One Year Rule and Importance of Keeping a Job

Something that I preach a lot is persistence and consistency; that is, try to avoid being put off by lack of success early on. When I first started IM (and really, up until about a year ago), I had a real hard time when it came to sticking to a product. If I didn't see a return after a couple months, I'd just move to something else.

The primary reason that I did this was because I was only doing IM. I needed money, and I needed it quickly. I wasn't sitting on enough resources to wait around for a year or whatever to see returns. I also didn't have money to reinvest into my business since I had to spend it on living expenses.

Anyway, back in September 09, I started promoting a certification as an affiliate. It was a high ticket item with a high commission rate ($800 - 30%). It was a relatively new product, so I was probably one of the first 10 mentionable affiliates for it. I started to promote this product and got some clicks here and there, but I wasn't getting enough traffic, nor was it converting as well as I hoped. After about three months with no sales, I gave up and went to pursue other things.

Yesterday, I was going through my clickbank sales and had noticed that they were on the rise. Out of curiosity, I checked my affiliate page for the certification program. I had been earning $800/month for the past four months on autopilot without doing anything for over a year.

I could have been making five to ten times that had I been consistently working on promoting this program and optimizing CTR + SEO.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to drive home is that you should always stick to a product for at least one year (to some extent, anyway.) You might regret it otherwise. You should also keep a job until you are making enough to support yourself and then some from IM. Otherwise, your business might suffer because you'll be less patient and unable to reinvest.