Affiliate Summit: Memories, Monuments, & Moments

Since 2008, I’ve attended Affiliate Summit West conferences. ASE13 marked the first time that I had attended the East version. It was also the first time that I had the pleasure of being invited to speak at the conference. Throughout the show, I spent quite a bit of time reflecting over the years of attending Affiliate Summit conferences, and I was struck by the evolution of my business during the past five years.

Flashback

Cue the dream sequence… I was working in a prison and willing to do almost anything to get out. The life and times of a prison officer isn’t safe or glamorous. I had been dabbling in affiliate marketing for a short time, but I am the only affiliate marketer within hundreds of miles. If you can imagine, searching Google for “Affiliate Marketing Tips” produces a list of results that are shady at best. I needed to cut through all of the extremely “informative” BS from the experts’ blogs to learn what legitimate affiliate marketers do. While poking around the ABestWeb forums, I noticed everyone was talking about Affiliate Summit. I knew that I had to just go…being located in Las Vegas didn’t hurt. 😉

I saw a post for the “Super Affiliate Auction“, a charity fundraiser. Up for bid, a meal with one of several “Super Affiliates”. I scoured the list of prospective Supers, did my research, and set my sights on one Mr. Scott Jangro. I won the auction! I wasn’t under any delusions that Scott would give me the mythical, silver bullet for untold millions, but I knew he would be able to provide me with some valuable insight. I was wrong. That morning, in the Rio Starbucks, Scott did give me the silver bullet, unknowingly perhaps…relationships. I thought that our conversation would last an hour, but the conversation continues, 49,673 hours later.

Affiliate Summit Strategies

My Affiliate Summit strategy has shifted, over the years. During my formative years, I needed knowledge. I had questions that needed to be answered, I needed to soak in what strategies were available. I listened to everyone, I went to every session possible, and I fell into a couple of traps as well. After my first couple of shows, I concentrated more on relationship building rather than education. Of course, I still learn something new at each show, but I focus my energy on investing into the relationships that I’ve built over the years. While we keep in touch via social media and email, there is simply no replacement for face to face interaction. I’m a huge advocate for social media being a tool for maintaining relationships, but it is nearly impossible to grow a relationship with purely virtual contact.

Another change in the way I approach the conference, is my strategy when it comes to the Meet Market and Exhibition Hall. In the early years, I would wander from table to table, chatting with everyone. This led to mentally draining, fatigue inducing conferences. I came to the point where I had to be okay with “sifting” through people. I love meeting new people and learning about their businesses, but I need to be strategic and a bit selfish with my time. The conference lasts three days, and you have to be vigilant in order to achieve the goals that you’ve set. One thing that I found helpful, was to target a few people before the conference. Send them an introductory, pitch-free email, then muster up the courage to approach them and talk to them during the conference. You may find they are very personable and willing to help you out, or they may invite you to share a meal with them. This is the outcome of the majority of these conversations I’ve had. Occasionally, you may find that the person is cold and snobby. SO FREAKING WHAT, move on! One impressive facet of Affiliate Summit attendees, is their willingness to help others. It may seem a bit simplistic, but this is the driving force that pulls me to attend each year.

Affiliate Summit East 2013 in Review

Enough with the retrospective, Affiliate Summit East 2013 was an incredible time. I highly recommend the Saturday Early Check-in, as there are never any lines. (My first ASW included a 2 hour wait in line). A group of us kicked off the show a day early, with a marvelous “Philly By Night” tour, orchestrated by the lovely Kim Rowley. Besides learning more about the history of Philadelphia, it was a 2 hour reunion cruise around the city. There were lots of laughs shared, between dodging several low hanging branches and watching dozens of people running the “Rocky Steps” (Melissa Salas did it twice). I imagine that if I lived in Philly, I would get all of the entertainment I would need, just watching the tourists run the steps.

Day 1: I went to a couple of great sessions. The first was Evan Weber’s, “How to Implement a Comprehensive Online Marketing Strategy“. While much of the content wasn’t new to me, he shared some great tips and all of his recommendations were on point. Another element of his talk that I appreciated, was that he included all of his notes in a bit.ly link. This allowed me to focus on the subject at hand. Even if the subject matter is something that I am previously familiar with, just listening to someone else talk about it will spark new ideas. Evan’s notes can be found here. The second well presented session was by Amanda Orson, “How to: Design for Scalability“. This session struck a chord with me, as she spoke about scaling horizontally vs. vertically. A key point that I took away from this session was something that I’ve been focusing on lately, not trading dollars for hours. There are only 24 hours in a day, if you think of creating income based on how many hours you put in, you will not be able to effectively scale your business. You need to grow vertically to grow a business, instead of creating another ‘job’. Amanda is always straightforward in her presentations, and they are packed with content.

Sunday night was time to let loose at the ShareASale “Under the Stars” party, a private event at the Hard Rock Cafe. An open bar, friends, and an exclusive venue…what more could you ask for? I really liked the venue, because there was a space for loud music and dancing, as well as another area for mingling and conversation. Kim Rowley said, “Thank you very much” when she took home the top prize, an acoustic guitar signed by attendees, for her Elvis costume. I’m pretty sure the fake chest hairs put her over the top.

Some of us capped the night out with a trip to “Crown Chicken”. Oh my, what an experience. I don’t advise people to venture into this joint after midnight. We witnessed a rather large, and quite vocal lad get into a verbal, near physical altercation with the worker. Apparently, the worker tried to give him some old fries, but I’m pretty sure that Tricia Meyer ended up receiving those same fries.

Day 2: The second morning featured Dr. Randal Pinkett’s keynote. He delivered a motivational message, which was reminiscent of a hip-hop version of Stuart Smalley. I’m honestly not a fan of the “you’re the bestest” type of speeches, so this one didn’t resonate with me. Following the keynote, I went to my room to down a couple of Immodiums, as is my pre-talk ritual.

I had the honor of joining Ashley Coombe, Scott Jangro, and Melissa Salas for our session, “Personal vs. Professional Marketing: What’s the Right Mix?“. Our session mostly pertained to the voice and personality your choose for your brand on social media platforms. Whether you choose a tone that is professional, humorous, or touchy-feely, consistency will ensure that you serve your current audience, while growing your reach with the demographics that fit your product or service. If you didn’t see this session, you will be amazed that this was a social media talk, lacking the usual pretension that permeates most social media presentations. We provided options and examples, rather than criticizing. We also provided strategies and tips for dealing with negative comments, philosophies on sharing personal information, as well as how to properly leverage current events, without attempting to profit from tragedies. You can find the slides here.

Day 3: The third day kicked off with an insightful keynote from Wil Reynolds. Wil provided a unique look into the mind of the Google machine. Most of us think that a search engine’s purpose is to provide us with the most relevant websites associated to our query. Actually, Google is looking to provide the answers before the user even sees the search results. You can see this by typing in a query in search of a celebrity’s birthday. The answer is at the top of the page. So why would we have to click on any of the listed sites? We don’t. The key takeaway was; provide answers quickly.

I attended one noteworthy session on the final day, “Making the Most of Working From Home” presented by Shannon Weidemann and Karen Garcia, featuring Sabrina Malone during the Q&A. This session provided a look into what life is like in the “work from home” environment of three different people. There were some excellent tips provided, such as scheduling your time, creating a workspace, and Karen’s “laundry pomodoro” technique. That’s not what she called it, but she multitasks by putting in a load of laundry, setting the timer, and completing a work related task during that time. Sabrina didn’t say much, but I really identified with her when she mentioned having to lock herself in a vehicle for a conference call! I’ve done that very thing.

The closing keynote was delivered by Sugarrae, Rae Hoffman. Not known for her eloquent speeches, Rae delivered a heartfelt, emotional, and motivational message. Motivation that comes from personal experience and raw emotion is awesomely inspiring. Contrast that to the opening keynote, which was more of a contest to see how many rhyming words the speaker could conjure up. Rae said that she wouldn’t win any Toastmaster awards, but I beg to differ. She mastered the art of storytelling, and shared her often difficult life experiences with us, and how she chose to deal with them…head on!

One of the rewards for speaking at ASE13 was an invitation to an exclusive party at Citizens Bank Park! What an amazing experience to watch a ball game, from a VIP party suite. Friends, baseball, food and lots of fun…minus the subway train breaking down on the way to the park. 😉

People Make the Difference

I have several Affiliate Summit connections, many of which are dear friends, and the number grows with each conference that I attend. We laugh together, eat together, talk strategy, sing karaoke, and laugh some more. At the risk of omitting a name, I’m going to list SOME of the Affiliate Summit folks who have had a profound impact on my business and have positively impacted the quality of my life. There are several factors that have contributed to me being able to provide for my family of 5, while doing what I love, but number one, in the Earthly realm, is the truly remarkable people that I’ve come to know and love. I am a firm believer that if you unconditionally help others, you get much more in return than if you had arranged for a payback. Each name is here for a very specific reason. You may wonder why your name is here, and what the heck you did, but the fact is that you did something that I will never forget. Here they are, in no particular order; (note: this list will be updated as I receive warranted hate mail)