jMoore!

The big thing when I started in affiliate marketing was working at home in my pajamas. There were days when I would get up, see Dave off to work and start building links and lose all track of time. Of course I wandered to the fridge, and let the dog in and out and out and in, but I could go for hours without being aware of the time. Sometimes I would hear the garage door and realize that I was still wearing my pajamas and Dave was home from work!

Now, because of articles in FeedFront magazine and challenges issued at and after Affiliate Summit East 09, the new craze is walking while you work (all day). Everyone is searching for some way to make or buy a treadmill desk. Me, I’ve ordered a laptop stand* for my treadmill. I am not ready to commit to 6-8 hours of working at 1-2 mph, but I think I could easily devote my goofing off time to the treadmill desk. I’ve been thinking about swapping our room configuration around and trying to find a place for the treadmill anyway. It’s currently sitting on my side of the bed, facing the TV because I know for a fact I can’t walk for more than 5 minutes without something to watch. The problem is I’m using it as a clothes hanger instead.

I’m motivated to give this a try and since we are currently driving to the City Fitness Center almost every morning to walk and since I spend most of the rest of my waking hours making my rear end wider by sitting in front of my computer, this has to be a huge improvement, even if I only get 30 minutes every other day, right?

*Disclaimer – whenever I find a great idea, I look to see if they have an affiliate program. Today was no different. SurfShelf looks like one of the few ready-made solutions to the problem of keeping your laptop or DVR from falling off your treadmill while you walk.

Absolutely, without question or qualification.

Thoughts on making a difference:

1. “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world” Brandi Snyder

2. Right now, it’s very politically correct to be helpful, caring, and generous. That makes it harder to be authentic. When we are authentically making a difference, we are usually standing alone. Can you bring yourself to disagree with the crowd? Even if you’re not ready to be visibly on the opposing side of an argument, can you resist repeating and reposting and retweeting the things that give that argument legs?

3. Can you even find a way to make a difference in your own life? Can you take one small segment of time as you start your day and figure out what one thing is just driving you crazy? Is it a real obstacle or inefficiency or is it an emotional investment in not making even a minor change because it’s not worth your time? Can you just take that one thing and fix it today so it’s not in your way tomorrow?

4. Small business and community go together. You are most likely either a small business owner or wishing that you knew how to be one. How can you make a difference in your community and gain some new relationships in the process? Did you know that every organization in your town has at least one event each year that is supposed to raise money. Someone is handed the job of soliciting donations and usually that person hates the job because it seems like the most objectionable. Find the organization in your town that speaks to your heart (or to your business) and become someone they can call. Start a collection in your office supply closet of “swag” you carry home, or gift certificates, or tee shirts, or even products from “your” merchants. Be ready with a fancy tag and donate regularly to the silent auctions and charity events in your community. Keep your mouth shut about how important you and your business are and let the natural curiosity be your “word of mouth”.

5. Even though the whole random acts of kindness thing has become a cliche, it’s still a very good guide to making a difference. Do you remember how cool it is to find something nice hanging on your front door knob? What about someone who lends a hand when you’re overloaded in the checkout line? I don’t agree with stopping traffic to let someone out of the Kroger parking lot, but the person who gets out feels like you were kind It takes only a second to change someone’s outlook on life. The biggest problem in finding ways to do that is that you have to bring the right mindset to living in this very moment. Good journey!

The Tuesday Topic group provides motivation to write at least once a week, even when life gets in the way. This week’s topic, What’s next?”, is a little too close for comfort, but I’m going to try and tackle it with aplomb.

I walked by a rack of Christian books once and saw a title that has intrigued me now for several years. I did not pick up the book and flip through the pages because the title was so perfect for my own brainstorming that I didn’t want to take the chance the book wouldn’t deliver. The title? Just enough light for the step I’m on.

I’ve always been a planner, almost compulsively. One daughter-in-law bestowed the title uber-planner on me after a wonderful family reunion, and she’s one of the most organized people I know. I’m currently at a stage of life that I have planned for over and over again in very general terms. Now that the specifics are upon me, I can’t plan the rest. I have to trust that it’s time to stop and smell the roses, take each day for the gift it is, and ask the Universe specifically for just enough light for the step I’m on.

Since this is my business blog, I’ve tried to think of a way to relate the what’s next topic to business. I think that the very essence of the online marketing industry is that success comes when you’re passionate about the place where you’re standing right now. Learn as you go, adapt to the changing market, keep your wits about you, and try to figure out where the rest of the crowd is going so you can sell them a map and go the other way, into uncharted territory.

What’s next? Whatever it is, it’s sure to be as good as I make it.

I’ve always thought that the biggest problem with working from home is getting the butt into the office chair and actually executing on a plan instead of checking email, stats, Facebook, Twitter and then the clock. Whoops! Out of time. I have all kinds of motivation and a million ideas, but the discipline to sit down and do real work often eludes me when I’m home.

The reason is pretty simple to figure out. When I was a high-powered corporate exec, the days were long, the commute was torture and home was where I rested as fast as I could so I could do it again tomorrow. Before that, when the kids were little and I was limited to creating marketable crafts or sales copy after bedtime, my home was a way station between activities.

When we semi-retired (meaning that we only do this work-from-home marketing) I had a million things to do with our new home, our new community, our new life. Home was where we rearranged furniture, ignored the chores, tried our hand at yard work and unpacked shopping bags. Sitting down to do “real work” was a chore in itself because there was always something more interesting to do. Just dinking around with Dave was a new full-time pleasure that I indulged in at the expense of business.

Today, as I start getting myself re-organized after a major life event, I see that the Tuesday Topic this week is “When one door closes, another opens“. At first I thought “Well, maybe next week. After all, I have a good excuse”. Then I realized that the new structure of my life is exactly why working at home is so valuable to me and such a great potential gift to others in my situation.

When Dave tipped over this time, it was worse than ever before and his recovery is slower and more unpredictable than we’ve experienced in previous episodes. His health was always the underlying reason for our precious retirement plans and my creating an online business; we thought that we would be in exactly these circumstances “someday”. On March 22nd I saw more clearly than ever what a precious gift our life together is and how wonderful it is to ignore work for a day or two without worrying about getting fired or demoted or laid off the next time a RIF comes along.

Seems like I should get to the point here soon: I have always thought that this particular domain could be a place for information about the things I get asked every time I spend time with people in the community. “How? How Much? Who? What? Where?” The problem with that is finding time to run my business is already difficult and adding some tutorial stuff seemed like a daunting task.

But now I suddenly have a door firmly closed. “Dinking around with Dave” is limited to caregiving and my time spent running around and shopping and exploring new places is temporarily on hold. Two days ago I thought I would never get a grasp on the routine we have now. Today I see potential for blocks of time I can use for work. (Door open) A friend of mine here in my new community is a prolific watercolor artist. She routinely produces stacks of paintings for any exhibit, sale, or show. I know she has a full schedule and works like a horse on her home and garden and helps anyone who needs it, so I asked her “When do you find time to paint?”

She said “Last year, when XXXXX (her husband) was going through chemo, we had days on end sitting at home watching TV. I started painting every day instead of watching endless war documentaries on the History Channel. I got everything set up so I could grab a minute here and a minute there and I still do it, even though he’s better and we can get out and about again.”

I realized yesterday that I can put lots and lots of minutes to use here on my online marketing work. My “door open” is forced time at home, a chance to rediscover what home and work-from-home can mean. I have a chance to recreate what I want from this part of my life. So far I’m discovering that I still want all the same things, that almost all of them require some major “butt in the chair effort” and now I have a reason to embrace that instead of chasing butterflies all day.

Who knows? Maybe I can even get some of the structured advice posted here for others who are ready to try making a second income while they recuperate or take care of someone else or even just enjoy retirement!

The beauty of being self-employed is evident in who I am today (the Tuesday Topic of the week). I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil to get this post finished, perform minimum upkeep on my web marketing work, and make a list of to-do for another try tomorrow.

My dear friend Annie posted earlier:

Who am I today?
Whoever you think I am.

I would prefer that answer for myself today. I tried to pin down which one of me showed up this morning, but it was a jangled mess of Becky HomeEccy and the ever-so-schizo Wife and Devoted Companion crossed with Witchy Caregiver who gladly takes on all crappy chores during the bad days but negates the effort by snarling and snapping and kicking ass about all manner of little things.

So, how did it go? I went to the library before noon, but didn’t manage to get to the hardware store, the drug store or the grocery before running home to regroup. I defrosted something and prepared sides for a balanced dinner, cleaned up after 3 meals, gathered all the trash, changed the litter box and swept the floor and managed that never changing load of laundry. I did the heavy lifting with the oxygen and I dug some of our durable medical equipment out of storage and back to being in my way around the house.

Somewhere in the middle I poked a few things around on one site and tallied the sales on another. I made a list of things I’m going to promote tomorrow night at a meeting. The ratio of business to life was heavily weighted in the life direction. I even got positive confirmation that I’m on the Board of the local Habitat for Humanity.

So, most of all I thanked the Universe and my previous smart-planning self that:

• I have work to do and a flexible schedule to do it in (Yeah, affiliate marketing!)
• The ability to live in chaos, if not in transition (I like change to be my idea and under my control)
• I have a group of online colleagues who cheer me on, support and motivate me, and don’t drop in when the house is dirty.

Who am I today? I was driving down the road today and fervently hoping I got all the crazy figured out before senility set in. That’s my goal and I’ll find away to arrange work and my tomorrows around that.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions
Source

My focus gets scattered when I try to pin down the power of intention as a Tuesday Topic. And focus is the deciding factor when you worry about the execution of the million different intentions you are juggling. David Goode posted about intentions just today and said

Intentions are meaningless and have no value unless acted upon

I think intentions have value in that they are the currency we use with the Universe when we ask for support. In the Who, What, When, Where, How and Why of my life, “Intentions” are part of the Why. How many times have you heard “She means well”? That sounds to me like “she” had a good intention (probably in regards to fixing somebody), but her execution created problems along the way. So in her case, the intention may have even gained enough support from the Universe to become real, but the action involved in the quest was misguided or poorly planned.

Where am I going with this? Beats the hell out of me! But when I started out, I had a few concrete examples of how I’ve seen intentions used for success and for failure and I wanted to sort them out. If I were painting right now instead of posting, I would have reached the point where I would have to rename it as a “study” instead of a picture. So let me play with those examples and see if I can get to my point.

• Remember when newspapers were a source of news, as in facts? When they started entertaining us in the same way TV, Radio and magazines do, they started the downhill slide to the failures they are experiencing now. The world is quickly losing any common source of real news because newspapers “intended” to remain current with the times and while they were evolving, they made a succession of decisions and executed a series of blueprints that stripped them of what they did well and made them a poor player in the world they were trying to imitate. Example of good intentions and some missteps in the execution.
• Think about that friend that always has advice for every circumstance and never “gets it” that her misplaced concern has you royally pissed off almost every time she starts in. She means well. In her value system, the best thing she can do is point you on her road to perfection. Example of good intentions (actually not according to MY value system) but the perfect execution on her part does not have the desired effect.
• Now, here’s the essence of every get rich quick scheme: People would love to believe in the power of telling the Universe what you want and having it land in your lap later this afternoon. If intentions truly have power on their own, then this should work, right? I think it actually does if you learn to combine intentions (valuable ones) with the rest of the package.

How does that work? The combining of valuable intentions and the execution part of the package CAN actually create tremendous results, even when you’re unaware of what you did. Here’s the key in my mind: When you intend something very specific, you have created a support ticket with the Universe. Please note that I did not label this a good intention or a bad intention. I think the Universe is very value neutral in this regard. So whether you are intending revenge or charity, you have a very specific action item in mind and can see it clearly.

Now, the rest of the package. Focus is important. We sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of intentions in our own mind every day. We sort and re-sort and prioritize over and over again to meet our needs. If you want your intention to result in a creation, then you have to keep it in mind whenever you make decisions. Decisions are the other piece of the execution package. Whenever you decide between two actions, the weight of your intentions has to be a part of the decision, or that intention has been replaced by something more clearly in your focus. Clear as mud? I was afraid of that.

• Intention: what we think we want the end result to be.
• Focus: Which of all our intentions are really important to us at this moment in time?
• Decisions: Each decision we make has power to implement one intention or another. If they are in conflict, then the combination of focus and decision sorts it out for now.

Bringing it back to business: These intentions might sound similar (or even familiar) to you, but to the Universe they are different and when it’s time to focus and make decisions, one is actually easy. Another is probably impossible to execute and the one in the middle could be easily combined with focus and decisions to create something very real.

• I am going to get rich building websites and promoting products and never worry about money again
• I am going to build three small websites with the same business plan, but different products and see which one makes more money.
• I’m going to be famous!

During the 5 years that I’ve been an affiliate, I haved tried to pay attention to what works for people that I know are successful. Even if I don’t know their websites, I listen to the topics they discuss and then use that information as a study list. Over and over again I revisit the idea of learning how to manipulate a datafeed so I can create a product site on steroids.

My first efforts were wasted on trying to read and understand the available manuals on MYSQL and PHP. I combined that trip through the pointless forest with asking questions of my geek sons, who only heard what they thought I was saying, which is spend a year of your life trying to build something for Mom. They didn’t say no, they just kept starting at the beginning of how to relate tables, which was not where my knowledge gap lives.

My next project actually brought me much closer to understanding some aspects of how to use datafeeds and also made me some money moving niche products. This was back a couple of years ago, when Carolyn Tang at ShareASale took the time to teach and promote the use of WebMerge, which is an application that takes a datafeed and creates static pages for you to upload. I was able to create 300, 400, even 1800 pages in about 10 minutes once I mastered the template creation part. And suddenly the products were selling because Google had something to index.

That spurred me on, but my “hit the wall” moment was when the merchant provided datafeed continually took me a week to clean up each time. By the time I got it cleaned up to use, it was time to start over. About that time, GoldenCan was peaking in popularity and I went back to using it almost exclusively with some success.

When PopShops came along, I loved it. I started testing GoldenCan pages vs PopShop pages and found that they were fairly equal in success. The real trick there is to surround them with some unique content that will keep them in the search engines, since the products themselves are being updated automatically when the datafeed updates, so everyone using these categories is going to have the same catalog on their site. You have some control over what’s showing, but you have to be creative in assembling your shops.

Just before Christmas I started some trial and error building with Datafeedr. (Disclosure: Affiliate link) This is an affiliate marketing plugin for WordPress that allows you to build any size store for your niche in a quick and easy way. Finally, just today I joined their affiliate program because even though I find some limitations in the program, I think that there are some positives that could be leveraged to increase your income.

Here’s what I’ve learned – good and bad – about this fairly simple site creation tool:

Negatives (for me, anyway)

• You have to be hosted on a Linux or Unix server. I’m not talking about your home machines; I’m talking about the hosting company you use for your sites. I use one hosting company that is exclusively Windows servers and so I moved a couple of sites over to the other hosting company in order to use Datafeedr.
• There are minimum PHP and MYSQL requirements. I’m still procrastinating on one site because it has a pretty big content database and I don’t want to risk breaking it while I upgrade the MYSQL. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then make sure you check your host for availability of the minimum requirements before you jump off the cliff
• The plugin gets upgraded pretty frequently to keep up with Wordpress changes and to add more and more networks to the affiliate merchant choices. The plugin is just enough different from typical Workpress plugins to be an irritant when it’s time to upgrade. It’s not that hard, or even time consuming, but you DO have to read the instructions and then pay attention or you’ll spend the rest of the hour banging your head on the desk.

Positives

• There are some excellent videos that show you exactly how to build a store, download the feed, activate the plug-in, etc. I’m more a reader-writer than a talker-listener, so I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a tutorial for people like me. Dave, however, watched the first video a couple of times and he was off…. building and maintaining several sites in the first couple of days.
• There’s almost too much product selection. That’s a good thing if you understand that a good niche is often a narrow niche. Be disciplined in your product selection; they have an awesome tagging set-up, and you’ll have more success. If you get carried away trying to be everything to everybody, you’re going to get a datafeed store so huge you’ll have trouble loading it automatically and will have to load it manually.
• The best positive of all for me is that one site I built is making more in commission than I’m paying for the 5 site package. The ability to upgrade your package was the closer for me because I didn’t want to pay for unlimited when I procrastinate everything, even making money.
• The aforementioned site was built for a domain name I’ve had parked for almost 2 years. I installed Wordpress a couple of months before I added the Datafeedr store and until I did the Datafeedr thing, the site was just sitting there with Hello World, or whatever that initial WP post is.
• I picked a pretty wide niche, but I narrowed it down by selecting almost a dozen categories within that niche. Using those same categories on Datafeedr, I picked products and picked products until I had an 18,000 product store, which meant I had to ftp it manually after several hours of being frustrated that the automatic upload didn’t work.
• Before I got the new header images built for the theme, I had sales. I was flabbergasted and felt like it was probably a fluke, but within days I was even getting small sales on merchants who were represented on the site only with a small banner in the sidebar. These guys weren’t even in the feed, so it was probably general traffic for that niche rather than any long-tale keyword that was being exploited.

Bottom line: Even though I’m part of their affiliate program now, I would only recommend Datafeedr if you’re already familiar with Wordpress enough to add and subtract plugins. I think you need at least that level of competence before you start paying for a datafeed source. If you already understand how to use a datafeed, then you don’t need Datafeedr. If you’re like me and understand the concept, understand the need to learn and just can’t make the jump into downloading a merchant feed, cleaning it up to match your own server, writing the php calls to get the information back down on your page the way you want it, then Datafeedr is probably going to help you make money.

I was concerned about the cost in the beginning, but I gave it the 3 month try at the 5 site package, which is just under $50 a month. Like I said, that one site exceeded that in the first 45 days. I am currently evaluating all my domains to see which ones can continue to produce with GoldenCan and PopShop and which ones could use the boost of Datafeedr. I may drop back to the 1 site package, which is $27 a month, or I may be able to justify the $97 unlimited package. I don’t like to waste money, though, so the $47 is probably where I’ll be for another couple of months.

I was reading an article about relationships and the topic was how to figure out what’s fair. I didn’t finish the piece because it turned out to be about sharing housework, but I wandered off thinking about finding fair. It seems to me that the idea of fairness has gone out the window with all the ways we have of seeing more detail than we’re used to in every aspect of our lives and the continual clamor of media telling us over and over again how we feel about it.

This morning I dredged up all the cliches about fairness I could think of. Here’s a few, followed by my first reaction: All’s fair in love and war. (really? or do we just wish it was?) Play fair. (let’s see the rules.) Fairness doctrine (can we legislate fairness?) Fair fight. (unnecessary escalation or just lowbrow entertainment?) Won fair and square. (sounds like there were rules for that game that everyone understood.)
Unfair advantage (now if we can get a discussion going on this one, we might get somewhere)

How does any part of this relate to marketing? Let’s start with Unfair Advantage because I think there are some valid business points to be made. I’m going to point out what I think some fair advantages are when it comes to succeeding with a small business.

Fair Advantages in business

• Better location
• More capital
• More skillful salespeople
• Better product

I think you get the idea. So what’s an unfair advantage? Here are a few I came up with:

• Selling stolen goods so inventory is cheaper
• Spreading lies about competitions product
• Inventing customer satisfaction testimonials or reviews
• Stealing customers or commissions by representing yourself as someone or something other than you are

What’s the point?

There’s a current discussion going on in the world of affiliate marketing about advances in technology, specifically the use of toolbars to improve your online marketing efforts and increase sales. One network (Shareasale) has presented the opportunity for open discussion by asking for input before tweaking their current policy on the use of software on an affiliate site. Many affiliates think that toolbars give an unfair advantage by enticing site visitors away and in some cases, even setting a new cookie (or the like) to steal a future commission.

I like to imagine the details of both sides of an issue and gather some real information before I make a decision and from my perspective, that’s the real way to find the fair outcome. I run through as many of the scenarios as I can in my head and check my gut reaction and my mental gymnastics to see if I can figure out where fair, ethical, reasonable, lawful and good business meet.

I spent many hours in Corporate American attending and then facilitating management ethics sessions. The big “carry home” that has remained with me over the years is this:

If what you are doing becomes tomorrow’s headline, will you wish you could hide the paper from your family and friends?

Since many people verbalize their judgement of character by saying “It’s not fair”, I think you begin to find fairness when you imagine how you’ll be judged and factor it into your decision.

I don’t think the discussion of technology and business is going away anytime soon, so I would like to suggest ways to keep the discussion and solutions fair.

When discussing toolbars and similar technologies:

• Be honest about your concern for the potential of misuse
• Try to be concise and specific with what you know about twisting technology to an unfair advantage
• Don’t unfairly dominate the discussion by continually repeating the same thing as an accusation
• Keep the discussion on track by moving with the flow of the conversation. When you continually backtrack to bring up something that has been dealt with already, you are not being fair to the people trying to solve the problem.
• When you belittle someone else’s comment, you are not just being unfair to the discussion group, you are perpetuating abuse. That takes the discussion further off track.
• Discussions should give everyone involved a fair opportunity to speak their opinion without being ridiculed, beaten down or ignored.
• The leader of a discussion should not have to continually defend the reason for the discussion. If done correctly, the reason is stated upfront and the discussion is for the purpose of gathering input.

I’ve been watching and listening as the discussion moved along from opening salvo to a distributed policy that is still being discussed. I think it’s fair to say that Brian Littleton and his ShareASale network is still the champion of fair opportunity for all to succeed. Finding fair is difficult. Having global territories makes it next to impossible. But I think we can still tune in to the rules of ethics and fairness and find the place where our marketing skills bear fruit that’s worth the effort.

Connie at I am Flamingo describes the worst way a merchant can look at budget cuts. She posted an excerpt from a merchant communication informing her that because their budget was almost gone for February, she needed to take a cut in commissions or sell less so they wouldn’t go over budget. The mentality it takes to write a note like that to a super affiliate brings to mind my days selling small market radio to small minded retailers. These are the same people who want bigger profits in December, but don’t want to stay open after 5 because they want to be home sitting in their recliner when it gets dark.

Connie hit the nail on the head when she implored them to stop confusing their affiliate marketing budget with their advertising budget. She’s right. Unless you’re paying us per impression or click, we are not costing you a dime until we sell something for you! Wake up and smell the coffee or save us all some grief and sell your shares to somebody who knows how to run a real business.

I was congratulating our son on the success of his newest book at Amazon this week. It’s climbing up the ranks. We’re always so proud when the kids do something cool like this, but I just realized that I have plenty of affiliate marketing friends who love the Mac, also. Some of those might be Linux geeks like Dave, so this book might be something they would like to add to their collection.