What qualifications should you look for in a potential affiliate marketing coach and what questions should you ask yourself about the deal? Who should you hire and how should you go about looking?

Well, for starters, you can ask yourself what is in it for the coach or trainer. What reasons does coach have for offering you service? Yes, as for Ranger Bill in the 1950s, there is the satisfaction and pride of seeing a job well done -- if your trainer can help you succeed. That humane motivation is nothing to dismiss. (Dale Carnegie would also add that you benefit from treating your coaches respectfully.)

But usually what is primarily in it for the coach or trainer is profit, either as tuition or as a piece of your action or both. If your trainer gets a percentage of your profits in an affiliate relationship, you can at least be assured he or she has a tangible interest in seeing you succeed.

Second, many trainers will advertise themselves as having succeeded. This is not, we hope, primarily to boast, but rather an attempt to assure you that they have a track record that qualifies them to help you succeed as they did. True, you would not want to be led in business by a business failure. But given the success of the trainer (and assuming the financial figures are real), there are other questions you should ask.

Can the trainer teach? Is the coach able to speak in non-technical language, able to keep on point and answer your question, able to troubleshoot your problems, even able to speak English (in this case) fluently? Sometimes a preliminary conversation will help determine this, and testimonials can be reassuring here.

One should also ask if the coach has had success in the online area you want or if the coach has had a broad enough experience to be able to address issues that might arise in your internet marketing niche. Just because someone has sold enough of a particular online product to be rich does not in itself mean he or she can help you develop relationships with your kind of customer base.

Another question to ask concerns exit strategy. I know, to succeed you need a can-do, positive spirit, but what do happens in the event, God forbid, that your coach does not help you enough or for some reason you need to bail? You may be stuck with contractual obligations like tuition payments. Better to know in advance than get surprised.

Of course, you may expect more of a coach than is reasonable. That is perhaps another side to the deal, even though you would not hire a one-on-one coach if you knew the outcome would likely be less than as advertised. If you are in business for yourself, final responsibility for success rests with you, not the coach. A last question you must then ask is whether you are committed enough to make investing in the coach worthwhile for you and the coach.