To all my readers I wanted to let you know that Christian Affiliate Marketing has moved.  I originally wanted to use this domain to create a directory of Christian affiliate offers and tack a blog on a folder.

In the end, I could not find enough offers to warrant this and the domain name was too specific for the blog I wanted to create.

This blog is now going to be rebranded as The Affiliate Preacher, Encouraging Internet Entrepreneurs.

The new address for the site is http://www.affiliatepreacher.com/

You can subscribe to the feed by clicking here http://www.affiliatepreacher.com/feed/

I have some great articles in the works I know you won’t want to miss.  I have already begun a series on driving traffic.  So come on by and join in the discussion!

Carl,

The Affiliate Preacher

Ok, so the Affiliate Summit East was a week ago. I know. But I wanted to post some observations. In this post, I would like to give a few pointers to people who might have paid the $5k to $7.5 k to be an exhibitor.This Affiliate Summit in Miami was my first for this industry but I have been an exhibitor in trade shows in the financial arena and have walked the floor at several more in cities throughout the US and the rules are the same.

1. Put people in your booth who know what your product is and can answer at least a few of the basic questions. I was amazed at how many semi-attractive women would hand out a flyer but could not answer even the basics of what the company did. This is not a post about women. There were more than a bunch of women at the summit who were experts in their field but I was amazed at the lack of information available from people manning the booths.
   At mortgage trade shows there are often models not wearing enough clothes handing out crap. You know not to ask them any questions. If you want questions answered, you find someone dressed like a business person and you ask them. Not so here.
2. Put people in your booth who are not actively pledging a fraternity. I went up to one booth and the guy dropped two f bombs and told me about his hangover in the first 30 seconds cough cough pepperjam cough cough. The guy stank of alcohol and asked what parties I had gone to the night before. I told him I spent the night with my wife and kids. He looked at me funny.
   Incidentally, I asked him, “What exactly does pepperjam do?” He said, “Everything.”
   Hopefully that includes running detox centers.
3. If you are an affiliate network, have an answer to the question, “What makes you guys different?” There seemed to be 30 affiliate networks there. If you can’t answer this question, you may want to reconsider your business plan. One company said, “Look, we all have the same offers. The difference with us is we will actually return your calls.” Excellent response. Now that affiliate companies are little more than commodity brokers you have to sell service. Without that you really have nothing to offer.
4. Affiliates do not care about your technology. In response to the above question one guy started telling me about the interface. I said, “So I get your code, put it on my site and when people click through and perform an action I get money. Right?” He said, “Yeah. Basically.” Thanks for the pen. Moving on.
5. Go to Azoogle and Copeac’s booths. I use Azoogle. Went to their booth. They acted like they cared that I am an affiliate. The woman in the booth gave me her card and told me to call her if I need anything even though she is not my manager. Went to Copeac. The two guys there were actively trying to recruit my business, found products they had that were comparable to what I was running, gave me the name of the guy who would be my affiliate there at the show. When I got home, the guy sent me an email within the first 2 days with an offer sheet. Nice!
6. Don’t waste your time talking to people trying to get your business. Let’s think this through logically. You leave your business for a week. You fly yourself (and possibly some employees) across the country and pay for hotel rooms and food. You set up your $4k trade show display, handouts and trade show crap in your $7k floor space. You stand on your feet all day answering the same questions all in the hopes of landing a few new clients. A new, interested client comes to your booth but you don’t talk to him because you are talking to the guy trying to sell you something. The guy who did not spend the $4k on the display, the $7k on the booth space, the handouts, the …
   There were four different exhibitors that I waited and waited to talk to, ultimately to no avail, while they stood there and got pitched a product. In the trade shows I exhibited at, I would have gone to the operators and had them thrown out. They cheapen the product the trade show offers. Why put up a booth if I don’t have to? I can see one guy getting trapped but this was a plague.
7. Follow up! the trade show was a week ago and I have gotten 3 emails. I handed out almost 100 cards. Why exactly did you do everything in #6?

All this week I will be posting my review of the Affiliate Summit. Check out some really positive things tomorrow.

This weeks posts has been sponsered by CPA Affiliates. They gave me tickets to the show and I am really grateful. Thanks Guys!

I want to win this monitor so I am posting this:

John Chow dot Com, a blog that helps you make money is giving away a 24? wide screen LCD monitor! To enter, you just have to write about it. This is my entry. Now give me the monitor! The contest is sponsored by BlueFur, who wants to let you know that they’re hosting Canada and the rest of the world.

So I do double duty as an affiliate marketer and a youth pastor.� selah

About two months ago I saw a drastic and depression-evoking drop in my ringtone earnings.� We all knew this was coming, but nobody wanted to believe it. � Lets look at history for a minute.

I was in the mortgage business right after the peak of the refinance boom.� The average homeowner had become a little more savvy.� No longer could you cold call someone and say, “Would you like to lower your monthly mortgage?” and have a sale.� You were stuck with a few less pleasant options.

1. Get out of the office and make contact with realtors who had clients.� These mortgages paid less and often the realtors wanted a kick back.
2. Network extensively through friends and family.� Tip:� never do a real estate transaction with friends or family.� They expect more of your time and want to pay less.
3. � Trick people into getting mortgages that they either did not need or could not afford.
4. Lie to people to get their business then the day of closing call and say, “Oh, by the way, that 5.5% is going to be 7.25%.� Your payment is going to be $600 more than we said and I need you to bring $4,000 to the closing.� People could only get deals by lying about what they could deliver then reveal the truth right before closing.
5. Realize that you were not going to get rich overnight and slowly build your business by delivering a steady and reliable product and getting more business by positive referrals.� Slowly, over time, your efforts and integrity would pay off with a successful business.

This trend spurred two things.

1. Reputable financial institutions pushed back and kept their good customers and increased their market share.� When I would send a notice to a certain bank requesting a payoff, they would ignore it, contact the borrower and� lower their rate.� The bank decided that some is better than none.� These customers would tell about their awesome bank and the bank’s business would increase.
2. Consumers got so jaded by the industry that they became distrustful of independent brokers.� I would hear customers say, “I don’t want one of those adjustable mortgage scams.”� Adjustable mortgages are not for everyone but there are circumstances where they are the absolute best option.� It did not matter.� The customers were scared of them and you could not give them away.

In the end, the mortgage industry got so greedy that the economy of the nation is threatened by the skyrocketing default rate.� There are now countless millionaires that were made during this boom but at what cost?� I reject the notion that the only guiding principle is the financial bottom line.� If you are worried that you might run into a former client in the grocery store your conscience is telling you something.� Do not ignore it. </sermon>

Lots of people are running into a similar trend in online marketing these days, as specifically revealed in the ringtone market.� There was a deluge of folks that had no idea (mostly through their own ignorance) that they were going to be charged over $100 a year for “bonus ringtones.”� So the same trend happened:

1. The industry reacted
2. The customers reacted

We had a lock in the other day at church.� One kid came over and asked another if he had any ringtones he could bluetooth over.� I instantly understood why my sales had died.� People can now go P2P for ringtones.� � The music industry killer has invaded the ringtone market.� People were looking for an alternative to getting duped by the ringtone after market and the industry was looking to make money.� Though they would rather sell ringtones, they decided that cellphone sales� (the some) was better than losing customer all together (someone else was going to do it).

This leads to the same options that were there for the mortgage broker.� Either run to the next big thing, or build your online business through a quality product that people will tell their friends about.� Slowly, over time, your efforts and integrity would pay off with a successful business.

At the beginning of every business day (read: everyday) I sit down at my desk and look at my task list from the day before. The top of it contains tasks that need to be completed every day. Then there are the list of tasks completed and uncompleted from the day before. I tear off that sheet and write a new one omitting the things done and copying the things undone.

I then add to the list anything that may have startled me in the midnight hour or something I notice while browsing my stats. The list has tasks both large and small. Often, one item on the list could take the entire rest of the week. Some I could never complete.

Some will make me money. Some will waste my time. Which one do I choose?

Paul wrote to the church in Crointh:

[bibleblock]1 cor2 6-8[/bibleblock]

This has been stuck in my spirit all week. What I really need is knowledge beyond my means. That is what we call wisdom. The wisdom of this age tells me to abandon my family and make as much as possible.

The wisdom of God says ,

[bibleblock]matt 11:28-30[/bibleblock]

Ok, here’s the deal. There is no way I can afford to go to the affiliate summit that will be right down I95 in Miami.

I do this affiliate marketing thing to try to make enough money to feed my family. I am barely able to do that.

But I want to go and the grace of God has been on my business. Lets see what happens. But I bet I will get to go.

note:  You might want to read my latest slhost reviews before believing this page

So as I said in my last post, my sites have kind of taken off and I needed more bandwidth. I had prepaid for six months on the Level II VPS with SLHost but this month I will exceed the bandwidth of their level III package

So I was trying to figure out what to do. It seemed pointless to sign up for the level three and then pay for extra bandwidth because I would consume it pretty quickly. When I signed up they had a double your disk space special which did me absolutely no good because I did not need the original amount.

Well, I checked their site today and here is the new special

Price
(Currently 50% off paying semi-annually and choice of DOUBLE Bandwidth or DOUBLE Disk Space. Discounted Prices on order form.)

$44.95/month $64.95/month $84.95/month
Setup Fee FREE FREE FREE
Disk Space 10 GB 20 GB 30 GB
Bandwidth 150 GB 300 GB 450 GB
Guaranteed RAM 256 MB 384 MB 512 MB
IPs 3 4 5

So I basically had to pay an extra $40 to get 900GB a month for the next 4 months! And I will keep that rate.

Thank you Lord!