I frequently get this question asked of me and surprisingly, I find a hard time answering it in a way that is easily understood by the poser of the question. When I reply that I am an affiliate marketer, I usually get a blank stare. Of course the next question is - "What the heck is that?" I then attempt to go into a very elaborate and profound explanation of what affiliate marketing is and more often than not this proceeds to confuse the person even more.

Recently, I decided to keep things simple these days when asked this question. Now I just say - "I sell other people's stuff online."

However you want to define it, affiliate marketing is my full time profession and it is something that is not only very lucrative but also a great passion of mine. In my journey to get where I am today, I learned a few things along the way about what it takes to become a successful affiliate marketer but the most important secret of them all is a very simple concept known as commitment.

Affiliate marketing is a business and just like any other business, it needs to be taken seriously. It takes a major commitment to become successful, which is especially difficult for most when they start off because they are also working a full time "offline job". I made a decision that I was going to make a career out of this awhile back and that meant I had to make some major sacrifices. To me it didn't matter what activity I was giving up because I knew the reward down the road would eventually be freedom to do whatever I wanted to do.

Now by no means am I saying that you need to sacrifice your family time - this is still has to be the most important thing in your life (assuming you have a spouse and/or children). I am referring to things such as - instead of sitting around drinking beer with my buddies, I chose to work on my online business. When there where times when my wife was working a weekend shift or if she went shopping, I'd be glued to my monitor and keyboard instead of lounging on the couch watching the tube.

Every bit of extra time I had that didn't interfere with my family relations, I would be learning more and more about affiliate marketing.

Commitment - That's it in a nut shell. Of course there is a learning curve and you need to have a game plan in place , but if you stay committed and focused to this business or anything else in life for that matter, then you will eventually succeed.