Category: 
Monday, 14 July 2008 @ 11:49 am (Chris Frost)
Despite loving and being passionate about this industry, I still treat Affiliate Marketing as a kind of hobby and have chosen to stay as a full-time employee due to enjoying my job and the challenges its brings. HOWEVER over the past few weeks, I have found that it’s becoming more and more difficult in juggling both full-time employment and a number of successful affiliate websites.
CONTACT
Firstly I ask that merchants and networks contact me by eMail or MSN first, purely because most of my day is spent in meetings or voice conferences and so I am not always available on my mobile phone. Its a lot easier to have a box pop up and flash, sitting there until I get a spare minute. Sure it may mean a 2 minute phone call changes to a 20 minute MSN conversation, but its less obtrusive.
Another problem is hours, something that Affiliate Bitch has already blogged about. Like many other affiliates, I only work on my sites in the evening or weekend, when most networks aren’t available. I’m not suggesting making staff work late into the night after working all day, but in the not too distant future, I think the network that introduces 24×7 support for affiliates and merchants alike, will become a force to be reckoned with.
Affiliates dont stop at 5pm! Online shoppers don’t stop at 5pm! Merchants websites don’t close at 5pm! So why do networks? Some networks I find are available late into the evening - namely Webgains, and a few others work past the 5pm hooter too. But as Lee’s post and comments demonstrate, Network are still blind to the REQUIREMENTS of some affiliates. Whether they choose to implement out of hours support or not is their call, but at least acknowledge there is a need.
NETWORKING
Recently I’ve been invited to DGM BBQ in Manchester, and to Affiliate Window’s Nakata in London. Although I’d like to attend both, being an employee means I have a set number of days which I am allowed off per year. London therefore is usually out of the question unless the function is on a Friday, in which case I can travel home on a Saturday without using a days holiday.
If you take into account all the networking events that take place on an annual basis such as A4U Expo, A4U Awards, Buy.At Christmas Cracker, Affiliate Summit (depending on location 
), and now the A4U Roadshow(back to basics networking which I am chuffed to see return), you can see that working full-time AND being an active affiliate is getting more difficult.
EMAILS
I get loads!
Its a nightmare!
Everyday I struggle to keep on top of emails and try to filter out the usual non personalised ones (they go straight in the trash can). I do however get personal ones which I read, take notice of and think “I must reply”. Sadly unless I reply the same day, it often sinks down out of view and before you know it (usually 1 or 2 days) is completely forgotten about.
GENERAL STUFF
On top of all this I still have to update my websites, create new websites, monitor PPC campaigns, innovate, have a personal life, eat drink and sleep, wash and iron, read blogs (merchant, network, agency and affiliate), catch up on the forum and moan on my blog. With my full-time job, I sometimes have to work weekends, but also provide standby one week in every three, resulting in being woken up at 3am to fix something.
WHATS THE ANSWER?
I still have no intention of entering Affiliate Marketing full-time, but need more hours in the day. Not wanting to deprive myself with only 2 hours of sleep every night, does anyone have any suggestions?
Answers on a postcard… although I may not get time to read them all
Horaayy..there are 7 comment(s) for me so far ;)
just a quick one. It was AB that posted about working hours (I own the AB but don’t post).
Also, don’t get me started about emails! I’ve just deleted about 3000 merchant, agency, network emails that were clogging up my system - there has to be a better way (oh RSS feeds that we can subscribe too maybe?)
I also don’t do Affiliate stuff full time as I decided to go into consultancy for a bit of sanity. It’s a nightmare getting home from the office and having affiliate stuff to do whilst keeping Laura happy. Luckily I can move my work around as i only contract, but it’s still a nightmare.
It’s all good fun, but the industry (networks & merchants) should work smarter to accommodate the variable working habits of affiliates.
I really do want to start working on affiliates full time but unfortunately it is not an option just yet, but the juggling of family life, full time work, affiliate websites, link building, having some semblance of a social life and so on is hard going at times!
maybe one day things will change!
Interesting to see some of the points you raised there Chris. There’s usually someone in the office past 5pm at buy.at, in fact our office ours don’t finish until 6, so its not unusual to have people here until 7 and beyond in a lot of cases.
Also, for anyone that’s interested in receiving emails via RSS we’ve had this system in place for over a year now, although currently the link is only available in the old MA at present - https://users.buy.at/menu/rssinfo.php
Finally, if anyone wants to get in contact via MSN rather than phone then feel free to add me - warrick.lambert@perfiliate.com
I was only thinking the other day “How the hell did I used to work Full Time and do AM?” - I seem to be busting a gut all day every day just to keep up atm, perhaps it’s a case of you fill the time you have (and then some)
Perhaps the answer could be to reduce your “proper job” hours? Nothing drastic as I know you love it, but give yourself an extra day off per week or per fortnight to blitz the affiliate stuff?
Let me get this right Chris…..
you make loads of cash
you work part time
you want everyone else to work your hours.
Doug
Yeah! D’you have a problem with this Doug?
OK seriously… I dont make “loads of cash” sadly, I work full-time AND part-time and I am not asking networks to change their policy.
I am talking about a couple of things;
- this is a 24/7 global business and like other 24/7 global businesses there are contacts available 24/7! Shocking but true as I work in one of these business! I’m just surprised that not all networks have collared on to the fact there is a need for some type of support out of the 9-5 hours.
- I’m finding of late that I’m struggling and I am simply saying that many affiliates are in this part-time. When I have a question at 10pm (because thats the time I work on AM) how/who do I contact at the networks? If you add up all part-timers earnings for a network, you’ll find that its a fair chunk of dosh, so they are worth supporting IMO.
Basically I am trying to find the best way to juggle everything making sure they fit in with my employer, and the limited hours some networks operate their support.
Take a leaf out of Men in Black….
“Go by Centaurian time, standard thirty-seven hour day. Give it a few months. You’ll get used to it… or you’ll have a psychotic episode.”