Did I Mention Action?

This game is all about taking action. There are a million things you could do, but you can’t worry about all of that. You can only do what you can with what you’ve got at the moment, so you just have to get in there and make something happen — then adjust as you go, add to it as you go, expand your arsenal as you go.

More important than trying to line everything up perfectly is to simply MOVE. Not next week, not next month — but TODAY. On something, some tangible part of your plan in getting actual campaigns running (and improving the ones you’re already watching).

I tend to analyze stuff to death before getting around to actually doing anything with it. I go through all the courses, I buy all of the software, I watch all of the videos. I make endless lists and plans. But in the end, the only way to actually move forward is to dive in and start learning by doing.

A certain amount of study is essential, unavoidable even. But after a point, action becomes the key to making real progress. Exponential progress. Because by getting in there and doing it, you are going to learn so much faster, and you are going to have real-world feedback. You’re not watching videos anymore; you’re watching real dollars moving through the mechanisms you have put in place.

And that’s where the excitement is.

Action!

Everything comes down to action. In this business, if it’s about anything, it’s about taking action every day — real action that moves you forward.

First you have to drive yourself through the learning curve, and as quickly as possible you need to get up and running, putting real campaigns together, learning the ropes.

I realized right away that behind all of the serious success stories in the CPA marketing world were about 100 campaigns … just flat out kicking through about 100 campaigns. It’s going to take that in order to figure out how it’s done, and you have to expect to take that long. Otherwise you are going to quit. But go into it expecting to hammer out 100 campaigns before you really get the hang of it, and you will be able to build up your skill set in such a way that you will be able to start turning 3 or 4 out of every 10 campaigns into a winner.

Once you have some campaigns bringing in money, you move into the ramp-up phase: Test, track, tweak. Continuously.

And throughout, you hold yourself to the goal of maintaining a 50% margin on all of your campaigns, and you make sure you are diversifying, putting no more than 20% of your eggs in one basket.

In the end, it all comes down to taking action. You will never build the winning campaigns unless you are willing to persist and fight your way through those first 100. You have to refuse to quit. Just do the small things every day, build up your skills, find the offers that convert and launch campaigns around them, drop the ones that aren’t working, and continue to improve on the winners. If you persist, you will reach a point where you have a portfolio of winners, and that’s the real goal.

But it starts with focused effort. Daily, actionable objectives — hammered out. Day in, day out. Over time.

Making it happen

In listening to the success stories in this industry, a few things come up again and again, and they would seem to be central to making something really serious happen in CPA marketing.

 

1.) The ones who made it reached a point where they decided they must hold themselves to a higher standard and demand more of themselves than in the past.  Your old habits got you where you are; if you want something greater, you need to step up and start conducting yourself by a higher standard.

 

2.) The ones who made it learned to focus on CPA marketing, and stopped that endless procession of new schemes, new methods, new approaches.  There are a thousand different ways to earn money online.  But if you are going to try chasing them all, you will never get anywhere with any of them.  You have to focus and stick to your set course.

 

3.) The ones who made it learned to concentrate their efforts and take massive, productive action. It’s too easy to slip into spending hours on end noodling around in the forums or in reading about some new whiz-bang method.  Instead, you need to concentrate on executing productive tasks that are actually creating real results.

 

4.) The ones who made it committed themselves to succeeding no matter what: they harnessed the power of Persistence. You have to expect it to take time and effort.  You have to expect to run through a lot of campaigns initially while you are learning the ropes and mastering the various software tools and learning to write strong ads and build landing pages that convert.  You need to go into it all expecting to roll out 100 campaigns before you begin to make real money, but knowing that once you learn how to do this stuff you will never have to worry about money again …

 

5.) The ones who made it realized that they could make more money, faster, by developing strong relationships with their affiliate managers and asking them for their advice on what offers are converting and which they think will last at least six months or longer.  Put your effort into known winners that will keep earning money for you over time.

The Inner Game

I’m going to spend some time here on this site talking a bit about the inner mental game of success as well.  I’ve been studying the best of the best (Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Todd Duncan, et. al.) for many years.  And it has paid off in my life richly.

Now and then I will hop on here and post some ideas and suggestions for getting your mind ramped up for success, your self-concept built to accept real wealth in your life.  These entries will be either under the tab “Inner Game” up in the navigation bar, or in the posts categorized “Inner Game.”

Because let’s face it, in the end, success really is an inner game.  The biggest challenge you are facing is in those six inches between your ears.  To paraphrase Tony Robbins, the only thing keeping you from what you want in life is that incredibly powerful (though often whacked-out) blending of your Beliefs and whatever stories you are telling yourself in your head.

If you can get your head straight, you can get your life straight. If you can get out of your own way, in your head, you can make something substantial and important happen in your life.