My “Kinda” New Job.

  I’ve been at MediaBreakAway for the last 6 months and have really enjoyed my time there. However, its time for me to move on to another job at… well… MediaBreakAway. April 1^st, I will be moving to the Denver area and taking up my new position as the Head of Affiliate.com. I will be running the day-to-day operations, advertising sales, affiliate management, public relationships and marketing of everything that is Affiliate.com.

  This is a unique opportunity for me and a challenge that I look forward to. Affiliate.com has set itself as the standard in performance marketing since 2000 and has quickly overtaken all competitors in the space to become a $100 million plus powerhouse. No other company in the performance marketing industry comes close to Affiliate’s reach and influence. More importantly, in an ever-changing marketplace and the economy, it’s set itself apart as a company that is a stable partner.

   Every day I hear about companies claiming “enormous growth” in a few months, planning large parties, making risky investments and then a few months later closing down in another six months. In the last year many performance marketing companies closed because of changes in continuity marketing, and many more are going to. Companies that just last year were profitable are now facing losses that exceed their entire yearly income – you’ve read the stories in the blogs. Affiliate.com on the other hand has been profitable, year after year. It wasn’t affected by the continuity marketing crisis because it wasn’t involved with the “fad” of Acai and Flogs. The legal and compliance team of attorneys and experts realized the legal problems a year before and spoke to experts and regulators about the issues involved and made a decision to not jump on the band-wagon. It was the right thing to do ethically, and the right thing to do financially.

   I have on my desk resumes from executives at least five large performance marketing companies, those that just a year ago were throwing huge parties at ad:tech. I asked them why they were looking for jobs, and they told me that their company was probably going out of business, or at least laying off most a lot of the staff members. They all shared stories about being involved in the continuity crisis, where companies that were paying them several million a month disappeared leaving them with months and months of receivable unpaid.

  Is there a lesson to be learned here? The first one is never to be involved with the latest marketing fad, or the latest product fad. Look at it objectively, know the risks involved. If you are looking for quick money, you’ll much of the time find yourself in trouble. “Get Rich Quick” systems of any type, whether they are touted by some blogger in China claiming that if you buy their DVD they will show you how to make money from google or a marketing company claiming that their product is the next great-new product, are never long term. Long term is about making relationships, developing partnership and a plan that will work both in the good time and the hard times.

 The second one? Work with me, of course.