Is affiliate marketing any more stressful than building a regular, physical business? Let me help you get this straight for you – affiliate marketing IS a physical business… you’ve got your storefront (your landing pages), stock and inventory (offers), a supplier (affiliate network), and employees (designers, copy writers, programmers, etc). Put simply, it is as stressful as any other business you can be in.
I was there while my father was building his restaurant up. It was hard… stressful – very much so. He’d come home and talk to me about budgeting and how he couldn’t take a paycheck just to pay employees on time (testing your affiliate offers, you usually break even or go bust). We’d go over how expensive some items were getting to produce (click costs, any one?) and we might have to bump the cost of our sandwiches (it was a Roly Poly franchise place). We never got the place profitable over about 2 – 3 years, so we had to let it go (offer died out, traffic too saturated, competion moved in, etc).
There are no easy, stress-less ways to make money. I know millionaires that get stressed when they lose a couple thousand testing a campaign. What differentiates a good marketer from a great affiliate marketer is ones ability to see through their stress, find a solution, and turn things around. Whether it be stock investment, real estate, brick-and-mortar shops, or affiliate marketer, we all deal with a ton of stress on a nearly daily basis.
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I see I must have gotten your gears turning last night ^.^
Nice to hear some honesty in the industry; seems to be too much sugar coated BS around. Most seem to tell you by next Thursday you will be pulling in your first 10k.
Although I am no Internet Marketer these are still some pretty interesting reads :)
I don't really think you can compare landing pages to a storefront, the price different is phenomenal. Not to mention depending on the business there are other products and expenses. AM ftw.
Point of the post was to let people know, whom are coming from investment, physical storefront business owners or those that have no internet marketing experience, that Affiliate marketing is just as stressful as the rest.
I don't think anyone was questioning the fact that AM has a lower start up cost.
Cost can attribute to stress though, however, most getting in to IM aren't usually those with the 50k+ investment it might start to open your own store. I remember putting my first $100 down was the most stressful decision I've made, although it payed off, I might have blown it all and never gone back to affiliate marketing.
yup i find it stressful.will all the product drops..highly recommend a punching bag.. to release that stress. you will have better focus..
It's stressful when affiliate networks don't pay on time and u may need that check to keep a roof over your head.
Hmmm…interesting.
Gotta agree on all the sugar coating BS!
To get a little deep here though:
Have you ever noticed that stress only exists
when you're thinking about what 'might' happen?
It usually only rears it's head right before you take
action and then right after you're finished too.
It's a purely mental battle that creates all the stress.
Not the taking action. Ever.
Also, all the things we worry about only happen
roughly 1 – 7% of the time in reality right?
Richard Branson will experience the same amount
of stress dropping $100 million on a project as I do
buying a nice new shiny gadget. It's all relative to our
tolerance level.
Also, when we're in a good mood, we feel less stress
than when we're in a bad mood.
So by this thread of logic, stress is optional to a large
degree. How much exactly? No one knows. All I know is
it's largely a choice and we can practice feeling it less
and less.
I highly recommend Sedona Method for that. Nuclear shit!
Good comment this. Thinking about all the crap that COULD happen will only actually make it more likely to happen. The things we focus on, we make.
This is more interesting. None of these headaches: full-time employees, inventory and open on nights/weekends (where owner is needed).
Affiliate marketers are better off.
As I have written before there are a lot of similarities between affiliate marketing and the financial field (ie: managing money). I think the ability to manage risk (defined as "uncertainty") and more specifically relative risk/reward — is key in both fields. The better you manage risk in the financial field, through hedging, cutting losses short, letting profits run, not chasing/throwing good money after bad etc… — applying those ideas to the context of affiliate marketing can help manage stress (and $$$$$)….
~JOHN
Stress in Aff Marketing? Hell ya!
Go on vacation with all your traffic running, see what happens. It always does.
Stress for me right now is Windows 7. I about put my fist through my computer yesterday. All I wanted to do once open 1 dumb spreadsheet. Too much to ask for Win7…5 reboots later, my PC finally comes back up. But that was about it for productivity that day. Oh well…
I'm seriously focusing more on email marketing this year. Though not a solution to stress with offers…at least I have a little more control in my court that normally just flingin traffic around.
I look at starting every single campaign/site as starting a whole new business. As opposed the restaurant also being one business.
Most small businesses fail. Just like most of our campaigns fail. The entrepreneurs that make it in small business fail again and again but keep starting over. However they test their 'offer' for 2-3 years (like your dad's restaurant) and some never get to that winning campaign, they just run out of time. We can test a 'business' in a night, if it fails we move on. Even a large site takes several months, if you're on the seo side of things, but you can 'test' a few at the same time – each of my affiliate/review sites is just like a brink and mortar store.
Thats why I see online marketing as the best entrepreneural opportunity ever – get through the failures fast, keep trying, keep opening new 'small businesses', diversify, find the winners.
As for the stress – use that energy to get shit done!
I find it stressful how little good honest info is available on PPC. If you start a real world business there are a billion books to buy on amazon, but not for making some bank with an offer on facebook. Some days I feel like I need a torch to see through the darkness.
lol i love the picture :P, its not that stressful if you can manage ur time.