Wardrobe Sponsorship Deadline July 15th
I’ve decided in order to give me enough time to have the t-shirt and buttons printed, the deadline to sponsor my wardrobe for Affiliate Summit East 2008 will be July 15th.
Remember it’s just $15 for a 5″x2″ logo on the back of my shirt and $5 for a 2.5″ round button on my bag. If you’re interested, please contact me at blog@trishalyn.com with “Affiliate Summit Sponsorship” in the subject line.
Read MoreConfidence Doesn’t Replace Hard Work
Yesterday I went to the Alameda County Fair for our annual outing. My friends and I go mostly for the shows and rides, but it’s also intriguing to see the products being sold and the animals and prize winners. This year we chose yesterday to go because of the performer – comedian Paul Rodriguez.
Our motley crew are all fans of his acting & stand-up routines, so we were excited to see him live. Don’t get me wrong, we were not disappointed, but I noticed something about his hour long act last night that got me thinking about the lifespan of a person’s career, regardless of their profession.
If you’re as big a fan of stand-up comedy as I am, you’ll notice that many performers have carefully written & structured routines. Optimized sequence of jokes & topics for the best laughs, call backs to earlier bits, and clear thought progression. Most of what I’ve seen Paul Rodriguez do in the past isn’t any different. But last night he rambled a bit and couldn’t follow a train of thought, often going back to things he’d mentioned already 15 minutes later after being done with a random tangent. He had many off the cuff interactions with the crowd, which often distracted him from his topic. While all hilarious, this is definitely the sign of someone who’s confident and comfortable with their profession; they feel that having to “wing it” is no problem because they will still get the job done. Ultimately the crowd was laughing like crazy, so most people probably didn’t notice the disjointedness of it as much as I did. Overall it’s safe for anyone to say that his job was accomplished.
But the hard work just wasn’t there. To me that shows a slacking work ethic – to not give as great a performance at your job every time no matter what the circumstances. This transcends performance art and really extends to all careers. While it’s great to be advanced in your career and confident with your skills at what you do, putting your actions into cruise control can be dangerous. If you’re not working hard and being the best you can be at your job every day, it’s going to start to show. While one little mistake can be swept under the rug, a lot of little mistakes start making the rug bumpy and get noticed in a big, bad way. A lesson should be learned that confidence doesn’t replace hard work. Of course it’s great to be confident at your job because it will help your performance, but also recognize that it took a lot of hard work to get there and it will take a lot of hard work to stay there. You cannot rely on that confidence to just “get through it” – the effort and hard work ethic still has to be there driving you to perform at your peak.
I understand the psychology of winging it, especially under the circumstances. It is just a county fair and the show was free with the $10 price of admission, so he can’t be making much off of this gig. He’s also go bigger projects he’s working on at the moment – upcoming movies, a USO trip to Baghdad, and a trip to South Africa to name a couple he mentioned. So at a certain point, delegation of resources, time, and energy is necessary to get everything done. But that’s really no excuse to let anything slack enough to be as noticeably disorganized as last night’s show. There’s a fine balancing point to multi-tasking, which is not letting anything slack and getting everything done effectively and presenting the best product (in this case, his show) you can & always putting the best foot forward.
It’s hard to get to the top. But career minded people need to also remember that it’s equally as hard to stay there. Just look at Britney Spears 😉
Read MoreAffiliate Classroom Live! August 9th
Part of advancing your career is continuing your education, so its important to learn what you can, when you can. Continuing doing their part for the affiliate community and affiliate managers, Affiliate Classroom is offering another Affiliate Classroom Live training session for Affiliate Managers the day before Affiliate Summit East in Boston this August.
I attended their full day session last February and I have to tell you – it was a completely invaluable experience. I learned so much… it was worth devoting an entire day to. I also recapped my impressions of the various sessions via this very blog. The only bummer to the whole day was the length of time in grossly uncomfortable chairs with no tables to write on. Incidentally, I spent most the time sitting on the floor using the chair as a platform – I’m just not a lap writer.
They’re at it again, this time taking in the feedback they received and cutting it down to a half day of mostly round table discussions lead by experts – and me.
That’s right, yours truly will be leading a round table discussion at this summit’s event titled: Virtual Social Butterflies: Online Networking & Its Importance for Affiliate Managers
Successfully managing an affiliate program relies heavily on being an approachable manager, developing good relationships with your affiliates. It’s equally important to develop good working relationships with your peers in the industry. We’ll talk about the blog community, social networks, social bookmarks, Twitter, and how they can benefit the affiliate manager.
Besides me, since I’m hardly an “expert” in this field, discussions will be lead by Sam Harrelson on web 2.0, Lisa Riolo on pitching your affiliate program internally, Brad Waller on the NY Affiliate Tax implications, a presentation by Heather Paulson on effective strategies, and some other well known industry leaders. So come on out and let’s talk! Register for the event now at AffiliateClassroomLive.com!
Thanks to Affiliate Classroom’s Rachel Honoway for extending the invite to me!
Read MoreTo Continue This Blog Or Not?
I’m considering whether or not I want to continue with this blog. I’m not sure that many people really read it consistently, and I’m beginning to doubt if there’s room in this space for another marketing blog from someone who didn’t even go to school for marketing. Is my perspective that unique? Not sure… so, I’m at a precipice I guess.
The blog isn’t even a year old yet, but I find myself questioning whether or not the blog is adding any value to the space or am I yet another jackass sharing their opinion with people who didn’t ask for it? According to Google Analytics, which longtime readers will see that I couldn’t even keep THAT working, I get about 61 visitors per day. 10,072 since January 1. But how accurate is this since my reporting has had fails a couple times? And does this even matter?
Unless I receive a boom of entries for the contest by Sunday, the contest has been a complete failure with not one single entry as of this moment. I thought the prizes were pretty sweet… hell I’d love to win them myself. What did I do wrong? Not put WIN A VADO! in the title? Rely too heavily on promoting it through Twitter?
Of course, this first year is a total learning curve. Find what works, what doesn’t. I can’t expect to just jump in and be the bomb. Am I being too rash? Not patient enough?
Confusing whether I’m representing my employer or myself is also weighing heavy. Am I forsaking my employer by endorsing my personal brand within my web presence?
These things weigh heavily on my mind as more and more work seems to pile on me – both at my place of employment and at home. Sure it’s building my “personal brand”, and I’ve gotten some cool opportunities from it like co-hosting the Affiliate Thing podcast and an upcoming opportunity that I’m not quite ready to announce yet, but…is it ultimately worth it?
Read MoreEarly Bird Pricing for CJU Ends June 15
One of the leading affiliate networks (which the PsPrint program is also on), Commission Junction, is hosting their annual CJU (Commission Junction University) event September 16th – 18th in Santa Barbara, CA. This event is a chance for publishers and advertisers to meet face to face and talk about the issues facing the industry and ways of improving affiliate relations.
This year’s event has built in more networking time than any CJU before it. The organizers listened intently to the feedback the received last year wanting more chances to socialize with fellow industry professionals. This year’s keynote is Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist at Apple and current managing director of Garage Technology Ventures. It should be a good talk from someone with plenty of experience in the tech industry.
Personally, I’ve heard mixed reviews from industry insiders on this event, but hopefully so have the organizers and they’ve taken those reviews into consideration as well. The early bird pricing ends on June 15th, so now until then you can save $100 by registering now. More details can be found at http://cju.cj.com/events/. I’ve been told that the hotel books up quickly, so don’t wait. I’m still poking & prodding to see if we’re going!
Read MoreEarly Bird Price for Affiliate Summit ENDS TODAY
Boston, MA
Want to meet me?! Of course you do! Remember that today is the last day to sign up for Affiliate Summit East 2008 and still get the cheaper Early Bird Pricing. The full conference pass – today only – is just $949 while an Expo Hall Only pass is a very affordable $99. If you’ve been waffling about going, pull the trigger and do it now while it’s still cheap!
After tomorrow, the prices go up to $199 for the expo hall only pass and a whopping $1449 for the full pass. And of course, if you sit on your lazy duff until the last minute, you have to shell out $299 for an expo hall only pass or $1949 for the full conference pass.
There are a lot of great sessions already scheduled and on the agenda for the summit. A full agenda is online already. I’ve already added several to my TripIt account so I can plan out my time, including Sam Harrelson’s Leveraging Social Media, Andy Rodriguez’s Affiliate Marketing Basics for Merchants, and Lisa Picarille’s Content that Kills sessions.
There’s no reason not to save money and really, this is a great event for affiliate marketing professionals – both publishers and advertisers – to network and learn from. So go today and register for Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston while you can still get in with the best price!
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