In this short article, I wanted to share with you the single biggest reason I failed affiliate marketing multiple times and how this lesson can help you to avoid similar pain and disappointment.
Indeed, there were many other reasons that I can attribute to my failure but after thinking for a period of time, if I can think of only one biggest reason that had contributed to my failure again and again, then it would help me to understand how I can nail it and stop repeating the same mistake over and over again.
You see, I started affiliate marketing about five years ago back in 2015. Back then, the technology was not very advanced and it was very difficult to learn by yourself through the internet. You need to pay to those so called “gurus” in order to learn from them and most of the time the fees are very expensive.
And then there were also many scammers out there which was why Google decided to step in to change its algorithms and killed so many affiliate websites almost overnight.
Nowadays, you can learn almost literally anything on the internet, especially on YouTube for free. Information is quite accessible and almost available online. And this has brought another set of problems.
Single Biggest Reason I Failed
Instant gratification is the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment without delay or deferment. Basically, it’s when you want it; and you want it now. It the opposite of what we’ve been taught and try too hard to practice — delayed gratification.
But like many new affiliate marketers or newbies who are trying to make money online, the most common problem is that we want to see the results very quickly.
We will look for ways that will give us the fastest results or programs that promise us that all it takes is a simple 3 steps or 5 steps process, copy and paste and get instant cash with a simple push button.
For the first 3 years doing affiliate marketing, I was looking for such programs. I got scammed buying programs after programs (I believed I bought over more than 40 online programs) and I burnt away close to about $60,000 of my hard-earned savings.
It was all because I was looking for that quickest way to make money and thinking that affiliate marketing was as simple as how the ‘gurus’ portray it to be in their smooth and cheesy pitches.
Because of the desire of instant gratification, we cannot accept the long and tedious process that we need to put in the time and effort to learn and understand the basics and proper execution of good affiliate marketing.
Let me give you an example, if you think of affiliate marketing as simply promoting and making sales by placing your affiliate links all over the place, then you will eventually fail. But if you have the right mindset of affiliate marketing as providing solutions to people’s problems, then you can go much further first by adding value to solve their problems.
Why 95% of Affiliate Marketers Fail
But today, despite all the changes and advancement in technology, more and more people still fail in affiliate marketing. Statistics in Warrior Forum indicated that 95% of affiliate marketers fail. And then a survey conducted in March 2017 showed only 0.6% of affiliate marketers had been in the game since 2013.
So what was the most common reason that these people failed? I spend some time on research and typed the keywords “statistics people fail in affiliate marketing”.
Incredibly, I found the answer or the reason, which appeared to be on the top of Google results, to be similar to what I had established based on my failures prior to this research for the single biggest reason I failed. I was very surprised when I saw this result.
It showed people failed because most of them are impatient. This is a very important fact.
I really hope you can take some time to understand this finding or insight which I am sharing with you. It may sound very simple but I am letting you know why almost 95% of the people fail because of this reason, the very same reason and the single biggest reason I failed myself. It is not about the technical or the tools.
I want you to be the other 5% of people who will succeed because you understand it takes time to provide real value to help people. The focus is about adding value and not about making money. The money will come when you offer something of value in exchange of the money.
It took me a long time to understand this simple yet so powerful concept.
As I realized this fact back about a year and a half ago, I took the time to learn all about affiliate marketing. It took me about 6 months to fully understand the proper ways and business models to make money online.
And because of this attitude –patience and delayed gratification, which I took so long to adopt, has yielded me some amazing results recently. And most importantly, I feel I have so much more control over my business which is something you really want to have.
Stop Looking For Easy Way Out
In closing, my advice for you is not to find an easy way out or the fastest way out. Stop trying to look out for such kind of programs. Of course, if you are just thinking of making a few bucks here and there just to earn some passive income, then it is probably fine.
However, if you are thinking of starting a real online business and you are willing to put in some time and effort to build it gradually, and most importantly, with lots of patience, I can guarantee you will succeed one day. It is just a matter of time.
But instead of wasting time trying to look for easy ways to make money online, why not give yourself a 6 months period (if you are still holding on to your 9-to-5 job) to really learn all about affiliate marketing in the proper way.
So if you are really interested to start your journey, I recommend that you check out this amazing affiliate training program, the Gold Masterclass, which is a step-by-step, click-by-click, based training. It is also the same exact training which I had attended that had truly transformed my online business.
