Evolving is an important part of business. Adjusting to change for the better, this means even expanding into other parts of the online industry. The online industry is so big, there are numerous ways to make money online. As for me, I have been learning the advertiser world. I am working with a great friend of mine and the knowledge that he has provided and the opportunities he has opened for me are just amazing.
Just these past couple days, Rich Gorman of DirectResponse.net, invited me to hangout with him Cliff and Tom Cohen, a legal affiliate attorney, to grab some drinks. Rich was actually in the city attending the DMA conference in NY, so we decided to meet up. Glad we did.
We ate and had some drinks and while we did I tweeted my followers what questions they would like me to ask the FTC lawyer about the affiliate industry. We talked about where the industry was 3 years ago and where it is now. Tom Cohen was one of the lawyers that was on Smaxor's Ads4Dough FTC Q&A webinar a couple months back. An amazing Q&A webinar.
Since I had the opportunity to ask him direct questions, I did. I asked him about international affiliates, networks vs affiliates, whose fault it really is, evasions, etc. It was a great dinner with great people and friends.
So after all this, I talked to Rich about starting my own products and we were in discussion about this for a while. He gave me great pointers, a rough estimate of how much an investment would be, design, type of offer, CRMs, merchant processing, etc. He gave me a lot of answers to my noob questions.
This is my first step getting to that space and it feels like it is my first time jumping into the affiliate space, not knowing anything and just doing things as they come. Even though I some what know how that space works from the affiliate point of view, it still has it's own 'environment'. There are a lot of things to consider, especially if you are doing your own biz opp, health offer or whatever it maybe.
Things from regulations, to testimonials, to support, to CRM, charge backs, etc. There are a lot of things that can go wrong and which you as a business need to support. Rich has helped me and told me what it takes and how he does it. Taking this information and then using it to my own knowledge definitely puts things into perspective on how I need to look at it and cater to my business.
So far, I have research merchant processing and fulfillment. The best part is there is a local fulfillment service by my house and I met with the owner of the service. She gave me some great insights on how things work and how we can work together. Besides that I also was thinking about investing in a product already out there. I was actually approach about this too, we met and discussed his numbers - then I brought this attention to Rich and he gave me what would be the best move in my situation.
I also talked to my buddy that I met at DK's San Diego ThinkTank and see what his thoughts are about the whole advertiser world, since he also started being the advertiser. He gave me some great insights and resources to read up on, his mistakes, and what to read up on.
So far the help and resources Rich has provided to me has been great - Thanks Rich! This is going to be exciting for sure, make sure to stay tuned for more updates on my blog!
