When people start affiliate marketing, they likely have just one goal in mind: to become the next affiliate superstar and to start selling products in the thousands of millions so that they can give up the day job and start travelling the world.

We hear these success stories all the time and we’re constantly told it’s possible. The problem is, that when most people try and emulate that success, they end up with a few paltry sales and a lot of time wasted and hopes dashed.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is defined as a revenue sharing relationship between advertisers or merchants and online publishers or affiliates. It is a low cost way for merchants to sell their products and services.

In this type of online business, you don’ have to take any risk because you only have to pay the affiliate once the result is achieved. Once a customer is gained, a portion of the profit from that customer will be given to the affiliate as commission. 

Usually, an affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, leads or sales to the merchant’ website. The said affiliate income can be a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage.

From this simple commission-based referral system, some affiliates become experts on this field. In fact, some of them are gaining more than five figures every month.

However, among the thousands of marketers, only 1 to 5% of them reached this level. And if you’e among the lucky ones who achieve this so-called elite level, you can now be aptly called a super affiliate.

This means you are capable of achieving noteworthy percentage of sales or traffic on your merchant’ website.

Affiliate Superstars  are not only experts on search engine optimization; they are also great in newsletter marketing, email marketing, reciprocal linkages, keyword optimization, link exchanges, advertising in forums and o ther methods to advertise and promote their products and services.

But how does a person become Affiliate Superstar?

Making your way to super affiliate stardom is not that easy; and it surely won’ happen overnight. Bear in mind that you need to embrace some tactics, carry out effective online business strategies and of course give hefty time commitment.

You can’ be an affiliate superstar without blood and sweat and without the following traits – patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Matched with efficient strategy, these three traits provide you the formula towards super affiliate stardom.

Affiliate marketing strategies are a bit difficult but they are achievable; you just have to work hard on it. First, look for a unique and exceptional niche and focus in it. The reason why most people in the affiliate marketing business don’t turn out to be very successful is that they try to offer almost everything under the sun instead of giving all their attention in a particular niche market.

If you want to become an affiliate superstar, try not to scatter all your efforts; concentrate on your niche and make it grow by means of promoting, advertising and selling it well.

The next step you must do after you have established your affiliate storehouse is to promote it. Most affiliates resort to pay-per-click engines. But what’ more advisable is to discover how to accomplish organic search results or better yet, hire a search engine marketing company. Through this, you can be saved from losing all your profits on pay-per-click engines.

It doesn’t have to be this way though. If you’re smart about it, then there’s no reason you can leapfrog the rest of the marketers and go straight to the top as a superstar affiliate!

How to Become the Next Affiliate Superstar

The Tried and Tested Formula

The first tip for doing this is to emulate the people you want to be as successful as. Find someone who you genuinely believe is making a killing from affiliate marketing and do your background checks by asking about them on Warrior Forum or just following them around the web for a bit. Are they hanging out with other big names? Are they showing signs of being ‘in the money’?

Once you’re sure, you should then sign up to their mailing list, go on their site and generally become one of their prospective customers. Instead of buying from them though, you’re just going to learn from them. What product are they selling? How are they convincing their audience to buy?

You can then lift that exact same product and exact same formula and do the same thing yourself. That’s the beautiful thing about affiliate marketing – you can use the very same formula!

Stand Out

When you start doing this though, you’ll of course be competing with all the other affiliate marketers who had the same idea (not to mention that initial superstar). The trick to succeeding is to do what they probably aren’t – by adding value. Could you give away a free e-book with your sales for instance?

Affiliate Superstar – Go Big or Scale Up

The other thing to do is scale up. Want to guarantee success? Then sell 100 affiliate products – one of them is bound to become a hit! Likewise, make sure you’re going big in terms of the amount of work you’re doing, the amount of money you’re putting in and the amount of social media you’re doing. The simple rule is that if you want to make a full-time living from an online job, you need to treat it like your full time living. One hour a month is not enough!

Why Finding the Route to Market is the Key to Affiliate Success

It is potentially possible to make big money from affiliate marketing and really it’s the closest thing there is to a ‘fool proof’ technique for making money online.

All you need to do is find a product that’s selling really well already, to emulate the techniques that others were using to sell it, and then to start selling it yourself. If it worked for them, then there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t work for you too!

So if you’re trying to sell a product and you’re not getting any takers this can be very frustrating. What are you doing wrong? How can you fix the flaw in your plan?

One common way to increase your sales immediately overnight is to find a route to market. Here we will look at what that is and why it’s often the magic ingredient in the affiliate marketing formula.

What is a Route to Market?

A route to market is essentially a method of accessing a specific demographic or audience that you are trying to sell to.

So if you have an e-book about knitting patterns, then that demographic is quite likely to be old ladies and more specifically, old ladies who enjoy knitting. If you can find a route to that market – a way to communicate with them directly – then you can make a lot of money from affiliate marketing.

Examples of Routes to Market

So in this example of the old ladies, how do you go about finding a route to market that will work?

The simple question to ask yourself is where these people hang out and spend their time – both online and in the real world.

Online you might have a few destinations. Perhaps there’s a forum somewhere where people discuss knitting?

Maybe there’s a website aimed directly at ‘knitting fans’?

In the real world, examples might be the bingo club (not to reinforce stereotypes) or perhaps a knitting magazine. If you can get your affiliate link into a knitting magazine of a circulation of 3,000 – then imagine how much money that could make for you almost overnight.

This is the power of finding a route to market and it should be an integral aspect of your plan. In fact, you should identify several routes to market before you even select which product it is you want to sell! 

Have you ever thought about creating a full or part-time source of income through the internet? Did you know you can do this without even creating your own products or owning an expensive website. You can even get paid without consumers actually having bought anything!

Affiliate Marketing is an easy way for you to make money online. You get paid to generate leads to other people’s websites, products and services.

If a visitor does a specific action on these websites, you get paid. These actions could be a customer clicking on a specific link, completing a signup form or registering for a free sample or product information.

Is Affiliate Marketing Right for Your Business?

One final word about becoming a super affiliate – always strive to provide the best for your website visitors. The best content, the best quality products and the best information.

When they trust you, like you and value your information, they’ll click on your links and make purchases.

Conclusion 

These are just few suggestions and ideas if you want to boost your affiliate income. Let me reiterate, you have to be patience, persistence and knowledgeable. Then, follow the above mentioned strategies and you’l surely find yourself on the road to super affiliate wealth.

19 Life Lessons From Apple Founder Steven Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was one of the greatest visionaries and pioneers of the 21st century. We will highlight Top 19 Life Lessons from Steve Jobs. He wasn’t an engineer, did not completed his college degree, yet he was able to turnaround the near-bankrupt Apple into the most valuable brand in the world.

He will also be remembered as a digital visionary — the man who brought poetry to the microchip. He not only transformed one industry but several others such as mobile phones, computers, and movies.

We can’t all be Steve Jobs, but we can all learn from his extraordinary life.

1. Beginners Don’t Have Baggage.

The lightness of a beginner frees up creativity.  Steve says, “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

2. Be Bold.

Life’s brief, then you’re gone.  Steve says, “Life is brief, and then you die, you know?”

3. Be What’s Next.

Don’t chase after what you missed.  Instead, figure out what the next big thing.

Steve says, “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”

4. Design By Committee Doesn’t Work.

You can’t arbitrate your way into a great design.  Take it from Jobs, “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups.

A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

5. Design Is More Than Veneer.

Design is a multi-layered thing.  It’s a lot more than just veneer.  Steve says, “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa.”

But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.

Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

6. Don’t Live Someone Else’s Life.

Live YOUR life.  Steve says, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

7. Drive To Do Great Things.

It’s your ambition, passion, and drive that will take you places you never dreamed possible.

Don’t worry about impressing others.  Impress yourself.

8. Excellence is a way of life.

Steve finds the art in life and the beauty in engineering.  He sets a higher bar.

Steve says, “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

Jobs also says, “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”

9. Obstacles are meant to be Overcome

Jobs and Wozniak ran out of money while developing the first Apple computer. Instead of giving in, Jobs sold his van and Wozniak sold his graphing calculator. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

10.  Have a Higher Purpose

Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

Jobs has turned his vision into reality since he began practicing Buddhism in the 1970’s.

11. Get out of the way for the moving force.

The ones doing the work are the moving force.  Get out of their way.

Steve says, “The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.”

12. If they fall in love with the company, everything else takes care of itself.

The real secret to taking care of the company is hiring people that fall in love with the company.

Steve says, “When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart.

But the real issue for me is, are they going to fall in love with Apple?

Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else.”

13. It better be worth it.

If you’re going to put your life force into it, then the journey has to be worth it.

Steve says, “And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”

14. It’s not the money.  It’s the impact.

Make people’s lives better.  Leave the world a better place.

Steve says, “I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.”

Jobs also says, “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

15.  Be wise in the company you choose to keep

Steve Jobs always hired and surrounded himself with great minds. He hired Steve Wozniak because he knew that he was better than Jobs in building computers. Some of the more prominent people who worked with Jobs were John Lasseter and Tim Cook. These people helped Steve Jobs to achieve massive success in making Apple the most valuable brand in the world.

You should learn to surround yourself with great people in order to achieve success. Don’t let your ego get in the way of who you choose to interact and work with.

16. Learn from the failures and keep moving forward

In 1984, Apple fired Steve Jobs. He could have chosen the option of feeling depressed about it but he took it in a positive way.

At Stanford’s 2005 commencement address, he said;

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

We should also not fear failure because it is not the end of the end. We should treat failure as an opportunity to improve oneself

17. Do only what you truly love

While addressing the students and faculty members of Stanford University, Steve Jobs said  The only thing which kept him going while facing challenges and obstacles was the fact that he was doing what he loved. He also said to find what you love both in your professional and personal life.

If we do what we truly love then we do that particular work with complete passion. We don’t make any excuses for not giving everything we have.

18. Learn from others

When Steve Jobs was in high school, he attended lectures at Hewlett-Packard. Before the age of 21, he had already worked for HP and Atari. He worked there and learned what these companies were doing and he implemented those strategies at Apple.

You too should learn from others. If you don’t see any results while working towards a certain goal, then you should take advice from the experts in that field. Sometimes, a little help is all you need to achieve success.

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs

19. Keep it simple

When the engineers were developing the iPod, Jobs insisted that there should be no buttons at all and that the only button would be the on/off one. The engineers were skeptical to say the least, but Jobs would not relent. Keeping the whole operation simple was essential to this and many other projects. In the end, the scroll wheel was developed and is still a feature of IT today. We can learn from Steve Jobs that laser focus can sharpen our minds and help us to prioritize.

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” — Steve Jobs

Are You Ready For Success?

I’ll let Jobs have the last word:

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Now you know the top 19 life lessons from Steve Jobs, so whenever you feel depressed, confused, embarrassed or have any negative feelings, only remember one thing; you are not immortal. You will be dead soon, so instead of feeling depressed make sure that you utilize every second of life.

Though Steve Jobs has passed away, his legacy will be with us forever. He was an inspiring human being who was and is respected by many.

The way he lived his life both personally and professionally is commendable and if we can learn from his teachings, then it will definitely help us in achieving success in life.

How has the life of Steve Jobs inspired you?

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Five Tips For Presenting Your Business Ideas

Presenting your ideas can be a nerve-wracking experience, but with the right approach, you can make an impact and significantly increase your chances of securing the interest of third parties.

Whether you’re pitching to a private investor, a business angel, or a lender, here are some valuable tips for presenting your business ideas effectively: