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When compiling a list of the top five mistakes would be marketers make, you definitely have to put working soft and playing hard at the top of that list.
I don’t know where it originated from, but the first time I ever hard “work hard, play hard” was during an in house consulting stint I did for a company. It was the favorite mantra of the company’s owner and one that his early employees took seriously.
The general sentiment was that he believed that employees who worked hard should and would be rewarded by being able to play hard. It was a doctrine many of his employees took with them when they left the company to move onto other things, myself included. In fact, for a handful of us, the phrase became more a way of life than a quotation to pin to your cork board.
When you see successful affiliate marketers tweeting the day away or taking a elaborate trip, it is easy to ignore the fact that they worked very hard for many years to get where they are able to do so. Successful marketers (meaning those successful in financial terms) are able to take the day off today because they busted their ass for five days six years ago to get into the position where they could.
During my early days in affiliate marketing, I often burned the candle at both ends. Many of my longtime friends can attest that I was often up until 3 or 4 am in the morning, working until I couldn’t hold my eyes open anymore. And those late nights couldn’t stop me from getting up in the morning either since I had kids to care for. And I’m not alone. Every other successful affiliate marketer that I know has a similar story of late nights and exhausted minds before they finally started to see the fruits of their labors and were able to live a different life thanks to all the hard work they’d put in.
If you’re in your early years, you can’t work soft and play hard. You can’t afford to be on Twitter a few hours each day. You can’t afford to be chatting on MSN all day about the latest gossip. You can’t afford to spend a few hours a day commenting on Sphinn. You can’t afford to sleep in during morning conference sessions.
To keep it simple - you can’t afford to fuck off. Period. You haven’t earned it yet. And if you don’t dedicate yourself to working hard before you play hard, you’ll always be faking it because you’ll never actually make it.
And once you are finally making more money at affiliate marketing than you did when employed and can take that leap to being your own boss? Never stop moving. Don’t get comfortable. Learn to delegate your responsibility so that you have more free time, but never let your business sit still.
I made this mistake about five years ago when I started to see what I thought at the time was insane success online. I got comfortable, stopped working as much myself and didn’t hire anyone to expand my business. When I look back and realize that I could have taken advantage of so many more opportunities and what those opportunities would be worth now, I want to kick myself.
Hard.
To this day.
Things change fast. We don’t know how long the affiliate marketing sector will have the absolutely lush opportunities it does now to churn out “unlikely success stories”. It is already harder today than it was yesterday. Think big and kick ass.
Work hard. Play hard. There is a reason it is said in that order.
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at how playing the fame game can hurt you, otherwise known as part two in the Reasons you fail at affiliate marketing series.
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Is the Trump book a recommendation?
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Yes, it is. I don’t agree with everything Donald says in the book - but the premise is something extremely valuable in my opinion. It is a very “pump you up” book… it is good to hear his story and his mistakes. ;-)
Great Post. Off to Audible to download “Think big and kick ass.” Its been on my to-do list for too long.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s post.
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You know, people want to write off adages as “cliche” and no longer appropriate, but a statement often becomes an adage for a reason - a basic, universal principle that is typically based in truth and experience.
That is no less true of “work hard, play hard”. If you don’t put forth the necessary effort, you can’t expect to reap the rewards that effort provides. Perhaps the most difficult thing is actually finding the motivation and courage to give it your absolute best effort, all the while understanding that even your best efforts could fail.
That’s when truly successful people get back up, brush themselves off, determined what they’ve learned from the previous failure and then try it again. People like to put Trump on a pedestal as if he’s never failed, but that’s simply not true.
I’m sure he’s learned far more from his failures than successes…and imagine if he’d given up after any one of them. Needless to say, his name wouldn’t have been mentioned here. :) Can’t wait to read tomorrow’s contribution to the series. :)
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@rae - thanks, i got a credit at audible.com to use up and they have that on audio book.
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I’ve fallen into the trap more than once and I too want to still kick myself for getting soft when I should have kept moving.
Something I like doing is applying an NFL mindset to my business. Move the ball, move the ball, move the ball. When I get sacked, get up and… move the ball.
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@chiropractic Exactly… the plays that get discussed a lot are the hail mary throws that connect for an amazing touchdown because people don’t find the consistent, more methodical plays as sensational to talk about, even though they happen more often and win more games.