How To Apply The Concept Of "Never Quitting" To Your Internet Affiliate Marketing Business

It was Napoleon Hill who wrote (on page 151 of Think And Grow Rich) that "a quitter never wins - and - a winner never quits".

Those are words that should be pinned up above every Internet affiliate marketer's computer screen. The fact is that the vast majority of people who try to make money with affiliate marketing on the Internet, fail. Not only do they fail, but they fail miserably and then they quit.

A significant portion of these quitters are serial quitters. They try one affiliate program after another, and when each one proves a little more difficult than was first promised, they give up and move on to a new one.

This is clearly not a recipe for affiliate marketing success on the Internet. One of the key qualities that is needed to make money online, or anywhere else for that matter, is persistence. Napoleon Hill dedicated a whole chapter of "Think And Grow Rich" to persistence, and he said that "the basis of persistence is the power of will".

So, is it always wrong to quit?

Certainly not.

So was Napoleon Hill wrong to say that a winner never quits?

No, he wasn't.

The point is that a winner never quits in the pursuit of his ultimate goal, which is the end that he is pursuing. However, in pursuing that end, he will adopt various different means, but he will only stick with those means that prove most effective in getting him where he wants to go. He will quit doing anything that does not advance him towards his ultimate goal.

When he was a boy, Ruben Gonzalez had a dream of taking part in the Olympic Games. He was a soccer player in school, but never made it beyond the second eleven. This was not in spite of persistent effort. In fact, it was only by persistent effort that he got into the second eleven at all since he was not naturally skillful at the sport.

Ruben knew that he would never get to the Olympics playing soccer. His strength was not athletic skill, but persistence, as he had proved to himself as a soccer player.

Ruben therefore "quit" soccer and went in search of a sport where his strong quality of persistence would be an advantage. This led him to take up the luge. As I write this article, Ruben, now in his mid-40s, is training to participate in his fourth Winter Olympics as a "luger" for the Argentinian team.

As Ruben says, "Don't mistake the vehicle for the dream."

Ruben "quit" soccer to become a luger - but not a loser!

It is the same with Internet affiliate marketing. While it is true that the high attrition rate in affiliate marketing is due to the fact that most people quit too early, there are also occasions when it makes sense to drop an affiliate program that is not working.

Of course, it is important to research affiliate programs, the company behind them, and the people who set up the company before you commit yourself to marketing the products and services offered by the program. It is also important that you study and apply the techniques of Internet affiliate marketing to your own promotional efforts.

If you have done all that, and are still failing to get results, then you should certainly drop the program and find one that works better for you.

One vital aspect of affiliate marketing is list building. As your list grows, you will be able to market your products by sending out information to your list members. As your list grows, it makes sense to start promoting a whole range of affiliate products so that you can generate repeat sales. This will give you a great opportunity to test the effectiveness of various affiliate products. Those that sell well and generate good profits will be the ones that you will want to focus on promoting harder.

Remember, you are (or should be) in affiliate marketing because you think it is the most effective, enjoyable or convenient way for you to achieve greater goals. Don't be afraid to drop any program that does not get you closer to your goals. Affiliate programs are vehicles, not dreams, so don't be afraid to "quit" promoting an affiliate program that is not working; but never quit on your dreams.