Weird title, I know. But the phrase “fat and lame” came up twice this week in conversations with two different advertisers…so of course I had to blog about it. Fat and lame is what happens when a company gets too big that they are at the point of becoming inefficient, slow, cumbersome and bogged down with red tape and unproductive B.S. The actions taken by fat & lame companies are the exact opposite of everything that a start up stands for and represents - innovation, growth, hungry, quick moving and streamlined. The absolute antithesis of fat & lame.

When the picture is painted like that, who in their right mind who want to work for a “fat and lame” enterprise? Not me! I figured that out a while ago that I’ll only work for small start ups since I can’t deal with slow moving people and companies. I have lived on the east coast for too long to tolerate slow…no thank you! Life is too short to deal with extra, unnecessary stress…especially in our fast-paced industry with non-stop trade shows and months that fly by. It seems from the conversations I had this week with colleagues, most think along the same lines that fat and lame is something to avoid!

On that note, if you’ll be at ad:tech San Francisco, be sure to stop by our booth #5984. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll snag one of our fabulous AKMG skate decks. Be sure to get there early…they were a huge hit at Affiliate Summit and I’m sure this event will be no different. No fat and lame allowed!

AKMG has been around for over 5 months now and I can’t even begin to explain how far we’ve come in a few short months. Last fall feels like a lifetime ago, literally. I remember in the early days when I was having to call people and try to convince that it was a good idea to work with us. Now I’m getting calls from advertisers & agencies saying that they’ve heard good things about AKMG and are anxious to start working with us. Wow, what a shift in such a short period of time. Thank God for the shift! Otherwise my day-to-day life wouldn’t be very much fun.

In an industry where everyone is intertwined and connected, it’s crucial that you establish a reputation for yourself and your company. Otherwise you have nothing because everyone talks and everyone knows each other. This topic came up just a few nights ago at dinner with a few industry colleagues. Some of us were meeting for the first time and we immediately knew at least 10 people in common within the first few minutes of the conversation. We all agreed that reputation always precedes the person and the company they are representing so it’s important to stay true to what you say you’ll do and not burn any bridges along the way.

So that’s my two cents this week…trying to finish up for the week since it’s Winter Music Conference here in Miami. One of the best weeks of the year here!

I get this question all the time and YES it is possible to live and work with South Beach. Just like anything, if you have access to whatever you want 24/7, there is no major urgency to be out and about all day, every day. Don’t get me wrong, I love being out and about in South Beach but I save it mainly for the weekends when I take my mini-vacations. That’s the best part actually about living in Miami Beach. Every weekend, you get to escape reality and go on vacation…drinks at the Sagamore, long brunches at La Piaggia, mimosa’s at Segafredo, chilling by the pool bayside looking out onto the beautiful bay, relaxing on the 3rd Street beach, etc, etc. Really there is whatever you want here and that’s what makes Miami so unique. Unlike any other place in the U.S. for sure.

An average work day, South Beach really isn’t unlike any other city except for the slight torture of having a bay view and being able to see everyone having fun on the boats and jet skis (ugh). Other than that, it’s pretty normal. I start the morning with the customary trip to Starbucks followed by checking emails & voicemails and catching up before our West Coast office opens up. Then it’s normal day like any other in our industry…pure hectic-ness until I finally sign off of AIM late into the night (Eastern Time).

I suggest anyone reading this to come and visit the AKMG South Beach office but be sure to stay through the weekend to experience the true essence of Miami life!

P.S. Yes, that’s the view from the AKMG South Beach office!

I know this statement seems like common sense and not really all that interesting but it is the basis of our business. I realize this more and more as every day passes. I like the fact that I have a close enough relationship with my some of my top advertisers that we text each other about business at any time of the day, any day of the week…including weekends. I prefer having more information than less, so I like these updates via text so that I know what’s going on and then don’t have to worry or think about it anymore. These relationships were built over time based on a few factors - gaining trust by doing what we say we will do, by sending the type of traffic that we say we’ll send, by looking out for their best interests and by responding to their requests quickly and in general just being easy to work with.

To further prove my point, I’d like to share a story from earlier in the week. I was having a conversation with one of my favorite advertisers and he gave AKMG some very high praise that I’d like to share. He has the ability to create offers and come up with new offer ideas all the time and he said that AKMG is one of the first networks that he thinks about to run his offers. He said that because he trusts us and enjoys working with us, he’d just rather have us his run the majority of stuff to make his life easier. Obviously I was very happy to hear that. More than that, I couldn’t agree with the underlying concept of his thought process - let’s keep things simple, work with the people we trust & like and make money! It’s not rocket science” so why complicate it!

Ok, back to work to focus on further building my current relationships, finding new ones to build and to respond quickly to my advertisers!

That quote came directly from our CEO Steven Patton on the Affiliate Summit exhibit hall floor…I about fell over when he said it! But the more you think about it, the more sense it makes. There are a lot of companies that do we what we do and it really comes down to who you like and have a good relationship with. Kim White our EVP and Co-Founder has always said that in this industry people stick with each other and not the company. So when someone leaves a company, relationships follow the person and that is so true. In the 5+ months that AKMG has been around, I’ve already followed a bunch of people to different companies simply because I like working with them.

It’s a hectic industry and I prefer to dedicate my time to people who are pleasant to work with, do what they say they’re going to do and are reliable. No need to add extra stress by dealing with people who are all over the place…and we’ve all worked with people like that…it’s so NOT fun. We’re all here to make money and have fun, right?!

Here are some other businesses that AKMG is in:

The “Good Vibe” Business
The “For Profit” Business
The “Cool Skate Deck” Business
The “Affiliate Marriage Proposal” Business

We try to stay away from these businesses:

The “Non Profit” Business
The “I Forget to Pay My Invoice” Business
The “Thanks for the Great Traffic, But I Don’t Feel Like Paying” Business
The “Net 5 Means Net 45″ Business

Ok back to good vibes and FOR-PROFIT…have a great rest of the week

We made it back from Vegas in one piece which wasn’t particularly easy after nearly being stalked, bribed and begged for an AKMG skateboard. Wow, what a hit those were! A special thanks goes out to Steve Patton and his skateboard company Monkey Business for making that happen. We’re always glad to be able give something away to those people that have helped to make our company such a success in such a short amount of time.

The energy at the show was really high and there was a huge turnout which was great. It was nice to see so many familiar faces plus meet the people behind an email address or AIM screenname. There seemed to be a lot of buzz about health & supplement offers and biz opp plus a renewed love for mobile offers. So it will be interesting to see what we will work on our network in the coming month. The next week should be crazy following up with everyone and weeding through everything but it will be worth it because I met a ton of really great contacts - smart, chill, hardworking people…just the kind of people that we like to work with at AKMG.

Be sure to visit us in San Francisco for an ad:tech AKMG skateboard

I’m sure our industry is no different than most others but it’s getting increasingly hard to find the optimal balance between my “work” life and my “personal” life. So of course I chalk it up to just an online media thing. I find myself constantly checking my emails on my iphone late into the night and always working late in the evenings on the east coast just because I know everyone is still working in our LA office. The internet never stops so I guess maybe it is more relevant to our industry. I feel like I’m playing tug of war with work and my own time…and work has been winning lately!

Kim gave me great advice when we started AKMG. She said: “just know that you’re never going to finish everything that you want to each day”. I never know how true that would actually be when she said it! I may finish 15 things every day but there are always 5 other things just staring back up at me from my day planner. So it’s easy to get caught up and just continue working into the evening to finish…although as Kim said, you never really finish each day! I’m sure most of you struggle with this especially anyone who has worked for a start up company. It’s a completely different mentally. But believe me, I prefer start up mentally to corporate B.S. and red tape.

Anyway, now isn’t the time to dwell on this…I have lots to do! I look forward to meeting/seeing you all at Affiliate Summit West. Please be sure to stop by our booth (#128).

Ok that’s a tongue twister, I know, and way too much to deal with on a Monday morning. But it’s something that we all face on a daily basis. Choosing the right payout is not an exact science and is sometimes a combination of luck, a great landing page & offer. But for the rest of us, the payout is something that really needs to be analyzed and considered on a larger sense rather than just thinking about it in terms of a specific industry. For example, we may have a debt offer that pays $18 on a 1st page submit with 6 fields which is directly competing with an auto loan offer that pays $14 on a 1st page submit with 6 fields. Even if $14 is the highest “auto loan” offer payout out there, we’re going to have a hard time gaining traction on the offer because our emailers will want $18 for a 1st page submit with 6 fields, regardless of the vertical. Emailers really only care about payout, number of fields collected (or in more general terms, what is expected of the consumer) and metrics. The vertical means very little to them. This is sometimes hard for an advertiser to realize and accept. But if this is taken in consideration, picking the perfect payout may be easier than we think.

I’m increasingly working with advertisers who are coming to AKMG because they are interested in affiliate marketing but don’t necessarily have an offer, landing page, creative, payouts, etc. already available. So I’m working with them to structure their offer and obviously the payout is one of the items that advertisers are most concerned about. It’s hard to make people understand that they have to compete with what other verticals are paying out and that affiliates don’t care what they are promoting - they just want to promote offers that convert! Each day is a learning process for all of us which is what keeps this business interesting.

By the way, I wrote an earlier post called “Addicted to Technology” but technology isn’t my favorite thing today considering I wrote and published this blog posting last Friday. When I was browsing our site this morning, I realized my posting wasn’t there and only a draft version with 1 sentence was saved in our admin system. So I had to re-write this from scratch…oh well, life goes on!

Ok back to the grind - have a great week! For those of you in the snow, now is the time to come and visit me in Miami…it’s 75 and sunny here!

How pathetic am I? My iPhone went down for 1.5 hours today and you would have thought the world was ending. When it finally unfroze (is that even a word?!) itself, I had a bunch of emails, text messages and voicemails…I felt so far behind. You would have thought I was out of touch with life in general for weeks by the way I felt. Yes, I’m dramatic and I have to admit that I’m addicted to technology. But I’m fine with that addiction, could be worse (use your imagination).

Anyway, technology is our friend this week at AKMG. We’re moving over to a new online system which will hopefully be much better than our current system for everyone involved. Poor Trey is having to manually transfer each advertiser, affiliate and campaign one-by-one into the new system…he’ll be happy when the weekend comes I’m sure. We apologize for any delay in your campaigns but know that Trey is doing everything possible to make the transition as smooth as possible. More to come once we’re finally up and running in the new system.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Who would have thought that my life post-MBA and struggling to get out of grad school in one piece, would be defined on a daily basis by fighting over $1?? I certainly wouldn’t have imagined that and to tell you the truth, I couldn’t be happier. I’m fully prepared to fight for that last $1 on the CPA…who am I kidding, I spent half of this week fighting for $.10…and I’m not ashamed to admit that! When in grad school, you try to imagine how you’re going to use what you learn in your next job and I don’t think they had a lesson in fighting for dimes - or maybe I just missed that day! In all seriousness, I’m happy to do it if it keeps our affiliates happy which in turn makes our advertisers happy. I’d rather forge long term relationships with a smaller number of key people and keep everyone happy than give low CPAs to a huge group.

On another note, Trey, our production person, and I had a conversation this week about the kinds of offers are run in our space and what we think about on a daily basis. If you take a step back and look at some of the campaigns, they are SO bizarre and hysterical - colon cleanse systems, get rich quick biz opp offers, psychic readings…and the list goes on! It still amazes me what people will buy online and freely give away their data to receive something, anything for free (which as Michelle pointed is really nothing - “click here for a FREE sample”… oh and please read the fine print carefully because you’ll be auto charged $39.99 every other week for this FREE sample!!). Don’t get me wrong, thank God people do this or else where would we all be? I don’t even want to imagine…

OK, back to the grind…the more I work, the closer it is to the weekend here in sunny South Beach!