WA Super Affiliate Challenge - Heading Into Phase 2

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Hi Folks

SAC Phase 1 Gone Phase 2 Just Begun

I'll start with a resumee of what I achieved and didn't achieve in Phase 1 and the huge benefit I got out of it, even though I did not manage to complete all the tasks.

I didn't start Phase 1 until close on the end of April due to family committments, so this left me 3 and a bit weeks out of the 6 to get everything done. Needless to say, I didn't manage it but on reflection I was 'above average' in some areas.

  • Out of a target of 12 articles on my site, I completed 8. In 3 weeks that equates to 16 articles over the full period in terms of my rate or writing.
  • Out of a target of 12,000 words I wrote just under 16,000. Averaging that out for the full 6 weeks of the period that's the equivalent of around 30,000 words - so I crushed that one!
  • 5 out of a target of 6 posts on my WA blog equates to 10 over the 6 week period.

I decided to trash my original site and build a new one, effectively making my first day in the SAC my new 'Day 1' at Wealthy Affiliate. I came up with a catchy domain name thenakedaffiliate.com and designed a logo in Canva which I'm quite proud of, even if I do say so myself. If you want to visit the site and leave me a few comments on my posts I'd be very grateful and more than happy to return the favour.

I learned how to properly use Site Content and I have to say I'm well and truly converted. Having done all my articles on my old site in MS Word and copied and pasted them straight into Wordpress, I was massively impressed by the utility and versatility of Site Content not just for ease of creating content but for populating it with optimized quality images and for setting writing goals.

I became an active Commenter and have a 100% approval rating so far.

I didn't manage to spend anywhere near the time I wanted to - and should have done - in Live Chat helping people out, but I did answer a few questions that came up within the Community.

The greatest benefit I got from it all, however, is the new habit that I've formed of being persistent and consistent in my work here at Wealthy Affiliate. I've done as much in the past 3 weeks as I've done in the whole of the 2 and a bit years I've been here.

I've spent much of that time in the Top 200, despite having acquired relatively little technical expertise. This was due to my interaction on people's blog posts, which although valuable in itself, is not training and is not income generating. During Phase 1, my rank actually dropped to 97 at one point and I'm now a lot more comfortable with it than I was before!

I've learned valuable lessons - the hard way - on time and activity management, such as researching my keywords, creating captivating titles based on them, and writing the articles as separate tasks rather than trying to do each bit on an article by article basis which takes far more time and leaves your brain frazzled by the time you come to actually write and publish your article!

Phase 1 has been as much about learning how to organize myself and work efficiently as doing the actual training itself. All the training so far as I can see is derived from the Bootcamp and Online Entrepreneur Certification courses, but the SAC comes with specific deadlines.

I believe that one of the biggest causes of drop out from Wealthy Affiliate is that, like me, people don't work through the training at a regular pace with a realistic timescale for completion in place. With SAC, although it's not a 'Pass or Fail' dependent on completing all the designated tasks, there is the accountability that is needed to ensure consistent effort and application.

For my fellow SAC students who didn't get everything done, you're not the only one! Phase 1 has been, in that respect, a trial run for the following phases. We know what to expect now and will be able to organize ourselves better and maybe even gain the time to do a little catching up on what we've missed so that at some point in the course we'll be fully up to date and what we should have done so far.

For those thinking about SAC for next year, my advice is GO FOR IT! You will get far more value from it than just the training. You'll get focused, you'll get busy and you'll start to get results far more quicklly I believe than simply following the Bootcamp, OEC - or both - at your own pace if you're someone like me who gets easily sidetracked.

Look forward to keeping you up to date on Phase 2. Have a great WA day, folks!

Cheers

Rich 😃

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Recent Comments

32

Congratulations! You are doing a great job!

Thanks. Wishing you much success too :-)
Cheers
Rich

That is correct sir.

We are all in that together and we will make it together too.

Cheers.

Absolutely we will!
Cheers
Rich :-)

Great Job so far Richard. You have a great point around people's expectations and the timescales that go with that.

Nothing should be taken for granted. All the best

John

Thanks, John. We can pile too much pressure on ourselves when it comes to deadlines. What matters at the end of the day is best personal effort, whatever that may be.
Cheers
Rich :-)

Congratulations Rich. You are doing great. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
The point you made about completing the training on a regular time schedule hits home to me and I think it would help anyone to become more successful in a short time.
Thanks again for sharing.
Ray

It definitely will, Ray. The trick is for the deadlines we give ourselves to be realistic. We need to be honest with ourselves about whether we genuinely can't do something in time or whether we're just shifting things to the right to provide ourselves with excuses. I've been guilty of that in the past, by I've got a renewed sense of purpose now.
Cheers
Rich :-)

Thanks for sharing this, just keep going as long as you learn and improve throughout the process.

You hit the nail on the head. Strive for progress, not perfection.
Cheers
Rich :-)

Rich, well done mate, did manage it but only just, have just had a sneak at phase two to my amazement am doing things right regarding my content arrangements.
Like you learning a lot, but this time am planning the entire seven weeks first. Also launched a new website just for SAC.
Take care,
Stuart

Planning is key, Stuart, and Kyle's point about arranging our content really hit home with me. See you in the Mess in Vegas. Per Adua Ad Astra!
Cheers
Rich :-)

Awesome!

Wish you all the with all your SAC endeavors!

Bob

Thanks, Bob. Wishing you much success too!
Cheers
Rich :-)

Thanks for sharing your experience in this post and look forward to reading your updates.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I look forward to hearing of your success too :-)
Cheers
Rich

Hey Rich, off to Phase 2! I, too, had some setbacks in Phase 1, but, like your banner says on this post, we can do whatever we put our mind to! We continue to learn as we go. Great progress!

Cris

Absolutely, Chris. It's not so much achieving all the targets, it's the improvement we gain by working towards them that is key. Wishing you well in the Challenge :-)
Cheers
Rich

Hi Rich, I too learned a lot in month 1. Most importantly was time management and organization. I pushed like crazy in the last week and I think it shows in my posts. I got all 12 done, but, I'm not pleased with them overall.

New month, new attitude!

Cal

Time Management is key, Cal, and the point Kyle makes about how we should structure our content writing in the intro to Phase 2 really resonated with me. I've fallen in to the trap of trying to have my content perfect before I publish it, but a good point was made by someone in the Community recently - I can't remember who sadly - that when we go back in to our content and make amendments, etc, the search engines see it as new content and it helps our rankings. So, maybe it's better that it's not necessarily to our own liking first time around. We're writing for our readers, not ourselves after all.

Cheers
Rich :-)

Hi Rich, yeah, I'm trying to get through the new month 2 video...keep getting interrupted. I agree, write it, get it out there and tweak it later.

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