A solid foundation is vitally important to ensure long-term stability of any building. As architects of our own success and business “buildings” we need to use these same time-tested building principles to ensure the long-term success of our affiliate marketing business. Unfortunately, a large number of new affiliate marketers tend to start building the second floor first!
As silly as that sounds in “real-world” construction, it is just as silly to neglect the most important steps as we start our own affiliate marketing business and try to “get ahead”. The 5 foundational principles for a successful affiliate marketing business are mostly “mental”, and this is where the groundwork begins. These are important skills that must be embraced and utilized daily.
1) Desire is everything! Anyone who wishes to build a successful affiliate marketing business must first have a strong desire to do it. This desire must also have the capacity to expand. This strong desire can be compared to roping off a spot where the cement and concrete will eventually be poured for a building, except it has no bounds. This desire consists of the need to succeed as well as the need to grow and become better and better.
2) Next comes the work. Anyone wishing to build a successful anything, especially an affiliate marketing business, must be ready to put in a lot of time and effort. Affiliate marketing success does not happen overnight no matter what that sales letter said! This is where the twin powers of consistency and determination work together for a positive outcome. In the beginning your affiliate marketing business will not be funding itself. You will have to work to get your products out to their specific markets and much of this work will seem redundant. Keep it up for their is a point where your work will cascade and reach critical mass. The hardest part is having the patience to see it through.
3) Discipline must not only be developed but maintained and increased. An affiliate marketing business requires massive self-discipline. Staying focused on the goal at hand is sometimes the hardest thing to do since our work is being done on such a fast medium – the Internet! It is way to easy to treat an affiliate marketing business as a hobby of sorts. Set goals and achieve them at all costs no matter what gets in your way. Be a warrior! Don’t quit or slack off before you make that breakthrough.
4) Along with work and discipline comes determination. An affiliate marketing business will test your patience and resolve. One day you will feel successful and that everything is going your way. The next day could bring the complete opposite feeling. It is not the individual moments of success that make a successful affiliate marketing business, but the ability to ride the whole thing out, learn new skills and apply them to each situation where it is needed. Never rest and dwell on your successes or failures. You must persist and take what you learned from them both and apply them to new situations.
5) Lastly, there is nothing in the world that can replace a positive mental attitude. Some days you may fail to be persistent or determined. The ebb and flow of life takes its toll on us all. If you fight to keep a positive mental attitude through it all you will always have the strength and fortitude to get back into the game.
Although these skills are not the end all of how to build a successful affiliate marketing business, it is important to note that the foundational principles start within and not without. They start with a thought and that thought becomes a thing. What it becomes is totally dependent on your vision and how you view yourself carrying that vision out.
