02
Work Smarter, Not Longer Hours
Posted by admin | Posted in ASW, Internet, Life, Marketing | Posted on 02-08-2009
This post can be applied to lots of different jobs and lifestyles, but it is mainly aimed at affiliates and business owners.
When I left my corporate job last year (6 days away from being 1 year to the day, not that I’m counting 
), I did it for 3 reasons:
- To Make significantly work more money
- To be my own boss and not deal with a corporate hierarchy/BS
- To work less and on my own schedule
At this point in my life I have accomplished all 3 goals, but that wasn’t always the case. When I first started, it took awhile to learn to make more money and in order to do it I was working longer hours, and at the time I was ok with that. But as I learned more and my business grew, I learned how to work smarter and not work longer. January 2009, right after Affiliate Summit West, is when I started doing this, and my earnings have increased dramatically every month since.
My old schedule consisted of me getting up around 9am, working all day, eating dinner and then working until 2-3am, sometimes longer. My days of doing that are gone, in terms of affiliate marketing. My current schedule is usually to wake up around 10-10:30am, get to the office in time to go to lunch and I am out by 6, and I do 1-2hrs of work outside of this office, tops.
The reason my schedule has changed so much and my earnings have gone up is because I started focusing on the most important/high volume tasks and less on every task that will make me money. For instance:
- I’ve pretty much stopped doing SEO for affiliate sites. It takes up too much time that I could be spending on media buying or not working at all. When in reality, the money you can make from SEO is peanuts compared to high volume media buying. I don’t mean to piss of SEO people or say SEO isn’t a valuable/important task, because it is, I just choose no longer to focus on it given my current business model.
- I stopped running every offer. I used to run 4-6 verticals at a time, now I focus on 1-2 and make them large. Once I started doing this (I was a 1 man operation) I was able to scale my verticals much bigger than when I was trying to focus on tons of campaigns. I contend it is better to be one of the top players in a niche instead of being a small to mid-size player in several. But to each their own.
- I started focusing on traffic sources that required less oversight/daily optimizations and could yield much higher sales volumes. I decided that I would stop spending countless hours optimizing keywords in PPC campaigns or blocking sites in content campaigns, and I would focus on spending money with large ad networks where less attention was needed. Yes I know I am leaving some money on the table, but I am ok with that. I don’t have to earn every available dollar.
- I realized that you don’t win an award for working longer hours than the next guy. No one gives a shit about your tweets that let the world know you’re working an all nighter, no one cares. So why work long hours if you don’t have to? Learn how to beat your competition through being smarter instead of working around the clock.
- I stopped doing so much competitive intelligence. I used to make it my job of knowing who was running what offer, where they were running it, etc. When I started focusing on my stuff more, I started to better.
These are just a few things that I started doing that have helped me to work less and earn more, allowing me to live the lifestyle that I ultimately wanted. What are some things you do?
Nice post. My fav tip was the last one about competitive intelligence. What YOU do is 100x more important than what the competition is doing.
Another excellent post. Great advice.
I especially like this: “No one gives a shit about your tweets that let the world know you’re working an all nighter, no one cares.”
Nice post about focus.
If nothing else, specialists get paid abt 10x as much as generalist any day of the week.
Agreed on the SEO point. SEO is important, but not necessary if you’re driving big traffic via paid sources.
got some good perspective from this post - learning myself how to work smarter - and longer!
I couldn’t agree more with the points you made in this post. I wanna look back at my life when I’m old and know that I also had time to enjoy life in my young years instead of remembering only 18 hour workdays those years. All the while making good money of course, but like you said - I don’t have to make every available dollar.
Great point you make about being a top player in one niche instead of being average across several niches. Own a niche and make it yours. Then, handle what you can and learn from any mistakes/opportunities from that one niche before starting more projects. Keep it up!
Work Smarter, Not Longer Hours…
Here’s a good read for affiliates. Work smarter, not longer.
Work Smarter, Not Longer Hours
When I first started, it too……
Another EPIC post, Brandon! Keep ‘em coming!
Congrats on your anniversary. That is really great. This was a great post to read b/c I’m in the middle of thinning out my life a bit and this provides a little perspective. Thanks…
[...] In a recent post, Brandon Adcock (AKA MajorBTA) wrote about how he’s reduced the number of hours he’s worked on his business and yet increase his in…. [...]
I really like how you show up at the office just in time for lunch… More time driving and less time working, right?
I really hate you. Just kidding- congrats on all the success, it is well deserved. And yeah, I think we all are a bit jealous.
“I used to run 4-6 verticals ”
What are verticals? Categories? Niches? Or are you talking about the different types of offers, such as email submits, surveys, trials etc?
@Alan - I’m referring to niches
Great thoughts and so true. Focus on what matters. The tough part though is having the discipline to do that… like why the hell am I reading your blog right now? Ha, anyhow noticed you’ll be speaking at the new SEMCLT. I’ll see you there.
I like the concept of what you have stated here.. Work Smarter Not Longer Hours…
We have different goals and we have our own strategies and it depends upon us..
Well, basically, what’s important is on how we deal with our work.
Great post, it helps me a lot, I have the same problems (organization, too much tasks to do…), plus : I almost broke my couple because of work !
It brings me hope,
regards,
Julien
Brandon, this might be an older post (with our industry standards
but its right on the money. I shared my thoughts on it through my blog. I hope that newbies like me start to realize that how our time is spent can greatly affect our productivity and in the end out financial gains.
At the same time I secretly hope you keep updating your blog for more useful information even if PPC makes more money than SEO
- Niko
Great post man. The 80/20 law applies to EVERYTHING. Spend 80% of your time on the 20% of your ventures that are going to make you 80% of your income.
[...] stolen, but there’s always ways to work around these tools. I read a post awhile ago called Work Smarter, Not Longer Hours, and the best way to relate that to this post is this quote: I stopped doing so much competitive [...]
I love you man. Finally someone gets it. I am so tried of all these “work your arse off to be successful” bullshit from so-called “successful” affiliates.