Awesome interview. I listened to it twice in a row while i worked last night.
I need to break this down though, idealism vs reality. Because some of the stuff he said in openness and honesty really sat me back in my chair, especially in regards to top affiliates.
Point 1 to being a top affiliate: Diversify
He says its essential for the top affiliates to diversify. There's two elements to this. First is diversifying your networks, which he quickly stifles. "I have to be a bit greedy on this, I can't be helping someone only to have them run off and work for commission junction and be sending other places traffic." I personally versify my networks A LOT. I even have subidentities I signup under on all my networks. I use my real identity to get shit moving and work on new things. Once they get going and plateau and make good money I move them to the other account and identity so my AMs aren't gabbling at conferences and to other affiliates saying shit like guess what Eli does to make money. Which is exactly what he brought up as one of the catch 22's of helping affiliates. There's always someone else who doesn't want the extra competition.
The second portion of diversification he mentions is the idlers, who are sitting on his network just waiting to hit the next big thing. He talks about how he doesn't have time for those people. Instead he suggests people should be more diverse in their campaigns and always be adding new campaigns every day. Those are the people he makes time for. He juxtaposes 99:1 with the 80/20 rule as his clarification for why he doesn't feel bad for not wasting his time with the nondiverse people who he cringes for. Yet from what I've experienced, and what i've gathered of others I've talked to about c2m the reality is exactly opposite of that. He/his crew works closely with the people in the 1%, who are the people hitting the next big thing because they are the current large money makers. It's not the steady new campaign every day people. I make it a point, and my aimlogs will back it up, to approach c2m with at least one new traffic and campaign every single day. Usually its the typical questions such as "I'm pushing this traffic what offer would you recommend?" 9 out of 10 times that answer goes without a response or a I'll catch you tomorrow on it across every contact I have in c2m. Others I've talked to say the same thing. Therefore the campaign goes to another network who is willing to assist. After the interview I've scrolled through the aim logs for the last 3 months between my contacts at c2m and in the spirit of openness they've roughly passed on what is now a steady but rough $2xx,xxx/month worth of business in the last 4.5 months. Like he said, that's just steady growth new campaigns every day deal that wasn't worth their time.
Thats what sat me back about his statements on diversity. What he says he's interested in and what the practices are, are two completely different realities. He went from favoring one side of the spectrum when discussing chatrooms to the complete polar opposite when discussing newbies coming to him with credit cards and business plans. Which brings me to his point 2.
Point 2 to being a top affiliate: Having a plan
I understand when you're on a conversational role how things shift, but I may have to listen to it a third time to catch how exactly this happened. Basically, as i followed it: You need a plan to keep you moving forward when you have failures...mention of a drink at a bar...the ones with exactly plans to follow will be successful over the ones who move dynamically all over the place because they know where they're headed. <-paraphrasing of course.
"I hope you do buy a course or an ebook just so you can fail once so it won't happen again." I give people resources like forums and blogs where I learn from and recommend they dig through them. It may not be laid out in an exact plan and organization of what to do (eg. plan) but if I give you the option to buy some organized put together information or dig through some resources to find something useful, I honestly consider the people who would buy it lazy. The best affiliates go with the flow and when they spot new techniques or ways to make money they act on it quickly...something about a team..more stuff about network...<-more paraphrasing.
Basically what I gathered from that portion of the interview was.
Buying A Plan < Not Having A Plan < Creating A Plan
Did i get that right?
There was about 2 more points i wanted to decrypt but honestly I'm too tired atm. Thoughts?
