As you build the downline of your affiliate business, you will have the opportunity to meet, whether online or in person, a variety of people. These people, members of your team, will look to you as their leader, mentor, teacher, and trainer, as well they should. You're job as you wear all of these hats is to inspire and motivate your team to success.

When you connect with your downline and let them know you have their best interests at heart they will seize the chance to learn from you. They will do this because they will want to be in your position one day, as a leader of their own downline. However, while they will learn much from connecting with you, you can also learn much from connecting with them.

As an affiliate marketer, your downline team is individuals with different personalities, outlooks, viewpoints, and ideas. They are also of different races, and cultures, as well as male and female. What does all that mean? It means you have a wealth of knowledge, experience, upbringing, and ideals before you that you can tap into to be a better affiliate marketer. Your downline is as important to you as you are to them. It will serve you well to listen to what they have to say and study what they do so you can have a more well-rounded view of your entire business.

One of the things you will learn from connecting to and listening to your downline members is different opinions of your affiliate product. You have your opinion of the product or products you are selling. These may be etched in your mind, and are opinions you have held for a long time. Listening to different downline members' opinions about your affiliate product, or features of your affiliate product, will give you new insight into your product and how you should market it.

Your downline members are customers as well. Their views and opinions may be a reflection of views and opinions some of your customers have. Learning how your downline thinks helps you learn how your customers think. You can take this knowledge and write better articles for wide distribution. You can write better advertisements, and speak on online forums more intelligently when you understand how others view your affiliate product.

Another thing you will learn from connecting with your downline is different affiliate marketing methods you may never have thought of employing. Sure, your downline is coming to you for marketing advice; they're new and want to learn your tactics. In the process of doing this, however, they will offer up their own suggestions as variations on what you teach them. They may come up with a promotional idea based on what you are teaching them.

You may teach them about guerrilla marketing, how it can be bold and daring and new and innovative. They may seize on this idea and come up with a unique marketing idea, one as unique as their personality, and share it with you. It may be something your thought processes would never have developed. It may be so innovative that you want the whole team to adapt it for maximum impact. If it pays off, it's because you started the ball rolling by connecting with your downline and learning from them.

One other thing, among a host of others, which you can learn from your downline, is how different market segments may view your affiliate goods. We are all a product of our social, cultural, environmental, religious or non-religious, and other upbringing. You may see your affiliate product or products one way because of these influences. Others, from totally different backgrounds and experiences and such may see these products or aspects of them quite differently.

If you connect with your varied downline members and learn how they view your affiliate products, as a socio-cultural group, more so than individuals, then you will get a glimpse into how your customers of similar ethnic, social, geographical, and cultural upbringing view them. You can then target your marketing to these sub-niches accordingly.

The above are some things you can learn from connecting with your downline. It's a two way street when it comes to training your downline for internet-marketing success. They will train you, if you let them, as much as you will train them. We never stop learning new things as we go through life. Let your inspired downline teach you the things you need to know to make you a better affiliate marketer and affiliate leader.