Three Reasons Why I’m An Affiliate Marketer

September 3, 2008 by Jon
Filed under Articles, Everything Else

An endeavor without a clear mission and objective is bound to fail. If you don’t have a mission or an objective driving your affiliate marketing efforts, then you’re more likely to spin in circles and never accomplish anything great. A mission statement is crucial to your online success!

Do you have a mission statement? Do you clearly know “why” you’re an affiliate marketer?

Once you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it is easier to make all of those critical decisions such as:

What task should I work on next?
Will I benefit from that software, or that training resource?
Which affiliate programs should I promote?

Those are just some examples, but I hope you can see how those questions cannot be effectively answered without a clear mission statement driving your efforts.

Your Mission Statement Is Not A Goal

Please note that a mission statement is not a goal. Your goals are based on your mission statement, and are different and separate. Here’s an example:

Your mission statement might state that you want to earn a full time living from affiliate marketing.
A goal based on that mission statement might be to earn $4,000 per month from affiliate marketing.

Can you see the difference? You can even change your goal without changing the mission statement.

Now I understand that the term “mission statement” sounds like something a non-profit organization should have. It seems a bit overkill for the single affiliate marketer… especially if you’re working at this part-time. However trust me when I say it’s still important to have this defined.

So let me explain a way you can easily create your own mission statement. The way to do it is to list out the “reasons” why you are an affiliate marketer. As I just mentioned, don’t list out goals (like “I want to earn this much per month”), but instead list out the reasons why you would need that money. Perhaps it’s financial freedom, or to pay off bills, or to travel to Europe… whatever the “reason” is that you’re an affiliate marketer is your mission statement.

My Personal Reasons

Here are three reasons why I’m an affiliate marketer:

Earn enough money to eliminate debt. This one seems obvious, but it needs to be listed. Notice that I don’t want to be rich, or have a lot of toys. I just want to get out of debt and stay out of debt. If I can accomplish that in my life, I’ll truly have wealth and I will have financial freedom.
Have a productive hobby. This might sound corny, but we all need to have distractions from the stresses of life. We all need hobbies. Well affiliate marketing is my hobby, and it definitely is a stress reliever for me. The gravy is that I can earn a handsome profit from it too!
Help others. One of my overall missions in life in general is to be helpful to others. Affiliate marketing can be a way to do that.

So how do my personal “reasons” for being an affiliate marketer help to guide me, keeping me on track and make critical decisions?

Here Are Some Examples

Since one of my “reasons” is to get out of debt, I can easily calculate how much debt I have, and in how many months or years I want it to be at zero. Then I can figure out how much affiliate income I’ll need to make each month, and set goals accordingly. Also when I’m thinking about investing money for new software tools or training resources, I can weigh the potential benefits of those tools or resources against my ultimate mission of eliminating debt.
Another “reason” is to have a relaxing hobby. Therefore, if I’m working on a campaign or project that is stressing me out, it is easier for me to let it go. A personal example of this is when I gave up my directory submission service. While it was a big money maker for me, it caused a lot of stress due to the deadlines it imposed on me. I don’t want my affiliate marketing efforts to take away from family time, but directory submissions were doing just that, so I stopped doing it.
The third “reason” I listed was helping others. So when I am evaluating an affiliate product or program, I can evaluate if the product is really worthwhile. Will people really benefit and be helped by the product? I can also find common problems that people have, and target my affiliate campaigns in a way that provides these people with solutions to them. That way the customers are being helped, and I’m rewarded for helping them with affiliate commissions. If a program seems shady or sub-par, it’s easy for me to justify passing on it, because it doesn’t align with the reason I do this.

Conclusion

I could probably write a book full of examples of how having a mission statement (”reasons”) is key to success, but the examples listed here will have to do.