How to Go From Total Newbie Affiliate to $100,000/Month Overnight

Colleen Barrett Quote - More Bricklayers Less Architects

OK, OK, the title of this blog post is a bit misleading. The reality is that going from total newbie affiliate to six-figures in a month is almost impossible. And I’m not even going to attempt to show you how to do it. But I will show you what you need to do to succeed.

Are you an architect or a bricklayer?

It’s OK if you don’t understand the question just yet…you will in a moment.

From Newbie to $100K a Month?

Recently I received an interesting email from an affiliate promoting one of the launches we were running. I tried my best to reply in detail and help this person, but in the back of my mind I wondered if it would really help.

What he wanted to know was how to go from being a newbie to being a $100,000/month affiliate. Of course, we all want to know that, right?

What he failed to understand is that just like any other business, most people don’t jump directly from a newbie to a $100,000/month affiliate. They make $1,000/month, $5,000/month, $20,000/month, and so on.

This person wanted to know the plan. He wanted a complete roadmap to success in affiliate marketing. He didn’t want to know how to get from Point A to Point B. He wanted to know how to get from Point A to Point Z overnight.

But that’s not how affiliate marketing works. That’s not how any business works.

Marketing TMI

This affiliate had a list of approximately 20 questions. He had all the best intentions in the world. He reads all the blogs, gets all the newsletters, and probably reads all of the forums. But, what I often fear with affiliates like this is that he will fail to act.

As the great German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said:

Knowing is not enough; we must apply!

I see many affiliates who suffer from the proverbial “paralysis by analysis” and it is unfortunate because these affiliates really do have a thirst for knowledge and a desire to achieve. But, too often they live by fear. Fear of failure, fear of losing money, and often a fear of missing out on the latest trend or tip that will make them an instant millionaire.

All the while, they are missing out on doing. They are failing to act—actually working on their site and ads, building content, and testing.

They are architects and not bricklayers…ah yes, back to that.

Colleen Barrett, the longtime executive assistant for Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher, once said:

When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.

So, I’ll ask you again: Are you an architect or a bricklayer?

It’s OK to be a little of both. The world needs architects, but at the end of the day if you aren’t doing something with all that information, it’s useless.

The key to success in online marketing, as in anything, is to take action.

Try stuff. Break stuff. Learn from it. Take more action. Rinse and repeat.

I know it can be hard to take action when you don’t know where to start. A good place to start is by knowing what offers to promote. That’s why I have two free resources for you:

Click here to be the first to know about all of our upcoming affiliate launches.

Click here to get our ‘Should I Promote This?’ Scorecard. It will help you decide what to promote and what to skip.

Limit Your To-Do List

When I am asked for advice on marketing our launches, I usually limit my suggestions to 3-5 major ones based on the affiliate’s areas of expertise and I always end with this simple piece of advice:

Be sure your to-do list is no more than five items long.

Don’t allow your to-do list to become a mountain of tasks that are impossible to attempt, much less accomplish. It’s the number one reason I see so many well-intentioned and hard-working affiliates fail.

Leave a spot on your to-do list open for new ideas, too. If you read of a new idea and want to try it, try it! Don’t let it sit too long.

The marketing world, and particularly the affiliate world, is full of ideas: weird ideas, revolutionary ideas, and plenty of “why did I not think of that?” ideas. Many of them succeed. Still many others fail miserably. The only way to truly know what works and what doesn’t is to take action and risk failure.

Let me be clear, there is a time for planning and brainstorming and certainly researching. There is a time to be an architect. But Mrs. Barrett is right when it comes to affiliate marketing, we need more bricklayers.

What are you waiting for? Be a bricklayer—take action now!

Are you more of an architect or a bricklayer?