I’ve noticed and experienced something over the past couple of weeks
that may be of interest to you if you’ve been trying to make
affiliate marketing work for you.

It has to do with the concept of “work ethic” but it will
have a profound effect on your productivity, motivation
and success if you follow these steps.

But why should you read this post in the first place?

If you have tried affiliate marketing, and it’s not working for you…

If you are frustrated about not getting enough traffic to your site…

If you tend to jump back and forth from one “system” to another,
one offer to another, or between different niches…

If you are spending way too much time in front of your computer
and have no income results to show for it…

If you feel overwhelmed by information, directions, stuff to learn,
and the weekly flavor of internet marketing fads…

…then you may get surprising results when you apply what
I’m about to share with you.

You are not treating Affiliate Marketing as a business!

If you are facing any of the above challenges (and a bunch of others too)
you are NOT treating your affiliate marketing efforts as a business.

And that’s all!

To understand  I mean by that, let’s look at some characteristics of a business.

A business is when you have certain tasks assigned to people
who are executing them.

A business is when you have a plan that outlines your business mission.

Including what value your business provides, who your ideal customer is,
and how you go about getting the value to the ideal customer.

And that would include a marketing plan, a follow up plan,
a fulfillment plan, and a customer service plan.

And each of these plans have a set of tasks that fully describe how
that plan is executed.

And each task has a process map that tells whoever is assigned that task
what to do.

What to do first, what to do next, and what to do after that.

And then, each of these tasks can be assigned to a specific person or group
who will be responsible for its execution.

And in return that person or group will get paid.

Do you have any of that in place for you Affiliate Marketing?

If you’re with me so far, ask yourself – honestly – do you
have any of these business staples in place for your
Affiliate Marketing (or whatever else you are doing to make
money on the internet?)

If you don’t then the entire chain of events that ends in
someone getting paid is not going to happen.

Yeah, you may get lucky and make a few sales here and there,
but you will never create the success that you’re dreaming about.

The example of affiliate marketing is actually so much EASIER
than any other way of making money on the internet.

Because all you need is a marketing plan and possibly a follow-up plan
(if you want to build your own list while affiliate marketing which I
would very much encourage you to do).

You still need to define your value proposition though, and
identify your ideal customer.

So there you have it – 3 tasks:

1. Define the value proposition or purpose of your business

2. Find your ideal customer and learn all about them

3. Create Marketing Plan

Now we get to the “work ethic” part of this blog post.

Because now that yo’ve identified these tasks – who is going to do them?

You think you can get them from another eBook or hi-ticket
study course?

You think anyone will do them for you for a reasobnable amount
of pay?

You think it takes anything to do them that you don’t have or know already right now?

You still with me?

Then the answer is: YOU!

These are the fundamental tasks in building your business that
YOU will have to do.

You and you alone can do them in a way that makes sense
for your business.

Therefore: Treat these 3 tasks like a JOB right now so you get them done!

Imagine that someone outside of yourself had HIRED you to
perform these 3 tasks within the next 7 days.

Pretend like you had actually received a retainer fee of $x to
get them done on time (you can enter any amount here that
makes you feel good about yourself when you do this JOB.)

Commit to doing these tasks, because that’s how you get
good at anything you want.

Phew, pretty long post… now go make some money!

(…and let me know how it goes with this!)

Without any warning, on a beautiful late summer afternoon, we lost electric power at our house yesterday, and my home office was affected as well, of course.

After checking to make sure I had in fact
paid the electricity bill, I called down to the local
coffee shop to find out if the outage had taken out
my “outside office” as well.

Between hopes of getting power restored soon,
and being just too lazy to get myself to get out of the house,
I ended up grabbing a note pad and pen, and resorted
to a shady area by the pool to…

…do some brainstorming work – without my computer!

Of course, I felt at first as if the main part of my brain had been
amputated or switched off.

But after a moment of doodleing, my ideas began to
take shape, and I wrote several pages of plans, strategies,
and step-by-step actions that I will need to take to
make my ideas realities.

At the end I worked for only a couple of hours, but I felt that
this were the most productive 2 hours I had worked for a long time.

And furthermore, I made the resolution to schedule at least one hour per day
of creative work without computer. I will keep you posted under the category “productivity”.

Try it yourself sometime, and let me know how it goes for you!