Partha is in The Scorpion's Den!

byDianeScorpio

18.3K followers

Updated 3 years ago

So, welcome to my new series, where I question WA members on their background, their success and ask them for top tips. This is meant to be encouraging, motivating, and entertaining!

My first special guest is a man I am proud to call a friend, the legendary Partha! Affectionately known as "The Prince", he is renowned for his epic blog posts, full of valuable, if somewhat controversial, advice.

As "a man of few words", he took the task to heart and answered my questions in an honest, and sometimes moving, way. This is a long read, so kick off your shoes, grab your favourite beverage, and let's see what Partha had to say!

Shall we start with a little bit of background about yourself? Family, job, where you live, hobbies, etc? Nothing too personal, of course. Just whatever you feel comfortable sharing.

Hello, I'm Partha, but I guess you knew that already.

I'm an only child (but once you know me that probably makes a lot of sense. My late parents couldn't cope with another one of me, in fact, I've heard that my dad tried to give me back at the hospital and requested a refund).

I'm married with two children, a girl aged 15 (going on 28), and a boy aged 12. I have an older son from a previous relationship.

I've lived my entire life in the North-West suburbs of London, but I guess I've spent a good 2-3 years outside the country on various holidays and generally travelling.

My background is in Finance, more specifically corporate Banking.

How did you get started in affiliate marketing? What led you to this path?

I left the banking industry in January 2008 (yes, literally a couple of months before the worldwide recession - we knew it was coming).

I started working online in 2009 and two of the first programs I ever purchased were by the Rich Jerk (many years later to be revealed as Kelly Felix, someone who I spoke with regularly on Internet Marketing forums, but I still never knew it was him!!), and also Travis Sago's Bum Marketing.

Much of the material was based around article marketing and using article directories to rank.

I read, I understood, I followed through, and what do you, it worked.

I guess I was earning between $2,000 - $6,000 per month within the space of about 9 months and onwards (things were very different back then).

How long have you been at WA?

I initially joined Wealthy Affiliate in 2010 through another favourite marketer of mine, Ryan Moran.

Ryan was a US College student who I believe started online at around the same time as Kyle, and by the time he introduced me to Wealthy Affiliate he was closing in on 7 figures annually.

I stuck with WA for around 6 months, but more so for what I was learning from the platform, as opposed to building my own site.

Towards the end of 2010, I was offered a few writing gigs, two of which were extremely lucrative and long-term.

I've never viewed myself as a writer, but I guess others saw something in me that I never did.

A funny story - the main person I was writing for wanted to create an authority financial website, which is now extremely well-known.

He wanted to produce informational ebooks around every finance product imaginable, and these are still available online.

I wrote these.

However, I used to work under a pen name, and the 18 months I worked with this guy, he only ever knew me by my pen name.

He never knew my real name, he never met me, or even saw a picture of me online.

Hahaha.

We formed a close online friendship, and it got to the stage that I just felt it had gone on too long to own up.

I'm glad he never decided to meet up with me. I would've had a lot of explaining to do.

Eventually, some of my online publications were picked up by a UK-based insurance company.

After speaking with them over a period of months they asked if I would be willing to create and run training courses for their call centres in India.

This involved visiting the call centres 4 times a year, for 2-3 weeks at a time.

My 3 months of work each produced a decent annual income, so I jumped at the chance I(although, I hadn't taken into consideration the additional time and research that was required to create these training courses, but I still came out of it quite well).

In 2014 my life changed dramatically, as both my parents, who had battled long-term illnesses, became extremely unwell.

I eventually moved back into the home that I was born and grew up in to become their full-time carer.

What followed was the most difficult 15 months of my life.

I missed my wife, I missed my kids, although we saw each other daily.

Plus, I watched my parents deteriorate in front of my eyes.

I had always been exceptionally close to my parents, especially my mum.

In fact, I am an extremely affectionate person anyway, and I still used to play with my mum's face (yes, I'm a face toucher) and kiss her and cuddle her every single day.

My dad simply had me playing with his big ears.

But, I loved it, and I'm pretty sure they did.

This did break the monotony of having to bathe, dress, feed, wipe their backsides, etc.

No parent ever wants their child to do that for them, but I will say it makes you form an unbreakable bond.

They passed away within a few months of each other, and to say that it completely devasted me is an understatement.

If I'm honest, I don't think I've ever cried over either death properly because I'm scared of what it will do to me (and those around me).

I took a few years out, just to be a husband and a dad, and that helped me immensely.

I got involved online again in 2018.

I purchased a website in October 2018 and another in March 2019.

I still own and run these sites today, but everything is completely outsourced.

I joined WA again in March 2020 (on the exact day that the UK officially went into lockdown).

I wanted to create my own websites, where I initially did all the work myself.

Admittedly, I didn't know as much as I first thought when I started.

The knowledge was there, but I didn't really know how to apply it myself.

I'm very good at telling others how to do things, but not so great at it myself, Hahaha.

However, my confidence grew as the months went by, and as always I did whatever it took to increase and improve my learning and understanding of things.

I would say that I have now produced a successful website in its first year, and I want to continue working on this.

I can tell this will probably be the most successful website I have ever owned, and I did it all myself (so, I'm a little bit proud).

What is the most useful thing you have learned here?

Hmmm, that's a difficult one.

I think it's more to do with what I've learned about myself rather than anything from the actual training or platform.

I set fairly high standards for myself, and I've always expected the same of others.

And more often than not I do find myself getting impatient with much of what I see and read on the platform.

But, slowly but surely, I'm learning to be more understanding of others.

Don't get me wrong, I still have days when I shake my head in disbelief, but I realise that this says more about me than it does about other people.

So, I've actually spent more of my time in 2021 trying to help others the best I can.

I don't actually do this in a public way, but I'm sure there are many here who can attest to the fact that I've given them many hours of my time in private.

I'm learning more and more that happiness in life actually comes from giving.

What would you change about WA?

Oh my!!

You really are trying to get me booted off the platform aren't you Diane? Hahaha.

Look, I'm never going to be as gushing about WA as the vast majority are.

The training is decent, and it will certainly get someone up and running if they have absolutely no experience whatsoever.

That said, what worked yesteryear may not work today.

I know for a fact that Kyle himself will know that in years gone by you could go publish an article on an article directory, keyword stuff the hell out of that article, pay for a few thousand backlinks to be thrown at it, and you would rank number one for a one or two-word keyword phrase.

This could quite easily produce 10,000 views a day, and a bucketful of sales.

I'm sure Kyle is too honest a person to ever have done this, but I certainly wasn't.

However, times change.

One year in internet marketing is the equivalent of about 10 years in real life.

So, the training could do with quite an overhaul in my opinion.

Something else that bothers me, but I try my best to fight it internally is the number of "little wins" on the platform that have little significance.

I understand they were created in a way to help newcomers feel they are moving in the right direction.

But in truth, I also feel that they lead many people astray.

The internal ranking system, indexing emails, site health, to name a few.

Pretty much everyone who has approached me for help has been told in no uncertain terms that they need to have the right mentality for this.

The vast majority of people came here to make their living and not earn just $100 or $500 a month (yes, I understand that is a start and you should be proud of yourself for achieving this. But, I often read that newcomers want to make a new life for themselves, to live the dream, etc.).

This is ALL completely possible, and well beyond your wildest dreams, but this does depend on your own mentality.

I shall say no more before Kyle asks me to take my hosting elsewhere, Haha.

Would you say you were successful in your affiliate marketing career?

I've had some great successes, but the bulk of my income has come from copywriting, ghostwriting, online and offline training, CPA, and Display Ads.

In fact, my affiliate earnings over the years pale into insignificance.

What is your number one tip for newbies?

Hmm, being successful involves being boring until you've "made it".

I've spoken previously of finding the one thing that will drive your business forward and then spending 90% of your time doing it.

The Wealthy Affiliate business model is based around blogging, so writing articles.

Trust me, there are over one thousand other ways to make money online, many of which don't involve writing a damn thing.

However, you have chosen Wealthy Affiliate as your new home.

This involves writing.

So, spend 90% of your time doing it.

If you want to be a social media influencer then spend 90% of your time doing that.

If you want to build the next Amazon then spend 90% of your time doing that.

You have currently chosen the Wealthy Affiliate business model, i.e. blogging.

So, spend 90% of your time doing that.

Don't worry about what your site looks like, and spending 10 hours a day on the platform, or on social media, or making videos, or sorting out your email marketing.

Yes, these are all important factors in online marketing.

But you can be successful without any of them.

(Jack of all Trades, Master of None)

I write and publish every single day.

It's boring (in terms of the doing the same thing over-and-over again, but I actually love doing it), and it works.

All this other stuff I outsource (yes, I know I said I was going to do it all myself, but, well, you know).

Stop moaning, start writing.

Pick your favorite blog post that you have written.

And finally (yes the end is in sight), my favourite blog post that I've written.

Oh good, yet another way to get myself booted off the platform, LOL.

Hmmm... probably not the one you would actually think.

It's probably the blog post I wrote with Shannon in mind.

I had to do some additional research and learn a little about her niche.

Plus, it allowed me to go through my entire process from keyword research to topic research and structuring an article.

And the whole time I imagined her happy, little cheeky face (good ole Wonky Donkey). My Formula to Rank No.1 On Google (Even More Revealed) And that's me done.

Apologies for taking up so much of your time.

I'm sure you were just looking for a quick few sentences as answers.

But this is me, what were you expecting?

Until next time...
I hope you enjoyed Episode 1 of The Scorpion's Den. Join me again soon to discover who will be my next special guest. Are YOU brave enough to enter the den and bare your soul? Who would you like to see interviewed? Can you think of other questions you would like me to ask? Keep on rocking!