Your adviser, coach, role model and friend

An affiliate mentor does more than provide you with an affiliate manual to read.

Affiliate mentoring involves personal, one-to-one teaching.

It involves being taught how to build an Internet business.

The right mentor can be your adviser, coach, role model and probably your friend.

Expert affiliate mentoring can mean the difference between success and failure for an affiliate.

While a small proportion of affiliates do exceptionally well - for example, I've been earning a good living from affiliate commissions since 1998 - many affiliates struggle to earn much more than pocket money.

Excellent instruction manuals are available for affiliates, such as Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook and the comprehensive Action Guide that comes with Ken Evoy's Site Build It!

For some affiliates, either of those top-notch guides is all they need. They follow the step-by-step instructions and in six months or so they're earning hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars a month.

If you already own one of those affiliate guides, what you need to do is this: Dig it out, print it, study it carefully chapter by chapter with a highlighter pen in hand, making notes as you go.

Each night, make a list of the six most important things you need to do. Next day, do those six things. Every day, ALWAYS do something to improve your business. Watch carefully to see what works. Repeat those things. Carry on until you're successful.

If you do this, you'll have a good chance of succeeding without hiring an affiliate coach.