Monday, July 30, 2007

Top 15 things I have learned about affiliate marketing I have learned several lessons that I think may be valuable to anyone who reads this. You may agree or disagree, but at least give it some thought. 1. Anything that is a good value today will be a good value a year from now. 2. The more the hype, the less the value or longevity. 3. If it has a deadline, run away, don't walk, run - in a zig-zag pattern. 4. Don't send your valuable prospect away on first contact. Try to get their contact information so you can follow-up - yes, build your list. (I wish I'd done more of this.) 5. If you can't understand the compensation plan after reading it twice, you may never understand it, so maybe it is best to avoid it. 6. Always try to get residual income rather than one-off commissions. 7. Try to get life-time customers. 8. If more than five people email you about something the same day, avoid it. 9. Spillover is a myth. It may happen now and then, but don't depend upon it. 10. Earning money - no matter how you do it - is work. It takes longer than you think and it takes more creativity and effort. Nobody will do your work for you. 11. Don't spend more than you can afford. Define your budget and stick with it. If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. 12. Don't go into debt to try to make more money. Pour a percentage of your revenue back into tools and marketing. As a result of this, I'm spending more on marketing every month than I made the first two years of online marketing. But, it's all a percentage of income. I have no debt and I intend to keep it that way. 13. It takes a long time to start earning money with online marketing (unless you are very lucky or very good at what you do). It took months for me to earn my first commission check, and several more months before I got my second one. Now, I get checks from several companies every month. It did not happen overnight, but it can be done with perseverance, even if you make a lot of mistakes along the way. 14. Don't pay attention to how much money someone is claiming to earn. There is a huge difference between gross and net. 15. Help others grow and advance, don't take advantage of them just to get their money. Agree? Disagree? Let's talk. Act on your dream! JD 7:05:46 AM    comment []  trackback []

Are you willing to fail your way to success? How Many Failures Are You Willing To Endure?. ...how many failures are you willing to endure before you decide it can't be done?... ...I'll tell you when I'll stop. When it's done.... ...If you don't fail and fail a lot you probably aren't stretching yourself. You aren't creating, inventing or designing extraordinary results. Failing, and adjusting your actions and failing again is how success happens... [Achieve IT!] The article that I've excerpted above is specifically about Brad Isaac's experience in creating an installer for his Achieve It! goal setting application. More generally, however, it relates to all experiences where we are working to accomplish a difficult goal and keep running into obstacles. We have to decide whether we are going to accept failure by quitting, or if we are going to persist in defeating each obstacle until we find a way to succeed. If you aren't failing at least some of the time, you aren't reaching outside of your comfort zone. In many cases, you only achieve the success you desire after failing again and again in the pursuit of your goal. After each failure, you have to analyze the results you got as contrasted to what you wanted. Then, create a new plan that takes into account your previous actions and results, and try a new, different way to accomplish what you want. Along the way, you'll experience failures, but you'll also experience incremental successes. Every little step takes you that much closer to the results you want. Keep what works and expand on your little successes until you reach your goal. Don't be discouraged if you don't succeed the first time. Learn the lesson from that failure, modify your actions and try again. If you insist on success and won't settle for anything less, you'll get to where you want to go. Act on your dream! JD 6:18:50 AM    comment []  trackback []

How does urgency impact completing your tasks and accomplishing your goals? The Urgency of Considering Urgency ...One method of urgency control focuses at the immediate level on prioritizing your to-do items in your daily task list based on both importance and urgency and then sticking with the list until it is completed.... ...[another] method is to schedule date specific/urgent items primarily on the calendar as appointments as opposed to the to-do list, creating a time for the item to be accomplished.... ...When you put the bottom up and top down approaches together, you see that it is the combination of planning and execution that deter the negative effects of urgent but unimportant tasks. Planning allows you to create a schedule to prevent tasks from becoming urgent, and proper discretion in the execution phase allows you to decide which urgencies are actually important. Other urgencies should not disrupt the plan.... [Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life] You've done it. I've done it. We've all done it. We create a nice, tidy to-do list and dutifully start to finish each task and check it off as complete. Eventually, and almost always before completing all the tasks on our list, something else comes up that pulls us away. Sometimes it's an emergency. Other times it just feels more urgent. How does our sense of urgency affect our decision making? Can we incorporate urgency into how we prioritize our to-do list and how we plan to accomplish the most urgent tasks? Does urgency equal importance? Are there different degrees of urgency? These are some of the questions considered in The Urgency of Considering Urgency on the Dumb Little Man blog. Time management is critical if you are going to accomplish all the small goals that add up to making your dream a reality. If you schedule your tasks by both urgency and importance, you have a better chance of finishing the tasks you need to accomplish each day, and that increases the probability that you will accomplish your major goals. I've only excerpted small parts of the article. I urge you to read The Urgency of Considering Urgency and see if you can identify ways to help you better schedule how you accomplish your goals without getting sidetracked all the time. While you're there, look around the Dumb Little Man blog. I think you'll find some good information there. Act on your dream! JD 4:39:03 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2008 John L. Dilbeck.