It’s All About Timing…
Affiliate marketing is all about timing. You may have heard this before, but it’s just the truth. As the industry becomes more competitive, whoever gets on board faster is going to hold an advantage over others. Guy Kawasaki has got so many great pieces on business and entrepreneurship, but it is this piece that really makes my point. I do believe that you are going to have at the right place at the right time. But if you are in that situation, will you have the audacity and drive to pull the trigger?
As Guy mentions in his piece, a lot of us get distracted about the smallest things. We want our sites to be very cute. We want our campaigns to be perfect. We spend our life studying affiliate marketing, pay per click marketing, and SEO. But if you are spending all your time on theory, when are you going to actually find time to put everything you have learned in action. The difference between Bill Gates and some software genius who may have had the same idea is that 1. Bill Gates was at the right place at the right time and 2. he had the audacity and judgment to pull the trigger when he needed to. He took action!
A lot of affiliate marketers are perfectionists, and there is nothing wrong with that. But you need to have a clear understanding of when being perfect will cost you marketshare and $$$. At some point, making an idea into reality overrides any dedication that you may have to perfection. In some niches, you simply can’t afford to wait around. I learned my lesson the hard way. When I was in business school, I wanted to create a how to video site for folks to go in and share their tips. Unfortunately, I waited around for too long. Now we have sites such as eHow and HowCast doing exactly the same thing, and attracting millions of users in the process. I am still waiting to launch mine (which I think will probably never happen),
The moral of story is this. You are not going to relive the moment. If you have an idea that is unique and feasible, you’ve got to implement it as fast as you can. You are not going to get a second chance once a couple of companies get thousands in funding and move light years ahead of you in the implementation process. Whether you are an affiliate marketer or an aspiring idea junkie, you need to get started right now! Don’t you know timing is everything?
