Most likely you already know that affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to start making money online and build a full-time income online business, and that is for several reasons:
- You don’t need to create your own products
- You don’t have to deal with merchant account and payment issues
- You don’t have to deal with customer support and complaints
- No special or advanced skills required
- You don’t need stuff or employees.
- You can scale it up very fast if you focus on doing the right things.
But why most of the people fail with Affiliate Marketing?
Even though affiliate marketing business model is one of the easiest ways to build a full-time income online with potential to scale up to 6 and 7 figure income, it is surprising that most of the people who are trying to start this business are falling miserably and waste their time and money without any results!
So, what are the real reasons behind this?
There are several reasons for that! But I believe the most important reasons in my opinion and based on my long experience in this field are mindset issues! And I’ll try to list the most important once here so you can avoid them.
WARNING! Don’t underestimate the importance of mindset; it is not just as simple as being positive, motivated and ready to take action. The wrong mindset may be the main reason why you’ll never be successful in this affiliate marketing business!
Right Mindset leads to Taking the right Action, which leads to Getting desirably results
Wrong Mindset leads to Taking the Wrong Action, which leads to Getting undesirably results
But first, I want you to be honest with yourself while going through each one of them and ask yourself:
- Am I used to be falling online because of this one? If your answer is YES, then you must decided right now to avoid that reason and promise yourself that you’ll never fall in to this from now on.
By the way, those mindset issues can apply to any business, online or offline, not just for affiliate marketing.
Here are the mindset issues:
Mindset Issue #1: Desperate Mentality
I believe this is one of the most common mindset issues that will leads to absolute failure with affiliate marketing or any type of business.
Desperate mentality is getting started with a business and you believe you’ll make money very fast to cover some of your urgent needs, or you just want the money fast so you can spend it on something you want to have desperately.
But in fact, building any kind of business will take some time, patience and consistency. And if you are desperate and you expect to make $3,000 within few weeks, and doing little bit of work then that is a desperate mentality
Here’s what will happen if you are desperate:
- You’ll have unrealistic expectations and based on that you’ll will take the wrong decisions.
- You’ll look only for the easy ways not the right ways.
- You’ll fall to many shiny object offers which promise big and fast results in very short period of time because you want to make money fast.
- You’ll use your emotions not logic and common sense.
- You’ll be wasting your time and money with any progress! And that can extend to months or even years.
How to fix the desperate mentality problem?
1) Use common sense and understand that affiliate marketing and making money online is a real business and it takes time, effort and constancy to build and grow and you should accept that fact.
2) Don’t buy products or courses based on emotional decisions! Buy them if they’ll help you to do something that you really have to do or learn right now in your business.
3) If you are really in desperate situation and you need money urgently, and you should get that extra money or something really bad will happen. Then, you should find other realistic way to make extra money by:
- Find a job if you don’t already have a one
- Provide local service like dog walking, washing cars …etc
- Working overtime in your current job
- Find another job where you get better offer and higher wage.
- Cut some costs from your current spending
- Borrow money / Get a lean (not recommended unless you have no other option)
You can do any of those things to be able to cover the income shortage or use that money to get out of that desperate situation. Then, you can start your affiliate marketing business and build it gradually overtime.
Mindset Issue #2: Always Following The Easy Path
That means looking always for the easy way not the right way to do things. Easy ways are not always the right way to do in your business.
Here’s some examples for EASY but WRONG ways to do affiliate marketing:
- Spamming your affiliate links in FB groups
- Sending spam emails to people who are not in your email list
- Spamming YouTube comments with your links
Those strategies above are totally wrong to promote affiliate offers and in the long run you’ll never be able to build a real business that will produce a full-time income that way.
But still so many people are using them, not because they are effective but simply because they are very easy.
How to fix the easy path mentality issue?
Learn how to do things the right way which will help you to grow your business over time, and stay away from easy unethical and spammy ways.
Mindset Issue #3: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) & SOS (Shiny Object Syndrome)
Some gurus and unethical marketers are enticing the Fear Of Missing Out on their sales letters by telling that there are limited numbers of copies or adding a fake countdown timer on the sales pages…
…And by doing that they get lots of people to purchase their offers because they don’t want to miss out on the opportunity. Which is an emotional purchase and not logical or based on actual need for that product in the meantime.
Shiny Object Syndrome is purchasing products based on emotion as well as the sales letter copy have big unrealistic promises, attractive graphics and hype sales video.
How to fix ‘FOMO’ and ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’ mentality issues?
Really simple, just use common sense and don’t buy any product and get involved in any program unless you need it right now in your business or it can help you to grow your current project in some way.
Also you should have clear goals and action plans to achieve those goals, and don’t let anything distract you.
Ask yourself before you purchase; How this new offer is going to help me in growing my current online business?
If this product is not fitting with what you are doing right now, then most likely you should avoid it.
Mindset Issue #4: Rigid Thinking
Rigid thinking in simple words is not being able to deal with unexpected obstacles or external changes and situations. In other words you are expecting to be able to achieve your goals without facing any challenges!
Let me give you a simple example…
You purchased a good course about affiliate marketing, you get so excited about it and you started going through the course and taking action.
…At some point in the course they explained how to set up your affiliate account in specific platform, you followed the instructions and created you account.
…But when you reached the step of linking a bank account your country was not listed there! Now you are facing your first road block now you have two options:
Option 1: Refuse the take the responsibility:
- Here you may get mad and disappointed,
- Blame the course creator, the government, your family …etc.
- Just give up and quit
Option 2: Accept the responsibility and find a solution (Flexibility)
- In our example here you can see if there are option options that you can use to get paid.
- If the only option is the bank account but your country is not listed you can contact the affiliate platform support and ask them if they can add your country to their list if possible.
- If your country cannot be list also, you may think about asking somebody you know – can be your brother, sister, cousin, close friend …etc – who live in one other countries listed in the system and ask them to use their bank account to collect your commission temporary tell you find another solution and add your own account. That way you get your commission send to their bank account, and then they can send it to you through wire transfer to your own local bank account, Western Union, or any other available way.
- You can also do a research online for a way to get a bank account in other country that listed. You discovered that there are several ways to create a bank account in other country listed in the system. You spend more time reaching to learn more about them and which one is the best for you.
- If you did everything you can to solve your payment issue in that specific affiliate platform, but you couldn’t sort it out. Then you may go to another route and try to find another similar trusted affiliate platform that will have payment options that you can use.
Rigidity is not at the same level, some people may be able to get through the first 2 or 3 obstacles, but when they face more additional obstacles they decide to quit.
Other people who are more flexible and have the ability to push themselves and take action and find the solution to every obstacle and nothing will stop them from moving forward.
But if somebody is successful and they are able to go through all the obstacles it doesn’t mean they have no emotions and they never get frustrated and disappointed sometimes. But they don’t let those emotions control them to the degree where they totally quit. They use logic and common sense and they also ask for help if available.
How To Fix Rigid Thinking Mindset Issue?
- When you face any obstacle always take the responsibly and pick option #2
- Use logic and common sense not emotions
- Do your own research for solutions.
- Take your time and don’t rush.
- Ask for help from an expert or somebody in the same filed who many know more than you or they faced the same issue and found a solution.
Mindset Issue #5: Getting Used To Distraction:
Getting used to distraction while working will waste your time and effort! This is really dangerous and will kill your productivity without you even notice.
Distraction can be from the prospective of getting involved in multiple projects at the same time. and distribute your time, effort and mental focus between all of them, which will lead to very slow growth or most of the time falling in all of them!
In my opinions, I believe this is because unrealistic overestimating of your abilities which will make you feels that you can be highly successful with very little effort! And that will affect the way you do the work and take decisions.
Here’s an example of very distracted workplace:
- You are working at home in a missy living room.
- Setting on your sofa in front of your TV.
- Your kids running and playing around you.
- Checking your cell-phone new messages and facebook timeline every few minutes
…So, obviously with such workplace you should not expect to be able to do any serious work in such environment.
How To Fix Distraction Issue?
- Focus your effort on one project at the time and ignore anything that will not support your progress in that single project.
- Your workplace should be quit and away from any external distraction. If it is not possible to have such workplace in your own house, then you can somewhere else where you can totally focus and make the best use of your time. I suggest going to a coffee hope, public library or any other place where you can totally focus, and that depends on here you are in the world and what options you have.
- Shutdown your cell phone and any other distracting devices while working so you can totally focus on your work.
Mindset Issue #6: Unrealistic Expectations:
With all the hype out there and sales copies and video promising you the world and making thousands of dollars within couple month. Due to all of that most of the newbie and people who are trying to make money online are falling to those promises and tend to believe that they are possible.
Sorry, but let me brake it to you; there is no such thing as overnight success or push button today and make a full time income tomorrow. Such thing does not exist!
The fact is, building an online business will take time, effort, focus, flexibility, patience, using logic and common sense and consistency.
Also you should totally understand that results will grow exponentially Not linearly!
At the begging it is normal that you may do lots of work and effort and you may get no results at all or very little results. If you are focusing on the right things and you are consistent your business should start building momentum and at some pint will start to grow big and fast.
How to fix Unrealistic Expectations Issue?
Just be conscious and aware of the fact that things will take time and effort and you may not see any results at the beginning as results are not instantaneous and your efforts are going to build up exponentially not linearly! So, focus on doing the right things and keep pushing and do what you have to do and you should reach your goals sooner or later.
Mindset Issue #7: Unfair Comparison:
Most of the people who fail online they look at highly successful people and do unfair comparison between them and themselves based on the results they achieved! So they look down to themselves, losing their self confidence, and they feel inferior and don’t deserve success.
But the fact is, even those highly successful people are not ideal, and they may started from a position that can be much worse than where you are right now.
And they never achieved what you see now overnight. It took them years of hard work, patience and consistency. And maybe they got frustrated, overwhelmed, and went through lots of roadblocks. But they kept going and gradually overtime they reached high level of success through several years.
How to fix ‘Unfair Comparison’ Issue?
- Don’t look down to yourself if you are just getting started or even if you tried and failed before.
- Learn first then take action and don’t rush, you are not in a race.
- Forget about your competitors and top performers in your field, but learn from their experience and use that knowledge to grow to the next level.
- Focus and compete only with yourself, and work on improving your own performance and results.
- Don’t feel that it is too later for success! You can start your journey to success right now. Whatever your age or location still there is a chance to do lots of great things in your live 🙂
