Affaholic

We all know how lucrative affiliate marketing can be. We hear stories all the time of big time affiliates splurging on sports cars and diamond encrusted watches.

While these stories are sometimes true, the fact is that affiliate marketing can be volatile when you’re starting off, and the affiliates that made it were smart enough to hedge their risks and reinvest what they’ve earned.

Here are some of the lessons I learned on how to not lose it all in this business:

Don’t Start Living Extravagantly After Your First Big Paycheck

I can personally relate to the potential instability of this business, because in late 2010 I hit my biggest campaign ever. I was driving thousands of dollars in leads per day and felt like I was on top of the world.

I made some moves, that in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have, but in that instance almost anyone making such a sudden surge in income would do the same.

I decided to move to Miami and pay a ridiculous amount in rent, and it seemed fine back then. When the campaign finally died, reality suddenly hit that I wasn’t going to be making maintaining that income consistently.

By the middle of 2011, I was almost down to nothing after paying taxes and taking a decent hit on a Facebook fan page experiment. So the lesson here is to keep an eye on the bigger picture when you start making a significant amount of money.

Don’t Build Your Business on Someone Else’s Platform

Another way to almost lose it all is to invest in building something on a platform that you don’t own. I found a way to grow Facebook fan pages to a 100,000 fans in just a few days, all while paying 4-5 cents per click.

I got so caught up in seeing thousands of fans liking my page and instantly getting hundreds of likes and comments every time I made a status update, that I lost sight of the fact that I ultimately didn’t own the page. I had put in $10,000 building it up and only reaped back $2,500 before Facebook decided to wipe out the page.

It was a tough loss to digest, mainly because it was clear that I had invested into something that I didn’t control.

Reinvest Everything into Your Business

So, what should you be doing instead? You should be taking almost everything you earn and reinvesting it into your business. This could mean anything from hiring virtual assistants, to buying a more powerful computer set up, to investing in a better quality office chair.

The more you put into your business, the more it’s going to give back to you in long term returns. Do not splurge when you’re starting off, but put every penny you can back into your company to make a long-term, stable business.

Rohail Rizvi is a full-time CPA affiliate marketer and blogs about the industry at www.RohailRizvi.com.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 18 here – http://issuu.com/affiliatesummit/docs/feedfront-18

FeedFront issue 18 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2012/4

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