First off, if you want to become successful at anything in life you have to have a why. What on earth is a why, you say? Well lucky for you I am just about to let you know what a why is because without one, your probably not going to make it very far!

Your WHY is the reason why you want to be successful. The reason why you start a business. “I want to make money you dummy!” That’s probably what your thinking to yourself right now, right? Well that’s not good enough! That’s right your going to have to do a lot better than that. Everyone wants to make money and as you can see, not everybody is successful with their money making ventures. That’s just not specific enough. You have to have a compelling reason that’s pushing you forward with a force so great that it will push you right through the walls in your path and right over the obstacles in your way.

What is your why? I can not tell you what your why is, only you can figure that out for you. I know my why. I know what keeps me going when things get tough, when I want to quit and when I have just made a big whopper of a mistake that costs me. Now you are going to have to dig down deep inside yourself and figure out your why.

Some people’s why will be very easy for them to figure out. They want to make enough money to pay for their kids a good education or they want to buy a motor home and travel the country with their wife to rekindle the flames that have started to die down. Or maybe the situation is more dire, maybe they need money to pay for the health care of a relative with a serious illness. I hope your why is not a serious illness. I’m just trying to give you some strong examples here.

These are all very specific reasons to be motivated. You can also estimate pretty closely the amount of money you will need to make to handle these specific problems or situations.

That brings us to the second step to your success. You need to know WHERE you are going. Have a specific destination in mind. How on earth are you going to get to where you want to go if you don’t know where it is you want to go? When you go on vacation you need a roadmap to get you where to your destination. And you’re going to have to have a financial roadmap (goals) to get you to your financial destination.

Write out your goals and be very specific. If you want to make 10,000 dollars a month write it down and believe with all your heart that its already yours and all you have to do is reach out and take it. The power that is in belief is unstoppable. The trick is you have to really believe it and want it with all your heart.

Now get even more specific. I like to call it stair stepping your goals. When you walk up to a large flight of stairs you don’t try to step from the bottom to the top do you? No, you take it one step at a time. It’s the same thing with your financial journey. Your at the beginning or bottom of the stair case. Your probably not going to leap to the top and make 10,000 dollars over night. Take it one step at a time and don’t get ahead of yourself or you will wind up tripping and falling down the stairs and then you will have to start all over at the bottom again bruised and battered.

Here is an example of how you may start out:

Goal 1. I will be making 2,000 dollars per month in 3 months time.

To help me achieve this I will:

A. use a proven duplicative system that has worked for others

B. write at least 3 articles per week

C. start a Google adwords account

D. advertise in ezines

Goal 2. I will be making 5,000 dollars per month in 6 months time.

To help me achieve this I will:

A. continue with the above steps

B. post to affiliate marketing business forums at least a few times per day

C. start an affiliate marketing business blog

Goal 3. I will be making 10,000 dollars per month in 9 months time.

To help me achieve this I will:

A. continue with the above steps

B. start an article directory on my site

C. add offline marketing techniques to my arsenal

There you have it. A very specific plan to get you from 0 to 10,000 dollars a month in 9 months time. Let me stress this is just an example. We don’t all have the same dreams or financial goals. I just wanted to illustrate the process. It’s up to you to find your WHY and know your WHERE. And then you will have to start from there and fill in the blanks.

I know. I know. The title of this article looks like a big typo. Just give me a minute to explain what it is that I mean by that.

When I started out with my affiliate marketing business, the biggest first step or obstacle for me was deciding exactly what I was going to do. I knew that I wanted an internet business that I could run on autopilot, with just a little work on my laptop each day, after I got everything rolling. I knew that I wanted my own website with affiliate links. I wanted an auto responder to handle my newsletter and training. I wanted a team of caring people to work with that would help me when I got in pinch. I wanted quality products to sell that I would be comfortable selling to my own mother. I wanted the products to pay out high commissions so that I didn’t have to sell 1 million widgets or whatever to make a nice income. And I wanted a success formula to follow that was proven to work for other people.

I know I wanted a lot! But I was certain that I was going to start my own business and I was certain that I was going to make it work. I wanted to get it right the first time. I knew with all the garbage and scams out there that finding everything I wanted was going to be a difficult task. I’m not saying that all the other programs out there are scams. What I am saying is that there are a lot of scams out there though. The good news is there are also a lot of great people out there that are willing to help you succeed if you will just let them. Just be careful!

For a beginning affiliate marketing business owner trying to get all these details worked out can be overwhelming. I know it was for me. I researched everything for hours and hours trying to find the best auto responders, the best, most profitable programs, the best program for designing a website, the best methods of free advertising and so on and so forth. I studied and studied till my head was about to explode! I was suffering from a disease that has killed many affiliate marketing business startups, Information Overload.

Then I discovered a wonderful secret to making money with your own affiliate marketing business. Don’t try to figure it all out on your own! I repeat, Don’t try to figure it all out on your own! Find somebody successful that has a simple program with a turnkey, duplicative system already setup for you. Then all you have to do is plug into their system and be persistent and success will come. This will save you a lot of time, money and headaches. There are a few great programs out there that can set you up with everything you need to get started one step ahead of the competition. The key is to find the affiliate marketing business system that’s a perfect fit for you. Everyone is different. Just do a little research and these systems are not hard to find.

I was fortunate enough to find a great team of people to work with where everything I wanted and more was supplied to me. Everyone is not that fortunate though. Many, many people start out with their own affiliate marketing business and really get put through the ringer. They waste thousands of dollars on get rich quick schemes or hop around from one failed opportunity to the next. Just find a reputable program with training and a great system and stick with it no matter what. The money is there to be made just be careful.

This is probably the most asked question everyone asks their mentor, upline or affiliate partner when they are just starting out. The answer depends on a lot of factors, most of which come down to the person asking the question.

If you follow a proven system or plan and do everything right, the money should start rolling in very quickly. The key here is finding the perfect, duplicative system for you. Remember systems work, people fail. Why do you think that McDonalds is so successful? It’s certainly not because they have the best food! They have a simple, duplicative system that every single franchise owner follows exactly. Once again, systems work, people fail. If you want to be a farmer go to a successful farmer and learn his techniques. And if you want to have a successful affiliate marketing business go to a successful affiliate marketer, plug into their system and watch the profits start to come rolling in.

For beginners just starting out this is the best and most proven way to get into the affiliate marketing business quickly with the least amount of effort. Just find some one who is successful and plug yourself into their proven system. Once you have learned the ropes, you can even start your own affiliate marketing program and have other people selling your products. You could even write an ebook about your success with your affiliate marketing business and sell it or give it away to market your affiliate programs. The possibilities are endless really.

Another key factor when just starting out is what you do with your first profits. After finding the perfect system for you this is probably the most important step to success. A lot of people believe they can take that first profit and start spending it, which they can if they want to put their affiliate marketing business in the ground very quickly. But the wise affiliate marketers see the big picture and reinvest those profits back into the business to keep it rolling along and growing.

So many people have a get rich quick mentality - the amount of people who hop around from one so called hot opportunity to the next is proof enough of that. And the thing is, these poor folks could be making some really good money with their affiliate marketing business if they would just do 3 things.

1. Find an affiliate marketing business with a proven, duplicative and profitable system.

2. Stick with it and don’t quit or change programs no matter what.

3. Reinvest your profits back into your affiliate marketing business to keep it rolling along and growing

All that money they are spending on the next so called miracle program is money they could have been investing back into their affiliate marketing business. If they would have just stuck with the first program they joined (if it was a proven winner) and used all that same money they spent on the other programs for advertising and marketing that program they would have become successful. Success was right around the corner and they didn’t even know it!

Lets say you do your homework and join a proven affiliate marketing business program with a simple, duplicatable system. And you start out by placing one ad in an ezine that costs you $100 dollars. After all is said and done you end up with $200 dollars total, that’s a $100 dollar profit. Now take your $200 dollars and run 2 ads total. After both ads run you have a total of $200 dollars profit plus now you have a list of customers you can make other offers to as often as you like. Just keep repeating this process and growing your customer list. Then follow up with your customers on a regular basis. As they say, “the fortune is in the follow up”. Your affiliate marketing business can really be as simple as that.

Then after 8 to 12 months you could easily be bringing in over $1,000 a week. That’s when you take some of that hard earned money and have some fun with it. Reward yourself. You deserve it!

You can easily speed up this process by adding other marketing strategies to the mix. Many of the strategies you can use in your affiliate marketing business are free! Free affiliate marketing techniques are actually my favorite to use. The reason being obvious. They are FREE! And what’s even more exciting is the fact that some of the free techniques are the most effective. Like writing articles like the one your reading now. Or placing free classified ads. Then all you have to do is submit them to free article directories and classified ad directories and before you know it your affiliate marketing business will be all over the internet.