Affiliate Summit Speakers John Chow and Syed Balkhi

Sometimes it takes a village to run a business. When you’re an affiliate marketer or wanting to become an affiliate marketer, your blog is your business. And it doesn’t matter how many figures are in your paycheck, you can learn something new everyday from anyone and be able to apply it to your business, just ask Affiliate Summit speakers John Chow and Syed Balkhi.

John Chow started his website johnchow.com in December 2005. John teaches others how to make money blogging.  Syed Balkhi is the founder of  WPbeginner.com, which is the ultimate beginners guide to wordpress.

I interviewed both John and Syed at the last Affiliate Summit. Both are part of the panel Six Figure Blogging Ask The Experts & Secrets Revealed, along with John Rampton and Zac Johnson. The panelists are some of the most influential bloggers that attend Affiliate Summit.

Affiliate Summit Speakers John Chow and Syed Balkhi

Q: Syed how long have you had your website WPbeginner.com?

SB: Six years. I started it in July of 2009.

JC: He’s a youngin.

Q: John what advice would you give to someone just starting out?

JC: My advice would actually be to start. Seriously to start. Most bloggers when they start out are overwhelmed with all that’s involved. Reading my blog or reading Syed’s blog there are thousands of pages of information. “Oh my god there’s wordpress, there’s content creation, there’s formatting.  And they so overwhelmed in all that stuff that they don’t actually start. I have friends who have told me that they want to start a blog, that they are gong to start a blog and that was ten plus years ago. I’m still waiting for the blog today.

Q: Syed what advice would you give to someone just starting out?

SB: I think you need to have a clear focus. You need to know exactly what you want to get out of the blog so you don’t get distracted. Have your goals set out and actionable how you’re going to achieve those goals. And you measure it. How timely are they? Can you get there in one month, in two months? Have concrete deadlines. Obviously, you have to start. Don’t compare yourself to somebody whose in the space already because every expert started out as a beginner at one point. Don’t be afraid of just putting it out there and seeing where it goes and learning from your experiences.

Q: John what would you tell someone to help them stay motivated?

JC: Have a series of mini goals. So I have a main goal, Then I break it down into how to I achieve it. Like I say I want to make this money but that’s going to require me to do this, this and this. Ok I’ll do this first. So that’s a mini goal. In order to achieve it you need to reward yourself each step along the way. Instead of saving the big reward for the main goal reward yourself along the way.

Q: Syed what would you tell someone to help them stay motivated?

SB: Breaking down your goals into specifics is very important, but a lot of times what I see wrong is you have a long-term goals over here and your short-term goals are over here. You have to make your short-term goals build up to your long-term goals. Don’t wait for a year to reevaluate. A lot of times people don’t measure their success often and don’t reward themselves often. If you have an employee you’re probably not going to wait a year to do their review. You might do it every three months or every six months. So why not do your blog review every three months and every six months and watch. If you wait for a while to see this you’re going to lose motivation. But if you see growth every month it will help you.

Q: John you started dot.com lunch, which is a roundtable of people getting together, sharing ideas of what works and what doesn’t work. Tell me more about it?

JC: It’s a weekly meetup that I do. We just get together every Saturday for lunch. It’s open-ended and we can talk about anything. Once in a while we find a location where we can do a session and teach, informal get together, get to know each other and discuss whatever is on our mind or topic of the day.

Q: What would you tell someone who does not live in South California, who is not in your neighborhood, Should they try to form a group like this and where should they go to find people?

JC: Dot.com lunch was started on Meetup.com. That is actually the best place to meet groups. When I first landed in Southern California that’s how I met a lot of people. I went to meetup.com. I searched southern California and typed in blogging, affiliate marketing and all these groups showed up.

SB: You can do that for 20 miles out within your area if you are living in a very small town and you’re surly going to find something. There are groups for business to bar hopping to trying out new restaurants. Whatever you want there’s a group for it usually on meetup.com

Q: John what do you enjoy most about coming to Affiliate Summit?

JC: The biggest thing I enjoy  most is meeting new people and catching up with existing friends and contacts. The show is great! but for me it represents relationships.

Q: Syed what do you enjoy most about coming to Affiliate Summit?

SB: It’s also about hanging out with friends that I talk with and interact with daily maybe online but seeing them face to face. having lunch with them . Today I met one of my friends that I’ve known in the internet for six years. This is his first time in the US and I’m getting to meet him for the first time at Affiliate Summit. And this has happened a lot. It’s kind od like a family reunion for me.

Affiliate Summit – The Must Attend Event

I have to agree with John and Syed, the best part of Affiliate Summit is the people you meet. If you leave without making a single, worthwhile contact or a new friend, don’t bother coming back. You need to network and put yourself out there. Get out of your comfort zone. I learned that at an Affiliate Summit I attended a few years ago. Over the years, I’ve made some pretty amazing contacts and friendships worth fostering, such as the group of ladies I met from Utah, my friend Oscar Gonzalez from Notagrouch.com and new friend Harsh Agrawal from shoutmeloud.com.

In fact, Oscar recorded the interview I did with John and Syed. He put together a great video. You can watch it on his website and right here. I want to thank Syed and John for their time, and thank Missy Ward and Shawn Collins for another great Affiliate Summit.

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