Finding your career niche in affiliate marketing

A mental reset

2015 was a turbulent year for me. I started the year off ending a business partnership and it wasn’t an easy thing to go through. 

I was looking for a big change where the previous 5 years had me wearing all sorts of hats in running an affiliate site, affiliate coaching and doing a small amount of design and SEO consulting. All of this not earning me much money either so it made it challenging to have pride in the work. 

As much as things looked promising and were growing, I just felt like I was spinning my wheels as all of those roles I did, I didn’t feel an identity in any of them.  

This collection of work has been very impactful for what I do today but back then I wasn’t as passionate at one of these things. I wouldn’t describe the feeling as being burnt out but I feel like I needed a pause or a reset. I needed time for myself to think about what I wanted to do.

I was looking for cottage rentals to find a place to tune out a bit and connect with nature. This is where I accidentally discovered houseboat rentals. 

I needed it more than I realized and feel it was a bit of an accident. So let me share what happened and what I learned.

It is easy to stay busy all the time but have little results to show for it. The last thing you want to do in this situation is take a break when you feel like a pause would be falling behind. Time is money after all. 

Going on a houseboat for a week was like a forced disconnection from the internet. I couldn’t remember a lot of time before that where I disconnected as much and the time out was helpful. Although this is nearly 10 years ago, we were in an age of being connected all the time and think about much worse it is today. 

What I’m getting at was I couldn’t understand the rut I was in until I had some time away from it all where I could see things in a different light. 

I’ve seen other friends be stuck in ruts and it isn’t fun to be in one and it isn’t fun to watch someone else be in it. Usually that person has to work themselves out of it, you gotta do this on your own. 

I have heard people say that sometimes when you disconnect, your brain can process problems you’re going through in the background. I compare it to a similar analogy in programming where you get stuck in fixing a bug or solving a problem. You take a break from it and maybe a day later, a thought comes into your mind about the solution. 

That process gives you excitement to go back and take on that problem to solve it. 

Range, a must-read book

In the pic, I’m holding a copy of Range by David Epstein . The book is about how generalists can triumph in a specialized world. 

What I love about this book is it will challenge the idea that you need to be a single specialist to have success. Yes, that is one way of achieving success but range is when your general interests and specialties can make you great at something else that is more focused.

I’m sure you’ll read why I mentioned this book as you read the rest of my story in this post. Some foreshadowing there.

Try new things

I think this trip was profound for me for a few reasons. 

I was trying something new that was an adventure. 

What I remember thinking at that time was more thoughts on understanding the work I did then and if it related to a passion project. I felt inside that running B2C affiliate sites wasn’t my calling but I could use that money to get to the next thing. At least it seemed, everyone else was doing this playbook. 

I don’t feel I was fully thinking with perfect clarity that I did a trip to do something new and to get myself out of a rut. 

The trip and the experience made me think more about projects I wanted to do from the ideas I’ve had previously. The idea of doing a stats app I’ve had for a long time and I thought this is one thing I wanted to try. 

I would say this was the catalyst for me starting StatsDrone . 

Months after that trip, I started to ask programs about their affiliate data structures and about getting access to their APIs. 

March 2017 is when I registered statsdrone.com and that year was also the first set of tests in pulling and organizing affiliate data.

Zooming out, maybe it took a long time to make this project get to where it is today but I just know I found my path. 

Ask yourself what is your purpose

Nearly 10 years ago, I wasn’t asking myself, what is my purpose. I was just going through the motions. The thoughts were in the back of my mind. 

If I didn’t think I’d want to be building iGaming affiliates sites forever, then what next?

I think this is where I thought about doing something else like building a stats app for affiliates. 

I’ve also considered an idea of working with affiliates for sweat equity instead of doing the regular consulting I’ve done before. 

Looking back at this time, I know today what I enjoy doing and I eventually found the path I’m on today. I do think I took longer to go on this journey to pursue the things I do want to work on but for me, this took time.

It took time to make changes going on a path that I didn’t quite know what was on the other side. 

Would there be more money on that path? Would more money even make me happier? What if the B2C affiliate path is where the money is at and would I be happy not making any of these changes?

I feel like I’ve got a clear path today. It is a business I want to run for a long time. It is in an area that I want to keep pushing the envelope for learning and growing. 

What I liked about doing an affiliate stats tool is that I like helping affiliates and I enjoy working with entrepreneurs. I feel at home here. 

Having previous experience as an affiliate manager was something I enjoyed too. All of this falls under the B2B umbrella. 

Over the years I’ve learned these things about myself

1. I like data science in affiliate marketing

2. I like talking with entrepreneurs

3. I think I’m excellent at pattern recognition

4. I’m an engineer that likes to solve problems

5. I just needed a purpose and a mission statement

I went to school for engineering getting a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering specializing in robotics. After getting that degree, I’ve done everything else but engineering. 

It doesn’t mean I have to work in my degree to be happy but I just know I enjoy it. 

Challenge yourself

In the past 20 years, I’ve always been in a constant state of learning. But in the last few years, I’ve stepped it up even more. 

7 years ago I thought lets try learning JavaScript and connecting it with MongoDB. I haven’t done programming in quite some time but I thought it would have been useful to do. It hurt the brain a bit but I’m glad I did this. 

6 years ago I decided to start psychotherapy. I had some idea what I was getting into but I needed to do this more than I realized. I wanted to know if there was anything holding me back from being the best version of myself. That is another topic for another day. 

5 years ago I started journaling. Not quite every day but I maintain a journal starting in 2019. As the saying goes from Miyamoto Musashi, live with pen and sword in accord.

4 years ago I joined a mens group, almost by accident. For those that don’t know anything about what a mens group is about, I’d call it similar to psychotherapy where you not only meet a lot of strangers, but you talk about anything you want including the personal problems in your life that you’re navigating. If you’re a guy reading this, you can always find a mens group online and there are local groups all over the world. 

2 summers ago, I took a data analytics and data visualization course by Kevin Hartman. Kevin is the author of Digital Marketing Analytics and former Director of Analytics at Google. His course was very challenging, which I did 8pm Tuesdays and Thursdays for 90 minutes plus homework. I did this for 6 weeks starting in August while I saw everyone else taking time off. 

It was a challenge to be focused in the evening when I was feeling tired but I’m glad I went through the experience.

As a LinkedIn tip and career tip from someone that goes through LinkedIn profiles and resumes, these certificates for upskilling stand out for me far more than any college or university degree. I notice when others have them.

Mentorship and finding your mentors

Maybe I could have asked some mentors to help me find this path but I’m not sure any of them would have helped.

I remember Dmitry Belianin giving me some challenging questions to join his 15 Minute Mastery podcast and I had a reflection on mentorship. You can tune into that episode here.

My outlook on mentorship today is far more profound than what I thought it was many years ago. Mentorship I don’t think is just asking for a peer for feedback or any type of help.

If you want to get the most out of mentorship, you yourself have to level-up to the people that you aspire to be. Someone at the higher level isn’t going to pull you up to their level at the risk of you dragging them down. However if that person sees the potential in you and you’re working towards getting to that next level, some of them might feel a duty to help. 

I like to compare this to the Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant mentor relationship. Michael Jordan didn’t seem to help or mentor anybody but why did he do it for Kobe?

I don’t know this answer but I can only guess that Kobe was fearless in asking anybody for help and not afraid of admitting what he doesn’t know. His ego didn’t get in the way of asking someone better for help. 

I think in return, people want to help others that are deserving. 

I can tell you right now, that some people in our industry that are pure hustlers I consider to be part of my collection of mentors and many of them are now younger than I am. 

The best part of all of this is you don’t really need permission to have mentors. If they teach you something or inspire you, the only thing that could make it better is if they become a friend. 

Comparing yourself to others

How does this connect to giving yourself a mental reset? 

In my situation, I felt I had to spend some time thinking about this. 

It is natural to compare ourselves to others but I think in the world of business, this could have a negative consequence.

At the time, I was probably spending more time comparing myself to others. To other SEO specialists and to other affiliates. I knew I could do these things well but it made me think a bit more of this was my calling.

That is do I want to be a #1 affiliate or am I #1 in another niche? 

Rather than looking outward in seeing how I am vs other people, I put some thought into what am I good at and what do I want to do. 

This process itself almost pulls you out of the process of comparing yourself to others. That is, you start to think about what are you good at and what do you like to do? 

My answer at the time was I liked B2B more, building stuff and solving problems. My background is engineering afterall. 

The Art of Focus by Dan Koe

I’m listening to this book right now called The Art of Focus by Dan Koe . I don’t think anybody in the past would have helped me find my path but I think this book is the closest thing I could recommend as a compass. 

The only thing I think I can to help do to help anybody would be to recommend this book. I think this book is worth reading (or listening to) at least once. It has a lot of deep and philosophical stuff that might not be understood the first time around. 

In the early parts of the book Dan talks about 2 concepts and I’m paraphrasing here.

First is to pursue a goal or a mission with full intent where you know exactly what you want to achieve.

The 2nd is to pursue a mission blindly without knowing where you are going but that you know you’re on the right path. And that things will sort themselves out.

I can tell you the 2nd concept is where I feel I am. I’ve discovered my mission statement but I’m going into the deep. I don’t quite know what the end destination is. I know for our company’s business plan, the direction seems to change every quarter but the path feels like it is becoming clearer as time goes on. 

I feel an odd responsibility in that a lot of people come to me and my team asking tough questions. If we don't have an answer, we’ll dig for it and those questions help. 

When wanting to start StatsDrone, all I had in mind was to solve a problem that I saw in affiliate marketing having experience as an affiliate manager first, and then as an affiliate.

Simply put, revenue leak is a major concept in affiliate marketing that barely gets any attention and that too many people in affiliate marketing are not making data driven decisions. It is easy to look at this and say it is Business Intelligence but truthfully I’ve only starting using this word in the past few years. I’ve not read it in affiliate marketing but I’ve read it in the RevOps and Business Intelligence communities. 

Subscribers welcome at the Affiliate BI podcast.

Back to the topic at hand, I felt the place to make these changes is right at the source: where affiliates get their stats. 

I had no idea how big or important of a project this could be but I’m excited at the work. 

I get up every morning during the week at 5am with a mission statement driving me forward. I know I didn’t have that drive working on other projects that I may have had an interest in but I never felt was my calling. 

So to wrap this up, if you find yourself in that feeling in life where you’re spinning your wheels, you’re being busy but not feeling like you’re accomplishing anything.

1. Disconnect

2. Try new things

3. Challenge yourself

My focus and identity

Over 3 years ago, my company made an uncomfortable decision to sell our main B2C affiliate site. It was a very small cash cow that helped bootstrap the StatsDrone app. 

The big risk was selling the site and having the app fail, it was a big gamble. Actually that entire process of selling was a valuable experience that will definitely benefit us.

This gamble helped me focus on 1 major project, not 2 and I felt it was the right decision for other reasons. We want affiliates to trust us and by not competing against them was one of the best ways of asking to be trusted. 

My identity along the way went even further niche into data science in affiliate marketing.

As much as I’m tempted to start another SEO agency, I say no. I see people like Sean Bianco, Karl Hudson and Kira Khoroshilova print money and it is tempting but that is their identity today. Besides, they are super passionate about their work and I think they’d kick my ass as competition. Let me just try to be the top person they think about when they have a question about affiliate marketing while they are some of my top go to people for SEO.

Same goes for building B2C affiliate sites, after interviewing so many affiliate and SEO pros, I think I could do an affiliate site better today than in the past. I think I know what it takes to be #1 at SEO or #1 at affiliate marketing but I’m choosing to be #1 in the affiliate data space. This is definitely a competitive space already but I’m excited to be here. 

What are the simplified lessons here?

1. Disconnecting can give you the time and space to think about this and journaling is another tool that can help. 

2. Even asking about having your purpose and mission statement, it is a worthy path to go on but I think people need to find that path without knowing what they are walking into. 

Now as I sign off on this post while on a houseboat again, my current biggest problem is actually disconnecting from work when I love what I do.