What has Led to your Success?

What defines success? Is it the amount of money you have in your bank account? Is it the amount of land your family lives on? Is it what you can provide for your family? Is it the type of car you drive? Is it the amount of free time you have? Success can be any of these depending on what you value the most. Success comes in different sizes. There are small things that we succeed at every day as well as larger things that we may only have one chance to succeed at in life. Of course, the same goes for failure.

People always talk about what led to a failure, but do they ever discuss why they have succeeded? I would like to hear it.

If I had to say what has led to my success thus far I would have to say it is due to my passion for succeeding. It really does not matter if there is a financial reward for a given success… I just enjoy giving something a try and succeeding.

Anyone else out there care to share what has led to their success whether it is related to internet marketing, your family, day job, etc?

Let’s hear some stories/qualities that have led to your success… they can be anonymous if you choose. Just post em in the comments.

Striving to Fail

Failure is something that most people are afraid of. Why? Mostly because other people notice failures and usually associate that failure with that person. People look at someone a little differently when they have watched him or her fail publicly. No one wants to be seen as a failure.

The truth is that there cannot be success without the risk of failure.  Whether it be starting a business or talking to a random girl at a bar. You never know what could happen. You could make a million dollars or get slapped in the face.

I have always looked at failing in a different way. If I fail at something it is usually because I didn’t have the desire to succeed. For some reason I have always had the motivation to be the best at whatever I do. Call it super-competitiveness.  As long as it is interesting, I will dissect it and learn it from the inside out.

There is however certain failures that cannot be helped. For example, if you ran a food and beverage company that sold pizza and beer at outdoor festivals. You would have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in pizza and booze. If for some reason the festival was canceled or had little turnout(think weather, terrorist attack, traffic, etc) you would most likely lose your ass. I like to chalk failures like that up to bad luck.

Other failures happen because of poor planning, lack of hard work, no attention to detail, no market, etc. These are the failures most people deal with.

Example: Starting a new poker forum in 2008 only to promote it half-heartedly and then realizing it probably wasn’t the best idea. This is the result of poor planning and lack of hard work. The poor planning was thinking that it would be easy to build an active loyal community when there are already dozens of them on the web. Sure it can be done but not without a different plan of attack.

Failures should teach you something. Ask yourself why it didn’t turn out like you thought it would? Take the answers to that question and apply them to your next project. Eventually you will have so much experience that you will never fail.

Failures happen every day whether they are big or small. Failures are a part of life. Most of my failures have come from lack of experience. The more experience I gain the less I fail. If you are afraid to fail then you are afraid to succeed.

15 Negative Qualities that Keep you from Prospering as an Affiliate

I finally got away from my Thursday night valet shift so I thought I would do a little rambling on my blog since it is no longer suspended.

Chances are one or more of the reasons below is holding you back from reaching your true potential as an affiliate.

1. You have no work ethic - You don’t have the discipline required to turn off the TV, kick out the friends, sit down, and get focused.
2. You are lazy- You want to be successful but you never do anything about it. The will to succeed is nothing without the will to work hard.
3. You are crazy - You are too busy getting into internet squabbles on webmaster forums and getting yourself banned to focus on what can make you money.
4. You are all talk - You never follow through on your ideas.
5. You have no passion - You are attempting this because you think it will be an easy way out.
6. You have no writing skills - You didn’t pay attention in writing class and now you wish you would have. You may say things to yourself like, “I’ve never been good at writing” or ” I’m not a writer”. That is only because you haven’t put forth the effort.
7. You think you are too cool - Being an affiliate is only cool when you make 20k or more a month. Try telling someone what you do every day… very rarely they say, “OMG! That is sooo cool!” Sometimes you have to do uncool things like study traffic and keywords and write code.
8. You are arrogant - You think that everything you do is the right way. Everyone else is making a mistake. You don’t listen to people with more experience than you.
9. You are too shy - Getting to know the successful affiliates will ultimately lead to your success. When is it ever a bad thing to expand your network?
10. You have OCD - Your projects stall out and you lose your drive because you can’t get over little things like design issues or color schemes. Either fix it or don’t, but you have to keep moving.
11. You are a hater - You spend a few hours a day talking smack on other affiliates blogs. You start some controversy so people will acknowledge you. You get all worked up over some forum drama and lose your cool. Hint: The people who don’t argue with you are the ones actually making money.
12. You are scared to lose money - Seriously… let it go. I am not saying go into the fight swinging blindly, but taking calculated risks is a necessary part of any business. If you want security put your money in a savings account. Money is here to be spent, and what is better than spending money on things that make you more money?
13. You have a negative outlook - Past failures and embarrassments have made you think negatively about sticking your neck out. You worry what people may think about you if your idea fails.
14. You are not self motivated - You need a boss to tell you what to do. You wouldn’t know what to do if you had to decide for yourself.
15. You can’t manage your time - You waste too much time goofing off with friends and reading blogs to get anything done. If you don’t set a time or deadline it most likely doesn’t get done quickly.

There you have it. 15 reasons why you might not be reaching your full potential as an affiliate.  At one point in the past I possessed 11 of these qualities. What about you?

Take the Quiz…

If you…

Have 0 of the above qualities - You are on top of your game. It won’t be long until you are riding high if you are not already.

Have 1-5 of the above qualities - You are almost there, but you still have a few things holding you back. You most likely maintain a positive aura about yourself.

Have 5-10 of the above qualities - You could be doing a lot better, but you have to shake a few to get focused. You are probably a little unhappy with the way things are going.

Have 10-15 of the above qualities - You are most likely a heavy drinker. You hate the world. You are depressed most of the time. You probably have lots of debt. It only gets better from here.

I am Back & PAP Radio Show

So after a stressful few days it turns out that all is not lost. The suspension of my blog was a mistake. It’s back until further notice. After all that mess I think I will look into hosting it myself and probably switching the domain over to something a little easier to remember.  Yes… I think it is time to take it to that next level.

Poker Affiliate Radio Show

So tonight was the “beta” for the first pokeraffiliateprograms.com radio show and I have to say that it was pretty damn cool.  I will admit it was the first time I have actually spoken to any of these guys or even heard them talk for that matter. I am definitely looking forward to meeting all of these guys at the next conference. They may appear to be professional online, but I can tell there is a lot of shenanigans going on behind the scenes… and those are the kind of people I like to work with (or against in most cases).

Here is the link to hear the show.

Talk about a solid community. PAP has to be the tightest group of people who are all laid back and cool as hell. The signal to noise ratio is definitely high amongst the members. I haven’t been an active member at any other webmaster forum, but I have browsed around and seen some of the ridiculousness going on at other forums. Jeremy Enke should definitely write a book(or blog post) on how to build an online community and some of the pitfalls he had along the way.

Show Recap

Overall I was thoroughly entertained with the show. Randy aka Ridge of www.feltpoker.com was the first guest. He talked about life after the UIGEA and how important it is to diversify your online business. I couldn’t agree more with some of the points he made. Great job Randy.

Greg Powell made an appearance to talk about some behind the scenes things as well as the upcoming conference. He gave some great tips about negotiating with your affiliate managers. I recommend everyone listen to the podcast as soon as it is posted to hear some of the stuff Greg talked about.

After a song by John Denver it was time for my call. I discussed how I got started, yada yada yada… left out a bunch of stuff I should have said. You know, typical on-the-spot stuff. It was pretty weird actually talking to people about being a poker affiliate who know what a poker affiliate is. Usually I am trying to explain how it works to a “civilian” who has know idea what affiliate marketing is so needless to say it was a breath of fresh air talking to people who know more than I do. Needless to say it was a lot of fun being on the show.

John Goldie called in  next and talked about  what it was like to attend an  affiliate conference as well as discussing the importance of  finding a mentor.  It was a great call nonetheless so check it out on the podcast. Be sure to check out his blog at www.fivesomething.com. He’s been cranking out some great posts over there.

I am definitely looking forward to next week’s show. It is going to get nothing but better as it progresses. Props to Jeremy (and whoever helped him) for setting it all up. I know I spoke with him on Skype around 10AM, and he was testing that stuff out up until show time at 10PM. It was definitely pretty funny listening to him curse the radio equipment in his test broadcasts.

Other Thoughts

Anytime I get put on the spot I usually leave a few things out. Lucky for you this blog is here. Here are a few posts that cover some of the stuff I was asked about. The second two are pretty simple and geared towards newer affiliates, but it doesn’t hurt to rehash some basics from time to time to stay focused.

One Year Recap - Post about what has brought me to this point.

Why be a Poker Affiliate? - Post about what potential affiliates can expect.

10 Tips for New Affiliates - 10 tips to help out a new affiliate.

Where will I be in the next 1-5 years?
The Top

What advice do I give new affiliate for their first 6 months?
Don’t make half-assed attempts. Look at all of the successful poker sites and you can clearly see that there is no slacking on quality. Quality meaning that you can tell a lot of work has been put into the material on the site. I am not referring to the site’s design, although the simpler and cleaner, the better IMO.

I Work Alone… Yea with Nobody Else.

While most affiliates run their operations solo, there are a few of us that have opted for business partners on a few projects. While working by yourself can have it’s rewards, it can also become quite lonely. Working with a partner is more fun, but not if you suddenly realize your partner is lazy and you are doing all of the work. Some partnerships can flourish for years while others can spoil overnight. It all depends on your situation.

Which is Better?

I am relatively new to having a partner in this business, but so far I can say that I like it better than working alone. However, I have heard some pretty miserable stories of partnerships gone bad.

Some of the good things about partnerships are:

• You are not alone - Happiness is only real when shared.
• There are expectations - Your partner expects you to contribute as much as they do. You therefore get more done while trying to keep up with each other.
• Better Ideas - Two heads are better than one.

Some of the bad things about partnerships include:

• You split the money - This depends on your agreement.
• Your partner could flake on you only to return on payday.
• Difficulty agreeing on certain ideas - Conflicting interests on which direction to take the project.

I think the pros outweigh the cons for having a partner, but partners are not for everyone.

Working Alone

The Good:

• You keep all the money
• You have complete control
• You answer only to yourself

The Bad:

• You Work Alone which in my opinion gets boring as F!@K

Conclusion

Large projects are often the best projects to seek partnerships for. If you have plans to create a content-heavy site with over 1000 pages then why not have a partner? It can speed things up and put you in the green a lot faster.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damages caused by partnerships that were inspired by this post.

We all Violate Affiliate Agreements

Sitting around brainstorming the other day caused me to go and review the terms of a certain affiliate program. In this agreement I noticed that it states affiliates cannot optimize pages with certain “keywords”. This is not just one program that has this clause in their agreement… there are a few other programs that also mention this. Not only does it mention affiliates not being allowed to optimize pages, but it also states affiliate can’t build links with certain anchor texts.

What does this mean exactly? We may never know. Does it mean that xyz poker could one day decide that you are breaking the rules and take all of your players away? Possibly, but I doubt that would ever happen (knock on wood). Really it must be in place to safeguard the poker room from having affiliates outrank them for their own name. For example if an affiliate was to go around buying links left and right and optimizing his pages until one day he out ranks FullTilt Poker for the search phrase “Full Tilt Poker” that would look pretty bad for FT. How would it look to potential customers if a poker room couldn’t rank well for it’s own name? (Yea I know that has probably been the case in the past, but at the current time of this post full tilt ranks number 1 for it’s name). Surely it is there for this reason and not so they  can decide to screw all of their affiliates in one day.

In my opinion it all depends on the actual program. Does anyone else have any thoughts about affiliate programs non competition agreements?

Breaking News: OCSCD is Real

Ok guys this is serious so hear me out. I think some of you may not like to hear this but it must be addressed.

A recent study done by the psychology department at Harvard claims there has been a psychological disorder developing that is, “Sweeping the affiliate marketing industry and leaving ruins in it’s path”. Experts are referring to this illness as Obsessive Compulsive Stat-Checking Disorder, and apparently it is something to be taken VERY seriously. Read below…

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Associated Press

RED ALERT:  OCSCD is sweeping entire affiliate industry and leaving many families torn apart. Reports state that no affiliate is safe, not even work at home mom’s making  less than $100 per month. Here are some symptoms to look out for.

People suffering from  OCSCD are often:

• Aspiring affiliates
• Bloggers
• Nerds
• Procrastinators
• Know it alls
• Forum Trolls
• Spammers
• Super Affiliates

Warning signs that you or someone you know may have OCSCD.

• Bags under the eyes. (Due to lack of sleep)
• Complaining of eye strain. (From looking at stats all night)
• Back Pain (From sitting in front of a computer all night)
• May seem restless or anxious when not in front of a computer. (Stat withdrawals)

Apparently there are two forms of the “disease”.

1. Stage one OCSCD - This is a mild stat checking disorder which only effect people who stats are always at zero. This is quite easy to over come as some people often get sick of it and decide to quit trying to be an affiliate.
2. Stage two OCSCD - This is where the disorder begins to have a direct effect on the affiliate’s life. This usually affects affiliates whose stats are actually impressive.

Stage two is the most dangerous form of OCSCD. Some affiliates are even calling it an addiction. They start out just checking their stats only on the weekends, but this usually leads to more and more stat checking. Before they know it they are checking stats every hour just to “make sure they are still there”. One affiliate even reported having what’s called a “Groundhog’s Day” every day in which he would wake up early, check his stats, and depending on whether or not they were high or low would determine whether he went back to bed or started working.

Experts are calling Google’s Adsense a gateway stat that can lead to other more serious stat checking. One day an affiliate is innocently checking their adsense stats, and the next thing they know they have moved on to harder and more dangerous stats such as Kontera and Azoogle.

Even your kids are at risk…

One super affiliate reported that she caught her kids and their friends on her computer late at night checking her stats. She apparently didn’t hide her stash good enough. She discovered this when she heard exclamations coming from her office like, “OMG I am statting my balls off right now!” and “Dude, I am so F***in’ statted right now it’s not even funny”.

The only cure for OCSCD is to practice proper self control and to keep telling yourself that stats are not all there is in life.

All I can say is wow. This is getting out of control. I even found these pics of Shoemoney and John Chow setting a great example by statting out of control. Something has got to be done.

Actual, Theoretical, and Quasi Work

There was an interesting poll started at PokerAffiliatePrograms.com a while back asking, “How many hours per day do you work on your sites?”

The majority answered in the 1-8 hour range. There were a few who work more than that, which I find pretty impressive. The question I like to ask, however, is how much of that time is actually spent working? How much time do you spend checking stats, reading blogs, reading articles, reading forums etc.

I like to categorize work into 3 different categories.

Actual work that must be done.

Without this stuff you would be out of business.

• Writing content.
• Uploading content

Theoretical Work

In theory it is work because it is going to help you in the long run, but for the most part the stuff below has delayed results.

• Reading industry forums/blogs. This one skates on thin ice… Reading John Chow and Shoemoney doesn’t count as work… there I said it.
• Chatting with peers/networking on msn or skype. (Bouncing ideas off someone is one thing, but talking about American Idol does not count.)
• Researching and learning skills that could help your business. Examples: SEO, html, photoshop, etc.
• Studying traffic for various reasons. (Where is traffic coming from and where could more traffic come from)
• Analyzing the competition. (Looking at their source code, seeing who links to them, and other stalker tactics).

Quasi Work

This stuff resembles work, but it is not really work. It is part of the routine though… at least some of it.

• Checking Stats
• Playing with your stats in a spreadsheet saying, “Ok if I could send xx many players here and xx many players there I could possibly make xx,xxx this month.”
• Checking your position in the search engine results pages (serp’s).
• Checking your friend’s position in the serp’s.
• Writing long blog posts like this one.

While the above is not really work, it does seem to take up many affiliates time. Seriously, I find it hard to believe that someone could spend16 hours per day, every day, writing articles, link building and tweaking their site(unless they are learning at the same time). However, I do find it easy to spend all day on the computer if you are constantly researching something, starting a new project, checking stats, and reading forums and blogs.

Track your Work!

I initially drafted this post a few weeks ago (I think), and was almost going to scrap it when I discovered the Time Tracker add on for Firefox.  This little add on keeps track of how much time you spend browsing the web with firefox. You can reset it whenever you like, and keep track of how much time you spend working (or not working). You can set filters for site’s that you do not want tracked, and if you filter all of the sites that have to do with actual work you can see how much time you spend waste on gossip blogs, news sites, social networking sites, porn sites etc. I installed it late at night on March 31st and it will be keeping track of all browsing/working I do for 30 days.

I do the majority of my work through a browser with the exception of working in wordpad or frontpage, but even when doing this I have a browser open to refresh the pages to make sure they look right. I also write all of my content in Google docs (this keeps your work safe in case someone drops your laptop off the deck and ruins the hard drive…true story). At the end of the month I can figure up how much money I make per hour since I will know exactly how much time I spent at the computer… although I really don’t wanna know. After the first month I can cut down on the BS browsing and set the filter to block all sites that are not work related so I will know exactly how much time I spend actually working, and therefore I will know the real hourly rate of my work.

I was Doing What One Year Ago?

It’s been a while since my last post, but I’ve been busy working so I won’t apologize ;-). Today is my birthday, and this time of year reminds me of last year at this time. If someone would have told me last year how much my life would change this past year I would have thought they were crazy. This past year has been spectacular both online and off. I am feeling a little motivational today… so here is a story for you procrastinators who like to read blogs.  I also know there are a few friends that lurk around here and have probably wondered wtf happened to me when I suddenly disappeared.

The Collapse

I was having the time of my life. Surrounded by my best friends all the time without a care in the world except to pass my classes. Classes were a breeze and I spent most of my time with friends and drinking $1 drinks and enjoying my youth. That sums up my first year at GSU. Things quickly changed when the money I had saved ran out(how that happened is a whole other post).

About a year ago was when I decided to pull the plug on school in Statesboro, GA. I have always been a good student, and the previous summer I even made the dean’s list. It was this summer that screwed up my plan, as I did not receive any financial aid for this term which put me deep in a hole. The fall and spring semesters absolutely killed my moral. Working for $5/hour at Locos Grill and Pub as a delivery driver was not enough to keep up with my rent, car payment, phone, utilities, food, and credit card bills. THANK GOD capital one, american express, and direct merchants bank were there to give me credit cards with huge limits and monster interest rates to save me! haha

Things came to a head in February when I absolutely could not take it anymore. All of the credit cards were maxed out and had been turned over to collections, and I was working that god awful job almost every day (washing dishes) trying to keep everything else current. The standard of living AND the quality of life were at an all time low. I was depressed and miserable. One Friday just when I was about to get in my car to go to work I just snapped and said fuck it. What’s an extra $30 gonna do at this point? I never went back to that job.

The following Monday I called the registrar’s office, set up an appointment, and withdrew from school. I drove home a few days later. Ol’  Statesboro wasn’t going to let me of the hook that easy though… I got a speeding ticket in a speed trap on the way out of Statesboro for 22 mph over the speed limit which cost me $400. Bastards.

Rock Bottom

Back in Marietta, GA now I went back to the only job I knew. Valet Parking. I got a job within a few days of being home and was back in the saddle (a lot easier said than done, I attribute luck to this). At this point I was at absolute rock bottom. It could only get better from here. I was 20 years old, had just dropped out of school, had piles of credit card debt, and a blue collar job. The American way! I joke about this now but at the time it was very stressful, and I felt like a big loser for letting myself as well as my family down.

By this time I had been dabbling in internet marketing for about a year (I think, although my memory is clouded), and I did have a poker website but it was nowhere near earning any money. My internet money making efforts had been a money pit thus far. Nothing really worth mentioning. I think maybe one or two successful PPC campaigns and the rest all money pits, and I didn’t have money to throw away.

The Come Up

At this point I was feeling better about life, and I decided to valet park to pay the bills and use any extra money to try to make some money on the internet. I chose the poker industry mainly because I felt it wasn’t saturated with idiots posting $100 adsense checks. People were actually making money in this industry.

Around this time I met a guy named Jay who was going through a similar situation. We both ran the valet at a restaurant near Piedmont Park in Atlanta. I have never hit so many people over the head for parking. The park had festivals all summer long and we raped everyone on parking. Damn it felt good. What a summer.

Cinco de Mayo - 8 hours $850 cash.
Jazz Festival - 3 days = $1455 cash
Dogwood Festival - 2 days = $944 cash
Gay Pride Festival - 3 days = about $2000 for parking and another $500 for selling bottled water.
Movie at the Park every thursday- This was hit or miss but was usually good for about $200-$400.

So from about April to September I worked hustled Monday through Saturday and quickly made up for time wasted in Statesboro.

During this time was when things began to click I started making real money in the affiliate business. I have phased out parking cars and transitioned into full time internet marketing over the past month or two although I still help my friend Jay out when he really needs it.

Present

So much has happened in the last year it is hard for me to even understand it. From being buried in high interest credit card debt and not being able to afford a value meal at McDonald’s to being a full time affiliate. I still can’t believe it.

If you aren’t happy with your life… make a change. It’s worth it.

Stuck in Canada - Sick - Staying Positive

After a week long snowboarding trip to Tremblant, I am now stuck in Montreal until Monday at the earliest.  On top of being worn out and ready to get home, I am coming down with this flu that has been going around. My roommates snore, and my back is strained from sleeping on crappy beds.

Enough complaining. It is easy to go on and on complaining about every little thing possible, but it won’t solve a thing. I am a big believer in positive thinking even after being raised by one of the biggest negative thinkers. While it is easy for me to shoot out complaints, I could say things like… My vacation just got longer. I got another 2 free nights at a Marriott. I am finally sick of Labatt Blue. I don’t have a lame job to return to. I can work in the hotel from my laptop. I just had my biggest month ever. I am starting a new project that should be SICK.  Things couldn’t get better(but they will).

I have noticed a lot of negativity floating around in the industry due to the recent events with FullTilt. People are lighting up the forums and blogs with lots of bitching and moaning. It’s a real bummer. Does it suck? Yes. Should we cry about it everyday? No. People should take their negative energy and put it into something else besides arguing.

Rant over.