Well, those who were in the SWAT Traffic conference last night know I couldn’t stay on the Internet for more than thirty seconds at a time last night due to the massive storms we were having down here in these parts, so once again I have started out the day behind and am not even going to try to catch up before Traffic Exchange Live this afternoon (which, as you probably already know but just in case you don’t, is every weekday from 3-4pm EST right HERE).

So instead, something a little bit different for today…

I had seen a comment yesterday afternoon on this here (yeah, I’m Southern) very kind and humbling post of Jon Olson’s that he wrote the other day about me and how I’d worked to brand myself, and wanted to address the person’s comment, and before I knew it I’d pretty much written a blog post instead of a comment. Oops.

But in writing it, it said so much of what I would basically say to anyone just starting out, or who’d been at it a little while but struggling, that I just thought I’d post it here too and tweak it as necessary for a basic blog post.

Let me preface this by saying, too, that I sure don’t have ALL the answers or the perfect solutions. I am not the most organized person in the world, in fact really I’m a disorganized mess – but better than I once was – and I screw up sometimes or don’t do things I probably should, and I for sure, again, don’t have ALL the answers.

But that’s also why I keep going back to things like Affiliate Funnel and SWAT conference every time the doors are open (and, on a little bit more social scale, TE Live), and why I continue networking and making contacts – because I learn from or can get help from those who may also not have ALL the answers, but can likely help with certain things I need help with.

There are two things about this whole online thing. One, it’s an ONGOING learning process – there is always going to be something new to learn, or at least you have to evolve and make changes and tweak things as needed.

And two, it is ALWAYS going to take work. Maybe not as MUCH hard work and as many hours as it does in the beginning, but you’re still going to have to do the work to maintain whatever momentum and foundation you’ve built. Jon Olson is probably arguably the most successful dude in TE Land, but he’ll also be the first to tell you he (1) ain’t a millionaire and (2) it still takes work. Granted, he can probably afford to take better and longer vacations than he did seven or eight years ago, and he’s well enough off financially – but he still has to put in the work to keep his businesses going most days. As does pretty much everyone else whose names you know.

The “work” part is what puts off most people, and the next two hurdles or roadblocks that send a lot of people away are patience and persistence. Without all three, you won’t likely get anywhere. There’s no big red easy button that saves you from any and all work – not even for successful folks like Jon – and I know it took a lot of patience and persistence at just keeping at it and keeping on for Jon to get where he is now.

Which is where we all would like to be, yeah – less work, more success. But there’s just no getting around the fact you have to put in a lot – a LOT – of hard work and remain patient and keep on being persistent to get there, and remembering that while you may have to do LESS work later on when you’ve had results and are more successful – you still have to do some work.

Baby steps. I still work my buns off and constantly – I am still most definitely in that “putting in a lot of hard work and hours” stage of things.

BUT – the hard work I’ve already done has already led to good results in that I don’t have to do as MUCH work in some areas. I’ve been making jokes lately about being a “lousy surfer”, but the truth is I don’t have to surf as much anymore because of the work I’ve already put in and the upgrades I’ve been able to maintain. I can now spend that time I used to spend hours surfing 10-15 traffic exchanges a day every day doing other things. I still spend a lot of time working, yep – but a lot less in that regard, not having to surf that much anymore.

Anyway…

The comment at Jon’s blog I was led to address more or less said that it was great that I’ve been able to be successful (and I should probably clarify here that I guess I’ve been pretty successful thus far at branding myself and building the foundation of my business, but trust me, I am far from being the most successful person in TE Land – yet anyway, LOL) – but the commenter wanted to know “what about us who are just starting out”.

Many are aware of this and some others probably don’t know, but I think it’s important to note – I only REALLY just started out and actually took action on all I’d been learning and absorbing for months, years even, about five months ago (in November). Granted, I had been hanging around the traffic exchanges and reading everything I could get my hands on and going to conferences sometimes for over a year at that point, but I didn’t really take any action at all and have any focus until five months ago.

Am I rich yet? Far from it, and it’s all a very slow and steady process – which I think trips some people up, even people who have heard what Jon and Jerry Reeder and all those guys teach sometimes come to me frustrated that they are not getting the signups and commissions they think they should be, and I have to remind them how slow and steady it really is. It can be VERY slow at times.

But still, I have been able to watch my list increase and my residual affiliate landmines I have set out here and there grow (again, slow & steady) and it definitely works. If you get frustrated and forget about the patience part of things, though, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment again and again. And if you don’t keep at it through the disappointment and frustration – if you’re not persistent – then nothing’s gonna happen at all, ever.

The patience and persistence components are just so key. Sure, I get frustrated lots and think “why am I not getting signups for X” and “why aren’t people upgrading in X” and whatever.

But I also know that these days I see a lot more “you have a new referral” and “you’ve just earned a commission” notifications than I ever did before I took any real action and before I kept being persistent about those actions. And only because I kept on going, kept being persistent.

Getting yourself and keeping yourself out there will speed things up a bit and it has for me – if I was only using the basic tools I’ve used and not hanging out at TE Live, going to Affiliate Funnel almost every time the doors are open, and attending SWAT Traffic conferences almost every week, I would be a LOT further behind in my goals.

Being out there and (more importantly) staying out there has gotten me a lot further ahead than I otherwise would have been, and I’m now watching the same kinda thing happen for one of the people I have been working with and mentoring for a few months.

The biggest keys are patience, persistence and consistency and to do whatever it is you do every day, or almost. Anyone who gives up after a month, two months, three months isn’t going to get anywhere, but if you make a plan and stick to it, you’ll absolutely see results.

A lot of people skip the piece of getting out there and staying out there, or they skip the most important part, which to me is attending Affiliate Funnel conferences. I have a friend who is fairly well known “around” and even supports AF and promotes it, but has never attended a conference. Because of that, they don’t really understand the concepts AF teaches, and the (actually really good) foundation they’ve built is not living up to its full potential.

What’s working and has worked for me is pretty basic, really…

• Get your pages with your face and name out there and keep them rotating in the major TEs and your best performing TEs as much as you can, 24/7 if possible. And do it for months. If you expect major results in weeks or 30 days, you’re just setting yourself up for big disappointment. On the other hand, if you have what are realistic expectations that after two or three months of constant page and banner rotation, you’ll see good results – you will probably be 100% correct.
• Use banners – they work. Get a banner for yourself & your business out there, and also make use of things like the ones StartXchange and ThumbVu have that you can put your picture on and keep those rotating too while you’re in the process of branding yourself and getting yourself “known”. But you also really do need your own banner, and you can make one at Instant Banner Creator, AdKreator, or (even better) you can get a really nice, professionally designed one for an excellent and reasonable price from Winter Perkins at Seamless Web Solutions. Winter also offers some great packages that include splash/squeeze pages with banners and some other stuff too.
• Attend Affiliate Funnel conferences without fail and keep going back until the light bulb goes off over your head and you “get it” (and then keep going back anyway). You don’t understand this now likely, but you will. It took me about four months before I finally “got it”. Get out there to other things as you can if you can too (SWAT conference on Wednesday nights, which you need a Captain’s upgrade at SWAT Traffic to be able to attend, and TE Live) but Affiliate Funnel is the most important. And don’t be afraid to ask questions while there. AF’s also important because people will get to know you and remember you from there as well.
• The resources I used that best helped me get a good start and momentum going are right here on my blog in the “All My MUST-Have Tools” section in the sidebar, including a couple more that would have helped me even more so had they been out when I got started. Once you get familiar with and lay down a foundation with those tools, the “Awesome E-books” and “IM Resources” sections are full of things that have helped me as well. (I don’t just list those things on my blog because I have affiliate links for them, they’re there ‘cos they have all worked for me or done something to help me. Right there in the sidebar you’ve got my basic road map to what I’ve used and what’s worked for me, and anyone can do it – provided they’re willing to put in the time and hard work, and keep being persistent and patient with it.)

I also should probably mention I have not had to spend all that much money overall. I would say my basic advertising costs are zero or about 20 bucks a month – but I can’t really say that because what money I do spend, I spend on upgrades and occasional credit buys at TEs that work for me and resources that I set out as basic “affiliate landmines”. But other than upgrades and buying credits sometimes (which I don’t do that often and don’t need to for the most part because I’m upgraded at most of the TEs that perform best for me) – I don’t spend much on other advertising at all.

I could have basically still been doing it all for almost totally free, really – but that would require a lot more hours of surfing daily and upgrading has allowed me to “work smarter instead of harder” and spend the time I would have otherwise spent hours surfing on other things and more “supercharge” (using that term facetiously, but it’s not all that untrue) my efforts.

One of the other things the commenter at Jon’s said was “if it is that easy and simple…”, about the story of how I’ve been able to be more successful than I was.

It’s not easy by any means. It takes a lot of hard work and many hours to do it, but if you DO take action and do it, and are persistent and patient about it – it works. The basics like I outlined above are simple to use and follow, but it’s not easy and simple and is actually pretty time-consuming to put it all into action and, more importantly, KEEP it going. It takes work, a lot of hard work, and sometimes I feel like all I do is work – but I keep at it because I DO see results and know I will continue to. I am basically putting in all this hard work now, and constantly, with the expectations that – down the line – I won’t have to work so hard and so much.

But it’ll still take work even then, just not so much. Much like I said above about Jon, he may not have to work as hard and as many long hours as he once did – but he still has to do some work to maintain what he’s built.

There are very few things in this industry that are going to run themselves 100% on autopilot (sorry to disappoint anyone on that, but it’s true). The kind of nice thing about what we do is that we are able to set up a bunch of so-called “affiliate landmines” that kind of run themselves for you on autopilot, once you set them up (like all the stuff in all those rebranders and downline builders you see in all those e-books and other programs).

But if you’re not promoting yourself and your primary business effort and building your brand – guess what, those “autopilot affiliate landmines” probably aren’t going to see much action either. And yep, it takes work, and persistence.

There’s no way around the hard work part, and persistence and patience are just absolute musts. One or all of those three things is what puts people off or leads them to give up after a month, two, three, or four.

But if you make your plan and stick to it and keep at it – and don’t stop – you WILL see results. Slow and steady and a lot slower than some people might have the patience for, but the results WILL come.

Jon told me five months ago if I kept doing what I was doing then that I would be seeing results in six months. Five months later I’m lots farther ahead than I expected to be – with still a long way to go – but it took a ton of hard work and lots of hours for me to get there and ahead, but I was able to beat that six-month projection because all that tons of work I did got me results more quickly and I was able to get ahead of schedule.

I would be remiss in not pointing out that networking is an important piece of the whole thing too. The contacts you make solely by hanging around Affiliate Funnel conferences and the other places one can hang out are invaluable and have been a huge piece of my road map to my own success. If I’d never met John Guanzon, I wouldn’t now have Traffic Pro-X, and the relationship with John has led to other opportunities I’d never have known about nor been part of. There are lots of things I have as resources now that will likely help me continue on my path to success that I didn’t have before, solely because I have met and worked with and supported various people and program owners who hang around Affiliate Funnel, SWAT conference, TE Live. And it works both ways – consequently there are those I’ve worked with to help and mentor that will always be supported by me and will be availed of any opportunities I can give them as well.

I guess this whole online thing could be done totally by oneself without the networking piece, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. There are just so many more opportunities (some you have no idea are even out there until you’re there) and you can move ahead much more if you take the time to just hang out, network, talk with and get to know people. We’re all busy, that’s for sure – “working online” normally takes up a lot more time than any traditional job ever will – but I almost never miss TE Live, and don’t usually miss an Affiliate Funnel or SWAT conference unless I oversleep (which I’m prone to do). They’re too important of the pieces that are the reason I have made any income online today for me to miss much.

Reading blogs like mine and Jon’s, Tony Tezak’s, Jerry Reeder’s, Tim Linden’s, Jerry Iannucci’s, and so many others, can really help – I know a lot of people probably think we’ll promote anything, but I think I can speak for most in saying that we don’t promote anything that hasn’t either been beneficial to us or will be beneficial to us and others.

Like I said, my basic outline of the things that have helped me get to the early point I am today are right there in the sidebar links of my blog – it’s like a road map to what success I’ve had so far. All anyone’s got to do is add personal branding of their own to the mix (and work on that), and add attending Affiliate Funnel and getting out there and being seen and getting known, and voila. That’s my whole “secret” right there, that’s my whole road map and outline.

More than anything else, I’d really recommend folks who are just starting out or are struggling to come to Affiliate Funnel conferences. They’re twice weekly (Mondays at 8pm EST and Saturdays at noon EST), they’re free, and you can ask all the questions and get all the guidance and help you could ever want, especially at the Monday Q&A sessions. Most of the time lately it’s full of people that have been there forever and there’s not a lot going on, and those of us who are there often and the hosts would love to see folks who need and want help come take advantage of it.

This past Monday, the host was there to help and repeatedly having to ask if anyone had any questions, and a lot of us more old-timers were hanging around and there to help too, but there was no one there that really needed any on Monday. The Affiliate Funnel conferences are there to help those that need it, and they’re free, so I’d encourage anyone and everyone to take advantage of it. If you are a member of Affiliate Funnel but have never taken the time to come to any of the conferences, then most likely (like the acquaintance I mentioned above) you have no idea of the concepts that Affiliate Funnel really teaches and what it can do for you and your marketing efforts.

I’ll just end with saying I’m really not all THAT “successful” – yet. But I’m definitely getting there. It’s all out there for anyone else too, but unfortunately far too many either don’t want to do the hard work to get there, lack at being patient or persistent, or don’t take advantage of what Affiliate Funnel has to offer (or take the time to truly learn what it teaches).

Those that do those things are getting somewhere and getting results, even if they’re slow and steady – but even slow and steady is getting results, and patience and persistence is the key (as well as branding and promoting YOU, of course, lol). I don’t really have just “a business” – I AM my business. And even if you have a business (or businesses), you should be promoting YOU – constantly, persistently – and with patience, ‘cos you’re gonna need it if you’re going to get very far in the online world.

That, and a lot of hard work and keeping on working even when you don’t have to work as hard. ‘Cos as you can see below, Jon Olson does indeed have the Big Red Easy Button – but it ain’t real. All it does is say “That was easy” and make you laugh for a minute. Then you have to go back to work or – well, you’ll get nothing at all. ;)

*** Traffic Exchange Live is on UStream every weekday afternoon 3-4 pm EST ***

PS: As I was finishing up and proofreading this post, I checked my e-mail and saw that the latest issue of Hit Exchange News is just out and Jon’s not only talking about me again (*blush*, eek!, LOL) but he and I are writing along the same lines about taking action and doing things today. Honestly I didn’t pay him to write all this nice humbling stuff about me this week nor are we the same person (I’m probably over a foot shorter, 200 lbs. smaller and blonder and have more hair, for one). LOL.

Thanks, Jon – you’re a good friend, a great teacher, AND you smell good (so we hear at TE Live)!   :D

And to everyone else – if you take the time to read the things Jon says (and Tony and Jerry R. and Jerry I. and Tim and John and all those other guys) and then put those things into action, that’s a first good step in getting there. *wink*

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