing strategies. Or, worse still, you don’t stay the course in any strategy and constantly change direction looking for another (easier) route.
Why Affiliates Need Focus – Doubt, Scepticism, Fear
Doubt creeps in all too easily especially if you’re a beginner. You wonder whether your strategy will work or not. Should you bother? Is it worth your marketing budget, or your time? If your mind is plagued with doubt and scepticism, you’ll dither and never fully commit.
You’ll “try” one method, expecting some quick return, and then switch and “try” another. Since no method is guaranteed to work and most ad campaigns fail, you’ll most likely experience one “failure” after another with this approach.
But commit to the journey, and focus on one marketing strategy alone, and you’ll learn much more, even from your “failures”. Remember that the master has failed more time than the beginner has even tried! Clearing your mind of doubt, scepticism and fear is the first thing you should do. If your mind is clouded your intention is weakened. When you doubt, you tread too carefully, always pulling back, uncertain and therefore non committal.
Goals & Intentions
We all have doubts, it’s only natural. But if you focus more on your doubts than your intentions, they will eventually kill your ambition for your affiliate marketing business, if you let them. The antidote to doubts, fears and scepticism is to set a powerful goal, and regularly write out mantras to remind you of your highest intention.
When you don’t do this, your mind takes over. Most people’s mind runs on autopilot. They don’t take charge of it and when it’s filled with doubt, that’s what takes hold. Intention writing helps you gain clarity and focus as you write our your business intentions every day:
- I have a successful affiliate marketing business
- I now make 5-10k a month from affiliate sales
- I write 5 blog posts a week
- I now make consistent sales
- I am committed to obtaining my first, hit, lead or sale
Intention writing is the antidote to scepticism, fear and doubt which runs in everyone. The key is not to let it take charge of your mind. Instead, commit to choosing an goal/intention which you are passionate about achieving. Write it out multiple times each day to remind yourself of your commitment, and especially when you’re feeling doubt.
The Meandering Affiliate
I’ve definitely been the “meandering” affiliate marketer. I meandered from course to course, tried one strategy after another, lost hope and dropped off, and then started all over again months later. This is not the path to success, let me tell you!
My sporadic work schedule only contributed to my doubts and scepticism. I would make a sale, then spend the week congratulating myself rather than focusing on what brought the sale about – or making the next one.
As soon as I made a sale, I would spend my commission, rather than reinvest it. I had no clue what I was doing for the large part! Over time though, I slowly built confidence as I started making more and more sales.
When I made a sale organically, it inspired me in my content creation. But there was a long time period where nothing much happened. This is tough. You don’t know what works and what doesn’t until you start making sales. But that only happens when you consistently work on a specific marketing method for some time.
It’s like the chicken and the egg. We want the egg to hatch, but carry doubt and fear with us, expecting proof that it works first! Without doing the work, the egg won’t hatch. To do the work, you need faith, belief and intention, which you must fuel yourself.
Summary
Affiliates need focus and not just focus for what they do in their affiliate business, but focus in how they think. If you continually give energy and thoughts to your doubts, fears and scepticism, you’ll find ways to stop your affiliate activity. Use mantras and intention setting to overcome the doubts in your mind.
If you haven’t made any sales yet, this can be a tough phase. You don’t have “evidence” that “it” works yet, so you’re full of doubt. But how can you work towards making that sale when you’re full of scepticism? How can you sell a product, if you don’t fully believe in it?
You’ll subtly sabotage your success if you are filled with fear and doubt. So you need to purge these thoughts before they take hold with strong goals and intentions which motivate you and drive you forwards.
Focus also means removing distractions and creating a clear, cohesive path towards your desired outcome. Stay consistent and work each day on a single activity which will carry your affiliate business forwards. Don’t get distracted by other “shiny objects”, social media or potentially “better” strategies which keep you jumping from one idea to another, spreading yourself too thin to get any traction.
If you haven’t started out yet you can get a step by step process here.
