Consultant
Dormant account
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2009
- Location
- Planet earth. Mostly.
I have not much experience as an affiliate, but I think a good affiliate is like a good business man (or woman):
1. Action oriented
The best 1 word business plan: Improve. Many people have ideas and visions that could make them rich. Nobody has ever planned not to be a succes. The key is to get going. A good day is one where you realized part of the plan. You should always be selling, not strategizing about selling.
2. Make meaning
Profit should be an incentive, a desired by-product, but never your guideline. The goal of your business should be to make meaning. It's really quite easy: Solve a problem or make something good better or last longer.
3. Be unique and customer centric
Your goal should be to provide value to the customer (players) and be unique in doing so. There is no point in ranking casino's by the color schemes of their homepages, nor is it useful - let alone profitable - to clone a leader.
Many internet concepts are network related. Only one affiliate can dominate every niche. It offers zero value to start a small copycat network of an existing big network (e.g. casinomeister forums), and it's pointless to clone an unsuccesful network.
4. Polarize but never compromise your integrity
Good brands have lovers and haters. Your goal should be to ignite passion. Some people love Ryanair, others hate it. Some people love the Virgin brand, others think Richard Branson is overrated. You can give countless examples. What they all have in common is that people talk about them.
There really is no such thing as bad PR, as long as it's reversable. If people think your site is ugly or stupid, no problem, let them and learn from it. Certainly don't block those people! Engage with them, but keep 80/20 in mind. What you should avoid at all cost, though, is losing your integrity. If you commit fraud, send spam or operate a scam operation, people will find out and you lose your reputation forever. Those things are irreversable.
5. Incorporate and put the company first
If you are serious about business, you should incorporate. Get a job on the side if needed to pay for those costs. Making it all more official gives your trading partners confidence and forces you to work harder and be more professional. You might get stuck with higher costs if your business doesn't go well, but burning your own ships is a good way to make you fight harder. If you feel incorporating is overkill, maybe you should question how serious you are about this entire affiliate thing.
Also, put the company first. You are an entrepreneur, not a CEO. Your goal should be to build a great business, to realize the business vision, not to remain 100% owner. Few people, if any, manage to become billionaires without sharing equity and surrounding themselves with a great team. Equity is like shit. If you pile it all up, it starts to stink. If you spread it around, nice things start to grow.
6. World domination in theory, niche by niche in practice
Rome wasn't build in one day. Microsoft didn't start out as the operating system giant, and Google didn't have dozens of features from day one.
As soon as you know what you want to realize and how this is unique and value adding, you should start splitting up the master plan in short term goals. Determine milestones and make assumptions. This should lead to clear tasks. Test and learn. Rinse and repeat.
7. Understaff, but outsource
You are constantly selling by now, and the next part of the master plan is always around the corner. Avoid the temptation to overstaff. You should remain agile. Comfort is the enemy of creativity. If you don't know how to fill your day, something is wrong. Your organisation should remain agile. So keep on going, but outsource selectively. Succesful people often demonstrate the ability to be maniacal in what they do best, and outsource all the rest to reputable people. Pay for value if you outsource. Building a business is a group effort. The quality of your business depends more on the quality of the weakest link than on the greatness of the best man behind it.
One area where you should not understaff is customer service. Your clients (players) put the food on your table, so there is no excuse not be available to them. You can outsource in fractions of FTEs using sites such as oDesk.com, elance.com, guru.com and rentacoder.com.
8. Have fun doing it!
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Building a semantic search engine might be a billion dollar opportunity, if you don't see yourself doing that, it's a zero dollar opportunity to you personally. Warren Buffet rightly says life is a snowball. Find a place you like with a lot of snow, find it early and let your little snow balls turn into an avalanche.
This is how I see being an affiliate, or doing business in general. In short, the key is to get going, make meaning, add unique value, ignite passion, incorporate, niche thyself, stay agile, work with the best and - most importantly - HAVE FUN!
I honestly believe that if you live life like this, you will also find yourself admired by your peers, loved by your friends and family, and without regret later on in life.
Now, please excuse, I have to get going!
1. Action oriented
The best 1 word business plan: Improve. Many people have ideas and visions that could make them rich. Nobody has ever planned not to be a succes. The key is to get going. A good day is one where you realized part of the plan. You should always be selling, not strategizing about selling.
2. Make meaning
Profit should be an incentive, a desired by-product, but never your guideline. The goal of your business should be to make meaning. It's really quite easy: Solve a problem or make something good better or last longer.
3. Be unique and customer centric
Your goal should be to provide value to the customer (players) and be unique in doing so. There is no point in ranking casino's by the color schemes of their homepages, nor is it useful - let alone profitable - to clone a leader.
Many internet concepts are network related. Only one affiliate can dominate every niche. It offers zero value to start a small copycat network of an existing big network (e.g. casinomeister forums), and it's pointless to clone an unsuccesful network.
4. Polarize but never compromise your integrity
Good brands have lovers and haters. Your goal should be to ignite passion. Some people love Ryanair, others hate it. Some people love the Virgin brand, others think Richard Branson is overrated. You can give countless examples. What they all have in common is that people talk about them.
There really is no such thing as bad PR, as long as it's reversable. If people think your site is ugly or stupid, no problem, let them and learn from it. Certainly don't block those people! Engage with them, but keep 80/20 in mind. What you should avoid at all cost, though, is losing your integrity. If you commit fraud, send spam or operate a scam operation, people will find out and you lose your reputation forever. Those things are irreversable.
5. Incorporate and put the company first
If you are serious about business, you should incorporate. Get a job on the side if needed to pay for those costs. Making it all more official gives your trading partners confidence and forces you to work harder and be more professional. You might get stuck with higher costs if your business doesn't go well, but burning your own ships is a good way to make you fight harder. If you feel incorporating is overkill, maybe you should question how serious you are about this entire affiliate thing.
Also, put the company first. You are an entrepreneur, not a CEO. Your goal should be to build a great business, to realize the business vision, not to remain 100% owner. Few people, if any, manage to become billionaires without sharing equity and surrounding themselves with a great team. Equity is like shit. If you pile it all up, it starts to stink. If you spread it around, nice things start to grow.
6. World domination in theory, niche by niche in practice
Rome wasn't build in one day. Microsoft didn't start out as the operating system giant, and Google didn't have dozens of features from day one.
As soon as you know what you want to realize and how this is unique and value adding, you should start splitting up the master plan in short term goals. Determine milestones and make assumptions. This should lead to clear tasks. Test and learn. Rinse and repeat.
7. Understaff, but outsource
You are constantly selling by now, and the next part of the master plan is always around the corner. Avoid the temptation to overstaff. You should remain agile. Comfort is the enemy of creativity. If you don't know how to fill your day, something is wrong. Your organisation should remain agile. So keep on going, but outsource selectively. Succesful people often demonstrate the ability to be maniacal in what they do best, and outsource all the rest to reputable people. Pay for value if you outsource. Building a business is a group effort. The quality of your business depends more on the quality of the weakest link than on the greatness of the best man behind it.
One area where you should not understaff is customer service. Your clients (players) put the food on your table, so there is no excuse not be available to them. You can outsource in fractions of FTEs using sites such as oDesk.com, elance.com, guru.com and rentacoder.com.
8. Have fun doing it!
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Building a semantic search engine might be a billion dollar opportunity, if you don't see yourself doing that, it's a zero dollar opportunity to you personally. Warren Buffet rightly says life is a snowball. Find a place you like with a lot of snow, find it early and let your little snow balls turn into an avalanche.
This is how I see being an affiliate, or doing business in general. In short, the key is to get going, make meaning, add unique value, ignite passion, incorporate, niche thyself, stay agile, work with the best and - most importantly - HAVE FUN!
I honestly believe that if you live life like this, you will also find yourself admired by your peers, loved by your friends and family, and without regret later on in life.
Now, please excuse, I have to get going!