The Fishing Guy

Every family gathering has one.

The person who can steer any conversation toward fishing.

You mention the weather and they tell you what it does to the bass. Someone brings up the long weekend and they already know which lake. They have opinions about fishing line that nobody asked for, and somehow you end up listening anyway.

The strange part is that nobody minds.

Watch the people around them. They're laughing and asking questions about a hobby most of them will never take up. The person talking is lit up, and that's interesting to be near, whatever the subject is.

They don't need a plan for what to say about fishing.

They'll still be talking about it next year. And the year after that.

What Pays

When people start in affiliate marketing, one of the first questions is what to promote. The usual way to answer it is to go looking for what pays.

The biggest commission or market. Whatever the person in the video said was hot right now.

I understand why. When you're starting out, money is usually the reason you're there.

But a niche isn't a product you choose once. It's a subject you're agreeing to talk about every week for a very long time. Posts, emails, videos, the same question answered for the fortieth time.

If you chose it only because it pays, you'll feel it around the third month. Every post starts to feel like homework. You run out of things to say, because you never had much to say in the first place. There's a version of that trap in how we evaluate products too.

Readers feel it too. Not right away. But they do.

The Two-Year Question

The two-year question is simple.

Could I keep talking about this for two years, even if it took a long time to pay?

That's the question worth answering before choosing your niche.

Think about the conversations you naturally enjoy, the subjects you find yourself researching without being asked, and the problems you've learned enough about to help someone else.

The answers don't have to sound exciting. Budgeting. Sleep. Getting back into shape. Raising teenagers. Working from home without losing your mind. Plenty of subjects sound boring until somebody who cares about them starts talking.

Interest isn't the whole answer. There still has to be something people want to buy, and there still have to be honest products worth recommending. Check both. An hour most days with a subject you care about compounds in a way that grinding through one you don't never will.

But interest is what keeps you going long enough to find out whether the rest works.

The fishing guy never has to come up with something to say.

Someone just has to ask.

Pick the subject where you're that person. What comes after that takes time — but it builds.