Winners Never Quit, Quitters Never Win: How to Keep Going in Your Online Business

At the Wimbledon Championship in 2018, Novak Djokovic won his fourth Wimbledon Tennis Championship in straight sets. And this after he played the 2nd longest semi-final in history beating his arch-rival, Rafael Nadal in a game that lasted 5 hours and 15 minutes and spanned 2 days. .

Djokovic was keen to return to the top of his game after a couple of years of playing under par following an injury. But as the temperature on Centre Court soared on a hot July day, the Serbian-born player was back in complete control and beat South African Kevin Anderson to raise the trophy yet again.

So what does Djokovic have that others do not? Well, the answer is simple. And everyone who ever succeeds at anything will tell you the same:

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win!”

This is actually a quote from the American football player and coach, Vincent Thomas Lombardi who was an executive in the National Football League in the 1960s. .

The reason I say that Djokovic might know this quote is that his career since 2016 seemed to have gone into freefall despite his obvious talent. In the prestigious Rio Olympics, Djokovic and his supporters were shocked as he crashed out in the first round, And in the same year, he was beaten for the first time in his career by a player ranked out of the top 100.

His Wimbledon hopes were dashed again too as he failed to make it past the 3rd round and to add insult to injury (literally), at the end of the year, his coveted status of the world’s ‘No.1’, was lost to Britain’s Andy Murray.

(By Andrew Campbell (Novak Djokovic) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

To many of us, this would have been the nail in the coffin and we might have chosen to retire gracefully and give up. He had certainly proved his worth in preceding years and no one would have balked if he had decided to retire from competitive tennis.

And yet he played on. And the failures of 2016 and challenges of 2017 only seemed to spur him on further.

He rested, regrouped, and retrained and announcing a change of coach, got back on the competitive circuit.

Whatever he did worked and Djokovic has fought his way back into tennis history, as the proud winner of the Wimbledon trophy once more.

Now you could be forgiven for thinking this post is about tennis, but it is not.

Instead, it is meant to be a call to action for everyone who has started their own online business and who are determined to ‘win’ at this game of affiliate marketing.

So it’s not a tennis lesson here, but a repeat of the timeless “never, ever give up” mantra.

I’ll just say that again, to make sure we all understand what is important here:

“Never, ever give up!”

The reason that most people fail in their bid to build a successful online business is nothing to do with their niche, their skills or their ability to monetise their sites or rank on Google.

The biggest reason that people ‘fail’ at affiliate marketing is simple because they don’t have the patience and commitment to continue with their sites when the going gets tough, and they give up to easily.

In the 1980s there was a great song called “When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going” and it was a great testament to finding your true power when the chips were down.

It’s the same in affiliate marketing. It will test your patience, your dedication and you resolve and there will be many frustrating moments and elements of doubt that creep in along the way.

But don’t listen to those doubting voices in your head, or the naysayers who don’t really understand what you are trying to do.

To be a successful affiliate marketer takes time – you cannot build a successful site overnight. Joining a successful training program such as Wealthy Affiliate is not a get-rich-quick scheme. And I’m sorry if you think it is, but unfortunately, you are likely to find out the truth the hard way.

However, if you’ve set up your own business online, then you will know already that it is:

a proven and legitimate way to make money online
a potential way to create a full time income
a great way you can invest in both yourself and your future
a serious substitute for working for other people
great fun!

BUT….You MUST keep going and not give up.

If you’ve read some of my other posts, then you will know that I recommend Wealthy Affiliate as the best training program for starting an online business.

However, whichever program you use, the message here is clear: you need to stay committed to your goals, keep going on and not give up. You cannot reap the harvest if you fail to sow your seeds.

How to stay on track

One of the best ways to stay on track with your online business is to keep reminding yourself of the possibilities that it offers. There is proof out there, and if you search the internet you will find it.

At Wealthy Affiliate, there are many blogs in which people show their results and explain how their commitment to the program led to results. They always stress though that it takes time and you need to not give up too early. The average time to succeed is usually between 6 months and 2+ years or even more.

If you think this is too long, then you are probably not cut out to be an online entrepreneur and you need to rethink your strategy. This is a business and you need to think of it as such.

Let’s put this into some context to help:

If you want to study in the UK to get a degree, it takes at least 3 years. You will need to pay your tuition fees which at a minimum, are £9,000 per year, so a total cost to you of £27,000.

Of course you would need to pay for living expenses such as food and rent on top of that because that is only for the tuition fees.

That’s an incredible £27,000 after 3 years, with absolutely no guarantee of a job at the end of it!

Wow. That’s a lot of debt to come out of college with, aged 21.

So let’s look at the alternative of studying with Wealthy Affiliate for 3 years. If you did this, and paid for their annual premium membership, your total costs would be less than $1,000!

Which begs the question: where could you be with your income and online business in three years?

The answer is, a lot further on that £27k in debt.

Success stories abound but here are 2 colleagues how recently posted some great statistics showing how they earn over $2,000 per month from their online businesses. The links below will take you to their WA blogs so these are blogs for the benefit generally of other WA members, rather than being a recruitment drive. However, I think they are important to read if you want to stay motivated in your online business.

$2.9k per month blog…

Over $2k per month blog…

But how long do you need to commit to?

If you want to know the answer to this question, then I recommend you read a couple of other blogs that tackle this important question in an easy-to-understand way. :

How long does it take to rank and see a return on investment?…

How long before I see results?…

And a big ‘thank you’ to those colleagues who are willing to share their business experiences to help others stay on track.

So remember, the formula for succeeding in an online business is simple: