Affiliate Marketing Blog

Keep Your Business Safe with VIPRE Antivirus

Wed, 02 Sep 2020 20:35:27 GMT

COVID-19 has an unprecedented number of people working from home and many are working on their own computers which are vulnerable to viruses.

I use VIPRE antivirus and my computers and they provide comprehensive email and endpoint security, along with real-time threat intelligence that delivers layered protection.

When I was looking at the various antivirus options I was impressed by the features and pricing for VIPRE antivirus.

It was simple to install and they’ve free support, but I have not had a reason to use them so far.

I am embarrassed to admit that I worked without antivirus for many years and that changed fast when my company was nearly destroyed by ransomware several years ago.

All of us worked remotely and shared files with Dropbox. One day a well-designed phishing email disguised as a message from FedEx got clicked and the next thing we knew was that everybody’s files on Dropbox had been locked down.

We received a message that the files would be destroyed if we didn’t pay a ransom with Bitcoin within 24 hours.

It was a scary time. The whole company was on those files. If they could not be recovered it could be the end of the company. But we didn’t want to pay these cyber-terrorists and encourage their behavior.

At the time I had just flown to the east coast and I realized I had used my desktop in Austin the day before and turned it off before I left.

So all of those files that had been torched were still intact on my machine.

When I returned home I turned off the WiFi, booted up, and was able to reclaim all of the files (except anything created in the past 24 hours). We were lucky this time, but went and got locked down with VIPRE Antivirus after this nearly devastating experience.

I will never go without antivirus again.

For those of you who like to know more details on how VIPRE Antivirus will keep your business safe, here are the ways it can protect for you…

Endpoint Protection
Powerful endpoint security delivering protection against today’s most sophisticated online threats

Email Protection
Unparalleled protection from advanced email threats delivered from the convenience of a cloud-based architecture

Network Protection
Real-time threat intelligence and the industry’s premier sandbox for next-gen malware analysis

User & Data Protection
Solutions that protect users, their actions and sensitive business information from costly attacks and data breaches

Are you safe? If not, get VIPRE Antivirus now.

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The Long Goodbye from Home

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 17:44:08 GMT

On January 30, 2020, I boarded Southwest flight 1713 from Las Vegas to Austin. I woke up with an empty feeling. I always got this feeling as an Affiliate Summit ended, and I knew it would be a while before I saw all of these people that I’ve come to know and love. I missed them already.

The night before, there was a beautiful sendoff at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill with so many friends who became family in the time since Missy Ward and I started Affiliate Summit in 2003. My heart was full from that night, but there was a feeling of sadness as I thought about how some of these people wouldn’t be in NYC for Affiliate Summit East 2020.

It hit me that I may well never see some of these people again. But I found solace in knowing I would still see a bunch of others.

Well, that plan got COVID-19’d, didn’t it?

That expected closure after this 17-year journey wasn’t meant to be, and I still have a lot of unspent hugs to give out at some future time and location.

In the meantime, I smile about all of the shared struggles and successes and experiences across 50 Affiliate Summit events on three continents. The late nights and early mornings. I never did come down with “conference crud” like so many of you, unless it was just a really bad hangover all of this time.

Building Affiliate Summit with Missy and all of you was the best thing I’ve ever done. All of you! We certainly didn’t get here alone. We never could have. From the very start, there were great people helping us stuff bags, carry boxes, and spread the word.

So many people spoke and wrote words, shared ideas, stood with us, and supported us through all of these times. When competitors came after us; the Great Recession hit; people were needed to speak out against legislation that would harm the industry… you were there. You always were. A great big, dysfunctional, beautiful family.

I wish I were going to see that family this July in New York City. There are so many little things that add up to a rich experience there each time.

I’ll miss stocking up on my Diet Dr. Peppers at Duane Reade, serendipitously meeting people in the Marriott Marquis smoking area, having drinks in the Broadway Lounge and the Playwright Celtic Pub around the corner, hanging out with people for the first time in a while, the hotel decked out with Affiliate Summit signs and banners and check-in booths, walking through the Meet Market before it opens and getting butterflies, confusing which side to go to for an up or down escalator, heading to the Copacabana for Affiliate Ball, late-night street meat, looking out the window from my room to Times Square, seeing all of the people excitedly doing business together, catching a Yankees game, and then the goodbyes.

So, I guess this is my goodbye. Actually, no. Let’s make this my “until I see you again.”

This anonymous quote really resonates with me right now… “At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time, and nobody knew it.”

I miss y’all.

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Affiliate Summit Goes Remote for the First Time

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 20:27:06 GMT

Affiliate Summit has had events in a museum, college, taco joint, cruise ship, and library, but never online. That’s all changing with Affiliate Summit Europe 2020: Remote.

Affiliate Summit Europe 2020: Remote is taking place from June 30 to July 2 and it will be completely digital.

Speakers at Affiliate Summit Europe: REMOTE will be sharing how they’ve survived and thrived during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the strategies that they’re implementing to navigate tomorrow. But the content goes way deeper than that like at any Affiliate Summit.

There will be sessions, keynotes, roundtables, meetups, drop-in clinics, virtual matchmaking, and, of course, plenty of networking.

Get more details and register for free at the Affiliate Summit site.

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Early Affiliate Marketing Statistics with AffStat

Mon, 11 May 2020 15:38:20 GMT

Back in the early 2000s, there was not a lot of data on affiliate marketing, and I wanted to know more about what was going on. So I decided to make my own report of statistics on the industry and registered AffStat.com on October 29, 2002.

The first report came out in the spring of 2003 and I gave a presentation on it at the Affiliate Force conference, which took place April 24-28, 2003 aboard the Carnival Imagination cruise ship.

At the time I was the ClubMom.com Affiliate Manager, as well as the President of the US chapter of the Internet Affiliate Marketing Association.

It was during this cruise conference that Missy Ward and I presented together in a session for the first time.

It was also the time the two of us became disenfranchised with Affiliate Force and the work we were doing to build it up. So we made plans to launch our own conference, which could have easily faded away as nonsense we spouted off about at one of the cruise bars.

But we got on the phone a couple of weeks later and AffiliateSummit.com was registered on May 19, 2003.

Less than six months later we had our first event, and there was never another Affiliate Force.

Over the years AffStat was folded into Affiliate Summit.

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Nate Beal on Trains, Working at an Amusement Park, and Air Fryers

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 22:07:45 GMT

Nate Beal, marketing manager in the telecommunications industry, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

I wanted to learn more about the real Nate, so I asked him a variety of questions I figured he had not been asked in previous interviews.

Topics included…

His hobby of photographing trains
Working at Cedar Point
Listen to the Detroit Tigers on the radio as a kid
Model trains
Sporting events and COVID-19
Cooking with an air fryer

Links from this episode

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Kimberly Juchnowski on Elephants, Blackberry, and Solo Quarantining

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 16:24:44 GMT

Kimberly Juchnowski, who runs Webhead New Media joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

I wanted to learn more about the real Kimberly, so I asked her a variety of questions I figured she had not been asked in previous interviews.

Topics included…

Spending time with elephants
Exploring Southeast Asia
Becoming disoriented over food during quarantine
Still using a Blackberry
No longer having toilet paper on the roll
Speaking French and Thai
Being known as Webhead

Links from this episode

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Watch Netflix with Friends Using Netflix Party

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 04:43:24 GMT

Since everybody is cooped up and unable to socialize outside of things like Zoom and FaceTime, there is a fun option called Netflix Party to watch shows or movies with friends.

With this Chrome extension, you can watch in sync with people and chat while you are streaming together.

It’s a quick and easy installation when you are in the Chrome browser.

After all, Tiger King is more fun to watch with people.

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The Unskippable Handbook For Dealing with JERKS, IDIOTS & TERRIBLE People

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 02:28:32 GMT

The Unskippable Handbook For Dealing with JERKS, IDIOTS & TERRIBLE People by Jim Kukral and Lisa Picarille was written in a fun, conversational style and I read it in one sitting, which is a rarity for me.

The whole time I was enjoying the hell out of it and laughing to myself.

It’s for anybody who has to deal with jerks, idiots, and terrible people… so all of us.

I am hesitant to call it a self-help book because that feels a little hokey to me, but it really is. And it’s a tone that was enjoyable, rather than preachy.

There is some profanity, but I’d say it’s an amount that is entertaining, and not distracting. The only thing that put me off a little bit was the frequent lack of an Oxford comma, but I was able to get past that because of the fun content.

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Affiliate Summit – The Family We Chose

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 01:03:59 GMT

We just celebrated the 50th Affiliate Summit event over 17 years and I am still trying to process all of this.

Back when we started all of this in 2003, I don’t think Missy and I could have imagined what it would become. We just wanted a place for the industry to get together to learn and network. Also, we thought most of the conferences out there were lame, so we wanted to create something that didn’t suck.

Missy and I were conference friends for a couple of years before Affiliate Summit, but still, we didn’t know each other that well, and we didn’t have any money or knowledge of running events.

But we believed in it and we were sure we could create something useful, fun, and different.

Along the way, we met more and more amazing people in the space. Over time I recognized that these people weren’t just colleagues, they were friends… and family.

Our family, that we discovered at Affiliate Summit, would often remark that attending was like going to a family reunion, but one where we got to pick the family.

I felt the same, but I never had my heart swell up with love as I did at Affiliate Summit West 2020 when so many people came together to recognize Missy and me. Two different events with so many awesome people and drinks and cake and awards and pictures and cards and videos and hugs. I was so overwhelmed that I was speechless.

Affiliate Summit is such a family that it’s where my brother came and introduced me to his wife Victoria for the first time and they’ve been to lots of Easts and Wests.

It was amazing and I’m still on a high from it.

Deb Carney, Warren Corpus, Angel Djambazov, Liz Fogg, Bhavik Modi, and everyone else who made those days so special – I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was amazing and perfect.

And so great to end it all with drinks at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill – something that started small in the days we were doing Affiliate Summit at Bally’s (2006 maybe?) and grew to a grand goodbye party for all of us.

Poet Rod McKuen once wrote…

We come into the world alone. We go away the same. We’re meant to spend the interlude between in closeness or so we tell ourselves. But it’s a long way from the morning to the evening.

That reminds me of all of us – so many of us were living in places where other people didn’t get us. Then we’d get together and all speak the same language. We made sense to each other and we liked being with one another. We didn’t just share the latest tips and tricks. We shared our lives.

This was supposed to be a business thing, but yet I would always be so excited to see everybody and I had this sad feeling in my heart when it would end each time.

That closeness we all shared was just a couple of times a year, but when it happened it sure was awesome. Thanks to all y’all for all of these years, and cheers to the times ahead.

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Hustle Porn Will Ruin You

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:39:55 GMT

I was hanging out with relatives over Christmas and the topic of leisure time came up. Some of them went on about how they were too busy for TV and movies and even friends. Those were indulgences that got in the way of work.

I get it. That was me once upon a time. I was convinced that time not working was time wasted. I was wrong, misguided, and a sucker for the whole hustle porn ethos.

And while hustle porn has porn in the name, it’s not a sexual term. It’s basically the fetishizing of people in tech who overwork. Their lives are all about work and nothing else. That’s not exciting or interesting. And it’s damn sure not something to aspire to.

But people eat it up on social media. The Instagram pictures of early cars to the airport, long days in meetings and on phone calls and speaking engagements, and then red eyes back home in time to rinse and repeat.

It took me a while to understand that. Back in the late ’90s when I was getting into affiliate marketing, I was hungry to make a name for myself, learn everything I could, and put in whatever time and effort it took to achieve it.

Early on I didn’t brag about it or tout it to anybody. I just worked like crazy. Back then I was living in New Jersey and commuting three hours round trip to New York City each day to my first affiliate marketing job at Medsite.com.

At the same time, I was working on my first affiliate site, Velocity NYC, which was a guide to things to do in NYC with affiliate links to related books on Amazon. I was also working on a site called BabyLounge where I created online birth announcements with a few paid options, plus I monetized those pages with affiliate links. An extension of the baby theme that I also promoted from the site was a baby naming software I private labeled and sold through ClickBank.

There were a bunch of other affiliate sites then, and they were all hand-coded in HTML.

A friend who was a ticket broker asked me to create a website for him, and I ran that for years, too. It was frequently updated with new events and it had a bunch of satellite sites for things like the first George W. Bush Presidential Inauguration. In addition to the web work, I was running PPC for him with constant adjustments.

All of the stuff outside of my 12-hour workdays also had to fit in after my Saturday and Sunday morning job as the sports editor for NJ.com (the web version of the Newark Star-Ledger newspaper). I would do that each weekend day from 6 AM to around 10 AM.

By 2000 I was running the affiliate program for ClubMom.com and I was also writing weekly columns for ClickZ.com, and occasionally for other publications on affiliate marketing. That got me noticed by Que Publishing, who offered me a book deal (Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants). The catch was that I had a few months to write hundreds of pages. I got it done.

But around that time I noticed cracks in my non-stop work life. It was a Sunday and I had enough. I felt miserable and overwhelmed and dissatisfied. I guess it wasn’t a full-blown nervous breakdown, but it was a breakdown. Or maybe an anxiety attack.

This would happen again from time to time as we started up Affiliate Summit while working a full-time job, managing other affiliate programs on the side, running affiliate sites, and doing a good amount of consulting on affiliate marketing.

We didn’t make any money on Affiliate Summit for the first 18 months or so, and I worked full-time as an outsourced affiliate manager for a bunch of companies for the first five years of Affiliate Summit to make ends meet.

Have a look at this cringey hustle porn video I made in those days titled “Day in the Life of an Affiliate Marketer” – I made this without a hint of irony. I was proud and impressed with myself.

I barely slept, I didn’t take vacations, I didn’t really do much of anything but work. I had no balance. I didn’t find that balance until moving to Austin in 2010. It was the best decision ever to relocate and embrace downtime, the outdoors, vacations, fun, and more sleep.

And a lot fewer hours of work daily. The result – I didn’t have any drop in productivity. I was so busy being busy that I didn’t have time for anything else all that time. But that busy was a mirage, a waste, and a lie. It can lead to ruin and burnout.

Replace rise and grind with rise and shine and you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.

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Is Affiliate Marketing Still Profitable?

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 20:29:38 GMT

Q: Is affiliate marketing still profitable?

A: Affiliate marketing started back in 1994 when CDNow launched the first affiliate program, and ever since people have been wondering if they can still make money with it. The answer is and always has been yes.

The picture with this article is me at my first affiliate marketing job, which I started back in 1997. Prospective affiliates I pitched then were unsure and people new to the industry are still skeptical.

James Marciano, who founded Refer-It (my next affiliate marketing job), the first affiliate program directory back in the ’90s, said it best when he dubbed affiliate marketing a “recession-proof marketing channel.”

“When the economy tanks, the CEO cuts the marketing budget first. The sales budget doesn’t get cut. With these programs, you’re out there already making money for nothing,” continued Marciano.

We saw this play out when the dot com bubble burst, as well as in 2008 when the economy was in bad shape. Through it all affiliate marketing has persevered.

And you know how there are always articles around Christmas-time how the latest year had the highest sales in the history of E-commerce? Well, as E-Commerce grows, so does affiliate marketing and the opportunities around it. Virtually every big brand has an affiliate program, and they are commonplace with small and medium-sized businesses, too.

So, yes, it’s still profitable, but not for everybody. Lots of people want to be affiliates and they are lazy about it and don’t add any value to a transaction. Strive to provide a solution or solve a problem as an affiliate and keep at it and you can make money.

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Multiple Topics vs One Topic for an Affiliate Blog

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 15:46:38 GMT

Q: Should I have one blog with multiple topics or one domain per topic?

A: There is no correct way to set up and run a blog. But one key thing is that if you cover multiple topics I would recommend that they have something that ties them together.

For instance, if you wanted to blog about the city you live in and promote related affiliate links, it would make sense to cover news, sports, politics, etc all on that site.

But a blog that tries to be everything, without some overall theme tying it together, will not have an audience.

Do you know the old saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none”? That’s not a good approach for a blog, because you can essentially replace “master” with “audience”.

My blogs typically have one clear topic and then posts are broken down to five or so different categories.

For instance, my site 512.soccer was created as a fan site for the upcoming Major League Soccer team, Austin FC. So, a lot of my links are for Austin FC merchandise on MLSsoccer.com.

But I also mention other soccer-related products and news, so I’ll link out to Amazon and other places, too.

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Affiliate Sites Focused on One Product

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 17:40:24 GMT

Q: Do you create an affiliate site based on 1 product that can be purchased at a place like Amazon? I’m an amazon affiliate.

A: There is no one correct way to create an affiliate site.

I have lost track of the number of affiliate sites that I have created over the years, but I am pretty sure there was only ever one that was focused on a single product.

My site was called BallFourBook.com and it was a fan site about the book Ball Four by Jim Bouton. I still have the domain, but I’ve been pointing it straight to the Amazon page for the book for quite a while.

Anyhow, it’s a strategy that can work, but there are so many variables, such as the size of the audience, the commission, the price, etc.

The commission for a book on Amazon is 4.5%, so on a book that costs $15 you’re going to get $0.45 per sale. With a typical conversion rate of 2%, you’d have to send 100 clicks to make nearly $1.

When I was doing it I had a passion for the book and was generating a lot of unique content related to the book. It became pretty popular and the author even included the URL in the last edition of his book.

But it was never a huge success. It was one of lots of affiliate sites that would generate some money here and there. And that’s the key – don’t count on one niche site to make you a fortune. Experiment with a bunch of different topics and methods as an affiliate.

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The First Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas was a Little Bumpy

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 01:43:10 GMT

The first Affiliate Summit West took place on June 13-14, 2005 at the long-gone Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. But we didn’t call it Affiliate Summit West back then because it was our only event that year.

Before arriving in Las Vegas for this show I’d never been there before, and we were still pretty new to organizing conferences. That plus not a whole lot of money in the bank meant we were handling everything ourselves – the outsourcing of things didn’t happen until later.

So the day before the conference check-in was opening we enlisted the help of a bunch of friends to stuff the bags for the 550 or so attendees. We were in a suite at the Riviera all day with drinks and an assembly line going.

One of my favorite pictures from that conference was Missy laying on the hundreds of bags after we’d finished up.

After the last bag was stuffed, I went on an odyssey in Las Vegas that included taking a nap on the Strip and various versions of how I ended up back in my room at some late hour. You can hear the gory details in my video recap of the conference.

The check-in process was way more primitive back then, but we had smaller crowds and it worked.

Affiliate Summit West 2005 was the first time we had an exhibit hall, but that may be too generous of a term for what was going on there – we had 15 booths in a room. You can see the “exhibit hall” and other entertaining Affiliate Summit relics in the Affiliate Summit West 2005 program, which was lovingly created in Microsoft Word.

While we were at the Riviera there was also a group of rugby fans, and one of the things many people remember from that conference was that a boozer from the rugby crowd threw up in the pool and it had to be closed.

Towards the end of Affiliate Summit West 2005, there was a big scare after a panel on blogging. One of the panelists, Wayne Porter, collapsed and had to be hospitalized shortly after the panel.

Thankfully, Wayne recovered from that fall and was later anointed as the first Affiliate Summit Legend.

It’s hard to believe Affiliate Summit West 2020 will be the 16th year in a row that Affiliate Summit is in Las Vegas. Looking forward to seeing lots of the old-timers who were there at the start, as well as the youngbloods.

Check out the pictures from Affiliate Summit West 2005.

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The Things I Use to Podcast in 2019

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 15:37:42 GMT

I started podcasting in 2006 with a show called Affiliate Thing that was co-hosted by Lisa Picarille.

We started out on a service called BlogTalkRadio, and the first episode was an interview with Lily Shen, who was then the senior manager of eBay’s U.S. Affiliate Program.

After we stumbled through a dozen episodes on that platform we moved on to WebmasterRadio, where we co-hosted the show for a year or so.

At that point, I decided it would be nice to host and own the shows, so GeekCast.fm was started as a division of Affiliate Summit. We made it available as a place for any business podcast to get free hosting and promotion. Affiliate Thing went on for a bunch of years there.

Since then I’ve hosted a handful of podcasts solo, and the latest is This is Affiliate Marketing, which I started in 2016 to interview people who have some kind of tie to affiliate marketing. But I didn’t want to interview them about affiliate marketing, because those podcasts are boring to me at this point. Instead, I go through their social media and ask them questions about themselves.

Anyhow, the way I’ve recorded, edited, and published podcasts have changed a lot over time, and I figured I’d share what I’m using currently for anybody looking to start their own podcast.

So here’s what I use…

Recording the Podcast

I use Ringr to record the podcasts – this platform enables my guests to call in either from a phone or their computer. Ringr is a paid service and they have a few levels to choose from – this has been the most reliable tool for recording that I have used over the years, and when there is a glitch they have a responsive support team.

As far as the microphone, I have the Logitech Stereo Headset H110, which is less than $15 on Amazon and I’ve used the same one without any issues for over 5 years.

Editing the Podcast

My podcast editing is done with a free software program called Audacity. It’s an easy, intuitive program, and if you have any trouble there are plenty of videos on YouTube to help you along the way.

In order to give my podcasts a more professional flair I wanted to have an intro and outro done by somebody else, so I went to Fiverr and got some quality sound files for cheap to open and close the podcast.

Hosting the Podcast

I learned about Libsyn as a podcast hosting service years ago at Social Media Marketing World, and I’ve been very happy with the service. They have packages starting at $5/month and in addition to the hosting you also get stats on your podcasts, and the service enables you to easily distribute to the main podcasting apps and platforms.

Also, they provide code for a variety of players so you can put your show up on a blog post, website, etc. And they offer the option of using your own domain to point to a page where they have all of your podcast archives.

That’s it – it’s pretty easy to get up and running, and then all you need is original content and consistency to build your podcast audience.

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When You Talk, Does Anybody Listen?

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 00:29:57 GMT

I thought I was good for a long time. Over ten years. But as the days went by, I realized I wasn’t.

One of the biggest catalysts in my entrepreneur journey was also my greatest burden… the memories of working in New York City on 9/11.

I didn’t die. I was only really scared that day, so I had a hard time accepting that it brought me pain and sadness and anxiety. It made me feel guilty. When I brought up what happened that day it seemed to make people uncomfortable. I got that, and it also made me wary of mentioning it. So I bottled it up.

It was around six years ago that I finally got to a point where I thought I needed some help. It was my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, and I was overcome. I felt really irritable and claustrophobic.

It really bothered me how jovial some people were in what I thought should be a very solemn place. And then I saw a bunch of people mugging for the camera in front of a destroyed fire truck. I had to get out of there.

I verbalized to myself shortly after that I was going to find somebody to talk to about it. I went to Yelp to look up therapists who dealt with PTSD.

My choice was a psychotherapist because I just wanted someone to talk to about things vs. a psychiatrist, who could also prescribe medications.

It felt so good to have somebody to talk to about things I felt like nobody wanted to hear, or I wasn’t comfortable talking about. As I worked through lingering 9/11 feelings, I also began to talk to a lot about work and the toll it took on me.

That whole entrepreneurial story that people idealize, but that can be isolating and scary more often. The failures and self-doubt, while putting on a brave face, and the tricky balance of being an entrepreneur with healthy relationships and outlets.

As I spoke to a therapist about personal and professional struggles, I found it beneficial in a number of ways.

First, there was having a safe and private place to talk about sensitive issues. No judgment, nobody taking offense. It was a foreign feeling to have somebody just listen and share their perspective without their feelings or biases intruding.

Second, it was an avenue to discuss how to improve sleep, nutrition, and physical activity patterns. These new, healthy behaviors and habits all had quick impacts on my physical and mental well-being.

Third, my relationships became more satisfying with an understanding of the need for better communication and fewer assumptions.

Finally, I became more mindful, less stressed, and more relaxed. I always heard the phrase “stop and smell the roses,” and I finally started doing it.

Our toughest struggles are just that – they are ours and the toughest things we are dealing with. Don’t worry about measuring them against others or worrying yourself about the stigma of getting some help. We all need somebody who will listen.

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The Making of a Quality Conference Speaker Proposal

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 14:11:47 GMT

Speaking at a conference can benefit you in a lot of ways, and there are dos and don’ts when it comes to submitting a speaker proposal. You only have one opportunity to make your case for speaking, so make the most of it.

Pay attention to the details and invest time in a quality speaker proposal.

Don’t rush through it.

Typos, lack of clarity in your writing, and failing to follow the instructions send a very clear message that this is not a priority for you.

I’m guessing you don’t want to send that message since you’re bothering to read this.

Based on the thousands of speaker proposals I’ve seen over the years, I’ve compiled the following on what to do to improve your chances of being selected.

Read the Guidelines and Follow Them

This should be basic advice – so basic that it doesn’t need to be included here.

However, every time we put out a call for speakers, I see lots of talented, successful people turn in proposals that show they’ve paid no attention to the guidelines.

If there are character or word constraints, be sure to follow them.

It’s that simple.

Failure to follow simple instructions can disqualify a good session, so read the guidelines like they matter… because they do.

Check Your Schedule

Are you sure you do not have a conflict on your schedule with the conference day(s)?

Check and double-check your schedule to see if you have any other obligations.

If you realize you have to cancel after being accepted to speak, it could hurt your credibility and cause trouble for the conference organizers.

Adhere to the Deadline

There is inevitably a deadline to turn in a speaker proposal. If you want to speak at a given conference, make it a priority to get the proposal in on time.

Lots of successive dates hinge on that deadline, and if that doesn’t work for your schedule, so be it.

But your failure to meet the deadline is just that – your failure.

Don’t Be Lazy

When you are submitting your speaker proposal, provide the requested information in full.

Don’t cut corners with comments like “I will provide this later,” because there will likely not be a later.

Exhibiting such arrogance, that you think the conference wants you to speak so bad that they’ll accept your incomplete submission, may well result in your submission being declined.

Proofread!

There seems to be a theme here about attention to detail, right? Right.

Run spellcheck, read through your material for clarity, and have somebody else look it over before you send it.

People with typos on their resumes don’t get hired.

Don’t Be Too Broad

Are you one of those people who hopes to give a 30,000-foot view of your chosen topic?

If so, stop with the buzzwords and focus on a topic.

The big picture can be nice for a keynote, but if you’re interested in giving a presentation at a breakout session, broad is bad. People want specifics.

Sell the Topic

Your speaker proposal should focus on the benefits, takeaways, etc. of your proposed session.

Don’t talk about yourself. That is the function of your bio.

Review Past Agendas

One of the best ways to get a feel for the type of content that is typically featured at a conference is to review the past agendas.

Then, come up with a new, unique, interesting topic that draws some inspiration from past, recurring themes.

Don’t Recycle

It’s really nice to recycle paper, plastic, and grass clippings, but don’t recycle content.

Nobody wants your greatest hits from the past few years. Respect your audience and propose new, quality content.

Focus on Clarity

Be clear about what you want to cover in your presentation. It should be something you can sum up in a sentence.

A string of buzzwords is annoying to read, has little meaning, and will likely help to put your proposal in the reject pile.

Have You Attended the Conference?

While there are certainly first timers speaking frequently at conferences, it is in your best interest to first attend conferences where you hope to speak at beforehand.

Know the conference culture and types of attendees, so you’re not going into it blind.

Find Out What They Want

Do your homework as to which sessions have been most popular in the past, so you know what attendees like.

Also, read blog posts on the past conferences to gain insight.

Don’t ask the organizers what they want – they want quality, original content.

Know Your Limits

It can be tough to carry an hour-long session by yourself.

Are you ready? If not, try proposing for a shorter time slot, or submit a proposal for a panel.

Running a long session shouldn’t be your first step. It’s really helpful to get some experience by speaking at meet-ups and other smaller, professional get-togethers.

OK, now you’re ready to submit that killer speaking proposal.

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