Affiliate Summit is wrapping up as we are all just hanging out in the executive level at the Hilton with a couple of drinks. It was definitely a solid trip and as many have agreed with us, definitely grew from last year.  I wanted to give a couple of shout outs as we pack up our stuff and shake the empire state of mind.

- First off, it was awesome finally meeting all our IU members that attended.  Definitely a pleasure to chill with you guys and put a face to a name as always.

- Big props to Copeac with their new tracking system they are breaking out in the near future.  Copeac’s President/Founder, Mike Krongel,was on the floor at the exhibit hall and gave us a solid 20 minute demo of the system which we were extremely impressed with.  It really does the beat the shit out of just about every other tracking platform out there right now so they are definitely raising the bar with their script that is set to fully release in December to early January according to Mike.  We were pretty blown away by the powerful tools they are using with the EPC data in particular.  So you can see how the offers are performing on the network as a whole and how specific they were getting with this tool so it definitely eliminates some major variables when testing unfamiliar verticals/offers to gauge how your EPC compares.  We’ve always heard about people rolling out the next big tracking platform but actually seeing a demo was a whole different ballgame.

- Big props to APMEX, who just released their affiliate program last Friday.  They really impressed us with their booth and definitely look forward to expanding into that niche.  We actually have never heard of the company beforehand but we thought bringing in a gold brick worth $500K was pretty badass along with 1 ounce .999 grade flash drives that we managed to snag.

- Big props to Eric over at Clickbooth for the iPhone case that saved Richard’s ass numerous times throughout the trip. We were at the airport and since Richard just sold his caseless iPhone 3G on eBay, he was scared it might break before he could ship it.  He mentioned it nonchalantly and Eric whipped out a case on the spot.  Pretty sick case too!

We had an awesome time and definitely looking forward to hitting on all cylinders for the remainder of 2010 with our new contacts.  Reach out to us if we spoke in NYC and we will get things cooking.

Alright, so I recently stumbled across what I consider a somewhat “hidden” productivity gem of GMail but before you start throwing rotten vegetables at me and saying, “Yeah this was cool in December 2008 when it was released you fucking moron…” just be aware that I realize it’s old but I don’t think it’s very well known.  After all, an avid user of GMail for 4 years didn’t discover it till last night…

This tool is especially useful as a type of cloud software that can be used from different computers as Ryan, Richard and I use it since we all share one email address for our company needs.  Previously we had just starred emails and as they gradually got buried by more and more affiliate network offer updates, we would forget about them.  Alas, our problems are solved with Google Tasks!

I literally worship to-do lists as you probably know if you’ve read a couple of my posts before so I was naturally tickled to death to find a to-do list application that could be shared between multiple computers with so much power and ease.  Here’s an example of a great way to use Tasks to benefit your productivity:

Step 1: Select e-mail for task you need to do.  In this case, I need to renew a GoDaddy domain.

Step 2: Click “More Actions” and then “Add to Tasks” in order to add it to your list.

Step 3: Voila!  It’s in your to-do list and whoever opens the email will see this list.

Step 4:  You can also click the arrows on the right and get section for notes and what not.  Super powerful stuff to keep employees/partners on the same page.

With the recent sell of my first online business, I look back on the experience as a successful yet frustrating process.  There really is no better learning tool for selling a business than actual experience but the problem is… it’s usually not something you do everyday as an entrepreneur.  Here are five tips that I think will be most helpful in the event that you have to sell your business in my latest experience.

1. Cutting the emotions – If you are on the fence about selling your business for a long time, you probably are running way too high on emotions.  As I said, this was the first business that I started a 16 year old kid and this was my baby.  I nurtured it, I cared for it, I dumped thousands of dollars and hours into this precious business and now I’m going to kick it to the curb like it’s nothing?!  This business was my identity and my identity was this business.  However, I came to a point a couple months back whenever I was looking at financial statements, losing sleep at night, and dealing with other problems when I said that this just isn’t worth it anymore.  I considered my history with the business and how much success it has brought me and decided to make a strictly business decision that I’ve had a good run.  Once I cut the emotions away from the equation, it was an obvious answer to sell.

2. Announcing the sale – I spent a couple of days brainstorming potential buyers for my business.  I have never been a fan of putting sites up on marketplaces for just anyone to grab, especially if my identity was so closely tied to the business for so long.  You never know what the future owner will do with the business and if you have a contact list of potential buyers, you may not only be able to get the price you want but also the reassurance of an honest customer to take over the reins.  I chose to keep my sale private for this reason but also for the fact that it would make the users of my site more comfortable.  If they thought the owner was jumping ship and they had no idea it was going to someone trustworthy, they might jump ship as well; therefore leaving the business with even less active users than before and ultimately becoming less valuable.

3. Methods of communication – I found e-mail to be the most efficient way to negotiate the business deals for a number of reasons.  It was easy to document, proper grammar and spelling was frequent and the ease of being able to strategize your decision-making and negotiating was very important.  AIM or a phone conversation didn’t seem like the wise choice for me as I like to proofread and go over what I’m going to say a number of times to prevent confusion.

4. Never accept first offer – My father isn’t exactly a businessman but what he’s always told me when I spoke to him about selling my business was to never take the first offer. I’m not exactly suggesting lie to a potential buyer about having another offer but I’m sure as you may know it’s very frequent in sales.  Give good reason for the first offer to be rejected and offer a reasonable counter-offer that will make both parties happy.

5. Hire a lawyer – This is practically a no-brainer but I figured I would mention it anyways because even I’ve made a similar mistake before.  No matter how well you know the potential buyer or seller, ALWAYS get a lawyer to write up every little detail in a contract.  I’ve relied on handshakes before and it has cost me many hours and many dollars to fix these problems, and these handshakes have been with “friends” I’ve had for years.

Have you found any other essential tips to getting top dollar for your business? Sound off in the comments section.

Just returned from my trip to the beach with some family over at OBX in NC and finally feeling like I’m fully recharged after the last few months.   Every once in a while I’ll take a trip for a weekend but it’s really the week-long ones where I don’t think of anything involving affiliate marketing and do things I can’t do with the distraction of a computer in front of me that allow me to come back refreshed and ready to pound out hours in front of the computer again.  Finch over at FinchSells has always hit it home, in my opinion, with certain emotional topics like getting burned out with affiliate marketing and it got me thinking…

“The WickedFire mindset”, as he labels it, brainwashes us that we need to spend 24/7 in front of a computer in order to be that extra step ahead of competition.  Anyone who doesn’t or anyone who criticizes this mindset is simply labeled as lazy!  I was once under this mindset and sometimes I do still subconsciously think like that.  Sometimes I feel guilty when I go play golf or go sit by the pool for a few hours.   When I realize this feeling of guilt, I always step back and say, “what the fuck?  This is EXACTLY why you are working online, so you can do this…”

Here are a couple of things I have found to be effective in my 5 and a half years of working online in order to keep your sanity and your batteries charged, or at least making it so you don’t feel like you have to recharge your batteries every other week in order to keep yourself from bursting with rage.

- Find an physical stress reliever. I’ve always played basketball and soccer but after high school I didn’t really have a place or time to do it between school work and affiliate marketing.  I’ve turned to working out this summer as I have the past few summers and running 2-3 miles a day.  This has helped me immensely and I instantly feel less frustrated afterwards.  I’ve noticed on days that I don’t do this, I literally want to smash my keyboard and burn my credit card after every snag in a campaign.   The trick to helping me the most is doing it in the morning before I do much more than check e-mail.  Setting off in the right mindset in the very beginning of your day helps me the most for me because if I’m frustrated doing something it’s hard to go back to doing that same task with a completely new mindset after working out.

- Music. This one is pretty obvious but again starting music as I shower and get ready for the day is the absolute key.   A lot of people claim they just can’t find music they like, for those people I suggest checking out Pandora.  It’s amazing how many people know about it but don’t use it.  I literally don’t turn off my music from the time I get up to the time I sleep.   Right now I’m a big fan of Lupe Fiasco, Wiz Khalifa, Drake, and Curren$y.  (All of which refer to making money ironically… )

- Limited Sacrifices. This one is a big one for me and one that I only recently stood back and realized.   Everyone always says that you have to make sacrifices to succeed, that’s obvious.  However, you have to draw the line somewhere or else you are going most likely going to be miserable at the end of the day.  I am extremely busy as I try to balance college and affiliate marketing and during the first semester of college I sacrificed a lot of college time in order to spend time on my affiliate marketing work.  I would literally answer emails while a girl was sitting on my lap begging to watch a movie or whatever.  It sounds so pathetic/embarrassing but it’s true, she would get so mad at me for prioritizing the computer over her.  I just never knew where to draw the line and a lot of people have this same problem.  I’ve never turned down a party on a Friday/Saturday night or anything but there have been many times when I’ve turned down a game of poker or something of the like because I would much rather refresh my stats or work on getting this media buy live before 2:00.   I guess this line is for you to decide but stepping back and saying, I’ll never be able to experience this again and this campaign or blog post can wait is so crucial.   If you have a family, you should see many of the same type of circumstances.  Sacrificing your personal time is what will lead you to success, sacrificing a unique time you could be spending with others will almost always be regrettable in my opinion, even if it means dollar signs.

- Enjoying the Fruits of Your Affiliate Marketing Labor. I’m not a baller and I never will be with my spending.  I have a taste of disgust when I look on Facebook and people I know in affiliate marketing are flashing their pictures of their new cars, watches, houses, and etc.  (Birdman is the exception for various reasons, heh) It’s important not to be a tightwad, and regrettably I have been for the past couple of years.  I have trouble shelling out money for anything that I don’t feel is “necessary”.  Perhaps it’s because I used to spend like a madman when I made chump change as a kid, and always would get scolded for it.  (Cue the Jewish jokes) One thing I don’t have a problem with spending are experiences.  Being able to drop everything and spend $500 on a plane ticket to New Orleans or NYC is an awesome power to have that I may never have for the rest of my life.  Exercising this opportunity on a regular basis with friends is one of the best fruits of affiliate marketing labor!

- Making a Routine. This one is kind of strange to think of because of the fact that affiliate marketing is probably one of the hardest things to make a routine to follow.  The constant changing and inconsistency of campaigns is very aggravating but if you are experienced in a certain area, you can at least develop a routine to-do list habit the night before and nail things down.  I’ve found getting a piece of paper out and doing a to-do list every night increase my productivity immensely.   There’s something a routine does for me that keeps me sane and less mentally exhausted because otherwise I try to do a million things at the same time and spend the whole day just thinking of what I have to do instead of actually doing it.

These are the practices that I’ve figured out the hard way through working online for almost 6 years now.  What types of things keep you sane?

Man, oh, man, what a deal Amazon has just released.  If you are a college student you are eligible for a free one-year membership to Amazon School, a spin-off of Amazon Prime and a $79 value that I’ve been a member of for about 3 years now.  (It’s worth every penny even at retail!)  The only difference between the two services is that overnight shipping is $3.99 for Amazon Student vs. $2.99 for Amazon Prime but the free 2-day shipping aspect remains free for both programs.  Which really isn’t a big deal as most places are $10 – $15 at the very least for overnight shipping.   All you have to do is provide a .EDU email address and major and everything is golden.

It looks like Amazon is trying their best to compete with the high overprice of the  same books that universities sell.  I know that I spend a good $600-$700 a semester on books and half the time I don’t even use 1-2 of the books more than a handful of times.   The worst part is that the resell/buy-back of the books is absolutely terrible at least at my school, resulting in me selling on Amazon or Ebay anyways.

This rivals the popular back-to-school deal by Apple in which they provide a free iPod Touch ($200 value) for free with the purchase of a Mac that I’ve capitalized on twice thus far as a college student.  However, I think they have a slight edge as you can usually find a $100 discount most high ticketed items. Registering for this great deal now… if you’ve come across any other great back-t0-school deals, let me know!

Ryan and Richard’s popular wrestling site was contacted by a seemingly new company that has developed a brilliant twist on the popular Captcha system that shields sites from automated bots while increasing advertising revenue.  The company, AdCopy, guarantees that this innovation of the Captcha protection will increase your advertising dollars by having them type in a brand for a high chance of retentive memorization, instead of just a random string of characters similar to below:

The email they received furthers states that, “Every time a Type-In is completed, we share a portion of the revenue generated with you. What’s more, you need not worry about the ad diverting users from your site; unlike other ads, the Type-In™ unit is not clickable.”  So essentially, this is just creating another opportunity for you to make money with little to no work in my eyes.  It seems like it’s a pretty easy guarantee for them to make for it to increase your advertising revenue, especially with their claim that CPM’s are $1-$20, in a placement that you probably were making $0 to chump change on.

On the advertiser side, I’m very curious if they allow people to sign up and create campaigns.  This would be a very unique opportunity but obviously it seems like it would mostly be for branding advertisers.  However, I would consider starting a campaign if you could limit certain niches/sites to your advertisement so you could laser target your campaigns close enough to yield a good response.  If you had a simple domain to remember, you could probably effectively get at least a few visitors to your site but the lack of ability for clicking may drastically hurt your “type-in ratio”, heh.  (Technically, not “CTR” since no clicking…)

The program is still in beta so I’m not sure if they are only limiting it to people the business development manager reached out to or not but if you link this blog post in your application, you might be in luck. Richard and Ryan haven’t implemented this system yet as Ryan is on vacation but if they decide to I’ll be sure to have a follow-up post with their review.   Evidently many of the same investors who invested in Google, Facebook, and Twitter see promise in their program according to their claims, so there is some serious promise in this new technology in my opinion.

If you’ve tried a similar program or used AdCopy before, let me know in the comments section.  I’m very curious if this lives up to the hype!

This is probably  geared more to the younger crowd of affiliate marketers because I know age inquiries of older people are definitely insulting but I just couldn’t let this go.  I had passed by a local dealership here and noticed an unusually nice car parked out in primetime real estate for traffic so I had to call and find out what the deal was.   It’s hard to understand the context and message of the blog post without mentioning that this car happened to be a Range Rover so naturally the audience that buys this car is generally an older audience that I assume car dealers think have managed to become successful after many years of grinding out in the work world.  Anyway, I call them to find out more information about mileage and price and midway after the conversation the dealer just flat out says, “How old are you, buddy?  You sound kind of young…”.

I didn’t say anything to him on the phone at the time just because I’m not someone who blows up with anger on the spot but rather fumes with smoke later on.  I was very nerved that this guy thinks just because someone is young that they don’t have the intelligence or opportunity to attain enough wealth for a Range Rover.  Maybe I should refer him to Birdman?  To say the least, it caused me to decline two of his requests for me to come by today and test drive it because of this belittling.

The other side of the coin is that these type of inquiries are a form of flattery.  My parents have given this notion because they feel like if you can be recognized for being younger and still being able to afford luxuries like this, then all the power to you.   However, I’ve never seen it that way…

Have you ever had an experience like this?  I’ve had many where my age caused me not to be taken seriously, especially when dealing with car dealerships.  Sound off in the comments section, I’d seriously love to hear some stories.

Right before the beginning of the awesome weekend of July 4th, I typed up a blog post calling out the popular telephone verification company, TeleSign, for a poor personal experience that I had with one of my accounts involving customer service.   At about midnight that following day I received an email from the president of the company expressing his apology, promise for improvement in customer service relations, and a credit for $100 to my account to help remedy the situation.

To say the least, I was extremely surprised.  As an online business owner for the past 4 years, I realize how easy it is just to shrug off complaints and less-than-stellar reviews across the Internet on forum boards, much less give up a sizable amount of credit.    I don’t mean to “brown nose” TeleSign too much but such action is certainly a strong message to customers in two ways…

#1: It tells you that this doesn’t normally happen.  I mean flukes/mistakes happen and as I said in the previous blog post, it was right before the 4th of July weekend and I’m sure the customer service person was ready to just clock out and start chugging beers.   It’s especially easy for a company who outsources employees for this type of behavior to happen because usually consequences don’t happen to them if they work out-of-house.  (Not sure they specifically outsource or not but worth mentioning…)

#2: It shows quality in a company.  Early in my business career HostGator awarded a $50 credit to my account just because I had waited on hold for 15-20 minutes at about 1:00 AM one night with a server problem.  Luckily, I just set it on speaker phone and was playing Xbox Live at the time so I wasn’t mad or anything but I was really caught off guard and extremely impressed with HostGator’s generosity and sincerity and it’s one of the main reasons why I stuck with them for my older ventures rather than moving them to RackSpace.

Some may think companies who make things right by issuing credit or apologies are stupid and wasting money but the fact of the matter is with consumers like myself, it’s the little things that go a long way.  In the end, chances are that the $50 or $100 credit they issued is only a short term loss and could mean many, more dollars indirectly to the company.  For instance, I blogged about HostGator and commended them for their service many times.   I not only continued to pay my bill but also to recommend it to others and etc.

I hope I didn’t sound too much like I was sucking up after the $100 credit but I feel like this behavior should be noted and as I previously said in the aforementioned blog post, TeleSign was a great company to work alongside for the past two years.  I can honestly say if it weren’t for them, I may have very well lost thousands of dollars in profit due to the inability to prevent foreign users from mass-registering on my business.   Tip of the hat to Ryan at TeleSign for reaching out to me.

I was just wrapping up the tail-end of a sale of one of my business ventures when I encountered someone who evidently was very irked that I have the nerve to call in right before the long holiday and I have to say, such an experience totally changes my outlook on the company altogether.   Usually I would never have the nerve to call someone out on this but I think there’s a lesson to be learned and hopefully they will see this and try to correct it…

For the past 2 years or so I’ve used TeleSign as a phone verification method to prevent fraudulent sign-ups and leads for one of my ventures.  It’s always been a great experience with no problems after the integration of the software and I can just login online and make my payments every month with ease.   However, today I decided that I needed to change my password. Well, for some odd reason they don’t let you do that online so you have to call in between their open hours on the West Coast.   I figured that was fine, this was for my security after all, so I called them up and the conversation went like this:

Me: Hi there, I’d like to change my password on my account, please?

CS Person: Uh, what?

Me: I’d like to change my password on my account, please.

CS Person: What’s the email on the account?

Me: I believe it’s **** but I’m not 100% sure.

CS Person: Nope.   Do you work with the company or what?

Me: I’m the owner, my name is John Kirkpatrick.

CS Person: Oh, okay.  What would you like the password changed to?

Me: Change it to ****, please.

CS Person: Okay, done.  Can’t you do this on the website?

Me:  No, it specifically states I have to contact a representative.  Can you hold while I make sure it’s successful?

*CS Person hangs up*

I’m usually someone that understands that people who aren’t happy with their job at McDonald’s or whatever will not be polite with you no matter how polite you are but I just felt like this was something different on so many levels and it’s especially surprising because I viewed TeleSign as such a quality company previously.   Secondly, I thought it was extremely discomforting that he didn’t verify any type of information to make sure it was me.  Hell, I bet I could get my mom to call back and claim to be someone else from the same number and get it changed.  All TeleSign needs is some kind of address or last four digits of a MasterCard to confirm and I’d be satisfied…

Moral of the “story”: Customer service can turn your business image sour.  It certainly turned my impression of TeleSign sour and maybe that’s because they chose to outsource cheaply or something but it just didn’t seem in line with the company image they were going for.   At the very least, TeleSign, please for the sake of your customers get some kind of identity verification!  To all those out there who have their own customer service departments for their products, don’t drop the ball in this area.  Great customer service is not an area you should cut costs on.

I know this is the third post today but thought I’d let everyone know of the GoDaddy coupon that got passed my way once again… It makes all domain registrations comes to a total of $1.17.  Only one use per account.   The coupon code is SOCCER99.