Built to Last: Business Longevity
In the five years so far that I’ve been doing internet marketing (mostly affiliate marketing) there have been a lot of ups and downs. If you have also been in the industry for a while you know what I’m talking about.
The digital marketing industry is incredibly volatile.
Affiliate marketing is very much a sink or swim environment. If you are not learning daily and adapting to changes to grow your business, you will get left in the dust.
This post is going to focus on what you can do to stay in the affiliate marketing business for the long haul.
Affiliate Marketing Tips: Multiple Streams of Income
First and foremost, it is crucial that any business has multiple streams of income. If you place all your chips in one basket, you are bound to come unstuck at some point.
Having a single source of revenue kills 100s of businesses each year.
The best approach to take when building multiple streams of income is to build them one at a time. If you try to build them all at once, your focus will be spread too thin and neither will work for you.
Another mistake I see people making is; while trying to build multiple streams of income they often dedicate 100% of their focus towards their new income stream, neglecting their original source of revenue.
If the second income stream doesn’t work out, they’re left with nothing.
You want to make sure you protect and continue to focus on your main venture while allocating 20% of your time & focus to build additional revenue streams.
Affiliate Marketing Tips: Staying Lean
When you start making decent money online, its very easy to lose what you’ve built. The best thing you can do is save as much money as you can.
It can be tempting to flash your cash, buying fancy cars & bottles at the club. But, if you’re serious about being in this for the long haul you need to consider your priorities.
If you’re young, in your twenties like me, there is no reason to ramp up your lifestyle too much. You need to make sure that your expenses are covered and don’t spiral out of control.
If you experience a deviation in business and your revenue dips, you must make sure that you are 100% committed and focused on regaining your revenue. Not stressing to pay the lease on the Lambo you bought impulsively.
It can be hard to stay focused on business matters, especially if you are preoccupied with worry about not being able to pay your bills.
Lay down a reasonable monthly expense limit for yourself, and make sure to stick to it.
Affiliate Marketing Tips: Be Smart When Hiring
When your business is young, you need to be careful with how you go about hiring full-time salary employees. If at all possible, it’s best to keep them on as independent contractors.
It can put you in a very tough position if you have agreed to pay someone $50k a year, and then have them sitting around if things go wrong.
The “keep it lean” mentality also applies to the early stages of your business. Unless completely necessary, avoid making any “expensive” hires. Its better to bring someone on without tons of experience who is smart, and then train them up to your standards.
Affiliate Marketing Tips: Make Smart Investments
A great way to make sure you stay afloat financially is to make investments outside of your business. Using 10% of your profit and investing it in something that you feel has the potential for massive growth.
This could be in stocks, another business venture, or a high-risk high-return vehicle like Bitcoin.
Of course, you want to do plenty of due diligence before investing in anything.
To conclude this post, one of the worst things you can do when making money online, is to assume that your current source of income is going to last forever.
I have adopted the mentality that whatever can go wrong in business will eventually go wrong. So, you must plan carefully, and structure your business in a way that sets you up for the long term.
Be smart and be well,
Tyler