Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Casual Articles - Interview with Super Affiliate Scott Hazard
“I really LOVE my customers,” I heard one agent gush.“My customers ADORE me!” another one boasted.“I always try to do something EXTRA,” confides a third.Ask most customer service managers what they would think about these three reps and they’d probably beam with pride and be elated.Each rep sounds as if she is reaching for the stars, never satisfied, and always achieving.I hate to bear bad news, but they’re all off the mark.Customer SERVICE is about what WE do, the techniques we use, and the feelings we have.But customer SATISFACTION is about something entirely different.Satisfaction is about the RESULTS we produce for customers, and it’s the single most important thing we need to focus on arousing, time and again.But, you might wonder, if I’m enthusiastic and fully committed to delivering the best service in the world, my customers will just have to appreciate me and my company, right?NOPE.Peter F. Drucker, one of my revered professors, an international giant in the field of management, and a consultant to several nations, including Japan and Brazil, wrote a seminal book, called MANAGING FOR RESULTS.Please study those three words very carefully.Drucker’s view is that there is far too much attention paid to the mechanics of business, to the actions we take, to our internal processes of developing and delivering and servicing products, and not enough attention paid to what customers truly value.What we like and what we value has to come second, Drucker maintains.The customer is the alpha and omega of our business lives, and for all of our protean efforts, if the customer doesn’t think they matter, they don’t matter.Drucker has a wonderful way of cutting through the fluff and our self-delusions,
Shawn: So are there any networks that are currently giving that sort of access?
Scott: ShareASale gives you that kind of access. ShareASale allows you to reach in and, once you're approved for the merchant, I understand that I am not going to be able to log in at three a.m., and get instantly approved and instantly approved for data feed access and get data feeds that way. But if I'm able to be approved for the merchant ahead of time, on ShareASale then I can go in there in the middle of the night and look at a data feed, even determine if it will work or not. If it will work then I can load it in to the mix. Then at that point when I am comparing calendars with my programmer, I don't really have a regular programmer any more. What I've got now is somebody whose kind of working me in, it comes down to a situation where I have to coordinate his schedule with my schedule, and if I have to coordinate that with the networks schedule, well then often that just throws things way off.
Shawn: Give the opinion of should networks or merchants themselves should severely limit the number of people that get access t o data feeds, do you think that they can do some damage?
Scott: I think they can be abused. There's been some talk on one of the boards that.
A company that has been disseminating data feeds through his company to affiliates who may or may not have been approved for use of that data feed. I think it should be a managed resource. I'll tell you when I was a brand new affiliate, I applied for a data feed one time with a company with CJ and I received a very nice email back from their program manager. He said we give this out on a small scale, we consider it a managed resource and at this time we just don't think you are ready for it.
Lookin
Full-Review: Article Post RobotHow would you like to be able to submit your article which you have just written to over one hundred submission sites at the same time? I’m not talking just any submission sites either, I’m talking the ones that you personally have selected.The ones that you have determined that in your opinion are the very best ones on the Internet for your particular product.Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well with the Article Post Robot you can actually do that.No, this isn’t just a sales promotion, this is the *naked* truth.HINT: this same article was published using the tool I am going to review now...Article Post Robot is by far one of the best internet marketing tools on the internet and can, in my opinion and based on my testing, both save you time and make you money at the same time.You will write your article, complete with contact information and your websites url, which will enable readers to further follow up on what they have just read. Ordinarily it would take you a week or more to post this article on an appreciable number, that is over one hundred, various sites, however, with article post robot, you click once and your article is immediately posted to all of the sites which you personally have chosen and you are ready to begin another article which will in turn be sent off to do still more advertising for your website and the item which you are marketing.Sound too good to be true?Yes, it certainly does but the beauty of it is that it’s not too good to be true, it’s very much real and hundreds of online marketers and sales representatives are already taking advantage of it. It is a totally automated solution to posting your articles to hundreds of free article submission sites and e-
Shawn Collins: Yeah, I'm very curious about Scott's opinions and experiences since he's been dealing with the data feeds a lot and he has some great insight.
Lisa: Scott is the long time, what we often call, super affiliate. And back in October he launched a PPC-driven affiliate operation that was funded completely by venture capitalists called Cooperative Affiliates. Scott, I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about Cooperative Affiliates and then how that idea came about.
Scott Hazard: The idea came about by me looking for ways to get capital together to use for affiliate marketing purposes. I actually went and spoke with a banker and after I talked to this banker for about 30 minutes, and he still really didn't have a grasp on what I did. I just gave up. I didn't even pursue it any further because I was unable to really get him on level with what I was doing.
At that point, I approached a few people that I know with an idea, we talked a lot about it; had a lot of conference calls about it; and decided to give it a try. We started with a small number of investors and I operate as the manager of the operation. What I've done there is create some niche websites and use PPC to drive traffic to them. And it's working at this point. We are looking to grow a whole lot this year. I've got an upcoming move that's going to set us back just a month or so as far as production goes. But once that's over we've got a lot of plans and we have made pretty good money a pretty good ROI on our spin throughout the holidays. So we're postured in a way that we can hit the ground running in the second quarter.
Lisa: So the power of this really is that as opposed to being one affiliate, it's a group of affiliates gathered together to focus on specific niche areas and then they've sort of got the power of many as opposed to the power of one?
Scott: Exactly. But it's not all affiliates. We actually have people that are not really in the affiliate marketing world in our group. And we have people that are in other facets besides being an affiliate in our group. As far as the synergy of ideas and stuff goes, that's really good and we have, I guess I hate to use the word outsider, but people in the group that could be considered outsiders, that will often say 'well, why would this work this way' or whatever. And Shawn can tell you a lot of times when someone asks you a question and you explain your way of thinking to them that often you come up with a better plan just by being able to voice this.
It's been a big deal for me as a single-soul affiliate for the last several years. I sit hear and I beat on this computer; and I have a few friends that I talk to on the phone and such, but I have not had the benefit of the water cooler, as Lisa, you and I discussed back in the interview in the magazine. This also acts somewhat as a water cooler. But obviously with also the infusion of outside funds.
Lisa: Have there been other ideas that have sprung out of these water cooler, brain-storming sessions that you may be implementing in the future?
Scott: Yes. Ideas and merchants and just general things that I probably wouldn't be doing if I were doing this completely on my own. I still have my own operation, Brightside Media, that's completely separate and that's still completely mine. But as Cooperative Affiliates, the group of us have looked, discussed, researched and see some ways that we're going to go that I probably wouldn't have gone on my own.
Lisa: Can you tell me how much time does the Cooperative Affiliates venture take versus your regular affiliate marketing endeavors?
Scott: Probably a third to two-thirds two-thirds of my own and a third of Cooperative Affiliates. It's really hard for me to measure that because sometimes I do several things. I may work on something of my own for a week and not even hardly touch Cooperative Affiliates other than monitoring it. But if I had to give numbers, I'd probably say a third to two-thirds.
Lisa: Do you expect that to continue or do you expect the balance to change as Cooperative Affiliates grows?
Scott: I think that 2007 will see that change. I think 2007 will see me, hopefully, by the end of the third quarter going into Q4, developing a considerably larger infrastructure of sites and such for Cooperative Affiliates and really getting that fired-up into Q4. The available funds will be there for Q4 and I would really like to put myself in a position where we will be able to fully utilize them.
Lisa: Well, that's great. I hope you will keep us informed about any new ventures that come out of that and things you can talk about that you guys are doing.
Scott: Thank you. I will indeed. It just goes to show you that sometimes we have crazy ideas and some of them work and some of them don't and this one has.
Shawn: Great. Scott, I have some questions I was curious about. With regards to data feeds, one thing I was wondering from your perspective is what do you see as the biggest problem right now that you experience with data feeds?
Scott: As far as data feeds go, Shawn, what I would really like to see and I guess can consider a public appeal to the networks, are a few things. The first being a little bit more of a common format. The most important thing that I would like to have as an affiliate from the networks is the ability to log into my account, select the data feeds that I want to use, and actually look at them. Download them and take a look at them. Once you look at them, a lot of them are going to be non-usable or not what you wanted or whatever. Not that they're bad, but that they're not going to fit in with your plan.
The system we have now requires affiliates to go through CJ personnel, either your account representative if you are a CJP or through their support people, and set a data feed up to be either delivered to your server or for you to ftp in and grab. What I think the networks are missing on here is a) a lot of these data feeds, by the time the affiliate sees it and realizes they can't use it, they're still sending it on whatever cycle it is they're sending it and it's not being used which is really just somewhat of a waste.
Also, if an affiliate is working on a site at midnight on a Thursday the networks work nine-to-five, affiliates work 24/7. If I were in one of the networks where I'm not able to get data feeds instantly and I was able to reach in and grab something, set it up and it would work, and then set-up a weekly update or a daily update or however it needs to be set-up all within my interface, that would be great. I realize that if this were to ever happen, that it would possibly be very much abused and overused by people that go in and get a lot of data feeds and disseminate them for whatever reasons and such. It would need to be monitored. But I think if the networks went through a fairly close screening process that they could put this together for affiliates that they deem worthy of it I guess. And it would be an invaluable tool to me.
Shawn I sent you an email one time. I believe I replied to one of your emails that I just come in; I think it was the three o'clock in the morning. I mentioned I was out drinking tea and playing cards. I sat down to work and if I had access to certain data feeds at that time they would have gotten integrated into one of my sites. As it is, those data feeds were added. They're now in the data feed push, but now I am in a position to where my programmer is not available for sometime and it's going to be probably three weeks or another month before those feeds work their way into my site.
Shawn: So are there any networks that are currently giving that sort of access?
Scott: ShareASale gives you that kind of access. ShareASale allows you to reach in and, once you're approved for the merchant, I understand that I am not going to be able to log in at three a.m., and get instantly approved and instantly approved for data feed access and get data feeds that way. But if I'm able to be approved for the merchant ahead of time, on ShareASale then I can go in there in the middle of the night and look at a data feed, even determine if it will work or not. If it will work then I can load it in to the mix. Then at that point when I am comparing calendars with my programmer, I don't really have a regular programmer any more. What I've got now is somebody whose kind of working me in, it comes down to a situation where I have to coordinate his schedule with my schedule, and if I have to coordinate that with the networks schedule, well then often that just throws things way off.
Shawn: Give the opinion of should networks or merchants themselves should severely limit the number of people that get access t o data feeds, do you think that they can do some damage?
Scott: I think they can be abused. There's been some talk on one of the boards that.
A company that has been disseminating data feeds through his company to affiliates who may or may not have been approved for use of that data feed. I think it should be a managed resource. I'll tell you when I was a brand new affiliate, I applied for a data feed one time with a company with CJ and I received a very nice email back from their program manager. He said we give this out on a small scale, we consider it a managed resource and at this time we just don't think you are ready for it.
Looking
Congratulations! You successfully sold one or more of your company's products or services to a business unit, department, or division of a large organization. Now your manager has tasked you with "account management". If you are not already familiar with account management, you are probably asking yourself the following questions: What is "Account Management"? What skills and talents are required to excel in Account Management? What activities must be performed to maximize Account Management ROI? Providing answers to these questions is the focus of this article.What is Account Management?Account management is actually a synonym for account penetration. Just because you have sold one product or service to one business entity within an organization doesn't mean your job is done. Think of all the additional opportunities that may exist in the account! For example: Does your company offer additional products or services that might be a "fit" for this customer? How many other business units, departments, divisions, and subsidiaries are potential prospects for your company's offering(s)? Required Skills and TalentsA critical talent for successful account management is the ability to build relationships, as relationship selling is a very effective way to increase account penetration. Another critical skill/talent is organization. If you are going to manage large accounts effectively, you need to be willing and able to keep meticulous records.What kinds of records do you need to keep? Picture a large, three-dimensional spreadsheet in your mind. In the left-hand column is a list of every product and service that you could possibly sell to a customer. Across the top of the sp
Scott: Exactly. But it's not all affiliates. We actually have people that are not really in the affiliate marketing world in our group. And we have people that are in other facets besides being an affiliate in our group. As far as the synergy of ideas and stuff goes, that's really good and we have, I guess I hate to use the word outsider, but people in the group that could be considered outsiders, that will often say 'well, why would this work this way' or whatever. And Shawn can tell you a lot of times when someone asks you a question and you explain your way of thinking to them that often you come up with a better plan just by being able to voice this.
It's been a big deal for me as a single-soul affiliate for the last several years. I sit hear and I beat on this computer; and I have a few friends that I talk to on the phone and such, but I have not had the benefit of the water cooler, as Lisa, you and I discussed back in the interview in the magazine. This also acts somewhat as a water cooler. But obviously with also the infusion of outside funds.
Lisa: Have there been other ideas that have sprung out of these water cooler, brain-storming sessions that you may be implementing in the future?
Scott: Yes. Ideas and merchants and just general things that I probably wouldn't be doing if I were doing this completely on my own. I still have my own operation, Brightside Media, that's completely separate and that's still completely mine. But as Cooperative Affiliates, the group of us have looked, discussed, researched and see some ways that we're going to go that I probably wouldn't have gone on my own.
Lisa: Can you tell me how much time does the Cooperative Affiliates venture take versus your regular affiliate marketing endeavors?
Scott: Probably a third to two-thirds two-thirds of my own and a third of Cooperative Affiliates. It's really hard for me to measure that because sometimes I do several things. I may work on something of my own for a week and not even hardly touch Cooperative Affiliates other than monitoring it. But if I had to give numbers, I'd probably say a third to two-thirds.
Lisa: Do you expect that to continue or do you expect the balance to change as Cooperative Affiliates grows?
Scott: I think that 2007 will see that change. I think 2007 will see me, hopefully, by the end of the third quarter going into Q4, developing a considerably larger infrastructure of sites and such for Cooperative Affiliates and really getting that fired-up into Q4. The available funds will be there for Q4 and I would really like to put myself in a position where we will be able to fully utilize them.
Lisa: Well, that's great. I hope you will keep us informed about any new ventures that come out of that and things you can talk about that you guys are doing.
Scott: Thank you. I will indeed. It just goes to show you that sometimes we have crazy ideas and some of them work and some of them don't and this one has.
Shawn: Great. Scott, I have some questions I was curious about. With regards to data feeds, one thing I was wondering from your perspective is what do you see as the biggest problem right now that you experience with data feeds?
Scott: As far as data feeds go, Shawn, what I would really like to see and I guess can consider a public appeal to the networks, are a few things. The first being a little bit more of a common format. The most important thing that I would like to have as an affiliate from the networks is the ability to log into my account, select the data feeds that I want to use, and actually look at them. Download them and take a look at them. Once you look at them, a lot of them are going to be non-usable or not what you wanted or whatever. Not that they're bad, but that they're not going to fit in with your plan.
The system we have now requires affiliates to go through CJ personnel, either your account representative if you are a CJP or through their support people, and set a data feed up to be either delivered to your server or for you to ftp in and grab. What I think the networks are missing on here is a) a lot of these data feeds, by the time the affiliate sees it and realizes they can't use it, they're still sending it on whatever cycle it is they're sending it and it's not being used which is really just somewhat of a waste.
Also, if an affiliate is working on a site at midnight on a Thursday the networks work nine-to-five, affiliates work 24/7. If I were in one of the networks where I'm not able to get data feeds instantly and I was able to reach in and grab something, set it up and it would work, and then set-up a weekly update or a daily update or however it needs to be set-up all within my interface, that would be great. I realize that if this were to ever happen, that it would possibly be very much abused and overused by people that go in and get a lot of data feeds and disseminate them for whatever reasons and such. It would need to be monitored. But I think if the networks went through a fairly close screening process that they could put this together for affiliates that they deem worthy of it I guess. And it would be an invaluable tool to me.
Shawn I sent you an email one time. I believe I replied to one of your emails that I just come in; I think it was the three o'clock in the morning. I mentioned I was out drinking tea and playing cards. I sat down to work and if I had access to certain data feeds at that time they would have gotten integrated into one of my sites. As it is, those data feeds were added. They're now in the data feed push, but now I am in a position to where my programmer is not available for sometime and it's going to be probably three weeks or another month before those feeds work their way into my site.
Shawn: So are there any networks that are currently giving that sort of access?
Scott: ShareASale gives you that kind of access. ShareASale allows you to reach in and, once you're approved for the merchant, I understand that I am not going to be able to log in at three a.m., and get instantly approved and instantly approved for data feed access and get data feeds that way. But if I'm able to be approved for the merchant ahead of time, on ShareASale then I can go in there in the middle of the night and look at a data feed, even determine if it will work or not. If it will work then I can load it in to the mix. Then at that point when I am comparing calendars with my programmer, I don't really have a regular programmer any more. What I've got now is somebody whose kind of working me in, it comes down to a situation where I have to coordinate his schedule with my schedule, and if I have to coordinate that with the networks schedule, well then often that just throws things way off.
Shawn: Give the opinion of should networks or merchants themselves should severely limit the number of people that get access t o data feeds, do you think that they can do some damage?
Scott: I think they can be abused. There's been some talk on one of the boards that.
A company that has been disseminating data feeds through his company to affiliates who may or may not have been approved for use of that data feed. I think it should be a managed resource. I'll tell you when I was a brand new affiliate, I applied for a data feed one time with a company with CJ and I received a very nice email back from their program manager. He said we give this out on a small scale, we consider it a managed resource and at this time we just don't think you are ready for it.
Lookin
Why did you start your business?You must have a very strong reason for being in business. A why that will keep you going in the face of fear, and keep you motivated during the trying times in your business. The more powerful your why, the more of a motivating factor it will be.Many times, I hear people say, “I started my business because I love doing this – it’s fun.” Yes, your business is probably a lot of fun. But is that enough to keep you going? In other words, will it be fun when you are up until the wee hours of the morning finishing a project? To some people that might be the epitome of fun! But, if “fun” is your why, you need to make sure that every single aspect of the business is fun for you.Your why should be very personal, and something that will inspire you to build your business and keep it going no matter what.When I started, my why was “because I want to help business owners be empowered.”The problem with that was, my why was for someone else. I was doing this all for someone else. With my why being external, there was still always a reason to give up, or procrastinate. After all, I wasn’t doing this for me, I was doing it so that other business owners could benefit. Now, empowering others is my passion, but I needed a stronger, more personal why.I had to do this for a reason that I held dear to my heart. My why for being in business is that I want to have a flexible schedule so that I can spend time with my daughter whenever I want. I don’t want to miss out on anything while she is growing up, and being in business for myself is the only way for me to do that. She is a very strong why for me. Whenever I get discouraged, or see a long night coming, or fear the next step in my business, I think about why I’m doing this, and it inspires me to keep g
Scott: Probably a third to two-thirds two-thirds of my own and a third of Cooperative Affiliates. It's really hard for me to measure that because sometimes I do several things. I may work on something of my own for a week and not even hardly touch Cooperative Affiliates other than monitoring it. But if I had to give numbers, I'd probably say a third to two-thirds.
Lisa: Do you expect that to continue or do you expect the balance to change as Cooperative Affiliates grows?
Scott: I think that 2007 will see that change. I think 2007 will see me, hopefully, by the end of the third quarter going into Q4, developing a considerably larger infrastructure of sites and such for Cooperative Affiliates and really getting that fired-up into Q4. The available funds will be there for Q4 and I would really like to put myself in a position where we will be able to fully utilize them.
Lisa: Well, that's great. I hope you will keep us informed about any new ventures that come out of that and things you can talk about that you guys are doing.
Scott: Thank you. I will indeed. It just goes to show you that sometimes we have crazy ideas and some of them work and some of them don't and this one has.
Shawn: Great. Scott, I have some questions I was curious about. With regards to data feeds, one thing I was wondering from your perspective is what do you see as the biggest problem right now that you experience with data feeds?
Scott: As far as data feeds go, Shawn, what I would really like to see and I guess can consider a public appeal to the networks, are a few things. The first being a little bit more of a common format. The most important thing that I would like to have as an affiliate from the networks is the ability to log into my account, select the data feeds that I want to use, and actually look at them. Download them and take a look at them. Once you look at them, a lot of them are going to be non-usable or not what you wanted or whatever. Not that they're bad, but that they're not going to fit in with your plan.
The system we have now requires affiliates to go through CJ personnel, either your account representative if you are a CJP or through their support people, and set a data feed up to be either delivered to your server or for you to ftp in and grab. What I think the networks are missing on here is a) a lot of these data feeds, by the time the affiliate sees it and realizes they can't use it, they're still sending it on whatever cycle it is they're sending it and it's not being used which is really just somewhat of a waste.
Also, if an affiliate is working on a site at midnight on a Thursday the networks work nine-to-five, affiliates work 24/7. If I were in one of the networks where I'm not able to get data feeds instantly and I was able to reach in and grab something, set it up and it would work, and then set-up a weekly update or a daily update or however it needs to be set-up all within my interface, that would be great. I realize that if this were to ever happen, that it would possibly be very much abused and overused by people that go in and get a lot of data feeds and disseminate them for whatever reasons and such. It would need to be monitored. But I think if the networks went through a fairly close screening process that they could put this together for affiliates that they deem worthy of it I guess. And it would be an invaluable tool to me.
Shawn I sent you an email one time. I believe I replied to one of your emails that I just come in; I think it was the three o'clock in the morning. I mentioned I was out drinking tea and playing cards. I sat down to work and if I had access to certain data feeds at that time they would have gotten integrated into one of my sites. As it is, those data feeds were added. They're now in the data feed push, but now I am in a position to where my programmer is not available for sometime and it's going to be probably three weeks or another month before those feeds work their way into my site.
Shawn: So are there any networks that are currently giving that sort of access?
Scott: ShareASale gives you that kind of access. ShareASale allows you to reach in and, once you're approved for the merchant, I understand that I am not going to be able to log in at three a.m., and get instantly approved and instantly approved for data feed access and get data feeds that way. But if I'm able to be approved for the merchant ahead of time, on ShareASale then I can go in there in the middle of the night and look at a data feed, even determine if it will work or not. If it will work then I can load it in to the mix. Then at that point when I am comparing calendars with my programmer, I don't really have a regular programmer any more. What I've got now is somebody whose kind of working me in, it comes down to a situation where I have to coordinate his schedule with my schedule, and if I have to coordinate that with the networks schedule, well then often that just throws things way off.
Shawn: Give the opinion of should networks or merchants themselves should severely limit the number of people that get access t o data feeds, do you think that they can do some damage?
Scott: I think they can be abused. There's been some talk on one of the boards that.
A company that has been disseminating data feeds through his company to affiliates who may or may not have been approved for use of that data feed. I think it should be a managed resource. I'll tell you when I was a brand new affiliate, I applied for a data feed one time with a company with CJ and I received a very nice email back from their program manager. He said we give this out on a small scale, we consider it a managed resource and at this time we just don't think you are ready for it.
Lookin
How you answer questions depends on many factors. Example what type of situation is it. Are you working with your colleague or talking with your boss. Are you doing an interview with the media or announcing a breakthrough with your business.Most people have told me that they worry the most when it is the media, because embarrassing or damaging answers could end up on public display. However, the reality is the most reporters are not out to get people, they are just looking for the facts behind the story.Sometimes it can be difficult to state your answers because each person has their own agenda of things that they would like to accomplished or have answered.It is important in these situations to remain calm. When you are stressed out or upset, you literately shut off your thinking cells.If you use the example of a manufacturing company looking at moving or upgrading their facility and media has heard they are shutting down, putting the employees out of work, we can look at different scenarios.Many people find yes / no questions very annoying or upsetting because in either case it can be very misleading. For example, if they asked, are you closing down the plant? and you answered with a yes, that sounds permanent and possibly putting many people out of work. Where as it may be temporary to accomplish some upgrades or maybe you are relocating to a more efficient location.If you are being asked yes or no questions that could be misleading, there are ways you can answer with an explanation without looking like you are making excuses.A couple of examples would be; Yes, and in addition to that… (we have found a more efficient and safer builder)No, there is more to this…(We are completing some upgrades for safety and ef
The system we have now requires affiliates to go through CJ personnel, either your account representative if you are a CJP or through their support people, and set a data feed up to be either delivered to your server or for you to ftp in and grab. What I think the networks are missing on here is a) a lot of these data feeds, by the time the affiliate sees it and realizes they can't use it, they're still sending it on whatever cycle it is they're sending it and it's not being used which is really just somewhat of a waste.
Also, if an affiliate is working on a site at midnight on a Thursday the networks work nine-to-five, affiliates work 24/7. If I were in one of the networks where I'm not able to get data feeds instantly and I was able to reach in and grab something, set it up and it would work, and then set-up a weekly update or a daily update or however it needs to be set-up all within my interface, that would be great. I realize that if this were to ever happen, that it would possibly be very much abused and overused by people that go in and get a lot of data feeds and disseminate them for whatever reasons and such. It would need to be monitored. But I think if the networks went through a fairly close screening process that they could put this together for affiliates that they deem worthy of it I guess. And it would be an invaluable tool to me.
Shawn I sent you an email one time. I believe I replied to one of your emails that I just come in; I think it was the three o'clock in the morning. I mentioned I was out drinking tea and playing cards. I sat down to work and if I had access to certain data feeds at that time they would have gotten integrated into one of my sites. As it is, those data feeds were added. They're now in the data feed push, but now I am in a position to where my programmer is not available for sometime and it's going to be probably three weeks or another month before those feeds work their way into my site.
Shawn: So are there any networks that are currently giving that sort of access?
Scott: ShareASale gives you that kind of access. ShareASale allows you to reach in and, once you're approved for the merchant, I understand that I am not going to be able to log in at three a.m., and get instantly approved and instantly approved for data feed access and get data feeds that way. But if I'm able to be approved for the merchant ahead of time, on ShareASale then I can go in there in the middle of the night and look at a data feed, even determine if it will work or not. If it will work then I can load it in to the mix. Then at that point when I am comparing calendars with my programmer, I don't really have a regular programmer any more. What I've got now is somebody whose kind of working me in, it comes down to a situation where I have to coordinate his schedule with my schedule, and if I have to coordinate that with the networks schedule, well then often that just throws things way off.
Shawn: Give the opinion of should networks or merchants themselves should severely limit the number of people that get access t o data feeds, do you think that they can do some damage?
Scott: I think they can be abused. There's been some talk on one of the boards that.
A company that has been disseminating data feeds through his company to affiliates who may or may not have been approved for use of that data feed. I think it should be a managed resource. I'll tell you when I was a brand new affiliate, I applied for a data feed one time with a company with CJ and I received a very nice email back from their program manager. He said we give this out on a small scale, we consider it a managed resource and at this time we just don't think you are ready for it.
Lookin
Offer customers solutions to their problems and you will generate more sales Does this statement sounds familiar? A sales representative will find that having a solution to a customer’s problem is vital. However, the solution by itself may not close the sale.Are you aware that there are ways to effectively use solutions you may have to a customer’s needs to close the sale? If your solutions are ‘welcomed’ by the customer the chances are you will be more likely to close the sale. On the flip side, if your solutions are ‘unwelcomed’ by the customer then there is a greater risk of losing the sale.What is an unwelcome solution? An unwelcome solution is offering a solution to a customer‘s problem that the customer does not know exists or doesn’t consider big enough to fix. Thee result is that the solutions are presented to the customer too early for it to be of sufficient value and be accepted. If you are a sales representative you may be able to identify with having done this. It is imperative that before you offer solutions to a customer, you take the time to understand the customer’s needs. Only then, will you be able to help the customer sees that the problem exists, ad more importantly,, that such problems are big enough to fix. Some customers would rather live with the problems rather than fix them even though you offered them a solution. Certain customers are adamant in their ways and won’t change. Regarding the others that might actually try to fix their problems by using your solution you would do very well to let them see the value of changing to your solution.Finally, you have managed to change the customer’s perspective letting such person see the value of your solutions. Generally value from a sales representative perspective is always higher than from the customer’s perspe
Shawn: So are there any networks that are currently giving that sort of access?
Scott: ShareASale gives you that kind of access. ShareASale allows you to reach in and, once you're approved for the merchant, I understand that I am not going to be able to log in at three a.m., and get instantly approved and instantly approved for data feed access and get data feeds that way. But if I'm able to be approved for the merchant ahead of time, on ShareASale then I can go in there in the middle of the night and look at a data feed, even determine if it will work or not. If it will work then I can load it in to the mix. Then at that point when I am comparing calendars with my programmer, I don't really have a regular programmer any more. What I've got now is somebody whose kind of working me in, it comes down to a situation where I have to coordinate his schedule with my schedule, and if I have to coordinate that with the networks schedule, well then often that just throws things way off.
Shawn: Give the opinion of should networks or merchants themselves should severely limit the number of people that get access t o data feeds, do you think that they can do some damage?
Scott: I think they can be abused. There's been some talk on one of the boards that.
A company that has been disseminating data feeds through his company to affiliates who may or may not have been approved for use of that data feed. I think it should be a managed resource. I'll tell you when I was a brand new affiliate, I applied for a data feed one time with a company with CJ and I received a very nice email back from their program manager. He said we give this out on a small scale, we consider it a managed resource and at this time we just don't think you are ready for it.
Looking back on that now, to be perfectly honest with you, he was right because I wasn't ready for it. But if they need to manage it, it doesn't need to be given out to just everybody, but those people that have proven to be productive and valuable affiliates there's really no reason that they shouldn't be made available to that group of people on a 24/7 basis.
Shawn: Sure, and as far as somebody whose capable of using a data feed do you have any tips for how to get started in for people that are totally new to it?
Scott: WebMerge. WebMerge is a great tool, there are a lot of scripts out there, there's a thread at ABestWeb posted by a member named Dirk Gardner, and if you got to ABestWeb and do a search for Dirk Gardner you can find it. It's a wonderful thread, it's got all kind of sample script that you can use, and just enter your information in, it's a great resource, its very, very, very good. I do a little bit of stuff with PHP but do not consider myself a programmer. It's not where my strengths are and never spent the time I need to develop that. I really feel that my time is better spent elsewhere. I have used those scripts applied by Dirk, ABestWeb; it's a wonderful resource for someone to get started with data feeds and databases.
Shawn: So if somebody is even intimidated by using WebMerge, would you recommend trying GoldenCAN or DataFeedFile?
Scott: I love GoldenCAN, GoldenCAN is good, I don't really know anything able DataFeedFile. I've worked with assets at GoldenCAN on many things, and I do recommend GoldenCAN. What you need to consider you're using the JavaScript version of GoldenCAN you're going to need to put content on the page otherwise the search engines will read it as a blank page. But I believe now that GoldenCAN is supporting a different system, a PHP system that actually shows up and is indexable. GoldenCAN's a great resource for a new affiliate.
Shawn: That's all I was wondering, that's a great education there. I appreciate that.
Scott: There are several other good websites out there that are WebMerge tutorials. Actually some affiliate programs have there own version of WebMerge that they'll give affiliates or sell affiliates at a very discounted price that's for use with their data feed and its all set up with templates where you really just plug everything in.
For new affiliates I would also say take a look at the MakeAPage on ShareASale that's a wonderful resource. Many OPM houses and affiliate management houses kind of have their own version of the MakeAPage. I believe Akiva Bergstrom, was maybe the pioneer of that, and he's certainly got a nice setup over on his end.
Shawn: a page generator?
Scott: Right and those are generally, those are very effect. They provide a nice table of items, and you can filter the items by what you want to show up in it, and set the number that displays and everything. They are actually very good, I used those quite a bit when I first became an affiliate and had some success with them, and still use them today. I still use them for, mostly for a few related down the right side column on a page or something. You can set it up to show one column with four items in it; it's a great page dressing.
Lisa: Well, Scott, this has been a great education for people. You spent a lot of your time looking at big picture things as well as getting into the nitty gritty, giving a lot of people some great advice. So why don't we wrap it up by letting us know what you are going to be talking about at the Affiliate Summit?
Scott: At Affiliate Summit I am going to be talking about marketing your affiliate website outside of the box and I'll say that outside' pretty much means outside of your house. These are offline, what we consider today; nontraditional methods of advertising which fifteen years ago people lived and died by. It seems that advertising these days is, in the online world, has gone strictly online which I am a big fan of. I think that's where your best ROI is, but I think there's also a lot of opportunity out there on the streets that a lot of affiliates aren't getting and that's what my presentation is about.
Lisa: Well that sounds really interesting and I think everybody will benefit from checking that out.
Scott: Thanks.
Shawn: Yeah thanks a lot for coming on, Scott. I look forward to seeing you in Vegas.
Scott: All right guys, thanks for having me. I'll see ya both here in just a few days.
Shawn: Take care. Thank you.
Lisa: Ok take care. Bye bye.
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.casualarticles.com/article/52892/casualarticles-Interview-with-Super-Affiliate-Scott-Hazard.html">Interview with Super Affiliate Scott Hazard</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.casualarticles.com/article/52892/casualarticles-Interview-with-Super-Affiliate-Scott-Hazard.html]Interview with Super Affiliate Scott Hazard[/url]
Related Articles:
Holiday Breaks and Continuity Plans: How You Can Profit From Your Holiday Break
10 Ways To Rejuvenate Your Communication Game Plan
Bookmark it:
|