Whether you believe it or not, the affiliates role is very similar to that of a salesperson but looking at many affiliate sites you wouldn’t think so.  Many new affiliates focus so much on the content, that they forget to actually promote the product at hand (whether it be a poker room, poker software, books, or whatever).

When you look at your site or any article on it, you should be working to close a deal in every peice of content.  Whether it simply be a banner on the side, or a link to a poker site in an article.  Look at your site from a visitor’s point of view and if you don’t see any reason to sign up under one of your offers, then you probably aren’t doing a good job.

Since I have really been lacking on tips for poker affiliates, let me end this post with a great link to some really good videos.  I suggest you watch them all, but if you don’t want to use up 5 hours, watch the one on conversions.  Its called the stompernet scrutinizer and there is a link in the bottom right corner to pull up the playlist of videos.

Good luck!

So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I recently went to Monte Carlo for 10 days.  The main reason for the trip was to watch my brother play in the EPT Grand Final, but also just to get a little bit of a break and clear my head.  Ever since quitting my job I have felt a little overwhelmed and hard to focus, but I think I am finally getting over that.  On the plane I listened to a great audiobook called Getting Things Done, and I think that over the next few months I will try and implement a lot of the things it teaches to get myself more organized.

Back to the vacation…. We landed in Nice for a few days before heading to Monaco.  The weather was pretty shitty, but hey, I was in Europe (I love it over there).  We hit a few pubs there and pretty much just did the tourist thing (walked all around the city).  Here are a couple pics from Nice:

After a few days there, we were on our way to Monte Carlo AKA Ballerville.  This place was insane!  Every other car was practically a Bentley or a Ferrari.  I have never seen so many of them in one week in my life!   Here are some pics of the constant car show:

But really, the cars above were nothing.  The one that really caught my attention was this one, the Bugatti Veyron:

At over 1.12 Million Euros, in the words of Jeremy Enke, that is “Certified Baller“.

Monte Carlo is a beautiful city, but really expensive so if you go, bring lots of cash.  With some restaurants charging as much as $8 for a can of coke, you can go broke pretty quick.  Here are some pics of the ports:

The big boat dead center is insane!  17th largest yacht in the world.

As you can probably guess… I love yachts and nice cars.  I did a ton of walking in Monte Carlo, and even took one day to go to Italy (small town called Ventimiglia) to eat some pasta and pizza.  The pasta I had in Italy was awful, but the pizza was pretty decent.  The best part was the Cappucino’s…soo good.

So as I mentioned before the reason I was there partially was to watch my brother play in the EPT.  Unfortunately he went busto at the end of day 1.  He got crippled with KK twice, once into AA and another time with 4 callers.  He managed to make a huge laydown against the AA, but it left him pretty short.

It was cool to meet many of the players that I write about all the time face-to-face.  I had many elevator rides with people like Daniel Negreanu, Freddy Deeb, and Barry Greenstein.  I also got to play Gavin Griffin heads-up in the Pokerstars Lounge for charity, which was lots of fun.

While there, I also went to try and find one of the members of one of my forums, Glen Chorny.  If you followed the event, you’d know that Glen went on to win the whole tournament, which was awsome because I had been cheering for him for several days.  His parents took us all out after to the club at the hotel where we polished off a magnum of Cristal, magnum of Dom, along with 2 regular size bottles of Cristal.  Here is the group of us after the tourney:

I ended up getting back to the room around 6am, and almost slept through my flight back.  Fortunately I had set my alarm two days prior and I heard it in time to get up.  All in all, it was a fun trip, now back to work so I can get my own Bugatti!

Sorry for the delay in my Monte Carlo trip report… I am planning to write it in the next few days.  For now, I thought that I would share this with the readers of this blog.

Every time I go to get my haircut I see this poster hanging above my head when I am getting my hair washed.  I think this is a great poster and something everyone can take something from.

21 Suggestions for SUCCESS - By H Jackson Brown Jr.

1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.

2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.

3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.

6. Be generous.

7. Have a grateful heart.

8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.

9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.

10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.

12. Commit yourself to quality.

13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.

14. Be loyal.

15. Be honest.

16. Be a self-starter.

17. Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong.

18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.

19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.

20. Take good care of those you love.

21. Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud.

Source:  http://www.21suggestions.com

Also, shout out to my homie John Goldie… he started a great new blog about business, check it out!

Ever heard of Plentyoffish.com? Its a free dating site. It’s ugly as hell, but would you believe how much the guy that owns it makes? Check out this video of Plenty of Fish founder Markus Frind:

Tomorrow I will be heading to Monte Carlo for 10 days to watch my brother play in the EPT Grand Final and I can’t wait!  I have always wanted to go to Monte Carlo and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.  We will be staying in Nice for 2 days then heading onward to Monte Carlo on Friday.

I think this vacation is what I need right now, as I feel my head is very cluttered since leaving my job and I just need some time to relax and start thinking creatively again.

I find that I come up with the best ideas when I am on vacation and I am sure that seeing all the ballers of Monte Carlo will help provide some good motivation.

I’ll try and take lots of pics and post them when I get back.  So if you are looking for me online over the next week or so… that is where I will be

Its been a long time since I updated this thing, as I have been going a little stir crazy trying to get all the things done that I have been putting off both prior to quitting my job and things that have come up since doing it. But I figure the time has come and this site needs an update bad.

So, as I mentioned I left IBM roughly 2 weeks ago and have been doing the full time thing ever since. The biggest pain since doing this has been trying to organize all my stuff for taxes. I have spent so many days thinking about taxes, organizing paperwork, etc. that my head is starting to spin. Fortunately, I met with an accountant and he is gonna get me more organized so hopefully this won’t be an issue next year.

Beyond that, I also bought a fairly large poker forum a few months back which I have been busting my ass to try and build it back up. It was almost at the point where it was starting to die off, but I think it has come back to life a little and it is starting to get very busy again. I have been wasting far too much time with this site though, and it is really cutting into my productivity. I’ve basically had to teach myself all sorts of stuff with vBulletin (such as how to upgrade it, install plugins and much more). It has been an interesting experience, but very -ev dollar wise so far. Thankfully most of the crap is now out of the way so I can start focussing on other things once again.

Ok… enough of the boring stuff… since I have been doing the affiliate stuff full-time I have been doing a lot of my work out Starbucks, so let me end this on a positive note with…..

Top 5 Reasons I Love Doing Work at Starbucks

5) Relatively cheap internet. At $35 for a whole month, I can’t really complain.
4) It gets me out of the house so I don’t become a hermit.
3) After a few of their coffees you feel like you are on crack as you get super-wired. Their coffee is really good too.
2) I get to watch everyone else who is working real jobs run in for a minute and run back out, while I chill there in the nice comfy chairs.
1) The scenery. There are so many pretty girls / yummy mummies that come in there all the time that it sure beats staring at my wall.

So far the full-time thing is going pretty good, but I am finding it hard to keep myself motivated all the time. Anyone got any tips?

February was probably the busiest month I have had… well, ever!

I bought a very established forum which has been keeping me busy almost every day.

I set up a new business with a friend and have spent a ton of time investigating accountants, banking options, and lawyers…. what a pain!

I have been working on all my sites, plus added a few new ones.

I have had 4 dentist appointments trying to get all the work done before I set-up to go full-time as an Internet Marketer.

I got my wisdom teeth out, which hurts like hell by the way.

I have been trying to plan at least 1 trip to Monaco for the EPT finals with my bro, along with several other potential trips.

I have been looking for a new car, as mine is coming off lease this month.

Plus a bunch of other fun stuff…. get the point? It has been a crazy month!

Sorry for the lack of updates on this blog. Eventually I will start updating it more every day!

Graham

When I last left off day 1 had come to a finish. Let me continue now with the rest of the report:

Friday, January 25th, 2008

After waking up with a bit of a headache from the previous nights’ celebrations and an extreme bout of dehydration (the temperature in our room must have been around 25 degrees celcius even with the window open), Kyle and I made our way over to the conference. We missed the first super affiliates panel as we could not find the main sessions room, but decided to walk around and check out some of the booths.

Our first mission was to find the Affiliate Speedpay booth to check out the lambo and the girls that we voted for. We ended up finding a sweet Ferrari done up with Affiliate Speedpay decals, and later found the ASP girls wandering around. Our first thoughts were “those aren’t the girls we voted for”. I have to say that the girls kinda looked like escorts that decided getting paid to wander around a convention was better than having to put out for cash, but after all, who cared… they filled those ASP shorts nicely. I think some other people must have thought similar things because on the next day there were 2 different and much hotter models walking around. We went to a couple more booths, then I had to go to one of my scheduled meetings.

After waiting about 5 minutes for someone that I had no clue what they looked like, I decided to give up. In future, I am never going to arrange to meet anyone that doesn’t have a booth at the show, it just doesn’t work out. Next meeting went well and I accomplished everything I wanted to do. Only problem was it ran longer than expected and I missed the first bit of Neil Patel’s session on Social Media and Web 2.0. Fortunately I did not miss too much, and got there in time for him to share a couple of cool tips near the end.

The next session was the panel of CEO’s. Speaking at this session were: Mark Blandford (former CEO of Sportingbet), Peter Nylander (CEO UniBet), and Malcolm Graeme (CEO of PKR). It was neat to get the perspective from the top people in several of the key players in this industry and to hear their thoughts on all sorts of subjects from mobile gaming to gaming legislation. Peter even mentioned the time he was arrested by Dutch Authorities, which was a very entertaining story. Mid way through the session I had to step out and meet with Henrik from Gnuf poker. Before I left for London I had entered my name for a free dinner to the CAP Awards paid for by the guys at Gnuf. I ended up getting selected so we planned to meet on the Friday at the show. We exchanged contact info, and planned to meet just before the awards at my hotel.

After spending most of the day at the conference Kyle, John, Greg, Jeremy, BRANDON and I decided to head over to he local pub for some drinks and food before getting ready for the awards. This worked out quite well because I had arranged for another meeting at this pub (pubs are probably the best place for meetings as its much more casual and you can have a drink to calm the nerves). Thinking the guy wasn’t going to show, I decided to call him from my phone at the $5/min rate that I am sure I will be faced with when I get the bill. Looking around the bar for someone with a ringing phone, I see the guy directly beside me answer his phone… sure enough it was him.

I met in the lobby bar with the Gnuf crew before heading on over to the awards. They seemed like a cool group of guys, so my initial worries that this would be a very akward night were quickly turned positive. We arrive at the awards to be greeted by a bunch of almost naked girls painted gold and lots of free booze. I was seated next to Johan (the head of marketing from Gnuf) for the dinner which was an awsome experience. He had so much industry experience and gave me a lot of REALLY good advice about online marketing in general which was awsome because lately I have been very seriously deciding if this is the kind of job I want to persue full-time. The dinner was great and the comedian was really funny. The only thing that I found really weird about the awards was that Rake the Rake won poker affiliate of the year, but who am I to judge.

Warren from CAP

After dinner the partying began. I met Beanie from PAP and heard some great stories about his times as a poker affiliate. I started a little debate with one of the guys from Bluff magazine about the effectiveness of print advertising. Frankly I am not sure how I could get any ROI from advertising in Bluff, but I am sure that the right product could. It was a good convo though, and nice to hear another point of view on the subject.

We left the awards only to find that there were probably 100 other people all looking for a taxi at the same time. After a little waiting we got a cab and were on our way to Paper Nightclub. Fortunately we were with Warren from CAP and Neil Patel (both black amex cardholders) so we did not have to wait in line and went straight in. The club was pretty cool… if you wanted you could get a massage, and it had this Hawaiian style theme to it.

Me and Neil Patel

Nick, Andreas (Darko) and Jeremy

After quickly polishing off a bottle of Grey Goose and bottle of Champagne we decided to head out and find a strip club. A bunch of Nigerian cab drivers were clearly trying to roll us, but since it was late and night and we wanted to get to the strip club, we paid their ridculous prices. After about $100 in cabs and 2 strip clubs that were at capacity we decided to head back to the hotel. Another Nigerian scammer was about to take us back to the hotel at another ridiculous price (about $60) but as he approached the car he went to pick up some clothes off the street and did a little drunken stumble. This set off a huge flag, so we broke out of the car at record speed as we weren’t willing to play chicken that night. He even tried to hold my door shut, but I just pushed it even harder and got the hell out of his car. The guys in the other cab also did the same thing as their driver was trying to get them to pay around $140 to take them back to the hotel.

Nigerian Cabbie Scammers

We decided enough was enough and headed back to the hotel to call it a night. Stay tuned for the rest of the trip in Part 3.

I am finally starting to recover from all the partying and sleepless nights during my short visit to London for CAP Euro.  All I can say is WOW, what a trip!  I had an amazing time meeting up with some familiar faces, along with some new ones, but enough of that, I am sure everyone is eager to learn what happened on the trip.

Wednesday, January 23th, 2008

I meet up with JohnG, winner of the PAP Contest (see his report here) and head over to the airport where we meet up with Kyle.  2 hours later, we are on our way to London!  Some old Indian dude seems to fall in love with Kyle and keeps staring at him on our flight.  About an hour later he switches seats with his mother who also continues to stare at Kyle - it was really funny, they wouldn’t even blink.  Turns out alcohol is free on the plane… this thing is off to a good start!  I fall asleep for a bit, only to wake up and find that the old lady that was staring at Kyle is dying somewhere in the back and they are rushing to get her pills.  I don’t know if it was Kyle… so I am a little cautious with him for the rest of the trip

Thursday

We land at Heathrow around 7am.  Some dude tries to roll us immediately as we walk out and tells us its like 60 quid (slang for: British Pounds) to get to our hotel.  Our thoughts are, “WTF that is $130 CAD which translated to ”this is gonna be an expensive trip”, or “fuck this guy - let’s take the tube”".  We opted for the 2nd option and got on the tube.

When we arrive at the Hotel, our rooms aren’t ready, so we decide to get some breakfast.  By about 11:30am they still weren’t ready, so we figure, screw it, we are in England, where’s the pub!  After almost falling asleep while drinking our beers we decide to go back to the hotel… FINALLY… the rooms are ready!  We get the first key only to find out the room is still being cleaned.  We then head downstairs and after a 30 minute wait are told that the room is fine and to try again.  I do that, only to find out that there are now 2 people in the room…. serenity now!  I restrain myself from jumping over the desk and strangling the girl at the front desk and finally get a room plus 4 comped drinks at the bar (that helped ease the stress a little).  The room is crap for a 4-star hotel, and the bed cracks when I sit on it… this day is off to a bad start!

Fortunately this bad luck does a 360 and we meet up with the PAW/PAP crew for the dinner that I organized at Gaucho.  The room we got at the restaurant was seriously balling… I have been in a few private rooms before at some really amazing restaurants, and this is probably up there as one of my favorites!  Here are some pics:

PAP Crew at Gaucho (from left to right): Darko, Nick, Carly, Jeremy, Boarderman23, themike537, Beanie, Greg Powell, GoodKarmaKid, Kyle, Brandon and WAZ.
Missing: JohnG, Myself, ArnoldPalmer

Gaucho Grill Appetizers

First Dish of the Main Course

In total the bill came to about 1600 quid (approx $3500) and everyone seemed to have a really great time.  (special thanks to the PAP guys for covering my portion of the tab - you guys really did not have to do that!)

After dinner we headed over to the Hollywood Poker Party at Cafe de Paris.  This was fun for a bit, but kind of turned to disappointment as we were cut off from drinks after only being there for around an hour.  Regardless, we still had a blast and I got to meet Chris (lifeofsports), scrawnybob and many others at this event.

Here is a pic of Picaddilly Circus:

After a bit more partying, we decide to head over to the Casino where they held the WSOPE.  I played a little roulette and ended up around $120USD.  It was really scary betting in UK Pounds as you quickly forget that they are really double and a bit in my own currency.  After the casino we cabbed it back to the hotel and called it a night.

The rest of the report is still to come… I will try and get it done in the next few days.

I have to say that I am pretty excited for CAP Euro this year. This will be my first CAP Conference and from what I have seen so far it looks like it is going to be quite the event. I know I would be pissed if I missed this one.

The last few weeks I have been pretty busy trying to organize our PAW Dinner which has been an interesting experience. The final numbers are at 16 and I look forward to meeting up with some friends from PAW, along with some new faces that I have never met before. Between doing this, continuously updating sites, and working on a big project at my day job, I have been keeping really busy.

I think this is going to be a pretty important event and will hopefully set the stage for many good things to come this year. I bought my new suit, got some amazing business cards (thanks to my buddy Randy at Fresh Meat Design) and even picked up a brand new blackberry so I can continue to receive all my daily spam while I am in London.

Here are the Top 5 things I am looking forward to at CAP Euro (in no particular order):
1) Hollywood Affiliates Party on Night 1
2) PAW Dinner (see above)
3) Affiliate Speedpay Booth - Lambo and Models… what more could you ask for!
4) Meeting up with everyone from PAW/PAP along with some of the programs that I work for, and some programs that I would like to work with
5) CAP Awards

So get that confidence built up, study the guide, pack those bags, and see you in London!