Back when I was a “wet behind the ears” newbie I thought that all super affiliates had an incredible lifestyle. Then as I met more and more affiliates and learned more about the business I realized that NOT all super affiliates are living anything resembling the super affiliate style I often talk about.
Why is that?
There’s actually several reason:
#1 WORKAHOLIC
It’s great being passionate about your business, but some affiliates take it to the next level. They fill every waking hour of their time working on their affiliate business. They ALWAYS make sure to keep themselves EXTREMELY busy and stressed out.
You know the type of people I’m talking about.
Honestly, I’ve been guilty of this in the past.
Why do people fall into this trap? I think there’s 2 (and possibly more) underlying reason:
- They’re trying to fill an emotional void by keeping themselves busy.
- At a subconscious level, they feel guilty over working very little and making lots of money. So they work 14 hours a day to feel that they’ve “earned it”!
#2 FEAR
Ever had the fear that one day you’ll wake up and all your affiliate income will be gone? As irrational as it seems, this is what drives some super affiliates to overwork themselves. They feel if they don’t keep expanding their business, it will collapse like a house of cards.
Now, what if your business IS a “house of cards”?
#3 YOUR BUSINESS MODEL
I think this is the biggest reason many super affiliates have gotten themselves in a rut. Their entire business model is based on pumping out as many affiliate offers as they can to keep their income up, before the offers they launched several months to a year back dry up.
I call this the affiliate opportunity seeker, who’s always looking for a fast way to make a quick buck.
The problem with this strategy is that you’re like a hamster on a wheel, you have to keep going and going, and ultimately in the end you haven’t accomplished anything because you don’t have a real asset.
I’m focused on promoting 1 to 2 quality long term high volume affiliate offers per year, and building an entire site around the niche. We’ll invest a good 6 months into building up the ppc campaign, and have a team continue to build up the content and natural search engine traffic on the site on a weekly basis.
I’ll make money from these affiliate offers for years to come.
#4 POOR TIME MANAGEMENT
Without saying, if you’re poor at managing your time then you’ll end up working 14 hr a day just to get anything done.
Frittering away too much time checking email, “analyzing” your stats every 10 minutes, and complaining about how ‘the world isn’t fair’ on forums will KILL your productivity.
So stop being stupid and start focusing on completing income producing activities FIRST before you waste your time with non productive time killers.
So if you’re already free from your job and a super affiliate then START LIVING YOUR DREAM ALREADY!
Do you even remember why you started doing affiliate marketing in the first place?
Amit,
You totally just described me. Guilty of all 4. I’m trying to switch over to a long term business model but it’s tough.
I just hate to think I’m letting opportunities pass by if I focus heavily on one or two niches and develop for the long term.
very educational post amit. lot of good points made
Interesting points.
I think not every super affiliate wants the “super affiliate” tag too.
Depends on how the branding fits into your business system.
Insightful post.
One reason I would add is to excitement maintenance – when you set up a several SA businesses there is lots of new learning and excitement associated with building. When you have a SA running more or less smoothly you have less new learning and less drama. Often we try to get this back by creating false dramas causing one to over invest time.
You should see what I’ve just posted on my blog. It’s all about me getting stupidly stressed out and now I arrive here and read this!!
ARRGGHHH, I need an emergency airlift. Send in the overwork police.
What makes you think it is possible to last forever as a PPC Affiliate? Google will keep squeezing the profit margins with their Quality Score algo & its better to work hard now and reap the fruits of success later on.
E.g. Your Quality Score is Great today, but if you dont serve a purpose in the Google system besides having an affiliate link, your bids are going to get jacked up over time.
Please dont tell me your “quality content” will save you from this effect. Most PPC affiliates just throw up content for the GoogleBot and the content is usually not of much use , if it underwent a manual review.
In the end, I think only merchants will be able to survive
in this arena due to their higher profit margins.
Amit,
Great post! I agree totally. The key is a good mix or organic and growing your site… that way you aren’t relying on PPC 100%.
Peter
I’ve always loved your blog for also living the lifestyle. A lot of people don’t realize (until times get though) how good it is to chill, hang back and be free with your time. I think this beats any amount of money. But if you combine this with the money your making, you’re truly living the life!
Still I admit, I can’t go a day without working one hour. And I don’t consider it a negative aspect. As a business owner I’m ultimately responsible for what’s going in my business and the jobs of my employee’s. So I think that you need to always be up to date o what’s going on in your business.
Great points!
I think this is very true and has a lot of good nuggets of information.
-Jon Fisher
Thanks for this!