Poker Affiliate Life

Wow! I Have Been Lazy…

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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.

Starbucks

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?

Poker Affiliate Life

February… What a Month!

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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

Poker Affiliate Life

CAP Euro Trip Report – Part 2

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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.

CAP Awards
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
Me and Neil Patel

PAP Crew
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
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.

Poker Affiliate Life

CAP Euro 2008 – PAP Crew “Ruins” London (Part 1)

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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 Dinner Gaucho
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 Apps
Gaucho Grill Appetizers

Main Course
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:
Piccadilly 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.

Poker Affiliate Life

CAP Euro… Just a few days away!

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London England

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!

Poker Affiliate Tips

Capture Your Visitors’ Email Address!

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e-Mail ListOne thing that I see a lot of affiliates missing out on is capturing their visitor’s email address.  For example. I was looking at a thread on PAP, and wondered how this guy was gonna make money, if he was giving everything away for free.  

This is one of the best things you can do with your traffic, because this gives you a chance to continuously sell to your visitors over and over again.

Otherwise, if you don’t capture their email, they may never come back!  Chances are they found your site doing some random search on Google, which they are unlikely to search for every again.

I am sure many affiliates don’t do this, because they think this is something hard to implement.  WRONG!  If you use a software such as Aweber, you can set up a nice little autoresponder (basically this means a program that automatically sends an email when one is sent to it) similar to the one that Kyle and I have set up on the homepage of FuzionPoker.com.

Here is a graphic for those of you that don’t want to click out:
Aweber Autoresponder

There are a few different autoresponders available, but Aweber is the most well known.  Their Unlimited Autoresponders plan includes:
– Unlimited Autoresponders, Unlimited Follow Ups, Unlimited Broadcasts, Stores 10,000 Leads Free, each additional 10,000 is $9.95, Unlimited Campaigns,  Unlimited Customer Support via 800#, Live Text Chat, and Email
All for about $170 for the entire year!  I used to think this was a lot of money, but now that I am using it I realize it is worth every penny.

If you would like to try it out, they will let you sample the product before you decide to buy it. Just click here for the FREE demo.

I suggest giving some incentive for their email (such as a free book, or special poker strategy video).  That way you ensure that they are giving you their main email address, and you are both getting something in return.  By capturing your visitors e-mails you will be able to let them know about your latest promotions (whether it be a freeroll, or new bonus code) making your job 10 times easier and allowing you to sign them up over and over again!

My Day

Welcome to 2008!

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I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and New Year celebrations, but now its time to get back to work. I have been really lazy with work over the past few weeks (mostly due to all the rich food, and good wine), but all that has to come to a stop now. Its 2008, a new year full of tons of amazing opportunities. All the mistakes I have made are now in the past, and I can only look towards the future.

I think this is gonna be an exciting year for me, and I expect it to be a crucial year for me in my overall life. I plan to stop being so complacent in my life and start DOing a lot more!

I have already bought a few books, which I plan to have completed by year end. I will write more about them as I read them, but right now I am on The 4-hour Work Week.

I plan on working on all my sites even more, including a few redesigns and reviving some projects that were put on the side.

I plan to start responding to my emails more, as I have been getting pretty lazy responding them all. To accomplish this, I purchased a new Blackberry.

I would like to start giving back more. This idea still needs to be worked on how I will do it, but hopefully I can inspire some people on this blog.

There are probably a few more things that I am leaving out, so I will add them later as I think of them.

Its a new year, and I can’t wait to play this one out!

Happy new year everyone!

Poker Affiliate Tips

PAP Contest – Time is Almost Up!

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Time is almost up for the PAP contest to win a FREE trip to London for CAP Euro, plus a bunch of other goodies.  All in all, I can’t really say that I am impressed by many of the entries thus far.  There is still some time, so be sure to get your entry in ASAP.

I have to say that my good friend John has definitely upped the ante with his last minute submission.  John says he will wear a dress if he loses in a contest of the judges’ choosing.  I was thinking we could get Jeremy to race him, but he isn’t a very fast guy.  I would love to see him in a dress though… LOL!

Friendship aside, I promise I will judge this fairly and pick the best entries only.

So get those last minute entries in today, there is still a good chance you could win this thing!

Poker Affiliate Tips

How To Win An Affiliate Contest

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As you may know, I have been asked to judge the PAP Contest where a lucky affiliate will win a trip to CAP Euro.  So far I have not been very impressed by several of the entries so I thought I would share some tips in my blog for those that really want to win this thing.

CAP Euro Contest
As a former affiliate contest winner, here are some tips to make it easier for you to win.

1) Stand out from the competition - Make yourself memorable.  When the judges are looking back on all the entries, if yours was very similar to all the others it may get lost in the mix.  Check out Jeremy`s entry for the Shoemoney competition.

2) Sell yourself – Tell the judges why they should pick you, and what makes you better than the rest.  Pretend its a job interview and let them know you REALLY want this job!

3) Make Use of Technology – Similar to the first point, why not make use of current technology.  Video is hot, and everyone likes videos… why not try that!  Some other things you could do is make a flash movie, a comic strip, a song, anything to show how bad you want this thing!

4) Go Overboard – When I won the Poker.com contest to go to the CAC I completely overhauled my site and put Poker.com as the main sponsor of the site.  I had their logos all over the place, and banners where appropriate.  This all goes back to showing how bad you want to win this thing!

5) Be Entertaining – If you make the judges laugh, then you are one step closer to getting their vote.

6) Use Pictures – The last thing the judges want to do is read a 1000 word boring essay on why you are so great.  Mix in some pics to keep them interested.

7) Easy to Read – Make your key points stand out.  I like the format of this list where I state a main point, then explain it in detail after.  It keeps the reader`s interest much longer.

The winner of this V.I.P. Challenge will enjoy the following:

  • Free roundtrip airfare to CAP Euro
  • Paid Hotel at the Olympia – Jan. 24th – 28th
  • A killer dinner and night on the town courtesy of PAP (could get crazy)
  • Entry to and Dinner at the prestigious 2008 CAP Awards Dinner
  • Full Admission Pass to Affiliate Boot Camp 2008 by CanAffco

I will judge this thing very seriously as I have the power to essentially give someone a package worth between $3000-$4000!!!  Only those that truly make an effort will get my votes!

Good luck everyone!

My Day

Writing on Multiple Blogs is a Lot of Work!

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I have been kinda letting this blog slip lately, because I have either just been lazy, or busy working on the sites that actually make me money 😉

Anyway, for those that care, I recently reported Moneybookers had said they were gonna pay me some of the money back.  Well, it has been over a week, and there is still no sign of the money.  So if they every jack any money from your account, put it this way, you have been warned!

I tried to run my first freeroll on the weekend, and it failed miserably.  I didn’t want to use a password because I was worried it would get leaked so I asked my affiliate manager if I could send him the players list on the Friday before the tournament.  Well I did just that, but apparently my Friday, was his Saturday (as they are in Australia) and he did not receive the player’s list in time.  So, I had to deal with all the angry people in the forum, but will be re-running the tournament next weekend.  If you want to play, drop by the Fuzion Poker Forum.  I would love to have some fellow affiliates in the tournament.  I am pretty sure that Jeremy is gonna show up, as well as Kyle.

What else is going on in the blogosphere…

Congratulations to Justin Goff for kicking ass and making some big bucks last month.  Justin went from $7796 in October to $12,827 in November!  That is a massive increase.

Jeremy had a great post today about his “balling” father.  I like reading these kinds of posts because it makes you slow down to reflect on the things that are really important in life.  As much as we love to chase the almighty dollar, it isn’t everything.  One of my favorite quotes of all time is from the movie Blow where Fred Jung (Ray Liotta) says to his son George (Johnny Depp), “Money isn’t real, George. It doesn’t matter. It only seems like it does.”

Also, I was checking out Kyle’s blog and came across an interesting post about how Nintendo have suspended their advertising of the Wii because they don’t want to fuel demand.  I have been trying to find a Wii for the past few weeks now, so I can understand why they would do this.

I have also been reading the Earner’s blog a little more lately.  They have some great info on their blog about online marketing in general.  Definitely worth checking out!