When it comes to making money online one of my favorite strategies is affiliate marketing.

It’s simple, easy to get started and requires only a few skills to make a full-time income.

Yet sometimes finding success in the affiliate marketing game can be difficult for folks. After all, virtually every “expert” out there has slightly differing advice to offer you on how to be a success and avoid failure within the industry.

However, figuring out what advice to implement and what doesn’t apply to you can be as confusing as determining what kind of diet/exercise will actually help you lose those last five pounds you’ve been hanging onto since college.

Should you eat meat, fats, dairy or not? Maybe keto. Or maybe paleo. Weights or cardio….argh…Well, forget that, let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Although I can’t help you with your college weight gain, I’m are more than happy to help you traverse the sometimes contradicting advice you read all over the web about affiliate marketing. Before delving into the deep end, though, let’s take a quick look at what types of affiliate marketing are out there.

Types of Affiliate Marketing

There are lots of affiliate marketers finding success in the industry, making money through various avenues. The most common of those being professionals who build content websites and then primarily focus on SEO, social media outlets and the like.

I love this model and have built, sold and acquired many sites like this.  In fact, if you have content sites that are generating profit and you’d like to sell them reach out.  I may be interested in buying them.

Then there are others who buy paid traffic and advertise on Facebook, Instagram, and other such platforms.

The third most common type of affiliate marketers is those who focus primarily on building a quality email list and frequently utilize this information for money making purposes.  Email marketing is wonderful.  Now, remember when you do email marketing the size of your list is NOT the most important thing.  What matters is the relationship you have with your list of subscribers.

You likely fall somewhere within these categories, or perhaps within more than one. If you are wondering, though, why you aren’t seeing the results you think you should consider the following 10 possibilities.

If you are making any of these mistakes, you might be creating problems and blocking your own profit potential.

Top 10 Most Common Mistakes Affiliate Marketers Should Avoid

Some of the following errors will apply to all types of affiliate marketing and others just the few who specialize in that niche. Therefore, take what you can from them and apply them to your specific situation in order to begin making more money as quickly as possible.

1. Not Understanding That Failure Can Happen

Wait a minute, didn’t we just talk about making money. Isn’t success the point? Yes, it is. However, in virtually every affiliate marketing situation, making money takes time. According to Brand Builders, “If anyone tries to tell you that affiliate marketing is a way for you to get rich overnight, run for the hills. They’re feeding you a line.”

If anyone tries to tell you that affiliate marketing is a way for you to get rich overnight, run for the hills. They’re feeding you a line. – Brand Builders

Affiliate marketing takes time. It takes energy, and most importantly, it requires lots of patience.  You can see results quickly sometimes yet I believe in focusing on the long-term.  For example, if all you did was focus on building one authority content site for 1-2 years you’d be amazed at the results you’d get.

Affiliate marketing is not a way “get rich quick.” It is just like any other reputable business. It takes dedication, time, patience, endurance and a lot of trial and error.

2. Affiliate Marketers Can Give Up Too Quickly

This mistake goes right along with the first one. If you don’t give yourself time to make a profit and quit too soon, you will never see the end result of all your hard work.

This is a huge problem I see over and over with folks wanting to make money online.  They buy a course on a strategy and say this time I’m really going to give it a go. And at the first sign of struggle they are ready to jump ship and try something else that they are told is easier.

Look all businesses have pros and cons.  All businesses will have times of struggle.  You must expect it and know that it will pass so you can simply stay focused and keep moving forward.

3. They Sell Instead of Help

Yes, making money online involves selling and you shouldn’t be afraid of selling. Look at the end of the day you have to promote products and sell them to make money.

Keep in mind though that you want to create a long-term business, which takes a different frame of mine. This requires building relationships and showing people you care about them and want to help them.

This should be your first priority, not sales. Otherwise, you will have a bunch of one-time customers, but no one with any loyalty to you who will come back again and again.

This is how my former business partner built our Amazon FBA information business the Infinity Code as well as how I build my PB Code business.

Building relationships and showing people you care about them and want to help them should be your first priority, not sales. Every affiliate marketing campaign should strive to create a desire for their customers to return.

4. They Promote Too Many Things, Using Too Many Avenues

Again Brand Builders shares the importance of focusing on one thing at a time and promoting and perfecting that approach. When you focus on too many things at once, too many types of campaigns, etc, you end up not excelling in any of them or being able to properly test them.

They stated the following, “Promoting less means that you’re able to promote more often, dig deeper into problems and solve them for visitors.”

Promoting less means that you’re able to promote more often, dig deeper into problems and solve them for visitors. – Brand Builders

Personally, this is why I prefer to go deep in a niche vs going very wide. It gives you a greater command of the market, better authority, and a closer alignment with the needs of your office.

For example, if you promoted products in the beauty space you may choose something like hair loss and focus on hair loss affiliate programs that cover things from prescriptions, supplements, shampoo and conditioner, LLLT devices, and on and on.

5.  Affiliate Marketers Fail When They Do Not Test Enough

Affiliate marketers often fail to look at the data. Test your campaign’s effectiveness regularly to find out what is working and what isn’t.

You should be testing your campaign’s and website’s effectiveness on a regular basis. This will help you determine what avenues are working, which aren’t and perhaps help you decide to head in a different direction altogether.

If you don’t take time to look at the data, though, you are not seeing the truth that is right in front of your face. This is a big mistake affiliate marketers make (R).

It is also one the huge reasons we always develop KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for every single one of our businesses that apply to all the campaigns.

By tracking and optimizing these KPI’s you are able to continually improve incrementally, which leads to magnificent results.

6.  They Do Not Pay Enough Attention to Copywriting

Quality copywriting is vitally important to a well-functioning website, no matter its purpose.

It is especially crucial, though, when it comes to advertising and marketing campaign. Without high quality copywriting, there is no way to rouse people to action and persuade them to adopt a certain belief about a service or product. To shortchange this important element will often lead to failure.

Many people are not willing to invest in hiring the right copywriters.

I suggest you be a smart marketer and hire the absolute best copywriters you can.

If you want to master this skill yourself here are a few books I’d highly recommend you buy.

Top Copywriting Books

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion 
• Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
• The Ultimate Sales Letter 4Th Edition: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales

7.  Affiliate Marketers Sometimes Fail to Plan

Benjamin Franklin said that “failing to plan is planning to fail.” A good business plan is vital to the success of any affiliate marketing business.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Though no affiliate marketer gets into the game for the purpose of failing, by not writing out or at least contemplating a structured business plan, that’s exactly what they are doing.

They are planning to fail.

A good business plan is vital to the success of any business. Not having a plan is as ridiculous as a contractor trying to build a new home without a blueprint.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. – Benjamin Franklin

The same is true for creating a system that created predictable results.  Once you have something that works you to scale you must systemize it and simply rinse and repeat over and over again.

It’s the easiest thing to do do and the easiest thing not to do because it seems so simple.

8. They Aren’t Collecting Emails Up Front

Although you might think email marketing has gone the way of the dodo, you would be wrong. In actuality, it is still one of the most valuable assets you have as an affiliate marketer.

In my opinion, it is actually the most valuable and people who say email marketing is dead are probably trying to sell you something :-).

Don’t wait, though, to gather those all-important email addresses. It’s important to collect them on day one, from the beginning. This will allow you to keep a point of contact with your customers no matter what. According to AffilliMarketer, not collecting emails from the get-go is the number one mistake affiliate marketers make.

9.  They Aren’t Focusing on a Niche They Love

Many affiliate marketers make the mistake of focusing on the most profitable niche at the beginning.

This can be a good idea and if you do focusing one of the big 4 is smart:

1. Health and Fitness
2. Financial
3. Relationships and Dating
4. Business

If this happens to be what they love, great, if not, they can end up fizzling out pretty quick. You should have a passion for any niche you choose to venture into. Otherwise, failure will likely occur because you won’t have the motivation to stick with it long enough.

So you have 2 options.

Option #1: go deep in a niche you love. I’ve seen people make 7-figures in everything from quilting to targeting full-time RVers.

Option #2: go after one of the big 4 and build a system so your business runs while you provide the high-level oversight, plan, and structure.

Every Affiliate Marketer should have a passion for any niche they choose to venture into. Otherwise, failure will likely occur.

10. Their Products Aren’t High Quality

When affiliates promote low-quality products, this becomes a reflection on them.

Consequently, once customers buy such a product and it inevitably breaks, they no longer have the trust in them they once did. As a result, they likely won’t visit their site for additional product recommendations (R).

This is why especially with email marketing you must 100% focus on quality vs quantity.

How to Fix Your Affiliate Marketing for Long-Term Success

To remedy the issues laid out above, simply do the opposite.

Seems simple, right?

And it also seems like common sense. Yet like a colleague always says commone sense is anything but common in this day and age.

Focus on one avenue at a time until you master the affiliate game and always promote via niches you love.

Create a plan before doing anything and understand you might and likely will lose money at the beginning of any campaign.

Unfortunately, affiliate marketing is not a way “get rich quick.” It is just like any other reputable business. It takes dedication, time, patience, endurance and a lot of trial and error. If you hang in there though and avoid the 10 common pitfalls listed above, it can become a wonderful avenue of income and a source of great enjoyment and fulfillment.

Feel free to download the infographic below as a friendly reminder to your affiliate marketing success.

Resources and References

https://www.brandbuilders.io/affiliate-marketing-mistakes/

Failing to plan: https://www.affiliatemarketertraining.com/14-most-common-mistakes-made-by-new-affiliate-marketers/

Not getting emails: https://affilimarketer.com/affiliate-marketing-mistakes

Picking a niche you love: https://www.affiliateroyale.com/2017/03/the-6-most-common-mistakes-new-affiliate-marketers-need-to-avoid/

Why quality matters in affiliate marketing: https://www.siteground.com/blog/affiliates-verdict-quality-matters/

7 Big Mistake Affiliate Marketers Make: https://marketingland.com/7-big-mistakes-new-affiliate-marketers-make-19195

In January of 2018, ninety-five percent of adults in the United States own a cell phone, while seventy-seven percent of adults use a smartphone(R).

In 2018, according to Forbes, mobile ad spending will encompass seventy-five percent of all digital ads purchased(R).

So, there’s no debating that mobile devices, smartphones especially, are an essential part of our daily lives.

The Cell Phone Distraction

However, as business owners, smartphones are a double-edged sword. Personally, as well as professionally, smartphones pose a serious distraction to our working lives (R). According to Flurry, people spend up to five hours of their day attached to mobile devices.

For personal productivity, that’s terrible, but from the standpoint of having a captive mobile audience, it’s genius. Unfortunately, the inability to harness the power of mobile advertising properly is also crushing the only solid positive perspective an entrepreneur has in this mobilized world.

People spend up to five hours of their day attached to mobile devices.

To help entrepreneurs to feed the mobile bear, without getting swallowed themselves, here are the reasons your smartphone is killing your business; both personally and professionally.

How Smartphones Impact Our Lives- Both Personally and Professionally

There’s no true escape from the unfortunate fact that smartphones play a large, negative role in our everyday lives. For many people, smartphones are the ones that essentially control us. From the moment most people wake up, until the moment they go to bed, they’re eyes are glued to their smartphones.

The Effects of Smartphones on Our Personal Lives

Distractions are everywhere, but with your smartphone, they become even more prevalent. Between glancing to see if anything has changed in your digital world, to answer every email, tweet, text, Facebook notification, not to mention phone calls, that five hours per day really adds up quick.

Before cell phones, the workday was less disrupted by personal calls and there were definitely no texts coming in on these rotary bad boys.

There was a time, not too long ago, when people went to work and if there wasn’t a call on the business line or an emergency, no one heard from you all day. Going to work meant you were going dark, socially.

Not even your significant other was going to reach out to you unless there was something dire that you needed to know and even then, they would call your work line. Instantaneous, personal communication lived only in the imagination brought forth by sci-movies.

However, now, the busier you are, the more notifications you receive, directly to your person…and people seek out those distractions. This is a growing problem, considering people who need to be paying attention to their real-life assets, are being sucked into a digital rabbit hole; every twelve minutes, according to the New York Post (R).

Therefore, when trying to run your business or focus on anything the real world has to offer, the average person is ripped out of their conscious thought, to check their phone, eighty times per day.

We are distracted at work by our phones EIGHTY TIMES PER DAY.

However, posing as a distraction from the things that really matter in life don’t even start to cover the damage cell phones cause.

Cell Phones and Sleep Deprivation

Your cell phone can disrupt your sleep which can disrupt your entire life.

Looking at your phone at night can disrupt your sleep, which eventually can disrupt your entire life.

According to Business Insider (R), the blue light that allows us to see our phone regardless of the brightness outside is confusing our bodies. This is why many wear blue light blocking glasses or use apps to block blue light on their phones.

While this blue light isn’t physically hurting us, in the form of UV rays, or carcinogenic output, the blue light is causing our body to mistake nighttime for daytime.

The blue light that allows us to see our phone regardless of the brightness outside is…causing our body to mistake nighttime for daytime. – Business Insider

Is it day or night? The blue light of your cell phone may be confusing your body.

While we may know that it’s nighttime, our body works separately from our mind, in some respects. When our body believes that it’s daytime, it doesn’t produce melatonin, which is the hormone that tells our body it’s time to sleep.

This results in our bodies thinking it’s nap time, instead of sleep time, causing us to sleep for only a few hours, before waking up. Afterward, we are unable to go back to sleep. Therefore, we are tired, which makes us far less productive and could eventually lead to depression (R).

People sometimes take supplements like melatonin to help with their sleep or to deal with jet lag.

Cell Phones and Addiction

People tend to let their phones dictate what they do when they do it, and how they do it. We are addicted to our phones, as a society.

In a test for cell phone addiction (R), health journalist, Catherine Price says: “The only way to score below a 5 (non-addiction) on this test is to not have a smartphone.”

However, it isn’t all our fault. Our phones have become a vital part of our lives. Our alarm wakes us up in the morning, from our phone. The respective artificial intelligence on our phone tells us our schedule, the weather, how our favorite sports team did in the game last night, and virtually any other information we’d like to know. Nevertheless, the reliance we have on our phones only makes the habit harder to break.

Now, the answer isn’t to stop using our phones.

Instead, we need to get to a point where we are in control of our phones, instead of the other way around.

Effects of Smartphones on Our Professional Lives

Time spent on a cell phone at work means money lost.

Time is money.

That is a popular saying, but it couldn’t be truer when discussing the professional pitfalls of cellular innovation.

Cell phones are a beast of burden to businesses; a plague that zaps creativity and manpower from every company. This plague affects everyone from the intern to the CEO and it’s only getting worse.

As Mike Elgan (R) from Computerworld wrote in his article: “As a thought experiment, imagine that an employee who used to pay attention to your business eight hours each day now pays attention only seven hours a day because he or she is now focusing on Facebook during that last hour. You’re paying the employee the same but getting less employee attention for it.”

Taking this thought a little farther, a small business is defined by the SBA (R) as a business with less than 500 employees.

Say, a business has 15 employees and they make minimum wage, yourself included, for the sake of this argument. If each of you loses one hour per day at $7.25 per hour, the businesses giving away $108.75 per day. 

Plus, that’s fifteen working hours per day that nothing is getting done, which is putting the business fifteen hours behind schedule, every day. For a small business using delegation, that’s a lot of time and money being wasted.

However, as a business owner, this is something that is hard to control and even harder to crack down on, because you’re guilty of it too.

While your interactions with your phone are likely more relevant to the business, what’s being done is irrelevant.

There is still that one hour (on average) per day that’s being consumed sporadically throughout the day, breaking your concentration.

How to Find a Healthy Cellular Consumption Balance

Breaking the cycle of cellular consumption can help a business owner; both personally and professionally. While you can’t control the actions of others, you can change your own actions and use the majority’s cellular weakness to your advantage.

Finding a Balance Personally

People are so quick to dismiss the idea that unplugging themselves from their smartphone is going to better their perspective and sharpen their focus.

However, a study in a recent Health Communication Journal (R) suggests that in as little as a week, adolescents responded positively to less smartphone interaction. Within a week, the teenagers studied were sleeping better and had better concentration. This study is perceived to have a similar effect on adults.

So, to help adults start their unplugging adventure, here the most effective ways to get back to basics and put distance between you and your smartphone:

4 Ways to Put a Healthy Distance Between You and Your Smartphone 

 1. Use Airplane Mode– Placing your phone in airplane mode will cut off phone calls, texts, and other notifications, resulting in fewer distractions.

Studies show decreasing cell phone usage increases happiness.

2. Uninstall Social Media on Smartphone– By taking social media off a smartphone, a person will drastically decrease the number of notifications they receive. That way, the person isn’t always being drawn out of their train of thought for superfluous reasons. However, they will still receive important correspondence.

 3. Block Notifications on Smartphone– Blocking all the notifications on a phone allows the person to keep their apps and social media on their phones, without the distractions that come with it.

4. Use Apps to Track Time: When people use applications such as Rescue Time, it helps them to see exactly how much time they are producing during the day and how much time is spent playing around. This could be a real eye-opener, especially for a lot of business owners.

You may think you’re optimizing your time, but apps like this will help you quantifiably find more time, by showing you which habits you need to break.

Finding a Balance Professionally 

While it’s in the business owners best interest to shift their focus away from their smartphones, that doesn’t mean they should completely disconnect themselves. Sure, personal use of smartphones is killing your business, but if you use the information about smartphones to your advantage, the rewards are sure to be fruitful.

Optimizing Your Business For Mobile Use

A statistic published by Front Burner Marketing states that over 50% of mobile consumers are either researching or ready to purchase when they call a business from their mobile device (R).

However, many business owners let their mobile websites and business social media fall by the wayside.

When mobile should be what business owners are primarily focusing on.

Many business owners let their mobile websites and business social media fall by the wayside…when mobile should be what business owners are primarily focusing on.

Fortunately, Google Chrome allows businesses to preview what the mobile site will look like before publishing it online.

This is essential for your business, as mobile is looking like the marketing strategy of the future. So, be one of the elite and optimize your business to look spectacular on a smartphone.

Conclusion

In summation, cellular innovation has gotten to a crucial point. While smartphones haven’t come at anyone with a knife, they are certainly affecting you and possibly killing your business slowly…

That is unless you know how to counteract the effects so that they work to your advantage.

Resources:

Mobile Phone Fact Sheet: PEW Research Center

How Smartphones Makes People Unproductive: Computer World

Study on How Many Times a Day Americans Check Their Cell Phones: New York Post

How Smartphones Affect Your Brain and Body: Business Insider

The Complex Relationship Between Sleep, Depression and Anxiety: The National Sleep Foundation

Cell Phone Addiction: Catherine Price

Small Business Size Standards: SBA

Study on Adolescents’ Phone Usage and Sleep: Health and Communication Journal

Find Work-Life Balance with This App: RescueTime

Mobile Optimization Stats: Front Burner Marketing

On average, twenty-percent of the workday is spent on important (read: profitable) tasks, while eighty-percent of the workday is wasted, yes, wasted on tasks that hold little, or no value.

Productivity is the main goal of any entrepreneur, trying to achieve a scalable income. If you aren’t being productive and efficient, you are wasting your time.

80 percent of time spent at work is not profitable

Unfortunately, Cornerstone Dynamics reveals that on average, twenty-percent of the workday is spent on important (read: profitable) tasks, while eighty-percent of the workday is wasted, yes, wasted on tasks that hold little, or no value (R).

Surprising, right?

Imagine for a moment if you increased your profitable work productivity.

You could actually double or triple your productivity easily and in many cases, this could dramatically increase your top line revenues and business profits.

So…

How does an entrepreneur swap those numbers and spend 80% or more time on profitable tasks?

And…

How does an entrepreneur even start to wade through the clutter of daily tasks, to garner importance?

After all, most business owners don’t intentionally fill their busy schedules with tasks that hold little or no value, right?

Fortunately, the solution isn’t a game show, so there isn’t a right door to peek behind.

The solution to time management as an entrepreneur isn’t as easy as selecting the right game show door.  However, batching is a useful way to make the hours spent at work as productive as possible.

Instead, the solution is found in Batching.

Yes, batching.

Batching, though revolutionary to the entrepreneurial time-saving solutions is a simple concept to understand and implement.

In a guest post to Michael Hyatt’s blog, communications strategist, Joshua Leatherman (R), describes Batching as(R):

Batching is simply a form of time management that allows a person to maximize concentration and decrease distraction. As a result, it increases your productivity, creativity, and mental sharpness, while decreasing fatigue, procrastination, and stress.

Batching is setting aside intentional blocks of time for specific and intentional tasks and not allowing distractions or interruptions to break that focus. When batching, plan blocks of “break-time” between each block of focused tasks to help maintain focus and productivity.

When done right this can be something that dramatically changes how you work and it can allow you to get more done in half the time.

In fact, batching can be used to double your results, through rectifying mistakes,  planning, and prioritizing tasks appropriately.

3 Quick & Easy Steps to Using Batching to Double Your Results

STEP #1: Rectifying Mistakes

The first step in batching a day’s work is to recognize the mistakes that are being made and rectify them.

Entrepreneurs want to use their time wisely, as there is only so much that can get done in a day.

It seems there’s never enough time to get everything done as a business owner. Time management can be accomplished however through methods such as batching.

But regardless of how time is prioritized, and tasks are organized, it seems there’s never enough time to get everything done.

In the end, entrepreneurs run around frantically trying to complete everything and get ahead of schedule. But ultimately, something always comes up. Thus, the hopes of finishing the daily to-do list are dashed for another day.

However, instead of doing the same thing over and over, the first step in batching a day’s work is to recognize the mistakes that are being made in the process.

Here are a few of the most common mistakes business owners make, while trying to organize their day:

Common Mistakes When it Comes to Organizing Your Day

When organizing your day try to avoid multi-tasking, not giving yourself enough time and over-scheduling.

Multi-Tasking (R)– While some people swear that multi-tasking is the key to productivity, there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Splitting focus between important tasks not only ends up taking longer, it’s more frustrating because it’s taking so long! It’s not getting done to the best of the entrepreneur’s ability, because their attention is being spliced in multiple directions.

Not Giving Yourself Enough Time- There is never enough time in the day, mostly because entrepreneurs constantly underestimate the time it takes to perform a task.

According to Basecamp founder David Heinemeier, people should give twenty-five percent more time to a task then the time they believe it’s going to take. Everyone wants to be proactive and get as much done as they can throughout the workday. However, if you don’t give yourself enough time, you’re simply chasing your tail(R).

Give twenty-five percent more time to a task than the time you believe it’s going to take.

Over-Scheduling-Accurately allocating your time and talents is another skill that many entrepreneurs lack. Sure, there are only so many hours in the day and again, there’s so much that needs to get done.

However, by over-scheduling yourself, you’re undercutting your own advancements. If you underestimate the time it’s going to take for you to complete a task and you need to push it off until the next day, your whole week is now behind, instead of that one day.

Distractions- Distractions are the root of all time-management issues. According to a New York Times article, it can take up to twenty-five minutes to regain your focus after being distracted (and that doesn’t count the time it took to complete whatever it was that distracted you) (R).

 According to a New York Times article, it can take up to twenty-five minutes to regain your focus after being distracted.

As an entrepreneur, you need to prioritize what needs to be handled now and what can wait.

Yet, between phones that constantly have notifications, friends and employee interruptions, and simply being a human being, distractions take us away from our tasks.

However, sometimes, when an urgent email comes in, it’s hard to even recognize it as a distraction. Although, remember that to everyone, when they want your attention, it is an emergency.

Therefore, as an entrepreneur, you need to prioritize what you, the owner of the business, need to handle immediately, and what can wait until your priorities are finished.  This is why I recommend not checking your phone or email until a few hours after you start working. Aim to get the highest priorities done first before you ever check email, your phone or social media accounts.    This alone will help you get way more done.

I also recommend you when you are working in blocks of time that you have your phone off or in airplane mode.  You should also keep it out of sight so in a drawer or in the other room.

Step #2: Planning

Planning is the focus of being successful in batching

Planning is the focus of being successful at Batching. If you’re able to plan appropriately (and stick to that plan), you will start to see results almost immediately.

Benjamin Franklin famously said:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail

Planning is the focus of being successful at Batching.

1. Schedule Out Your Day

The first step in a successful day, managed by batching, is to schedule out your day.

Take fifteen minutes, at the beginning of your day and plan it out.  Better yet plan it out the night before, which is what I like to do. Business owners should have an overall plan for the week, but in the evening or morning, breaking up your daily tasks sets the mind toward the amount of work it has ahead of it.

I’ve been running a business online a long time and this one tip alone will dramatically change how you work and get things done.

2. Determine Which Tasks are Similar in Nature

The 2nd step to batching is to determine which tasks are similar.

The second step is to determine which tasks are similar in nature. Schedule, or batch these tasks consecutively.

According to Scott H. Young, by batching similar tasks together, it helps diminish the start and stop time dramatically and it improves focus (R). Because the tasks have a similar feel, the brain is not forced to shift from one random task to the next and so the workflow is more fluid. This way focus is more easily maintained.

Batching similar tasks together, helps diminish the start and stop time dramatically and it improves focus. – Scott H. Young

If you are currently switching from say emails to paid traffic campaigns, to email promotions, to running a webinar, to reviewing reports, to writing a blog post you are doing yourself a huge disservice.

3. GET TO WORK

The 3rd step to batching is to get to work.

Once the tasks are batched appropriately, the third step is to get to work.

Work in specific blocks of time and execute.

I prefer to work in 90-minute laser focused blocks of time.

Step #3: Prioritizing Tasks Appropriately

Prioritizing is a theme seen throughout the batching process.  In business, priority equals profit.

Priority is a theme that is repetitious throughout the batching process.

Of course, you have your priorities, such as family, friends, and your business. Yet, prioritizing tasks are far more intense.

Priority in business equals profit from my experience.

Priority in business equals profit.

Therefore, it’s important to prioritize tasks in a way that completes the tasks that are directly profitable first.

I learned this years ago from bestselling author Robert G Allen when he taught me the concept of First Things First.

This basically means, the closer the task brings you to see a paycheck, the higher that task should be up on that list.

Or another way to look at is the first thing you should do every day are the most highly profitable tasks in your business.

When batching, the closer a task on your list brings you to see a paycheck, the higher that task should be up on that list.

After directly profitable tasks are finished, focus on tangent profitable tasks, which could be things like; meetings, emails, and phone calls.

I prefer to batch phone calls into one block of time with a short few minutes of break between each phone call.  I also will batch all my notes for each of the calls before the calls start aiming to keep every call as short as it possibly can be without any distractions.

Tangent Profitable Tasks

Meetings- Despite what we may like to believe, meetings are often not the best use of time; especially as an entrepreneur. It takes time away from doing work, and is more of a checkup, to ensure everything is going okay.

Therefore, don’t make a meeting any longer than it must be. Meetings aren’t a time to be social. They are an occupational hazard and must be treated as such. Get in the meeting, get whatever needs to be accomplished over with and get out.

You should also set a clear agenda and clear meeting timeline so you stay focused and are forced to finish with a certain time period.  Also, it’s best to set a meeting from my experience later in the day so folks can get their most productive and profitable work down first thing.

Tangent profitable tasks include meetings, answering and organizing emails, and making phone calls.

Email-Emails are better than meetings because you don’t have to travel to them, but besides that, they are electronic meetings.

The best way to prioritize emails is to use a filter and file system, so that specific clients, invoices, and other information can be sorted quickly and efficiently.

That way, they aren’t taking up space in your inbox (R). (This also keeps them Batched and organized.)

One thing I try to do (not always successfully) is to respond to emails twice per day at set times.  I also am always looking for ways to outsource aspects of my inbox and soon will be experimenting with outsourcing my whole inbox.

Remember email is there to serve you not the other way around.

Phone Calls-There is much that can be efficiently accomplished with a phone call. While email is nice, there are a lot of business situations where they can be misconstrued. With a phone call, a question can be answered right then and there, without having to meet the person, which takes up far more of your valuable time.

Returning phone calls in a Batch formation is also good because you are already sworn into a rhythm. Therefore, the calls can be systematically taken care of, instead of hanging over your head all day, or week.

I prefer to do phone calls later in the day and usually aim to schedule them at the same time.  Another good way to batch phone call meetings in one afternoon or day.  For example, I have a friend that does all is phone calls, virtual meetings, and connecting on Fridays only each week.

Summary

To wrap things up, batching only works if the business owner is willing to restructure their day and learn from the mistakes they’ve made in the past. While batching is a simple concept, the practice of it, effectively, only works through dedication and self-discipline.

However, if batching is done in a productive, inciteful manner, it is sure to double your results faster than you could’ve imagined possible.

To learn more about batching check out Chris Ducker’s video on “Embracing the Power of Batching for Daily Productivity:”

Resources & References:

Time Management Stats that Might Surprise You: Cornerstone Dynamics

Communication Specialist Joshua Leatherman Describes Batching: Joshua Leatherman

How to Use Batching to Increase Results: Michael Hyatt’s Blog

How Task Batching Increases Productivity: Thrive Global

Tips on Time Management: Rescue Time

A Focus on Distraction: New York Times

20 Tips for Batching: Scott H. Young

The Trick to Organizing Gmail: PC World

Jim Cockrum has aimed to help folks just like you since 1997 by building multiple streams of income through online businesses leveraging sites like Amazon and eBay.

In fact, Cockrum has been selling on Amazon and eBay since the late 90’s and his book the Silent Sales Machine has been read by over 800,000 people.

That’s pretty incredible and for a limited time, you can get 2 free chapters of his book the Silent Sales Machine here.

Over the years Jim has created a large number of programs, tools, events, and books designed to help others see the success that he has seen in online business.

Here’s a List of the Most Popular Jim Cockrum Products

1. Proven Amazon Course (special discount link here)
2. Proven Private Label
3. Proven Q4 Plan

Jim Cockrum Frequently Asked Questions

Does Jim Cockrum have a podcast?

Yes, Jim runs a podcast covering a large array of things from how folks like how Brett turned $400 into an 8 figure Amazon business (episode 2) or like how a 21-year-old is earning $100k+ net from their Amazon business part-time (episode 91).

You can check all of Jim Cockrum’s podcast episodes by going here.

How can I learn more about Jim Cockrum events?

Once a year Cockrum and his team run an in-person event for folks looking to build Amazon & eCom businesses called CES. Every year this event sells out well in advance and it’s been held in places like Nashville, Louisville, Orlando, and Dallas.

Some of the Past Jim Cockrum Events Faculty include:

• Jim Cockrum himself
• Brett Bartlett (check out episode #2 of Jim’s podcast for his story here)
• Andy Slamans
• Barrington McIntosh
• Cynthia Stine
• Dan Hollings
• Jason Miles
• Jeff Cohen
• And many more that you can see here.

Now while everyone can’t afford to make it out to the event in-person each year Jim does release the videos after the event.

• Go here to check out the most recent videos.
• Check out all the details of the next event at JimCockrumEvents.com.

Does Jim Cockrum offer coaching services?

First, working with a coach is one of the fastest ways to see results. However, coaching is NOT right for everyone and that’s why when with the Jim Cockrum coaching program you have to apply.

That way you can be vetted to make sure that you are a good match to achieve results. So, the first step is to apply for coaching by going here.

What is the best Jim Cockrum Amazon product?

This is a bit of a loaded question as it’s like asking what’s the best restaurant.  It really is going to vary depending on where you are at and in this case where you are at in your business.

Hands down though if you are looking to build an Amazon business following Jim’s training programs you should first look into the new version of Proven Amazon Course (discount link) and his Proven Private Label program.

What books does Jim Cockrum Sell?

There are 2 main books the Cockrum currently has available.

The Jim Cockrum books are:

1. Silent Sales Machine (you can get the Kindle version here)
2. Sourcer’s Apprentice Book

NOTE: Jim Cockrum does have a few other books on Amazon, however, some of them are bit older. You can check them all out here.

Is Proven Amazon Course an Alternative to ASM?

A lot of people ask about PAC course vs ASM (Amazing Selling Machine) and they want to know which one is better or which one is right for them.

First off, there is a very big price difference between ASM and Proven Amazon Course.  That being said it is hard to give someone a real answer on what is best for them without knowing their full situation and goals.

So what I recommend is you check out both programs to see what resonates best with you and go from there. With both programs you have no risk to try them out as you are protected by a refund policy so you can essentially test drive them to see if it’s a match.

Where can I learn more about Jim Cockrum?

Like many entrepreneurs, Cockrum has many different websites and programs. We’ve done our best to outline his most popular and best Amazon training programs here.

That being said if you’d like to learn more about his work you can check out his podcast here.