Imagine needing to scale your business, centuries before modern marketing.
What if the secret lay in a strategy as old as Rome itself?
Meet the original “affiliate program”…
In 55 BC, Julius Caesar faced a classic growth challenge: he needed more soldiers for the Roman army.
His ingenious solution?
He promised 300 sestertii to any soldier who referred another to join his ranks.
To put this in perspective, this was a massive referral fee, considering a common legionary soldier earned about 900 sestertii a year!
This ancient strategy is as relevant today as it was then. It’s all about the power of incentivized customer acquisition.
This timeless principle is the bedrock of today’s most successful referral and affiliate programs.
Just like Caesar leveraged his existing “customers” (soldiers) to acquire new ones, modern businesses like Amazon Associates and ClickBank pay out billions annually to partners who refer new business.
The core idea remains simple yet powerful: rewarding those who bring you new, qualified customers can be a tremendous driver of growth.
However… most successful affiliate relationships typically stem from individual relationships, rather than just listing products on marketplaces. Which is why relationship management is key for good affiliate partnerships.
And one last word of caution… Before making your offer available to affiliates, you need to ensure your product and offer are dialed in and you have a well converting funnel. (Don’t make the mistake of sending affiliate traffic into unproven funnels!)
🧠 The bigger idea: Incentivize affiliates and partners to send you business by… simply paying them. Leverage the existing networks of others and everyone wins.
What affiliate or referral programs do you have in place? If you don’t have one… what’s your biggest question or concern… ?