Great post mate!
What I found being an affiliate manager, that most affiliates (the new ones) needs to stick to quite simple thing - building a content site on the niche topic, e.g. weight loss or skin care and so on. Obviously, it takes decent amount of work as this is
SEO (search engine optimization) approach but eventually can be supplemented with PPC and other means of traffic (e.g. youtube, etc)
Then the following process kicks in:
Month 1: 10 page site, built 5 links. Site gets indexed. Wow, 3 visitors visits your site. 0 sales.
Month 2: 25 page site, built 30 links. Site now got 78 visitors. 0 sales.
Month 3: 50 page site, built 100 links. Site now received 279 visitors. You made your first sale!
Month 4: 75 page site, built 200 links. Site this month had 730 visitors you made 4 sales!!!
Month 5: 100 page site, 300 links built. 1350 visitors, 8 sales made!
Month 6: 120 pages, 500 links, 2500 visitors, 20 sales made!
Month ...
Month 12: 200 pages, 3000 links, 10'000 visitors, 50-100 sales a month ($2000-$10'000) in commissions.
I posted this as an example on how the things REALLY happen. What I also have found is that many people drops out after first 2-3 months and then they complain - it didn't work! I did this, I didn't that.
But when you look at their site - all they have done is copied a template and some sample articles and built 3 forum signature links. It makes my wonder - WHY?!
So takeaway 1: don't give up until you have give it a good try - sometimes it could mean as much as 100 pages of content and 1000 links and 6 months of solid work.
Takeaway 2: if you can build one site like this. Now with the money you receive, do you think you could outsource and build 2-3 more sites? Oh, yes!!! And this is how you build your online empire.