One of the biggest questions we have in life is:
'How do I get better at something?'
And I think we all know the answer, but we often pussyfoot.
'What is the answer?'
I will tell you.
But first, I want to tell you a story....
A few years ago, I was surfing thru YouTube & stumbled onto a very interesting ad.
The ad was about affiliate marketing.
Apparently you could make money by promoting someone else's products.
This sounded like a massive delight, considering I had been running a stainless steel business & understood firsthand how annoying it was to have physical products.
Thought promoting someone else's work would be cake.
After seeing that ad, I spent the next few weeks researching affiliate marketing like a mad man.
Read blog posts, watched Youtube videos & even joined a 100$ a month subscription forum!
When I joined the forum, I was startled by what I saw.
There were people made posts about how they were making 10-20,000$ a day!
What the fuck?
Those numbers are insane.
These people are so lucky.
I mean they are making that kind of money by promoting a product that they didn't even create?
At that exact moment, I realized that it was time to go all in on affiliate marketing.
The beginning of a Journey
The next day, I signed up with a few affiliate networks, a few traffic sources & bought an expensive tracker to keep sight of my statistics.
Still remember the first offer that I promoted like it was yesterday.
It was an offer for a video game that helped you solved puzzles.
Selling this would be cake!
I made my own funnel from scratch talking about why the product was so damn cool, connected it with the offer & plastered it all over the traffic source!
I was just ready for the money to start pouring in.
'Well, did it??'
To my surprise.....no.
I had actually lost 500$.
But I wasn't going to give up, the journey was just getting started.
I spent the next few weeks, researching thru the forums, more YouTube videos & networking to find how to make a profitable campaign.
But each campaign I launched ended up losing more than it was making.
Time & time again, I was creating duds.
What the hell?
I thought affiliate marketing was supposed to be easy?
People were making so much money, how come I was just burning all my cash?
This was starting to get frustrating.
Time to quit?
After 6 months into my affiliate marketing journey, I had made a whopping 12 dollars and lost 6000$.
'You burned thru 6000$?'
Ya.
I was bummed out.
Heck, I decided it was time to quit.
So I did.
The next few weeks, I had gone back to my old life.
I was no longer worried about burning thru my money in a matter of minutes.
But at the back of my mind?
Affiliate marketing was still there.
Even though I had gotten back some peace since quitting, something felt off.
The peace was turning into regret.
I eventually became plagued with 'what if scenarios' & regret.
It had gotten so bad that I realized that I may have made a mistake.
3 weeks into quitting, I decided to give affiliate marketing it 1 last try.
I was going to launch 3 different campaigns and see if any of them stuck.
If it did, hooray.
If it didn't, oh well, at least I tried.
As I was building the new campaigns, something seemed much different.
I could spot the bullshit offers immediately, knew which traffic sources were a waste of time & exactly which affiliate networks to go to.
It seemed like the past 6 months had made me a database of affiliate marketing knowledge.
After a few hours, I had set up 3 campaigns.
Now it was just a matter of waiting.....
Results?
'So what happened bro??'
2 of the 3 campaigns became a hit!!
And want to know something surreal?
'Ya sure!!'
Those 2 campaigns allowed me to make ALL my lost money back AND then some.
'Wait forreal??'
Yes!!
It seemed like the months & months of failures had just melted away overnight.
The burned money was a thing of the past.
But most importantly?
I felt fulfilled.
The Moral of The Story
There were a few lessons that I learned from that experience.
And it was that:
- Competency is stemmed from exposure (the answer to the question I promised you in the beginning of this email)
- You can take a break, but you must never quit.
If you want to be competent at something, you just have to keep doing again & again. There is no magic pill for success.
I went into affiliate marketing thinking that I was going to be making 20,000$ a day with ease.
But in reality? There were days I wanted to pull my hair out!
You just need to keep at it.
Next, it would have been very easy to quit.
But the feeling of regret was just not worth it.
That experience showed me that taking a breather & coming back with a clear eye may be enough to turn the entire experience around.
Next time you want to quit, just stop and take a breather.
Get out of your head & tune into your body. After a few days rest session, you'll feel a sense of clarity that will allow you to go back at it with a renewed spirit.
You'll be competent at your craft if you keep these 2 points in mind.
Now quit pussyfooting and get to work!
For more stories to help break your limiting beliefs, follow me on steemit @hustlehacker
Every week, I will be discussing the powerful soft skills that will have you reshaping your mindset & skyrocketing your competency: