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A Truly Excellent Blog Post on The Skills Every Successful Affiliate Marketer Needs (24)

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Everyone doing AM/IM should read this blog post http://www.charlesngo.com/8skills/

It is truly excellent.

There is some great advice in the post for not only beginners, but also for more experienced folks who are seeking (and struggling) to scale up their activities.

The fact is, everyone who has achieved success in this field has done so by learning a lot of skills very quickly. "No one is born knowing how to be an affiliate marketer."

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That post is epic, did you know the wealthy continue to educate themselves till death? That's something that has been proven.

There's no such thing as I know enough.

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"As you go through life, force yourself to keep learning" - Nikesh Arora

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One more thing comes to mind

Go to a 3 star resort, and take note on how many people are reading.
Then go to a 5 star exclusive premium resort, and do the same.

Which one do you think will have more people reading?

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Ha ha yes that's a good point.

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Excellent post, especially the sections on problem solving and people skills. Both are overlooked by many affiliates.

Out of interest, how much time do you guys spend on reading/learning each week? And what's your reading process? I've been using something similar to this method on Asian Efficiency try and retain more of what I read.

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Thanks Chris for sharing this and giving your nod of approval.

For reading / learning I spend around an hour a day. Ideally I'd spend 2 hours a day learning so I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze more time in.

I highly recommend carrying small headphones everywhere with your phone. On my phone I'll have audio books and podcasts ready. Whenever I'm out, I'll squeeze some learning in. Example if I'm driving for 30 minutes, I'll listen to a podcast. I had a 10 minute wait time at the bank yeseterday. Instead of checkin Facebook, I listened to a course.

It's also important to RETAIN the information. I mindmap the deep books. I also ask myself questions while reading. At the end of each book I will try to implement some action from the books.

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Not only how many people are reading, but WHAT they are reading. I have been to 3 star hotel/resorts and see more "trash rag" magazines and "non-business" reading. On the contrary, when staying at the 4/5 star resorts, you see more books specific to investing/business/money-making.

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@Dr_ngo:
I am knee deep in one of your articles from February (http://www.charlesngo.com/mobilemark...ers/)....great stuff! Thanks CN!

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I have an insane amount of respect for Charles Ngo (flew to his Singapore seminar in June).
If I ever make it in the paid-traffic-business (and I will), he will be one of the reasons.

I started reading books because of him.

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Remeber what Marty Whitman says about information: "Rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise."

I dout if reading books is one of the few variables that really count if you want to succeed..

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I'd respectfully disagree. Books offer a huge competitive advantage.

Think about it this way: you can spend an unknown amount of money making your own mistakes, or you can spend $9 on, say, "The Hard Thing About Hard Things", "Ca$hvertising", "Tested Advertising Methods" or "Lean Startup" to learn from years of other incredibly expert peoples' mistakes.

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if you need to select only 1-3 things that contribute in total 80% of your success would you enter books?


If you use the word HUGE its means books are part the 1-3 factors, while it doesnt

as the saying said only 1-3 factors cintribute the majority of impact

for me
take action
resistence
spy and improve

I am not saying you cant learn good things there, but you wil learn much more by doing, by not giveup, by see what others doing sucessfully and trying to improve,

books are not part of the critical path to success,

I think its low priority task, maybe 30 min a day and even if so, so last thing in the day


I have read tons of bussiness books, tons, there were days I was buying 7-8 books a month, so I know what I am talking about..

Again remeber what Marty Whitman says about information: "Rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise."

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http://theweek.com/article/index/248...an-get-smarter

"Warren Buffett says, "I just sit in my office and read all day."

What does that mean? He estimates that he spends 80 percent of his working day reading and thinking." - Warren Buffett

Yes, reading is huge for me. If it weren't for all the books I've read, I'd be sitting in front of a desk right now at a 9 - 5.

- Rich Dad, Poor Dad at 16 years old made me want to start my own business one day. At that point I was eager to join a company, and climb the corporate ladder.

- The 4 Hour Work Week inspired me to try to make money on the internet and travel.

- Oligivy, Tested Advertising methods, etc. made me a better marketer. Instead of copying other people's ads, I learned how the psychology of what makes people buy.

- etc.

I continue to read because it improves my ability to think and make smarter decisions. For $10 and a few hours, I can learn what took someone a lifetime to research and figure out. I don't have the time to make all the mistakes in the world.

Action is important of course, but reading a lot gives me the ability to decide on the right actions.

Anyways it's just an hour a day out of my time: I still put in time to my business, have a social life, and go to the gym. The hour I spend on reading is an amazing bang of the buck.

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Let me write it shortly:

Books are not part of the critical path to success.

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I'll correct your typo:

Books are part of the critical path to success.

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Not all books are useful, but learning from other people's mistakes and experiences (in a book or any other format) is critical to success. Or at least critical to succeeding faster.

A good book will teach you about a topic in a few hours, compared with the years the author required to gain the knowledge.

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I totall agree that learning from others action is critical part of success,

and I also dont argue that books are useless,

but I take me as live example, I ready maybe 100 business books in one year.. mm.. still not success

I started doing and listen people and stop reafing books.. still not success,

started hire people full time very cheap low to medium success

started copy and improving other people shit + no giveup + full time workers but no books hugh success.

well for me books are not critical part of success, even more it delayed my success listen and reading

you need to do, not giveup and copy and improve, everything else is secondary.

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Do we naturally internalize and shape our actions and beliefs on things that we read - even if we may not always know we are doing so?

There's a difference between reading a great book, and finding direct and clear application for that great book. Sometimes I'll read a book that makes me feel amazing and want to go out and conquer the world, but when it's all said and done I'm not sure I actually made any use of it. But maybe the applicability and life impact just isn't always so obvious.

Thoughts?

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Makes total sense..

Ie fastlane millionaire reminded me of what i already know.. offer owners are the true successes...

But cashvertising gave direct benefits..


In any case theres always some take aways that ads to my wiser pile..

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We can read books passively and not make much use of the information that our brains absorbed, you have to actively make an effort to implement what you have learned. It's like watching a amazing weight-lifting instructional video and learning everything you possible can about weight-lifting. As great as all the knowledge might be, it's only going to grow your muscles if you actually move your limbs with weights on them.

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Everyone learns differently. Some learn best from books, others from videos, mentors or simply emulating those who are already successful. I have a MBA from a prestigious university, but that doesn't make me any smarter, wiser or a better entrepreneur than guys I have met with a high school education - in many cases, quite the contrary!. There is not a singular path that leads to success and each of us entrepreneurs are unique in our approach, learning style and abilities.

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Nice write up Doc, people skills are great in this industry. Masterminds and networking, great slingshots forward!

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@snacks - yeah, there's quite an art to really learning all you can from books. For me at least, it involves incorporating deliberate practice, reflection, note-taking and reading the book quite a few times.

(That's why most of my big tutorials on STM have a lot of sections which read "right, now go and do this thing. DO not read any more until you have done the thing".

Learning COMBINED with action is 10x more effective - IMO as an educator - than doing either on their own, because you're contextualising your learning, engaging multiple learning routes from visualisation to kinasthetic memory, and a bunch of other reasons. )

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