Here's Why You Shouldn't Quit
I have gotten some sales emails recently and, I don't know about you, but I like to keep those so I can look back and see how the hard work has paid off! So I decided to organize my emails and create a separate folder for affiliate sales.
(I had a general affiliate folder with a bunch of stuff in it.)
And what I saw when I was cleaning my folder out really shocked me.
I had emails and emails and emails of payment notifications from 2010-2011. Most of them were from Squidoo. (Anyone remember the good ol' days of Squidoo??)
Here's a small snippet:
I had sales from something called Datafeedr. I had Amazon payments. A payment from something called Biogetica. I even had a picture of my first check from Google! I still remember my first check from Clickbank too. I copied it and put it in a frame. :)
I LOVED affiliate marketing back then as much as I love it now. Yet, somehow I thought I wasn't good enough at it to keep going.
Even though I was having some success, I still quit.
WHAT WAS I THINKING??
I'm just writing this up because I know some of you are thinking of quitting right now. If you really aren't enjoying this, then I understand it might not be right for you. You should find something that you really enjoy. (Although, it could be a matter of switching niches.)
But if you LOVE it like I did, but just didn't have faith in yourself, then learn from my mistake.
I could be so much farther ahead right now. I can't even fathom how far ahead I'd be if I had stuck with it.
I wasn't bringing in the big bucks back then, but it was enough to see I should have kept going.
Please don't be like me. Don't be a quitter. It just wastes your time and your money.
Just keep going!
- Christina
Recent Comments
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I hear you Christina. I'm sticking to my 2hrs weeknights and 3hrs each day at the weekend. I'm producing content and a site at a slow rate but am enjoying the challenge. It's not making a penny yet though, still only on "hanging fruit" section. What's "Squidoo" and others you mention above?
It takes time. Google won't even look at your site for a few months, so just keep producing content until they start to let you in.
Squidoo was this content site. They had these pages called "lenses". You could write an article in a lens and they would rank very well.
- Christina
A great post, Christina.
I certainly remember those Squidoo days. I was sorry when Squidoo ended, as were hundreds or thousands of others.
There's one thing for sure, I won't be quitting Wealthy Affiliate. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if WA was not available.
I'm glad you remember Squidoo, too! Those were fun times. :)
WA BETTER not ever get shut down or close up for some reason! lol
- Christina
YUP, sure remember Squidoo lol.
I received some of those payments too, along with Commission Junction and Amazon commissions from fancy dress costumes and artificial Xmas trees/outdoor decorations sales.
Those lenses absolutely crushed it in Google during the holidays, especially during Black Friday weekend which pulled in 500 visitors/day just from one lens. :)
Squidoo was super fun and profitable every Oct - Dec UNTIL Google pulled the plug. :(
Affiliate marketing was actually easy back then lol.
I didn't realize how darn easy it was back then. Squidoo was the absolute BEST. But i get why Google pulled the plug. It was FULL of scammy lenses. lol
Oh well.
Now we have to do it the hard way, but I still think it's fun.
- Christina
You could get a lens published and would rank at the top of Google very quickly, even without much content lol.
But agree, some were using Squidoo for crap. It's worse today more than ever.
Yup, using WordPress is so much better, we have more control. I don't see Google dropping WP anytime soon either. :)
Squidoo is technically still around as HubPages right? I never see any HubPages ranking though...
Those were fun times. Spin some articles, rank some Squidoos and you had it made!
- Christina
Yeah, think hubpages bought out Squiddo but haven't seen it in search engines either.
It seems Medium, Tumblr and Reddit are the big players these days.
Neilio :)
I haven't seen Medium? I'll have to check that one out. I like to go to Reddit sometimes, but the people there are so negative that I usually can't stay there long.
- Christina
Hi Christina,
I see they are all dated 2011 and you joined WA in 2009. Does that mean you have only got serious again more recently? How long have you been back working at it again properly and how is it going?
I think sometimes we need a turning point or an awakening to get us going again and you appear to have had that.
Good luck and I hope you are seeing good success now.
Cheers,
Richard
You got it exactly, Richard. I've ALWAYS had an interest in affiliate marketing as soon as I heard about it. I joined WA in 2009 and gave it up (maybe twice???).
I came back at the end of 2017, and I'm not giving up EVER again. lol.
It's going really well now! :)
- Christina
That's good. Now you can learn from my mistake and keep going instead of stopping and starting and stopping and starting again...
- Christina
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What if Thomas Edison had quit. Can you imagined the number of oil lamps we would need. No computers, etc.
We must press on!
To your success, Christina!
EXACTLY! He went through thousands of iterations until he got it. And thankfully he did!!
- Christina
Edison said he learned 9,999 ways not to make a lightbulb. If we learn from our mistakes, we will eventually be successful.
Edison had such a great attitude about all of his "failures".
- Christina