Your Background: How much does your success depend on it?

[Greg]

Consider two (fictional) people, Gwen and Jacob.

Gwen is an English writing major. Her focus is article writing and she has a great following on Elance along with some private work. Gwen knows nothing about setting up a website. She considers herself technically challenged and avoids anything having to do with Wordpress, Domains, DNS, etc.

Jacob is a web developer/programmer. He has developed websites since the mid '90s when pure HTML ruled the web. These days it's all about Wordpress, and he is considered the "go-to" guy for several clients. Jacob's weakness is writing. Sure, he has full command of the English language, but it takes him an hour+ to write an article, and two more hours to proof read it. His content is far from optimized for SEO, and he's not even sure what that means.

Between Gwen and Jacob, which do you think would be more successful as an affiliate marketer and why?

-Greg

[ChristineCobb]

I say they form a joint venture and both can be successful.

[lindastacy]

Chris is right - they both need to either learn the other skills or have someone else work with them. I wouldn't say one necessarily has a better chance than the other. For me personally, learning techie stuff is easier than improving my writing, so I feel like the writer would have a head start over me. Doesn't mean I can't catch up though.

[Satu]

Good question, Greg!

I agree with Chris: Gwen and Jacob would make a great team. :-) Also, if Jacob focused on a service based business model, his content creation skills wouldn't be much of an issue. And what would prevent Jacob from hiring (outsourcing) someone like Gwen to polish his writing and creating good create copy for his website.

I think it's a dangerous idea to think that your current background determines your future success. On the other hand, it might be a dangerous idea to try be a jack of all trades. You might spread yourself so thin that you see barely any progress.

[Satu]

Ha, I just noticed I didn't really read your original post properly, especially the last sentence.

I think Gwen would have a better chance of succeeding in affiliate marketing - at least initially - provided she's willing to learn how to use Wordpress platform for blogging. It's not rocket surgery! (If you're not willing to learn new things, there's no hope for success.)

But if Jacob persists he's going to get better and faster at writing. And besides, there are plenty of affiliate programs and products to promote in the wp/technical "niche" or whatever you would call it. :-)

[LaShae]

I'd say neither of them have a chance at affiliate marketing since it doesn't appear that either one of them is focusing there.

If Jacob focused there, I'd say build the sites, hire the writers. If Gwen focused there, I'd say write like the wind, hire the site builder.

[Steve]

hello,

what if Jacob doesn't care and just goes for it and gets to work? He fakes till he makes it? A great writer once said in order to write great you need to write bad .. I don't remember who said it but I read it somewhere. Jacob should weigh the pluses and minuses. if you're not breaking the law and no one is going to die as a result of your actions, I say Jacob should just go for it and see what happens.

Steve

[lizmcgee]

I would say Gwen.

She already has a great following and knows how to write. Affiliate marketing is a lot about writing well, compelling content that gets the click. Being a writer already she probably has experience with that.

Getting a site built and doing the techie stuff is something you can easily and cheaply outsource.

[gushy0202]

Do what you are best at, hire a service provider or freelancer for what they are best... JV when you both launch a product or service together...

[Charlotte]

It is hard to take the step and spend money hiring freelancers if you are not making money, or not making a lot of money, however I can see that this is probably the best way to fill your personal skills gap. I suppose it is the same as buying a theme for a website, just taken to the next level.