We’ve all read the sales pages claiming that all we affiliate marketers have to do is churn out some sort of online content each day and we’ll get rich. Plus, we can do it in our pajamas for just a few hours a day, leaving us endless free time to enjoy life.
Heck, those pages say it’s so easy a two-year-old can do it, don’t they?
So, with that in mind, why do so many claim that affiliate marketing is hard? What makes it so difficult?
If we take the over-hyped sales pages out of the equation and bring this back to reality, most of us know that starting any new business requires much more than just showing up for a few hours and doing a couple tasks to be successful.
On the other hand, when we work for someone else to help build their business, many times just showing up is enough to get that weekly check.
Adopting The Business-Owner Mindset
There isn’t a risk when you work for someone else. Well, wait, there is one risk — the risk of losing that job. But, the overall success of that business is not on the shoulders of the employees, is it?
With affiliate marketing, our bank balance depends on the results of our actions each day. Just showing up is not enough — it is all on our shoulders.
I talk a lot about mindset. Not really from a “think it and you will achieve it” mindset, but more from an employee-mindset vs. a business-owner mindset.
So many of us are raised to get a good job and enjoy the security from someone else deciding what we’re worth each week via the number on our paycheck.
That feels safe and easy in a way, doesn’t it? Show up, get paid. Do well, get a raise.
Overcoming The Employee Mentality We Were Brought Up To Expect
But, how many of us were raised to get out there, start a business, and be 100% accountable for the bottom line?
I can tell you that I sure wasn’t raised that way. The idea of doing something so risky… so crazy… was not even a consideration.
That is why I personally found affiliate marketing to be difficult — the mindset shift. Getting things straight in my mind was very challenging for me, especially when I first started out.
Well-meaning friends and family would ask things like, “You’ve been doing this online thing for a weeks now, so why can’t you pay your bills with it yet?”
Ugh!
When you are stuck in employee-mindset mode, those types of questions are horrible and defeating… and it’s hard to handle that. Those questions lead to feelings of (dare I say it) failure and are very de-motivational. In fact, I know plenty of people who have quit affiliate marketing because they were not living up to the expectations of those around them who spoke from an employee-mindset.
Once I started reading and learning from those that lived outside the employee-mindset, things got tremendously easier for me. Sure, the learning curve is challenging and the changes online fly at me each day at an amazing rate, but that is not the hard part.
The hard part, for me, was learning to change my mindset to accept that this is what it’s like to be a business owner. That change in mindset was freeing… empowering even… and things suddenly became much easier.
What do you find to be the most difficult thing about affiliate marketing? What changes did you make to overcome it? Share in the comments below.
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