Five Things to Teach Your Downline in a Recession

Facts are facts; we're wallowing in a recession. You no doubt are feeling the effects of it in your business or your place of employment. If you are an affiliate marketer, full-time or part-time, you are also probably feeling the pinch. Things may get worse before they get better.

The good news is you as an affiliate mentor can take action. You can help your downline weather this economic storm. In so doing, you help them, and by association yourself. You also help your affiliate program as a whole. The stronger the affiliate program, the better off the whole team is.

Recessions are times to re-think your ways of doing things. They are also times for re-invigorating those under you to get on with business building. An effective affiliate mentor will seek to avoid pessimism, personally, and in their downline. They know a motivated downline at all times, not just in good times, is the key to success. Therefore, here are five things to teach your downline in a recession:

Not to Get Wigged Out

The number one thing an affiliate mentor can do is teach their downline not to panic. When your team sees sales dry up and their marketing efforts produce no results they can get frantic. They begin to doubt themselves. They begin to doubt their affiliate products. They can even begin to doubt the affiliate program as a whole.

This is when they start dropping out of your program. If they don't drop out, they go into hibernation waiting for better times. They may feel it's not worth the effort right now. Often, they will scramble to find another affiliate program that they feel will garner dollars fast.

This is when your calming influence has to spring into action. While you cannot force people to stay with the program, you can explain to them why they should.

Explain that affiliate marketing is a long-term business. Explain to them that there are peaks and valleys in every kind of business. Explain to them that no matter what program they are a part of external events are beyond their control. Teach them to work at the things they can control and wait out the rest.

To Focus on Their Customers Not Their Worries

It's also vital to encourage your downline to stop navel-gazing. The poor-little-old-me syndrome is not conducive to productivity. Teach your downline to look outward not inward. Get them re-focusing on the customers and not their problems caused by the recession.

The only way they can fight back in a recession is to communicate continually to their niche. They must direct their efforts to meeting their niche's wants and needs. An affiliate member's wants and needs, a.k.a sales, will come when they meet their customers' first.

Teach Them to Teach Their Downline

As a mentor, instill in your downline the notion that affiliate marketing is an integrated venture. Vertical integration is a popular business term. It is integration along a supply chain. If a retailer begins making the products they sell, they are increasing their level of vertical integration. Vertical integration can be backward or forward.

In affiliate marketing, your affiliate parent makes the product. Through their affiliate program, they can market it. You are part of that program. Down the supply chain are your downline. Further down the supply chain are your downline's downline. Benefits move up and down the supply chain.

Teach your downline that they can weather a recession by building their downline. It's their buffer in tough times against trying to build a business all alone.

Teach Them to Review What Worked in the Past

Encourage your team members to look at their past affiliate marketing initiatives. What worked well? Why did it work well? Maybe they engaged in article writing as part of an article marketing campaign. They used a good article distribution service and built consistent web traffic.

Are they still doing article marketing? If they aren't, ask them to reconsider using it again. It's fine to try different things. However, teach them to not stray from things that work.

Teach Them to Get Lean and Mean

Finally, often a recession calls for temporary cost cutting. Teach your downline to consider dollars spent. Maybe they can stick with article marketing, link exchanging, and forum posting for now. Maybe they need to forego pay-per-click advertising and paid classifieds to conserve assets.

Big corporations do this all the time. They cut now so they are stronger later. Teach your downline they may have to adjust accordingly as well. They can still market aggressively, just in a less expensive way.

As an affiliate mentor, you have a responsibility to teach your downline. It's easy to mentor when times are good and sales are flourishing. It's harder to do so when times are tough and sales are more difficult to come by.

However, it's essential you give more support during recessionary times. In this way, you and your team position yourselves well for when the good times do return.

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