Jeremiah Cooper dot com My Path to Financial Freedom

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Katemiah Creations Incorporated

As most of you already know, I was down in Florida for college at Full Sail University. I’ve switched to an online degree in an effort to be able to focus on my business more so we’re also moving back up to Ohio.

Both Katie and I miss our friends and families back up in Ohio so we’re heading back up there and getting a new place. Even though the weather is much nicer down here in Florida!

I haven’t been posting much because I haven’t had a lot to talk about in the affiliate marketing arena. I’ve just been basically running my campaigns, and I haven’t really been doing anything all that exciting to blog about!

I’m thinking about turning this blog into more of a general ramble of my thoughts as opposed to affiliate marketing related only, but I’d like to see what you guys think. I’m not sure how many readers I honestly have anymore, since I rarely post at all. But what would you guys like to see?

Are there any traffic sources you’d like to hear about? General business knowledge? Case studies on specific types of offers? I’ll be glad to post up some case studies if you’d like. I’m just not sure what everyone wants to read about.

If anyone still reads the blog – let me know in the comments what you want to hear about and I’ll be glad to help out.

Seth Godin has pulled off yet another amazing book. If you are reading this blog you’re most likely into marketing of some kind, and if you haven’t read all of Seth’s books by now you are way behind. I received Seth’s book a few weeks early because of a charity donation deal that he was running.

When I first started reading, I was instantly hooked to it because he talks about a lot of what I’ve been thinking lately and really hammers the points home. Linchpin reminds me somewhat of Purple Cow – except instead of having a remarkable idea or product – you have to be remarkable in of yourself.

The business world as we knew it is gone, the world of factories and making a living just showing up are gone. In the past all you had to do was go to school, get good grades, work hard, keep your head down and follow orders. Those rules no longer apply, if you want to truly succeed you need to be a linchpin. It’s no longer about just showing up and doing your job – you have to challenge authority and do what you think is best.

You are not a cog in the industrial machine anymore – but the problem is we are still teaching our children to be cogs and there’s no more room for them. Whether you are an employee, or if you are working for yourself the changes are the same. We have to make our own choices, and chart our own path. We have to add value that others do not in order to succeed.

“If all you can do is the task and you’re not in a league of your own at doing the task, you’re not indispensable.”

You can be replaced at any time, by anyone. It’s not enough to be good at what you do anymore, you have to add value that the other thousands of people in your field cannot. What do you offer to your business, or to your industry, that nobody else can? If cuts were being made at your job – why would you be the one that stays?

The book has a lot of solid information in it and is a great book to read a few times. There’s a lot of books in our industry that are great reads and I think this one is up towards the top. If you have a chance, I would highly recommend you go grab it because you certainly won’t regret reading it.

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! I had a wonderful Christmas with my family, and we’re all relaxing and waching football now. Interesting game so far, I just wanted to get on here and wish you all a Merry Christmas and hopefully everyone had a great time with their families!

I’m glad how fortunate we are and my thoughts go out to those that are less fortunate. Remember how fortunate you are and never forget it. Get ready for 2010 in this last week, get your business plans ready and TAKE ACTION in 2010 if you haven’t yet.

Merry Christmas and have a great Holiday season!

Over the last few weeks I’ve been talking to various network owners about what they look for in affiliate managers. There’s been a lot of talk about what an affiliate manager should and shouldn’t be able to do. There’s a few different types of affiliate managers as well. If you are an affiliate manager and you’ve come across this thread – you should also check out Adhustler’s Ten Commandmants of Being an Affiliate Manager

1.) The affiliate manager that is/was an affiliate. They know their stuff and they can help you out with campaigns, targeting, anything really. These kind of affiliate managers also tend to be the networks owner, and not really an affiliate manager but they help affiliates nonetheless. Ryan Eagle of EWA, and Jason Akatiff(Smaxor) of Ads4Dough come to mind here.

2.) The affiliate manager that was never an affiliate, but still tries really hard to get you everything you want. They don’t bug you all day about the new hot offers, but they are ready and willing to pull up offer stats and etc for you IF you ask for it. I like these kind of affiliate managers, there when you want them to be, invisible when you don’t need them.

3.) The affiliate manager that just got out of college, or never went to college and has no real business being in this industry at all. They have no idea what is going on and hardly know what you are talking about when you ask them if you can run X offer on Y traffic source. These types of affiliate managers are far too common nowadays, and I tend to avoid them.

This obviously doesn’t describe every affiliate manager, but it gives a good base. The two extreme ends and one more in the middle. Personally I like the affiliate managers(or network owners) that have been in the industry awhile, and they still run their own internal campaigns. Some people think that there’s a trust issue here though – what if they just steal your traffic sources and run it themselves?

Other’s feel that they don’t need anyone at a network to bounce ideas off of, which is great for you, go do your thing. I talk to Ryan a lot about various campaigns and ask for suggestions from him, even if it’s not a campaign that I am running with him at that moment he’s always there to help. Jason Akatiff(Smaxor) is the same way, always glad to help.

Those are the two that I have dealt with the most which is why I name them, I am sure that there are others who help just as much, so don’t think that I am calling anyone else out. I don’t see any sort of trust issues here, because unless you have been around for a really long time, these two and others in this position know a lot and can really help you. I’m not going to even pretend to know near as much as these two guys.

What do you guys look for in an affiliate manager? Someone who runs their own campaigns very successfully? Someone who can’t spell affiliate manager? Or somewhere in between?

As you can see it’s been awhile since I’ve posted – let alone posted anything useful and I know that.  So I’m going to actually try to turn things around and make this blog worth reading again.  A few other blogs lately have inspired me to do so.

I’ve decided that I want to make the jump into some local affiliate marketing and really take my business to the next level.  It’s late and I should be asleep but the thought got my mind racing with all the stuff I need to do.  I’m taking care of revamping my company website and reading up on all of the posts about local affiliate marketing.

So as I dive into it I’m going to recap how it’s going here for you guys.  Unfortunately I have little real experience in local affiliate marketing as I’ve only done a few little things but that’s all about to change.  So I won’t be dropping knowledge bombs right away but it doesn’t matter because my friend Brandon over at Adhustler has already done more than enough of that!

For all of you guys that are interested in jumping in this with me I suggest you go over to his gathering of posts about local affiliate marketing right NOW.  Luckily Dennis Yu is also going to be making a guest post here for us so I’ll have one solid post for you – even though it isn’t written by me.  So go check Brandon’s post out and then keep checking back here for my updates.

1.  Do it. Stop reading everything there is to know about making a living online. Stop falling for all of the guru’s latest and greatest inventions. Education is very important to your success but I find that most people over educate themselves. Each and every day they read all of the latest forums, blogs, and guru tactics yet they never take action. Pick a form of marketing, figure out what you’re going to promote and just do it.

2.  Set Goals. One of the most important things in this industry is self motivation. There is nobody here to hold your hand, no boss to yell at you for goofing off. The only person that can truly motivate you in any case, is you. Goals are an important part of that process, by setting goals and deadlines for those goals you strive towards them. Different rewards motivate different people. Set your goals so that you can tie in a reward with them that actually motivates you, whatever that may be. Bryn Youngblut recently had a great post about achieving some pretty awesome goals – you can do it too!

3.  Stay Focused. You have to stay focused on what you want to accomplish. You can’t let the new latest and greatest way of making money stop you from what you’re currently doing. Don’t let other people’s opinions about whether it works or not sway you. Make it work, you can market literally any product if you do it right. Anything can be made profitable. Don’t let it get the best of you – tweak it until you force it to profit.

4.  Diversify. I know, this might sound like a contradiction to the last rule. However I don’t see it as one. I always try to keep my top priority 80% of my time, and use that other 20% to work on some side projects, some long term projects that will be consistent for you. You can’t expect one thing to last forever – so have a backup plan too.

5.  Have fun. Often over looked in this industry – you need to have fun each and every day. If this isn’t what you want to do then go find what is. You like the 9-5 work day for a company? Great – go do it. You like the whacky schedules and hard work in the restaurant business, go do it! But if making a living online is what you want to do then you should automatically have fun each and every work day and that’s what matters. We aren’t here to slave away and make a ton of money and do nothing with it. Have fun, do what you want, just get your job done.

6.  Network. I’m surprised I didn’t put this one on here sooner. Network with anyone and everyone you can. Don’t spend all day long on Facebook or Twitter or any other social media but you need to talk to people in the industry. Get to know your affiliate managers, your peers, your advertisers. Get to know everyone, any contact you have may come in handy some day. Whether it be for advice, a new direction, a joint venture or anything else, networking is key!

7.  Protect your wealth. Wealth is not measured in how much money you make, it’s in how much money you keep. I know plenty of people in this world who make way more than they need to yet they throw it all away and live paycheck to paycheck. Spend your money properly – make sure to always leave plenty of money in your business to expand and grow – but at the same time make sure you pay yourself what you deserve. One of the quickest ways to increase the amount of money you keep is by legally cutting down on the taxes you pay. There are several good reads out there about the subject – pick one up because you’ll be amazed how much money you can save and protect each year.

I talked with you guys about Tatto Media before and suggested them as a network.  Since then I’ve started to work with them a lot.  They’ve got some solid campaigns up now and they are ever growing.  For you PPC-Coach guys – they’ve been getting in a lot of email submits for me the past few days you might want to check those out.  Mike over there has been helping me a ton with all the requests I’ve been having.  I’ve been doing a lot with image ads so I have been asking him every few minutes it seems for banners for a campaign.  I wanted to do a quick highlight of the changes that have been made to their backend – I like them all for sure – definitely in the right direction.

Networks interfaces should always be changing and updating based on their affiliates needs and Tatto is on top of that.

  • New Design for Reporting and Statistics – Reports and Statistics is even faster and more efficient than before. Data view pages can easily be searched and sorted accurately even with multiple pages of data.
  • Conversion Tracking Report – This report provides specific lead/sale information, including sub id, tracking info, transaction id, ip address, and payout, allowing you to quickly run sub id reports. While “info” in current tracking links will continue to work, it has been replaced with “aff_sub”.
  • Updated Tracking Links – Updated tracking links that are easy to understand. Sub ID tracking has been updated as well as Source name added. Specify a Source name in the tracking url to easily drill-down and analyze performance in reports.
  • Offer Tiny URLs –You can shorten your tracking links with our own TinyURL.
  • Browser Targeting – The Tatto Affiliate Network now can target offers to users based on their browser.  This will redirect users to receive offers designed for mobile devices including iPhones and thus increase your conversion rates.
  • Creative Manager – A valuable feature that quickly generates tracking code with creatives, making it simple for you to include the creative you prefer with the offer-specific tracking url. Also new features to browse and preview creatives.
  • Suppression List – Updated suppression lists to better support email marketers.
  • Refer a Friend – Enhanced Refer a Friend feature to reward you for introducing friends into our network.
  • Improved Stats API – Updated functions and documentation to make working with our stats API even easier.
  • Live Support that AIMs affiliate’s Manager
  • More offer Categories for navigational ease
  • Support tab w/ help and glossary.

All of these changes are definitely for the better and Tatto is just getting started.  They are always on top of making sure their affiliates have everything they need.  I’ll be working more and more with them and will keep you guys updated on what they have going on.  If you guys aren’t already in Tatto Media – you should definitely go sign up now.

For the first time, a network has made it onto my blog without a paid review.  I just want to let everyone know that everything stated here is solely on my idea, and I wasn’t paid to put this up here.  EWA has no reason to get paid reviews – their network speaks for itself.  Although I haven’t been running as much as I should be lately with EWA, because I’m working on a few major projects, I felt this a necessary post.

Ryan Eagle, the owner of EWA or Eagle Web Assets, along with his partner Harrison Gervitz are by far the most helpful network owners around.  They truly care about the success of their affiliates and want each and every one to do the best that they can.  Their motivation for this isn’t because of the money that each affiliate brings them, because they do well enough on their internal advertising anyway.

They want everyone to succeed because EWA is a close group of friends, and as friends we like to stick together.  EWA continues to scare other networks and take affiliates from them by simply offering what we all as affiliates want.  We want the highest payouts(which all networks promise, but few truly deliver if you look around), we want the best support from the network we can get, which is what EWA delivers, and we want our leads to track, and we want to be paid.

The wants of an affiliate aren’t really all that much, yet somehow, networks still continue to get it wrong.  While we like all of our fancy referral commissions, and our gifts and gadgets networks send us, those aren’t nearly as important as offers, and support.  EWA puts affiliates first, and themselves second.  They work twenty hour days sometimes to make sure we have the offers that we need.  They are dedicated to getting any offer their affiliates want, and beating the payout on it.

Another thing that I need to highlight – when EWA sends out a mass email – it doesn’t just talk about the top offers and ask us to push this or push that.  EWA actually sends us out offers that they are internally testing – and even writes guides to help us get started on certain traffic sources.  The guide for advertising dating on Facebook that Ryan sent us awhile back helped tons of affiliates make a lot of money.  They truly are there to help their affiliates first, and write their paychecks second.

As I said before, EWA is a close group of friends so acceptance is limited.  However I’m glad to help budding affiliates get in – if you want in – please reach out to me on AIM at KatemiahCoop.  I won’t get you in right away, I want to make sure you fit the mold for an EWA affiliate first, but if you think you have what it takes – hit me up.

I just want to thank EWA publicly for what they’ve done for me as an affiliate, now excuse me while I go pump out some campaigns on their network.

I know that I really haven’t been posting very often, this is the longest that I have neglected to post so I apologize for that.  After my last post generating so many comments I was excited, and I’ve been striving towards my goal.  I have several sites in the works that you will definitely be seeing soon.

Anyway on to the point of the post.  I’ve ordered Tim’s DVDs to begin my foray into the stock market.  His penny stocking will be a great start to see how the fast paced stock market moves on a day to day basis and pick up some quick profits while I’m at it.  It took me awhile to decide whether or not to purchase these DVDs so hopefully they will pull through and be everything the reviews say they are.

Of course I will be reviewing them myself on this blog to let everyone know how I felt about them, and I’ll make sure to give you guys some in depth reviews.  I just wanted to write this quick post to let you guys know what I am doing – expect a few book reviews to follow because I have been reading like crazy lately to get ready for my challenge.

There are many different ways people will take the title of this post.  The first group of people will be the largest, they will think that I’m joking and that this post is going to be about something else, or about setting goals.  Some will think it’s link bait.  Others will be nay sayers.  They will think I am serious but will tell me that it’s impossible.

There will be another, very small group that will support me and give me credit for thinking so big.  Those are the people that I want to talk too, nothing is impossible.  I’ve always been of the mindset that you don’t tell yourself or anyone you can’t do it, you simple have to ask yourself – how can I do this?

If you say I can’t do it, your shutting your minds power down.  Your mind is the most valuable thing you have and if you let it work, it will do wonders.  By asking yourself how can you do something – your mind becomes active in thinking of any possible ways that you can pull it off.

I’ve had this goal for a long time and I decided to share it today for a few reasons.  I want to inspire some of you, to stop idling in life and get to work.  I have a lot of hard work ahead of me to get to this goal.  I’ve been doing the raw numbers and to most they will seem absolutely impossible.

I have three years to do this, Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook is the current youngest self made billionaire at twenty-three years old.  I broke it down into smaller chunks to see if it would seem easier.  It certainly does not seem any easier.  I will need to make on average:

  • $336 million a year.
  • $28 million a month.
  • $950,000 a day.

After seeing that most of you will have dismissed me as crazy.  Those of you that haven’t, are true believers in what the human mind and body can do.  After I decided that I wanted to seriously pursue this goal, I had to figure out what ways I could possible make those figures.  I knew that I would need to focus on the right side of the cash quadrant.  The business and investing side to be able to pull down those kind of numbers.

I made a basic list on my whiteboard of the different things I can do in those two categories to achieve my goal.

  • Websites/Companies that do not require my presence to prosper.
  • Real Estate Investments.
  • General Stock Investments.

Due to that list – this blog will also be changing slightly.  We’re going to deal with affiliate marketing still because I have no intention of stopping that.  However I’m also expanding it into the other things listed above.  Hopefully that won’t deter any readers from staying around.  As you might of noticed, I changed the quote of the blog up top.  Before it was “Where Making Money Matters”, which admittedly, wasn’t all that great.  Money matters most everywhere.  I’ve changed the route we’re taking.  The blog will now be about “My Path to Financial Freedom” because that’s what we’re all after anyway, isn’t it?

After I figured a quick plan of action, by no means a full plan, I already saw a few things I would need to get.  In a quest as large as mine, I can’t go it alone.  I’ll need the support of my close friends and family, to keep me going as I am sure there will be great pitfalls that cause me to think about giving up.  However I will not give up until the day I can’t reach the goal anymore.  Even then, I’ll push on to do it anyway.

Along with support, I will need advice from experts in several fields.  Capital will make the process a lot easier as well, luckily I do have that part.  So far the list I have come up with for experts is the following:

  • Strong Accountant, who can offer assistance in all the ways of money and legally paying the least amount of taxes possible.
  • A Real Estate Agent to help me find the best deals.  This is something I have to do myself but guidance will be needed for someone who knows the area.
  • A broker to talk with – not for them to invest for me, but someone who has long term experience with their own stocks.

One of the biggest things I will look for in my advisors are people that do what they are trying to help you do themselves.  I don’t want an agent that doesn’t own any real estate, and I don’t want a broker with no stocks to their name.

Time will be my biggest obstacle in this goal.  I have to continue to keep up my grades in college, as well as spend plenty of free time with Katie, my friends and my family.  So I will need to learn to manage time better than I ever have before.  I had thought of shutting down this blog because it takes time however that is not a good idea.  Blogging helps me talk about what I am going to do, get feedback, and even helps me think about it myself as I write it.

If any of you are still reading by this point, I want to talk to you.  Please comment on this post.  Those of you that read thru all of the one thousand plus words of this blog post truely believe in me, and I welcome your support.  Anyone else that thinks big like I clearly am here, let me know, thinking big is the only way to get big.

I am certainly not going to be able to play it safe on this, I will have to take managed risks to get where I want to be.  My first goal is to make my money work for me, more than it does now.  Every dollar is like another employee that works for free, twenty four hours a day to get me to where I want to be.  This is going to be quite the ride – stay tuned :)