Things have dramatically decreased as far as blogging goes since I have taken on an extra job to pay for the frivolous lawsuit I have been fighting since last June.
Since “taking on” affiliate marketing I have never been to any of these events and I am very excited to finally be able to meet affiliates who’s blogs I read daily.
A very special thank you to Missy Ward for helping me out with registration for this even.
With the legal fees piling quickly on me, I had no choice but to take a job in order to be able to pay the bills. Needless to say it is quiet an experience, which I hope will only last temporarily. I have been at the job only for 6 days, and already am completely surprised that my employer is wasting tons of money in the areas that are absolutely under their control.
I will be writing about my experience in the course of next few weeks as I believe it will only reinforce my conviction that affiliate marketing and it’s “pay for performance” model is the best way to reward hard working and innovative people. I also believe that “hourly pay” is a bad news no matter what kind of business or company are employing it.
While I only worked at my new job for less than a week, I have managed to upset several of my coworkers. Reason? I was doing my job to fast. One night we were finished with what had to be done entire hour ahead of time. Now, I am in no way trying to come down on my coworkers- they all are very hard working people. However the policy of the company we work for is that if you don’t put in 40 hours each week you will see deduction on your paycheck. While at the same time it is against company’s policy to offer employees overtime. Doesn’t make much sense if you asked me.
The problem that I see with this model is following. Employees are intentionally prolonging their “clocked in” time, even if they can finish certain tasks in a friction of the time.
While the company I am employed by may be convinced they are saving their money. It is quiet clear that they can improve dramatically things had they rewarded performance of each employee. This also can create a healthy competition among the employees if they new their pay was based on job well done rather than the time they put in.
Looking back at the interview I went to before getting hires, I can not help but chuckle. I was told that 3/4 of the company’s employees ended up in the management. And that “the sky was the limit”! Respectfully I have to disagree. Unless you begin to reward your employees based on performance, “the sky is the limit” really means nothing.
The above title sums it up for me. I have not written a single post since the beginning of May here on Sage Blogger. I have fallen behind on many other projects I was passionate about.
While I can write long post describing my agony, you will probably get way much better gist of things from other bloggers who wrote about my situation in the recent weeks and months: Trace Richardson, Andy Beard and Greg Swann just to name a few.
Internet and the blogosphere in particular had brought me new friendships and opened new opportunities. Some of my new friends I look forward to meet for the first time in Boston at the Affiliate Summit. While others I may never meet in person. My life has been truly enriched by these friends.
I have also learned that the Internet and the blogosphere can be easily used to damage the reputation of others. No I am not trying to compare myself to Sam, Scott, Gary, Shawn or Jim and to say that my situation is far worse.
The remarkable part of their situation and mine is that perpetrators thought they can fool everyone. The truth is once you begin to engage in stupid activity, you tend to make stupid mistakes.
I think every one who plans to ever succeed on the Internet should take Gary’s advise to heart. Be real, interact with people and most of all do not lie to yourself. But you better hear it from Gary himself:
Things change. Our opinions change. In the past I was proponent and an advocate of paid or sponsored reviews. The change in this respect was slow. But maybe things that come to us slow stay with us longer. I certainly hope this to be true about me and realization how ugly paid reviews can be. Notice I said can be, because I still think that there are few remarkable bloggers who can make it work. But 99.9% bloggers who are writing paid reviews should not be blogging to begin with.
If you are still thinking that paid reviews is a good way to make money you should consider at least two things:
Your paid review can send the chills down other people’s spines. Some may say that Matt Cutts example is way to extreme, however if you look around the web there are many examples of these reviews. As Matt points out, how would you feel if a relative of your or lets make it more personal. How would you feel if you were diagnosed with brain cancer to find that sort of paid reviews? Don’t you feel the chills going down your spine? I do.
Your review can send the chills down your own spine. Now of course when I was still advocating paid reviews, I would have never written such a review. In fact the few opportunities I took, I even tried to provide some constructive criticism. However I had to learn a hard way how much advertisers really care about your so called “constructive criticism”. So when I received Cease and Desist letter, I definitely felt the chills going down my spine.
I really think with paid reviews it all boils down to links and page rank. Even with thousands of subscribers you are nothing, and no one really cares about your expertise and your so called “constructive criticism”. Sorry to bring it to you but your blog is not the center of the universe.
So I guess this chapter of my journey is closing for good. And if you ever decide to try your way in paid review, don’t waste your time. You can make more money by promoting reputable merchants than by writing a review about a startup that turns out to be a ripoff.
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