I’m back from an my Alaskan Cruise with my wife. All I have to say is WOW, what an awesome vacation.
In fact it’s the BEST vacation Shilpi and I have ever been on. I’ll be posting more about it in the coming week, but for now I want to talk about a very unique experience I had while I was in Icy Strait Point, Alaska.
I had an opportunity to go on the longest and highest zip line in the world!
Just to give you an idea of what zip lining is all about, here’s a video someone else took going down the Icy Strait Point zip line, check it out…
Now at this point you either think I’m completely out out my mind from going on something like this, or you think it’s the coolest thing in the world! LOL
Just to give you an idea how scary this is, it’s a 1300 ft vertical drop and you accelerate up to a speed of 60 miles/hr.
Not for the faint of heart.
Now if I told you that I wasn’t scared to death before I was release to take my 1300 foot plunge, I would be lying to you.
It all started with a 45 minute bus ride up the mountain. I kept thinking to myself, “This is TOO high, when are we going to stop. We’re still going up!?!”
Then the moment came, it was my turn up, “How did I talk myself into this, this is INSANE!” I thought to myself.
My heart was pounding, my palms where sweaty. I was scared, REALLY scared! I looked down the mountain, and I got even MORE SCARED!
I mean I’ve been on some wild roller coasters in the past, but I never been this frightened. It’s that fact you’re dropping 1300 that got to me. Damn, you’re really really high up.
I braced myself as they hit the big red button and released me.
And you know what, it was a very peaceful ride. Nothing terrifying, not even remotely scary.
All you feel is the wind in your face and a view & experience that’s absolutely priceless!
All my fears about zip lining were completely bogus, and such is the case in most things in life. That is, most of the fears that you often experience are bogus and unfounded.
Don’t get me wrong, fear is a very real thing. It can absolutely paralyze you.
Fear is the BIGGEST barrier that keeps most affiliates in the minor leagues, separating them from batting in the major leagues with the super affiliates.
Here are two major fears that may be holding YOU back:
Fear of Failure:
When I first started out in affiliate marketing I had one failed campaign after another, a total of 16 or so before I started making money.
It’s very discouraging, but I kept going because I knew that I was learning something and moving forward with every failure.
And that’s the attitude you need to have. Failure is a part of success, a stepping stone.
Just talk to any super affiliate and ask them how many failed campaigns they’ve launched over the years.
Countless.
Fear of failure can often stop people from optimizing a new campaign, or worst keep them from even starting a campaign. I see this all the time with friends and family I’ve tried to teach this business to. They either are too scared to start anything or have a little bit of initial success that fizzles away, but then they are too scared to continue pursuing affiliate marketing.
Fear of Losing Money:
This is a big factor that stops a lot of newbie affiliates dead in their tracks. There are people who lose sleep over spending $10/day on pay per click!
Seriously.
Moreover, we’ve all heard horror stories of people losing $1000s on Adwords without a cent in return. But honestly these are irresponsible (stupid if you ask me) people who didn’t take the time to learn how to use Adwords properly.
I mean, come on, you can set a daily budget.
Here’s what I did when I started out, I set out a specific amount of money to test a campaign.
Say $25 or even $50 per campaign.
Nowadays, I’ll drop $1000s testing and tweaking an campaign before I’m in the black, but that’s not how I started out.
Here’s another idea, set out $200, $500, or even $1000 (depending on your commitment level) to get your affiliate marketing business started. Go to your bank and start a DBA account for your business and transfer you startr up capital into there.
Treat affiliate marketing like a real business. Understand that you’re investing in your future, and NOT just spending money. This will really help you overcome the fear of losing money.
The Truth about Overcoming Your Fears…
The best way to overcome your fears is to face them, take consistent action with the right attitude. Overtime you’ll discover your fears were nothing more than an invisible barrier keeping you from achieving success.
Good post esp about the investment portion.
It reminds of the the times I’d buy blocks of tech and semicon stocks in $6,000 or $10,000 quantities in 2000, till they blew up in the dotcom bust.
For a while, I was hesistant to spend $500 or $1,000 on Internet marketing materials which would bring me to the next level.
The biggest failure for new Internet marketers and new business owners is not investing enough in their knowledge and intellectual property assets to be able to run their business well.
You do need to balance the risk-reward ratio well.
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The analogy is like putting your all your cash into a savings account or a fixed deposit/time deposit. Sure all your money is safe, but inflation is going to outpace whatever 4% or 5% interest you’d be getting…so you can either choose to die a long, slow death, or get cracking, take action, spending and possibly lose a number of bucks along the way and move closer towards the life you wanna make.
No guts, no glory!
Thanks Amit for putting things in perspective. I’m dealing with the budget issue now. I’m doing the $10-20 a day right now, wish it could be more. I’m buying the books from Jemery Palmer and Perry marshal and Others. Trying to commit to learning, learning and testing as much as I am able with my budget. I have to say if it weren’t for your upbeat posts and the desire to give my family something more, I would have quit already. Its hard, thanks for making it easier.
Amit,
Say you have $50 to test an offer. You set it up and let it run for 200 clicks or so with no leads. Is it time to scrap it or just try a different landing page, etc? I’ve found that changing just an image on a landing page can have a big difference but I cant afford letting my campaigns run for 200 clicks every time I change something. what would you suggest?
That’s AWESOME Amit!!! Yeah, it’s always freaky doing things like that, I’ve been sky diving a couple times, and the first time I went it was so exhilarating and REALLY SCARY, however, just like you mention once you get over your fear you realize all that worry was for nothing. The second time I went sky diving it wasn’t so bad at all. I am gonna do that zip line! You’ll have to let me know where it’s at, I put that on my goal list.
Excellent Post!
wow, that zip line video makes me want to visit Alaska. very cool!
Hi David,
The $50 budget is what I recommend for a complete newbie at affiliate marketing. Obvious if you know the ropes and know how to make a offer convert it worth spending much more testing.
I will spend $1000 testing and optimizing an offer. This is fairly typical for experienced ppc affiliates.
Sincerely,
Amit
Miles and Amit are spot on…I went skydiving and I had built it up so much in mind to be the most frightening thing in the world and once I did it I was like, “that’s it! That wasn’t so bad at all.” Actually now I think roller coasters are more scary than skydiving.
Don’t get me wrong it was awesome, but sometimes we build things up so much in our minds that the reality doesn’t even compare to perception.
Great post, Amit.
Feel the fear and do it anyway…. If you sit around dwelling on negative things, the fear becomes bigger and stronger, keeping you from moving forward.
I am at that point right now where I am feeling so overwhelmed with all of the information that I can’t even decide where to begin!!!So I have been doing nothing for the past two weeks….This was a good post, very motivating!!Somebody, anybody, what would be the basics? I have a niche, have signed up with a company as an affiliate and have decided to create a content filled landing page. What inexpensive company would you recommend for me to build a page and is one page enough?
Thanks…is that the type of question that is for a forum or can i ask any questions here?
Thanks again,
Now I am at the point, I see where those people who bashed, why they bashed you. Dude you sound like a person trying to sell something.. no offence, I know you got something BIG cooking and your giving it away by talking like that. I just lost the feel of you being a SUPER affiliate. Sorry but that’s how you sound..