What is involved in working with a Mentor? Why do you need it for getting started in Affiliate Marketing? There are many things that a Mentor can help you with, but the best Mentors follow a very specific process that has proven results. While they may have various names, there are three basic Stages that all good Mentors should follow. Each Stage can be broken down into smaller pieces depending upon the need of your Affiliate Marketing Business.

1. Involving ? the idea here is to clarify the purpose of what your expected outcomes are. This includes goal setting. You can have one goal or several goals, depending upon your situation. You need to have long term goals and short term goals. The short term goals need to support the long term goals. They need to be as specific as possible. For example:

a. Short Term: To make $500/day with AdWords within 3 months.

b. Long Term: To make $1,000/day with all business processes on a continuing bases; to be updated and reviewed every 3 months.

2. Developing ? once your goals are set, an implementation plan needs to be put into place. Keeping the long term goals in mind, you will begin putting together an implementation plan for all the short term goals. For example:

a. Short Term Plan #1 ? research and find profitable keywords in 3 days

b. Short Term Plan #2 ? implement 1 AdWords campaign per day for 2 weeks. Monitor daily, making improvements in keywords and testing various ads.

c. Short Term Plan #3 ? take top 2 AdWords campaigns from STP#2 to design and implement landing pages.

3. Resolving ? this is addressing any issues that may come up during the implementation and/or developing Stage. This is where the experience and advice of your Mentor will really benefit you. For example:

a. AdWords campaigns are not profitable ? your Mentor will be able to help you analyze why they are not profitable and help you make changes. Understanding why your campaigns are not profitable is a learning curve that is shortened with the support of your Mentor.

b. Finding profitable keywords and products. If you are struggling in this area, your Mentor will be able to provide you guidance as to where to look and what to look for in matching up profitable keywords with good quality products. Again, the experience of your Mentor will shorten your learning curve and soon you will be able to do this analysis on your own.

So where does success start? Planning is the cornerstone of all successful people. Many people look only at today or tomorrow. It goes back to us being an ?instant gratification? society. We want it now. But those who succeed, those who make the good money, they know planning and do planning effectively.

So how do you put together a plan? Look at it beyond the money. What is it that you want in life? Do you want to pay off a few bills, buy a new house, buy a new car, or put money away for retirement? Without understanding what it is you want setting goals can be difficult. This is where a Mentor can help you focus on what your wants are and develop plans on how to get there.

Overall, the Mentoring process is a support system to help you achieve the goals that you desire. While many people believe that they can do this on their own, those people who are achieving the best results in Affiliate Marketing will tell you that a Mentor made all the difference in their success.