4 Things I Learned Before Hitting One Million Dollars (30)
It has been over two years since I joined the forum and about a year since I threw myself full time into affiliate marketing.
Without a doubt the last one has been the most exciting and intense, with a lot of effort and results that led to hitting the magical seven-figures by the end of last summer.
This is a screenshot from one of our trackers.
STM has been a great support from the beginning of my journey and the place to meet some amazing people with whom I can share this success today.
Here are a few lessons I learned along the way that hopefully help some of you in your own path to this milestone and beyond.
Find Something That Drives You, No Matter What
Affiliate marketing is not easy and will get harder and more competitive. You will get slapped in the face, many times.
Servers will crash, that lander you spent so much work on will not bring you any conversions, your winning angle will get ripped before you find the funds to scale. Offers will die just when you are in the sweet spot. Shit will happen constantly.
The only way for you to go through that and feed from every single failure towards success is to have something bigger than you that drives you. Your reason for doing this all must keep pushing you regardless of how many problems you face.
I was bankrupt when I started with affiliate marketing. My previous company crashed and left me with a big hole in my pockets. I literally sold my car to finance my first campaigns. In that situation many would advice me to just go get a stable job and not risk it with something like affiliate marketing.
But I had seen the numbers you can make in this game, and I had a big why.
Find Your Edge
Or more like: let your edge find you. Once you find the way to fuel yourself through the obstacles and take massive action, your edge, that special set of skills / knowledge that only you have, will start showing up to help you along the way.
Maybe you are persistent where others quit, or good with analytics or the technical side of things. Perhaps you know how to build good relationships with people. Maybe you are just lazy and that keeps you motivated to optimize things so they work best with the least possible time and effort.
Whatever it is, it will be your key to hack your way towards success and reach there faster than other people.
Everybody has something they know or they do better than others. It’s not always obvious, but I found it to be crucial for my success.
Invest In Relationships
One of the things I love about affiliate marketing is how much you can get done without needing almost anybody. In my previous startups my phone didn’t stop ringing. My inbox was blasted with emails all day and night. I was constantly in meetings with customers, vendors, staff… I had to compensate my own productivity with so many hours in the office because of many time stealers.
This part of affiliate marketing is awesome, it allows you to focus on yourself and become really good at something. Nevertheless, don’t underestimate the relationships part of it. People are a key element of any business ecosystem.
Make helping others a priority and a motivation for you to become better. That new friend you made in the last meetup can hold the missing piece of your next big campaign and you might be able to offer the same for them.
An idea, angle, a new offer or a traffic source. Sometimes the key that boosts you to the next level depends on a single quality connection with another fellow marketer.
You only have 24h in a day, so make sure you spend them with people who share the same values as you, respect your time, commitments and your friendship, over just some short-sighted money making.
I didn’t have so much time to spend connecting with new people while I was still working part time as a consultant and launching campaigns. I filtered out toxic people and tried to give my best to the few contacts and friends I had within the industry with whom we shared not only a common passion but also common values.
Fast forward, some of those people are now my partners and not only we have reached outstanding results together, but having the chance to celebrate and share those results with them is one of the best parts of this journey.
Never Stop Learning
And learning by doing. Our industry is in constant development.
Even if you think you know everything about a traffic source or a vertical, always have that curiosity that keeps you awake and looking for a better way to do what you are already doing.
Keeping up with the latest trends via masterminds, coaching and forums is necessary, but the real difference in results comes from taking this knowledge and creating your own strategy and systems.
Since the first profits we made, our team has built the habit of allocating time and money to R&D. It’s the investment with the biggest ROI we had so far, plus, it’s super fun to discover new things.
We are constantly learning and taking the theory into action by experimenting with new tech that can give us an additional edge on the traffic or conversion side.
It takes a good amount of money but always pays off in the long run.
What’s next
This year we have set up big goals. Aiming to multiply last year’s results, not only with good profit campaigns while also building assets along the way.
Our team is growing, we are implementing procedures to grow in a sustainable way. Also just finishing the rebuilding of our new offices in Sofia. (They come with a chill out zone 
)
Separating the roles that take part of every task and business line vs the old mixed concepts of “media buyers” or “VAs”.
We started selling part of our premium pop traffic, the same that contributed to reaching this milestone. We opened it to a small group of affiliates for testing (we don’t have any free slots at the moment). My partner @kepe95 wrote about this recently in this post.
We also started helping people from our close network that have worked their way to profits but are struggling to scale them to 4 and 5-figures daily, either due to cashflow or traffic issues.
To conclude:
- Find something to drive you no matter what
- Discover your edge
- Invest in relationships
- Keep yourself curious and have a constant strive to learn something new
The last three will help you reach success faster, the first one is essential to even stand a chance.
Congrats Todor!
These points are spot on:
Find something to drive you no matter what
Discover your edge
Invest in relationships
Keep yourself curious and have a constant strive to learn something new
Wow man, massive respect for what you have achieved in such a short period of time!
Great results Todor!
Was nice meeting you in BKK during AWA as well, you guys are great!
Scale it up!!!
Really impressive and spot on ... congratulations!
Very inspiring! Stickied!
Amy
What a beautiful and motivational post!
Congratulation for your success and wish you more!
Originally Posted by Todor
There really are 3 main aspects of hitting big numbers:
1. Avoid all the common "newbie mistakes" that people make
2. Test a lot, but test smart and efficiently
3. Build up an edge (or multiple edges)
Very cool post, and congrats on the success.
Going in next week's newsletter for sure!
Congrats mate! You guys are beasts!
Great success story, hats off! Congrats!
Awesome Todor
What's an awesome post! Congrats on your success! 
Solid stuff man. Thanks for the share.
Andrew
Really impressive Todor, thanks for the post!
Great read, thanks for sharing that with us!
Congratulations on your result! Well done, man
truly amazing!!
Congratulations on your success and thanks for sharing your story with us, very inspiring indeed.
Congrats Todor!
Strong story, my respect. Sounds so friendly
Really inspiring guys! Met Kepe95 in AWE Berlin last year, really good player!
Great Post. Great Motivation.
Amazing mate! Well done and thanks for sharing this with us.
Congrats, and great to know there are fellow affiliates here in Sofia! I think Sofia affiliate meetup is long overdue
Awesome post man, and I think your 4 points are not only perfect, but are in the right order.
Great post!
Part of it I can relate to I don't really want to say which part in the public forum yet but as a new member I am reading through the posts like this to see what it takes to succeed then I will start learning
Awesome post ..
Nice.
All the tips in @Todor's post are still extremely relevant and useful - thought I'd give this thread a bump!
Amy
Home > Success, Wins, Achievements > Success Stories