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Question about a mentor or how to get in touch with one (13)

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Hi guys & gals

My name is Navid from the country of polar bears (Norway ). For the last 2-3 months, I've been doing mainly homework (reading everything I could my hands on, watching tutorials etc). I've also launched some campaigns to basically learn the process of optimization (in smaller scale).

I've been programming for the last 5 years and last year I decided to focus fully on Affiliate marketing. I'm so dedicated that I quite my day job to fully focus on affiliate marketing. Because I know in order to get something to work, it needs your full focus and dedication.


Currently, I'm at a stage where I know everything I need to know, but I need someone who can help me with stuff that is crucial to make it in affiliate marketing


The reason I write the post is, I would LOVE to have someone who can mentor me to reach my goals and OF COURSE, in exchange, I'll do whatever programming they need. I'll not be one that takes much of your time as I'm a fast learner and easy to work with


If some of you is interested or know someone else who can be interested, I'd appreciate if you could add me on skype (navid.shafie - if you get several users, I'm the one with beard, glasses, and red background)/or PM me here or guide me to how to get in touch with someone that could be my mentor.


Appreciate any help

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It's not easy to get a good mentor. Those who really know their stuff are usually busy or too expensive. Then there is a ton of wannabee gurus, who just charge high amounts but in reality, they don't run any campaigns themselves ...

In my opinion, for what it's worth ... you are on STM now, there is a lot of skilled affiliates here and as you have already noticed for sure, they don't mind to spend time helping those who ask for the help. Another option that I can safely recommend is the STMs inhouse training program : https://istacktraining.com/

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Hi Navid,

I'm going to level with you.

No you don't - you've got a long way to go. As they say, "you don't know what you don't know."

You have a leg up on most by having setup and run a few campaigns, by being on this forum, and it sounds like you have the technical know-how to see through the technical side of things that a lot of affiliates struggle with starting out. But, I also see some red flags...

How much money do you actually have to allocate to affiliate marketing minus your total monthly expenses for say the next 4-6 months? If you've got more than 10k, taking one of the istacktraining courses could be money well spent. I'm assuming you've got a business already setup so you're able to deduct your expenses? And credit cards at your disposal?

Regarding mentorship, I don't think you're going to have much luck with asking strangers on the internet to take you under their wing... I also don't think that's a good mindset to have either; you're kinda asking to get taken advantage of. Instead of waiting for things to come to you, and having some mentor to swoop in and hand you the keys to the castle, you've got to take more iniative and get out there to make things happen for yourself.

Talk is cheap, and saying you've been studying doens't really count for anything in this industry.

People are going to more amicable to helping you if they see you taking action and hustling away. That's where starting a follow along could be helpful, by not only keeping you accountable but providing opportunities for others to give you directon and guidance.

You can also leverage the help of your connections, whether those are others you meet online or at industry events, or ones you directly work with like your traffic representative and account manager. Traffic managers are often more invaluable than affiliate managers because they can give you extra bits of insight into how someone is actually running a given vertical or offer on their platform, whereas your AM is often in the dark on specifics.

Also fyi there's practically no programming required for the everyday affiliate, aside from the occasional custom javascript. Most people just copy-paste and modify.

Best of luck on your affiliate journey. Take massive action and things will start coming together!

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To add to the points above: the simplest thing you can do to get close to what you're looking for here is to start a Follow-Along Campaign on STM, and update it frequently with as much information as possible.

That way you'll get frequent replies from experienced STMers helping you out, and if you supply plenty of information, we can actually help you in meaningful ways.

Several of the mods including myself, Vortex and Matuloo actively look out for Follow-Along Campaigns and jump in to help out whenever possible - if you look at some of the other active Follow-Alongs you'll see the kind of assistance you can expect.

Key point here: show everything you're doing. If you just update with numbers there's not a lot of input we can provide - but if you show your creatives, tell us as much detail as possible about your campaign setup, and so on, we can help a lot more.

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Also the single best way to get your campaigns ripped LOL

But good to share knowledge and stuff about past campaigns that were winners/moneymakers but have lost their glory. Then you share/get knowlegde and the ripping doesnt matter anymore.

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Oh yes, the whole STM crowd is here to steal losing campaigns from people who are starting out

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No offense - but this is the kind of mentality that is keeping a lot of new members from getting valuable feedback that can help them progress to the next level.

Almost all newbies I know/knew, have started by running offers most other affiliate have access to, on traffic sources that are well-known, using creatives that are "borrowed" from spy tools.

To get a leg up over other affiliates, one will need to use every trick in the book - and getting feedback on a follow-along can achieve that. The learning that results will help the affiliate with all future campaigns they launch. Even if a profitable campaign does get ripped, that would only be one of countless profitable campaigns the affiliate will need to run in order to stay in this industry in the long run.

Anyone can chance upon a profitable campaign, but being able to do so consistently requires solid knowledge and experience. Getting feedback on follow-alongs will draw on the knowledge and experience from more veteran members.

To the OP - apologies for getting a bit off-topic! Here's another forum section you can use to find people to collaborate with - as far as I can tell, there are lots of members that have some experience running campaigns, that could really use your coding expertise!

https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...15-Masterminds

Best of luck on your search!




Amy

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The big question should be, do you technically need a mentor in this day and age? Right now if you wanted to do something, you're only a simple google search or a Youtube video away from getting it done.

You know the funniest thing I've learned from people who do group mentoring/coaching for a price? One guy told me that he barely ever teaches anything new to his students. The reality is that his students are looking for someone to give them permission to take action.

In short, we're all looking for someone to tell us that our painting is pretty.

When people go around doing something alone, they're so low on self-belief that they barely do enough to see substantial results. Realistically, you don't need a mentor, what you need is already out there and can be learned.

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Amen.

Perhaps this is the the greatest value a good mentor can provide - convince students that it IS possible to succeed. Expectations is so crucial to success, and having someone tell you what's possible and maybe even show you evidence, can change one's expectations like nothing else could.

But I definitely see your point as well. Too many people want to be led by the hand (and no I'm not talking about the OP) without doing their own thinking or research. I feel that a combination of both in the right dosage can really catapult a person to success.



Amy

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So let's just get this straight and provide the OP with my feedback...

Speaking from personal experience and a time that was not so long ago... when I was seeking help and wishing I had a mentor, I came to STM... I made a follow-along, I gave real effort, took real action, spilled all the beans of what I was doing, read every freaking post on the forum, tried to befriend and connect with as many members as possible (some might say politely annoy but who cares ) - the point is you are at the most valuable and cost-effective resource possible (very rarely do those two benefits go together).

Start a follow-along and don't give a shit that someone might "steal" your campaign or whatever. The goal is to learn how to BUILD A CAMPAIGN, if you learn to do it once, you can practice to do it again, and when you're practice enough you can do it in your sleep.

Don't waste alot of time seeking a mentor, it's very likely to be counter-productive and costly - the points made above by others are almost all valid. I find that those who end up making things work, will make it work with or without a mentor, etc.

Yes, having mentor(s) can help but those are relationships that develop in time and finding the right fit. Even I constantly seek to learn and grow from my network of friends, affiliates and affiliate managers, etc. There is a ton of information and advice given in past & present posts on STM with very active moderators > use that to your advantage.

Make friends > you will be surprised at how much you will learn that even most mentors/coaches/programs do not share.

I encourage you to take action, launch a follow-along, make some mistakes, get some campaigns stolen from you, have the offers paused for quality, launch a campaign on 3 traffic sources and in 3 geos, get your landing page flagged by Google, ask your affiliate manager how he's doing today and what he has thats hot (aka: CPL sweeps in lots of geos and even credit card submit offers are freaking hot everywhere on lots of traffic types) make a campaign setup mistake that costs you $$$, have your first profit day and go on to build up from there.

Thanks to @Vortex, @Matuloo and others for your efforts.

Best of luck to OP and if you have a coding background > rip / clean / setup 10 landers from AdPlexity in 10 unique geos and on 3 sources. Start with asking your AM for a few good offers to test > find the landers > send some traffic > learn how to optimize.

It's basic economics. Collect data > test to improve > review data > test to improve more > review data > cut whatever isn't making you more than you are spending. Rinse/repeat until you find a winner.

Tip for everyone... my team has been expanding into lots of traffic types and methods but I can confirm that pops is alive and well - don't be shy.




~Andrew

*Forgive the random rant but I was originally looking for a specific tip I read a while back on STM and wanted to reread it. Then I ran across this post and felt compelled to sling some words of mine own

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Thanks a lot, everybody with all these great tips. This made my mine and I know what to do know and will not waste my time on things that doesn't matter

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Amen

And thanks for the kind words Andrew!

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I stumbled across this thread after searching "mentor". Glad I found it!

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