For The Heck of It Archives - Page 10 of 11 - Affiliate Marketing with Missy Ward, Affiliate Summit Co-Founder & Co-CEO

Burnin’ my Vanity Bra!

by Missy Ward

I happened upon Lisa Picarille's post, Videoblogging: Is it a Man’s World? and I have to tell you, it hit home.

“But what about the affiliate marketing space where there are a lot of super smart and successful women? Why aren’t they using video like their male counterparts? It’s a touchy issue to go into but I think it’s about looks. The majority of us fall are average looking and not in the supermodel range.

But for women, I think doing a video is all about vanity. I don’t want to generalize, but more often than not, women want to look our best on video and let’s face it – that can take some work. There’s doing our hair, putting on makeup and finding the perfect outfit. You guys just push record and go. Or put on a baseball cap (yes, you Mr. Collins).”

Lisa, you are absolutely right. I usually arrive at my desk at 10:00am, straight from the gym and the truth is, it's not a pretty picture. There are days when I don't even make it into the shower until mid-afternoon because I'm so busy. The last thing I want to do is be seen by my UPS guy when he rings the bell, let alone do a video for public consumption.

My buddy, Jim Kukral chimed in with his thoughts:

“The beauty of all this is that I work even harder because I know that online video is dominated by women with good shows and I am not a 115 pound blonde. So I have to strive to be more entertaining, have better content and do a better job.”

And within Jim's words, I found liberation from my pretension. I'm just going to go for it — burn my vanity bra, if you will.

So with that being said, here's my first video, sans enhancements. It's a video response to Lisa Picarille's post, thanking her for opening my eyes.

Like, it or don't like it. It's just video and you don't have to watch 😉

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This Blog is on Vacation

by Missy Ward

I am headed off to vacation, somewhere in Punta Cana this week. My husband actually arranged for the entire trip and I found out the destination, only yesterday. The resort however, remains a mystery.

In exchange for my hubby planning the entire holiday, he has asked that I limit my “online time” to 30 minutes per day. I think that's somewhat fair and I intend to play along (for the first few days anyway.) 🙂

During the last few vacations that I've been on, there has always been one “Top Story” that dragged me back to my PC numerous times each day:

Cancun, 2007 – Anna Nicole Smith Corpse Fight

Costa Rica, 2007 – Paris Hilton goes to Jail

Aruba, 2007 – Natalee Holloway's case hits the news again, the week I'm in Aruba.

This time, there are so many good “stories” going on that I don't know how I'm going to disconnect! Here are the ones I'm going to be keeping an eye on:

PepperJam vs. CJ

Scott Jangro's Blog

Sam Harrelson on Revenews

Carsten Cumbroski on Revenews

ABestWeb

The Eliot Spitzer Fallout (insert evil laugh here)

The SXSW Music and Media Conference coverage

and of course the Elections!

So while I'm gone, instead of boring you with blog posts about my new favorite island drink, how great my tan is coming along or about the things that have scarred my eyes forever (think speedo), I've decided to just point my readers (or lack thereof) to the content that I'll be following so that we can all be on the same page when I get back 🙂

Voy a la playa – Adios!

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Just Give Me My Proper Respect

by Missy Ward

“I'm not concerned with you liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” – Jackie Robinson

Brian Littleton, CEO of Shareasale.com and the winner of the 2008 Affiliate Summit “Wayne Porter Affiliate Marketing Legend” Award, posted a great blog entry today, which really hit home with me. His overall theme in his post deals with treating others with respect – something that I believe can definitely be improved within our industry.

Now I’m not saying that we are ALL deficient in our abilities to show consideration for others. That is certainly not the case. However, over the many years that I have been in this industry, I have witnessed a fair share of insults, inconsideration, disregard for other people’s opinions and a general lack of sensitivity for other people’s feelings. A couple of cases that come to mind that I have seen recently include:

– While I was at several parties that took place at Affiliate Summit 2008 Las Vegas, I witnessed a lot of networks in attendance at their competition’s parties. Now that’s cool. That’s the kind of spirit that embodies our industry. What wasn’t cool was that several of them actually had the audacity to try to poach affiliates, merchants and OPM’s, while they enjoyed drinking their host’s booze and eating their host’s food. How did they not know what the proper etiquette would be?

– I saw an affiliate raise-up their hand, turn around and walk away from a CPA Network employee while that employee was in mid-sentence. There are a lot nicer ways to say that you don’t want to do business and excuse yourself than that.

– A former Affiliate Manager, turned “network owner” who apparently doesn’t like the Affiliate Summit show (although hasn’t attended the last few) decided to flame Shawn and I on various forums and blogs, citing that he could do it better, although he has never actually ran a conference before. (Dude, have at it. Any additional exposure for Affiliate Marketing is awesome for the industry – just make sure I get an invite to attend.) Since when did it become acceptable to publicly bash other people in an effort to make yourself look good? Don’t most people still see right through that?

Here’s the way I see it. We work in a diverse industry made up of many different business models, business sizes, work ethics and experience. It is this kind of diversity that can make all our business and professional lives much more enjoyable, interesting and worthwhile – but only if we get along with each other. And to do that we have to respect each other.

As I’ve said many times before, people need to treat others as they want to be treated, because what goes around comes around. Besides, no one will really care how wonderful or brilliant you are, if you respect nothing.

‘Nuff said.

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Ditch Your Desk Chair – Work That Body!

by Missy Ward

I’ve worked at home for the last 5-1/2 years and while it definitely has its perks, I find that one of the biggest downers about it is that I seldom walk away from my desk. Let’s face it, it’s not like I have a whole lot of options to go somewhere else. There is no “other department” to walk into, no water cooler in which to share juicy gossip, no long list of co-workers to go to lunch with. It’s just me, my PC and my ergonomically-friendly, yet strangely uncomfortable swivel chair.

So a few weeks ago I was expressing my frustration to my trainer and he suggested that I try sitting on a stability ball (aka swiss ball, yoga ball, exercise ball), instead of my chair, so that I can do something good for myself while I’m just sitting around all day.He explained that stability ball works your body, even when you’re not working out. Because the ball itself is not steady, your body needs to make adjustments using its muscles, in order to obtain stabilization and prevent you from falling over. The muscles used during these adjustments known as the “core muscle group” (abdomen and back) need to constantly work and as a by-product get stronger.

He further explained that while I was not likely get that great 6-pack that I’ve been looking for just by sitting on the stability ball for a solid 8 hours a day, strengthening my core will help support my back and stop me from further destroying what’s left of my good posture and possibly alleviate my backaches.

I have to admit, I thought the idea was silly and also dangerous, especially for me given the fact that I’m such a klutz (see post from yesterday). How on earth was I going to sit on this ball and try to type and speak on the phone at the same time? I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to master the “texting while walking” scenario. But, I figured that a $20.00 investment would at least provide entertainment to my husband who sits in his office 300 yards away, a couple of days per week.

So I gave it a shot and hopped on about 3 weeks ago. Day one was not easy. Not only did I roll off the ball several times, but at the end of the day, my abs hurt. So did my quads and my hamstrings. Day two: I only fell twice, yet those same body parts were sore plus now, my gluts and calves were tender. During the rest of the week, I remained ON the stability ball all day and started feeling good about the minor aching that I had in my lower body. The pain meant it was working.

I debriefed my trainer on Monday on how it was going and he let me in on one additional perk about sitting on the stability ball. Apparently people that sit on a stability ball vs. an office chair burn 8 more calories per hour on average. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, over the course of the week, it adds up to the calories needed to metabolize one cup of Starbucks Mud Pie ice cream.

Extra calorie burn and tighter abs, legs and butt by just sitting at my desk? Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you.PS – I typed this entire blog post while sitting on my stability ball.

If I've inspired you to give the stability ball a whirl, send me your picture. I'd love to post it here.

Scott Jangro on his stability ball.

Todd Crawford's ball on the way to his office

Todd Crawford on his stability ball

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