The buy.at Party At Affiliate Summit West 2010

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in Social

One thing you can always guarantee is that there will be plenty of parties to attend at affiliate trade shows.

Affiliate Summit West 2010 was no exception.

The challenge when it comes to parties at trade show are many.

The first thing is knowing which parties are going to be good.

The second thing is to be invited to the parties that are going to be good.

The third thing is not to make a horses arse of yourself by getting hammered.

The fourth thing is knowing when to call it a night, after all you are there for a trade show, not to lie in bed with a hang over.

As a general rule I don’t bust a gut trying to get invited to parties hosted by people I don’t work with now and have no intention of working with in the future. I also don’t dash round the floor getting wrist bands for parties and then don’t show up. The organisers of parties go to a lot of trouble to put them on.

I heard people walking away from some parties saying they sucked because not every drink was free.

If the only reason someone goes to the party is that they have a free bar, then you are a little on the shallow side.

The other thing, if you do go to a party, don’t drink something you wouldn’t be prepared to pay for yourself. So if you normally drink Coors Lite, don’t go drinking Patron just because it is a free bar.

One of the biggest challenges for us Brits going to West Coast trade shows is having to contend with an 8 hour time zone difference.

To combat that this time I switched my working hours in the UK a week before the show and I had been going to bed at around 5am GMT in the run up to Affiliate Summit West 2010, so by the time I got to Las Vegas I was pretty much in the right time zone. Admittedly 5am is like 9pm in Vegas, but it still helped my body clock a lot.

I arrived in Vegas on the Friday, had a few drinks in the bar with Lyndon Reid, Michael Martin and many more besides.

On Saturday night was the party that I always look forward to and always have a great time at.

The party is thrown by buy.at. I think this is the 3rd US Affiliate Summit buy.at party I have been to and they have yet to disappoint.

I know the UK buy.at network was under-pinned by their ability to throw great parties, and other networks could learn a lot from the way the party is organised.

This year’s venue was Rain at The Palms hotel, and it coincided that their resident world class DJ Paul Oakenfold was playing that night. He did a 3 and a half hour set from 1am.

I heard a few people complain that it was too late when he started, but the buy.at team had no control over when he went on. The club itself was rammed, the line to get in I am told was enormous, but as we were guests of buy.at we had none of that to contend with.

Charlie Calabrese and his team really know how to throw a great party, they rented the entire top floor VIP area, they had soundproof cabanas so if you wanted to talk a little business you were not going to have to shout. They also realised that it was better to invite women of the industry rather than hire in females to look the part.

I shot some video footage of Oakenfold at various stages in the evening. I always forget I have my Flip camera with me. Must try harder in future.

Enjoy the footage and thanks again Charlie and the team, you guys are orsom .

Paul Oakenfold Opens His Set During The buy.at Party At Rain In The Palms Hotel

Paul Oakenfold At The buy.at Party – Snow, Then Fire At Rain In The Palms Hotel.

Following Up On UK Trade Show Leads

in Sales Technique

So, you’ve been to a trade show and either you or your colleagues have met a bunch of interesting people right?

In order to justify the trip, keep the boss happy and hit your sales quota you’ve now got to follow up on those prospects.

What if a bunch of them are from a different country though?

The UK had a fairly large entourage of visitors at the recent Affiliate Summit show in Las Vegas, and at ad-tech London back in September there were a decent number of US based companies who had booths/stands.

The guide in the video below should help you to unravel some of the subtle (and not so subtle) differences of following up on leads to British visitors vs. US visitors.

I’m interested to know what the differences are in other countries in terms of follow up, so please feel free to leave comments for the readers.


Affiliate Summit Wrap Up – Number 1

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in Social

So, in the blink of an eye another Affiliate Summit West has come and gone.

It seems there was a record number of attendees (in excess of 4,000).

This was the first Affiliate Summit where I travelled alone. Previously I had worked for other companies, been representing my own company or gone to the show with colleagues. I was 100% on my own.

The main reason for being at the show was to speak on a panel which I originally suggested on CPA affiliate marketing in Europe.

I also shot some video footage at various parties including the video below which has @kristy and @cshel in a bath tub with Nick who I had met at previous trade shows but for whatever reason I couldn’t remember meeting. Maybe it’s the first sign of old age…. no wait, grey hair has beat the lost memory to that claim.

Anyway, I am going to post several times about the show, I just wanted to get the video up as I had promised the girls I would do it.

The bath tub (for those that are interested) was in the Hardwood Suite at the Palms – the one with the basketball court. For an exclusive party it seemed weird. I met more than a handful of people who were nothing to do with the industry, they had somehow talked their way in to get free booze, which is a shame for the sponsors of the party.

Right so here is the vid.

Let the girls and Nick know what you thought of their performance in the tub by leaving comments.

How NOT to do Twitter and Clickbank

in Blog

We are big fans of Twitter (you can add us at http://www.twitter.com/homebiztopics ).

In terms of set up we use Tweet Deck to manage our account, and we have certain keywords set up for monitoring what is going on.

As you can see from the screen grab we have the word “affiliate” set up and we also have the word “clickbank”. I know that many of you will probably wonder why we are looking at Clickbank, well truth be told we are in the process of collating 9 years and around $100 million worth of historical data, best practise, worst practise etc. for making money on PPC and we are considering publishing an e-book with all of this information in.

Anyway, sorry for the minor digression.

Greetings

in Bio

Welcome to Heritage 6.

There is a going to be a TON of great information and advice on how you can make money online.

Allow me a small indulgence to begin.

My plan in beginning to work online in 1999 was to retire by the time I was 50, travel the world and if I did work I could do it from the comfort of a hammock, sitting on a boat, relaxing by a pool, pretty much anywhere.

Due to circumstances that with hindsight looked obviously flawed it hasn’t happened so far, so I have regrouped and begun to bring together all the “stuff” that I have learned, some good, some bad but all meaningful.

Over the coming weeks/months/years I am going to share some of the information I have filed away, there is a lot of it, you don’t work with the passion I have in an industry like this for 10 years working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week and many weeks a year without building up a pretty hefty dossier of information, contacts, tips, advice and more.

I’m going to have some of the very best industry gurus (and I mean true gurus, not the self-proclaimed type), guest writing on their area of expertise and if you are interested in finding out more about a subject we’ll be pretty open to comments.

So thanks for tuning in, the site will get prettier in time, but for now, welcome!


It’s Official, Jim Banks Is A Blogger

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in Blog

After much deliberation Jim Banks has decided to join the ranks of being an affiliate industry blogger.

That being said, this is going to be a blog with a difference.

Having been involved in the online space since 1999 I’ve observed a lot of things. I’ve set up and sold two businesses. I’ve employed a lot of people over the years. Many of the best practise techniques adopted today by SEM, PPC agencies were created by me. Many of the industry tools provided by search engines I have had a hand in shaping the features, mostly on the back of comments made during review meetings that I used to attend.

I’m not going to be as prolific a writer as many. That being said, it could be fun and that can always change.

I’ve spent a lot of time networking. That has involved a lot of parties, late nights, dinners, lunches. Throughout that time I have met a ton of colourful industry people, and I will be interviewing many of them to share their knowledge, their humour, their advice. It’s going to take me a while to get to everyone I feel will add value, so if you know me and want to be interviewed let me know and I can schedule something in.

I’m hoping this blog will serve a few purposes.

To give you an insight into some of the history of the industry

To serve for historical purposes as a record of the evolution of my time in the industry and be an ongoing diary of what is going on in my life (for those that care)

To educate those that are new to the industry, thinking of getting into the industry, thinking of switching from one facet of the industry to another

To showcase some of my talents, so those looking for the skills that I possess might want to hire me to consult for them

To be a vehicle to share experiences good and bad

To be a highly trafficked site that generates a lot of page impressions, so that I can make a ton of money providing advertising opportunities to those that advertise on it, but that they get access to a relevant industry specific audience

To get me invited to VIP parties, industry events where I can get press/blogger access to the cool stuff

To be a mechanism whereby myself and those who choose to comment can debate issues, let off steam, just generally hang out

So that’s the not particularly chronological, nor definitive list of what this site is and what purpose it serves.

Ultimately, I am hoping that my industry friends and readers can help steer it towards being successful.

I’ve achieved a lot in this industry so far. I have many people to thank for that. But I also want to share some of my experiences so that people can learn from them, and not always what will be learnt will be good things. There have also been some terrible business decisions I have made, and those will be shared here also.

For now, the blog is here, it is live, and hopefully in time it will be something I can look back at and take pride from and will be a highly bookmarked and linked to site with decent information.