December 1st Pennsylvania passed the Affiliate Nexus Tax law, better known as “The Amazon Tax“. This measure is supposed to support small brick-and-mortars who have been hurt by online competition.

…and right before a big election year, what politician would say ‘no’ to helping mom-and-pops?

But I’m going to make a prediction: This law will produce no additional tax revenue and will result in net business losses in Pennsylvania.

3 Reasons Why The PA Affiliate Nexus Tax is Ridiculous

1. New York
2. North Carolina
3. Rhode Island

North Carolina has also not seen additional revenue from the law. Illinois has seen an outflow of Internet-related businesses after its law’s passage. While New York is collecting some revenue, it is because Amazon.com is collecting taxes under protest while the issue is litigated. If New York loses the case, it will have to refund those collections to taxpayers.

The Counterproductive Design Flaw

When politicians get tax-tough businesses take their money elsewhere. In this case, it means affiliate marketers are being unceremoniously and abruptly dropped from programs and hurting their businesses.

Or, as that Capitol Weekly article above put it:

If advertising on California-owned affiliate websites creates nexus for out-of-state retailers, then out-of-state retailers will simply terminate their California affiliates… It’s a simple business decision when you consider that people visit websites based on their interests, not geographic location of the site owners.

Proof-in-the-pudding, just two business weeks after passing the law, I received this email today:

Due to Pennsylvania implementing Affiliate Nexus Tax Law, we are compelled to unfortunately terminate this program for Pennsylvania-based Publishers.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all Pennsylvania Publishers that are participants in the XXXXXXXXXXXX Affiliate program as of January 1, 2012. As of the termination date, Pennsylvania residents will no longer receive commissions for sales referred to XXXXXXXXXXXX .com or XXXXXXXXXXXX .com. Please be assured that all qualifying commissions earned on or before January 1, 2012 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of Pennsylvania. If you are not currently a resident of Pennsylvania, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, please contact us for reinstatement into the XXXXXXXXXXXX Affiliate Program.

Regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXX Affiliate Team

When I inquired further with the Affiliate Manager of this particular program, he forwarded along this nice stat:

The PMA estimates there are 9,000 affiliate marketers in Pennsylvania, who earned over $700 million in 2010, and paid an estimated $22 million in state income tax. When similar laws passed in other states, affiliate marketers lost 25-35% of their income when 800-900 out-of-state retailers terminated their advertising agreements to avoid sales tax collection nexus.

Sounds like a losing proposal for Pennyslvania affiliate marketers and the Department of Revenue.

But don’t take my word for it.

While running for Governor in December of 2009, Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio admitted the Affiliate Nexus Tax ”has hurt Rhode Island businesses and stifled their growth, as they’ve been shut out of some of the world’s largest marketplaces. It should be repealed immediately.”

So, the state tries to help small businesses by increasing the internet tax which hurts or eliminates other small businesses. And Amazon still doesn’t pay taxes. Gotcha.

Oh, and It May Be Unconstitutional

I am not a lawyer (or a District Court judge) so it is not for me to decide, but people smarter than myself have raised some interesting points regarding the constitutionality of the so-called “Amazon Tax”.

The “Amazon Tax” and “Streamlined Sales Tax Project” mentioned above reflect direct attempts to circumvent the Quill and Bellas Hess Supreme Court rulings and the U.S. Constitution. The Amazon Tax in particular is undergoing legal challenge in New York and was rejected in numerous other states in 2008 and 2009 due to likely constitutional hurdles. (Source: Stop eTaxes)

Meanwhile… in Delaware

At best, this law will temporarily require Pennsylvania’s really successful affiliate marketers to find new and ever more creative ways to recoup their lost business by paying corporate taxes to ANOTHER STATE. Not because they are circumventing anything, mind you, but because they literally cannot operate their businesses as a corporate or physical resident of Pennsylvania after being dropped from productive programs.

At worst, this law will further perpetuate the long history of declining business in a state mostly known for crumbling industry and urban decay. Successful affiliate marketers are business savvy, tech savvy, likely to start subsequent businesses and flush with cash. Unfortunately for Pennsylvania, they are also mobile, and there is no reason to stay in a state that is hostile to economic growth and job creation.

Call me crazy, but doesn’t a state hungry for economic recovery want to include that population?

I love Philadelphia, but if this law is an indicator of things to come, don’t be surprised if this time next year I’m writing from Dewey Beach.

1925 Drexel Women's Rifle Team

I recently crossed the threshold into affiliate marketing fossildom; namely, turning 30 years old. For an industry as young as internet marketing is proving to be, it feels two ticks to the right of ancient.

But I digress.

Allow me 60 seconds of your time to distill a myth that I bought into, hard and heavy, for most of my twenties. It is a complete waste of time.

You don’t need permission to ________________. (Insert whatever it is you want here).

Seriously. Read it again. 

“The world is run by those who show up”

The quote above, attributed to an engineer in 1999, is one that keeps resurfacing in people’s streams and walls. So often, in fact, that I’m frankly astounded more people don’t seem to show up in their lives, careers, or community. Why is that?

I think Mike Mahler hit the nail on the head in his book Live Life Aggressively:

In most areas in life, no one wants to be first… from an early age, most of us are conditioned to ask permission before doing anything.  This behavior is continually reinforced over the years and most people spend even their adult lives either consciously (but mostly unconsciously) awaiting permission from others.

There’s a sense of safety people find in letting others think for them:  in relinquishing responsibility for your life you’re no longer responsible for success or failure.

…the permission payoff is feeling safe and comfortable.

So what do I mean by permission?

• Endlessly searching for that one perfect blog article that finally distills EXACTLY how to start your business / fund your startup / set up your first affiliate marketing campaign / start a weight loss routine, etc.
• Finding reasons not to start something (“I’m not qualified”, “It’s not practical,”)
• Waiting to finish a degree before starting in that career path.

E.g. read Jesse James‘ response to a reader’s question on which school he’d recommend to get started as a gearhead:

“Don’t go to school. They are just out to make money. Get a job sweeping floors in a shop. Work hard and keep your eyes and ears open. If you show interest the skills will magically come to you and you will be getting paid to learn.”

• Choosing anything on the basis of it being ‘safe’, ‘comfortable’, or ‘secure’. (Chairs excepted.)

If you aren’t leading, you’re following.

Choosing not to do something you feel led to do because you “shouldn’t” or you’re “not ready” is an excuse, plain and simple. And making major life decisions based on something that you “should” do is an equal recipe for mediocrity. But don’t take my word for it.

If I think back on the last decade about the things I wish I had done- every one of them are choices I made believing that someone else or some societally accepted notion of what was supposed to happen was right.

Conversely, most of the great things that came out of my twenties I had absolutely no business doing- like flying home from Egypt to find work as a deckhand in Alaska with zero experience- or leading a disaster response team after Hurricane Katrina when I was about twenty years younger than most of my crew.

All the hagiographies abounding on the internet to entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban make it certain everyone recognizes this quality in others, so why do so many fall short of internalizing it themselves?

The world is run by those who show up indeed. The people that start things, build things, lead from the front or set the pace. Sometimes they hit a home run, sometimes they fail and correct, sometimes they fail and look like idiots- but they all run the world nonetheless.

If you aren’t showing up, the sum total of your day is merely reacting to the actions being taken around you.

Here’s where I close with a classy one-liner.

Except I won’t. If you want something, stop talking about it and go get it. No one’s going to give you permission.

I am a list builder.

I break projects down into their most granular tasks and write them down in a to-do list on an old school scrap of notebook paper. If you look around my desk, folded and tucked neatly reused as bookmarks into books on my shelf, and in my round file cabinet (aka the trash), you’ll find them everywhere.

Using to-do lists is reinforced everywhere on the web. The tech industry, in particular, is obsessed with the cult of productivity and to-do lists. There are posts on the 5 best to-do list managers, not-to-do lists, and there are apps for that.

The Problem With To-Do Lists

For each area of my life there became a list. Chores around the house. Workouts. Client projects. My own websites. General family stuff. It evolved into stacks of tiny paper monsters hounding me for all that I hadn’t gotten done, regardless of what I had accomplished.

When your life lists get too big it dilutes the positive association of forming a list in the first place: crossing items off.

Coupled with the time I was spending writing down things I wanted to do, it became clear that the action of writing them down was just another form of analysis paralysis.

Solving the To-Do List Problem

On a lark I stopped writing to-do lists down about 18 days ago.

Instead, I just started doing things.

And, in a worn moleskin notebook- the same to which I had put all those elusive ideas and former albatross lists of things I wanted to accomplish- I started writing down what I HAD DONE that day.

The crazy thing about turning your list-making from abstract tasks you’d like to get done vs. things you have actually done each day is the added reinforcement of accountability.

Results. Finally.

In the last two weeks I have become maniacal about assaulting projects so that I could record them in my tiny notebook. The list size has dropped tremendously; some days 8 items- a few just 2. But it has given me focus, responsibility and a tangible daily measurement of progress. That coveted idea called productivity.

The proof is in the pudding. I launched new projects. My billable time went way up. I began building out domains that had been dormant in my Namecheap account for the better part of a year. I stopped flaking out on friends, phone calls, and began returning emails the same day. My workouts became regular and progressive. And I spent a lot more time being at home, at home.

Certainly, I have a lot more yet to do. I haven’t gotten to the bottom of my inbox yet, I still need to write some blog posts I had promised (I haven’t forgotten about you Alan- or Ruud) and – well, I’ll stop before this becomes a to-do list.

The Casualty of Productivity?

According to Tweetstats, I had almost 500 tweets in the month of January 2011- but February? 290. My Klout score went from 65? to 49 when I checked it this morning. My time on Skype and AIM went from almost all day 7 days a week to a few hours a week, max. I broke the Top 10% barrier on my Rescue Time Dashboard. And before I signed in to check it, the last time I was on Wickedfire was February 11th.

The relentless pursuit of becoming more efficient and getting things done readjusted my priorities. I spend a lot less time wasting time and a lot more time trying to add things to my tiny notebook of accountability.

Final Thoughts

Will this work for everyone?

Maybe not. You have to find what works for you. But if my last two weeks are any indication, 2011 is going to be a record year.

If you’re struggling under a mountain of to-dos, give the reverse to-do list method a shot. The newfound productivity may surprise you.

What method do you use?

I’m genuinely interested to see if anyone else has a productivity hack that works for them.

Why stop and see the Big Picture?

Because social media channels tend to be an echo chamber of self-selected people. Sure, it’s fun to bitch about corporations changing their logos but after the 3^rd or 4^th time this comes up, I wonder, “don’t we really have better things to do or worry about?”

I’ll bet dollars to donuts the majority of your social streams are probably people in the same industry. This creates monomania which, in turn, can make us callous to the world outside our virtual walls.

Too much of the same thing makes us boring, ignorant, and self-focused.

A few ways you can help yourself see the Big Picture

1. Donate.

   • SaveJasonsMom.org – This week Jason Rubacky from ShareASale created a site to solicit donations for his mom’s considerable medical care. She has several ongoing chronic illnesses, you can read more and donate there.

   • Adhustler solicits families in need and buys them Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, with all the trimmings. This is an awesome, creative way to tangibly give back.
   • Non-monetary items. Not all donations are about money; for example, animal shelters are in constant need of vet meds, blankets, food, toys and treats. Call your local shelter for details.
2. Volunteer.
   • Some people subscribe to the shorter-but-more-frequent-model. I personally do the “massive volunteering all at once” model (e.g., Disaster Relief), but whichever way you prefer- helping others selflessly provides tremendous benefits for everyone involved.  A couple great examples of people in the industry doing this already are:
     • It’s hard to think of a better, more selfless example than Sean Dolan and PimpThisBum
     • Wil at SEER Interactive makes it a company requirement to get out and volunteer. Scroll down to “Volunteerism” in this post to read more.
3. Go Offline.
   • Take up a hobby, sport, cause or otherwise pursue an interest. Broadening your horizons can be achieved through many avenues, what you choose is not as important as you actually doing something.
     • I recently enrolled in an auto shop class at a community college just to learn a completely different skill well outside my knowledge base. While I really enjoy working with my hands anyway, there are two unexpected upsides: it forces me to do things offline on a regular basis and talking with other students in class whose lives are much different than my own is like a twice-weekly “reset” button on what matters.

Conclusion

It’s not enough to care about things beyond business; it’s important to make it a regular habit to do so. It’s good for others and, believe it or not, the rewards far outweigh the costs…

Not the least of which is having a fresh perspective on what really matters in the world.

———-

This idea for this post came from the recent protests in Cairo; I was a student at الجامعة الأميركية في القاهرة in 2006. Though life led me to stay stateside, I still feel a connection with the people and their language – so much so that I often go out of my way to patronize Middle Eastern shops and to speak Arabic with anyone who’ll let me bend their ear and butcher their language.

Seeing my old haunts on MSNBC (like ميدان التحرير) and revisiting the mental images of the protests following the Danish cartoon scandal reminded me, today, that there is a lot more to care about in the world then the latest algorithm change or petty industry squabbles, etc.

Mi dos centavos.

- أماندا ماري اورسون

Midan Tahrir from the rooftop of AUC in 2006

Midan Tahrir January 25th 2011

Below you can find the Slideshare of my presentation with Adhustler (if you are interested in Local Lead Gen and aren’t following his blog, you’re missing out) from Affiliate Summit West 2011.

Local Lead Generation – Heaven & Hell

View more presentations from Affiliate Summit.

A Few Quick Notes

• This was my first presentation at an industry conference and (I believe) also for Ad Hustler.  I felt slow at the start but as we became more comfortable with the audience and each other ideas started flowing better and I hope we were able to give the audience some good BTDT tips on local lead generation and clients. If you took any home and implemented them, I’d love to hear about it. Feel free to contact me anytime.
• Check out my Local SEO Resources post if you haven’t seen it yet. I try to keep it updated regularly.
• I had notes on things I wanted to hit during the session but we ran out of  time so I’ve decided to use them as platforms for future blog posts instead.
• As the video becomes available I’ll link up to that (though I think it’ll only be accessible to Gold, Platinum & Diamond passholders from ASW11).

The Feedback

For those of you that came out and saw the session and tweeted about it, thanks, sincerely.

Any Questions?

If you weren’t able to make it to the show or if you had any follow-up questions we couldn’t get to, feel free to post them below. If I don’t know the answer, I’m sure Adhustler or Chad do.

Bad Bet: Shawn dons a Pats jersey at ASW11

In the Internet Marketing industry you can go from newbie to conference veteran easily in a year. One, there are so many of them and two, internet years go twice the speed of dog years.

Gearing up to Affiliate Summit West I told myself if it wasn’t for the fact I had promised to speak on a panel, I wouldn’t have gone at all. As a salty conference veteran of 3 or so years, I thought I knew everyone I needed to know and could garner the information provided just as easily by staying at home and reading things online.

I was wrong.

4 Reasons Industry Conferences are Important if You’re a Veteran

1. Human relationships matter.
   • Meeting people that I talk to on a near-daily basis is still more resonant than the year of talking to them that led up to our meeting. The internet is great for introductions; but if you want to advance your relationship- be it business or in friendship, the intangibles of face-to-face interaction trump an email, tweet, or instant message 100:1.
   • Working at home is both awesome and horrible (especially for your social skills). It’s good to get out of the house.
2. Internet Marketing is a HUGE industry.
   • And attending a conference is a great reminder of exactly how big this industry is. Even after 4 years I’ve barely scratched the surface on the number of possibilities, monetization avenues, traffic sources and sub-industries there are.
   • I came knowing what I wanted thanks to Smaxor’s Affiliate Tradeshow Floor Tips
3. Speaking FTW.
   • By increasing your visibility you also increase the surface area of your monetization platform. You get approached more for business interests, have more of a “presence” and your thoughts carry more weight if, say, you get shafted on a commission by an affiliate network.
     • (This assumes you know what you’re talking about.)
   • It’s really rewarding to help others. Seriously.
4. …

But that was only 3?!

I don’t know everything. Hell, two weeks ago I thought Affiliate Summit would be a waste of time.

Fill in the blanks.

Are you a conference veteran? I’d love to know why you keep coming back after all these years.

Photo Credit: Shawn Collins' Flickr

If you don’t see the obvious advantages to bringing less to conferences like Affiliate Summit West, let me give you…

8 Good Reasons to Pack Light

1. Avoid the long line to check bags and get your boarding pass.
2. No need to worry about your bags being delayed or lost.
3. No annoying $25 +/bag surcharge. This adds up especially if you have to switch airlines or pack oversized luggage.
   • You also avoid having to tip the guy at the curb and hotel for helping you with your bags.
4. No waiting for your luggage at baggage claim on the other end.
5. Increased Flexibility. If you need to change a flight or if your flight is delayed, no worry about leaving your checked bags behind in your last city or them making it ahead of you to your final destination.
6. All your valuables are with you.
7. There is really nothing you need that you can’t buy in a pinch.
   • Once you’ve made it through a trip on one bag and realize most of your “but I need this because…” anxieties never came to fruition – it’ll be easier on subsequent trips.
8. More room for swag.

3-4 Day Conference Trip Packing List

I travel with two bags- one ‘personal item’ and one ‘carry on’, with the carry on holding the bulk of my luggage and my personal bag mostly empty (to fill up on things purchased in Vegas or conference swag on the way back).

• Collapsible bags.
  • For my main “luggage” bag I use a duffle with adjustable sides. Unlike the ubiquitous black wheeled square carry-on they have a lot more give for squeezing into the last spot in an overhead compartment.
  • Shoulder bag (for walking around on the conference floor).
    • I’ve had this same Manhattan Portage bag I bought in NYC for over ten years. No fluff, totally utilitarian but it does what I need and hasn’t torn or broken a zipper yet. I like collapsible messenger bags for the same reason I like collapsible duffel bags- you can stuff them anywhere in a pinch. There aren’t a lot of brands I swear by but Manhattan Portage is certainly one.

• 3 Non-wrinkle shirts, plus what I have  on.
  • I usually pack light sweaters or long sleeve shirts and roll them so that they take as little space as possible in the bag and have no wrinkles.
  • If you are bringing collared shirts with you, check out this vid on how to pack them to avoid wrinkles.

  Click here to view the embedded video.

• 2 pr pants, plus what I have on.
  • Affiliate summit has a complete range of attendee dress styles, you’ll see suits from merchants and advertisers, but almost everyone is in jeans or, at most, khakis.

• 1-2 pr slip-on shoes (which you’ll be wearing).
  • I use my Pumas or a pair of driving mocs for airport travel; slip on/ off shoes are less hassle through security.

• 3-4x undergarments and socks.

• Non-liquid toiletries in a 1 gallon zip lock bag.
  • Serves 2 functions- easier for TSA to check out and in the event something explodes, it won’t get all over everything else.
  • I used to use a really nice compartmentalized bag but was tired of having to open it for TSA, stuff not fitting quite right in there, etc. Ziplocs are the way to go.

• Notebook, small. (I like Moleskin Cahier Notebooks b/c they’re soft & fit in my pocket).
  • Good for on the spot recording for phone numbers, brainstorming ideas and writing down juicy insider tips you overhear at an after-hours party.
  • Yes, you can also use a mobile device, iPad or laptop for this, but imho I find I am less likely to record- much less look back over- something I’ve typed in. YMMV.

• Travel Documents.
  • Photo ID/ Passport
  • Plane reservation confirmation/ tickets.
  • Copy of your hotel reservations / address
  • Phone number for a shuttle, cab, or limo company.
    • I scan all these documents and PW protect them in my dropbox, which syncs to all my computers.

• Laptop.
  • I use an ASUS EEE PC for conference travel. It’s not the most highspeed thing on earth but it weighs half as much and takes up less space than my old school Mac Powerbook G4. It’s super cheap (currently $262 on Amazon), runs on Linux and comes with Skype preinstalled.
    

    Note how much smaller the 10" Asus EEE PC is than my 13" Mac Powerbook

  • Bonus: Unlike an iPad, it has an actual keyboard. Battery life on both suck though, so don’t forget your charger.

• Point-and-shoot digital camera, battery charger, cable.
  • This can pay for itself. Take incriminating pictures and sell the card back to the person? heh.

• Phone and charger.
  • Does double-duty as a Travel Alarm clock.

• Jacket or Coat (which I have on while boarding the plane).

Things to avoid bringing:

1. Books. I have never heard anyone complain about wishing they had packed “one more book”.
2. Shampoos and soaps, if you can stomach hotel stuff. They take up space, the TSA seems to change the rules surrounding them annually and you get them for free later. Saves hassle.
3. T-shirts, unless you plan on wearing them to the conference. There is so much conference swag to be had if you want it, you could go to ASW without a t-shirt to your name and come home with 14 days worth of different shirts.
4. Workout stuff. I keep telling myself I’ll go to the gym while I’m there but after a half a dozen conferences or more this has yet to happen. I’m leaving it behind this time because I’m being realistic.

A few more Conference Packing Thoughts:

I know everyone extols the value of business cards but unless you are selling a product or service or want to trade your contact information and future minutes of your life deleting overzealous email spam from someone you don’t care about in exchange for a 1/10000th chance you could win another iPod… meh, I don’t think it’s an absolute.

Controversial, I know. Some people swear up and down that you must have them. I have been to conferences with and without them and honestly can’t report much of a difference. Most people I’m interested in connecting with I’ll simply ask for their website, social network handles or, at worst, email address.

If you’re ADD and skimmed through to the bottom, remember the golden rule:

Pack half as much stuff and twice as much money.

(Especially going to Vegas.)

I thought it practicable when I was 19, but in rereading I find so much more truth to it today, ten years worth of life experiences later.

Attitude

“The longer I live, the more important I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me , is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than successes, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

- Charles Swindoll

The truth to the message is this: wherever you start from, your attitude will dictate where you end up. Everything else is unchangable, your circumstances are your circumstances, but be it in in your career, sport or life how you play your cards is far more important to the outcome than what hand you were dealt.

If you’d like to print out a copy of the quote for your own office, I’ve attached the well-worn, oft-copied .pdf scan of “Attitude” here.

Specifically, an AAR is meant to answer four questions:

1. What was expected to happen?
2. What actually happened?
3. What went well, and why?
4. What can be improved, and how?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein

If you want different results you need to do things differently. Simple enough.

So I mined my own records and listened to the feedback of those who have to interact with me on both a business and personal level daily. These are my results:

What Was Expected to Happen

I set out to become a full-time affiliate marketer.

What actually happened

After some success with directory sites I began working for the very people that advertised on them, which led to local lead generation. Local Lead Generation, in turn, was far more profitable than working for a law firm so I left my 9-5.

This path played out:

Directory Sites → Local Lead Gen → Web development for small businesses (who had no web presence) → On-site SEO for SMB’s → On and Off-Site SEO for SMB’s.

So though I had begun with the intention of being an affiliate marketer, my business quickly spiraled into me, again, trading hours for dollars with client work- something I never set out to do.

The problem: If I wanted to trade hours for dollars I’d probably have better ROI going back to school and becoming an attorney or working for an SEO firm.

What Went Well, and Why

• Learned more about business, mostly through failures and overextension, than in all the blog posts, books, or classwork I could have taken in a lifetime.
• Learned a lot about organic search and in the course of not quite two years time developed a respectable network in both the affiliate marketing and SEO niches.
• Accidentally fell into an online business niche that has only recently become hot – local lead generation. I was fortunate to have been one of the first movers in several verticals across multiple municipalities. Local Lead Generation is, still, to my mind, the low hanging fruit between affiliate marketing and SEO.

One of the “whys” in what went well has a lot to do with what I was wasting my non-billable time on: Twitter. As a tool, it has been invaluable to me for networking purposes and being on the “tip of the spear” for ever evolving search information. And if you are reading this there is a 65% statistical likelihood that you were referred through a twitter link.

That said, the timesuck factor Twitter and forums (Wickedfire, specifically) is also a big point of improvement- for obvious reasons:

My Hall of Shame Tweetwasters.com profile

The other big “why” for the things that went right: I had no choice but to make them happen. Once you quit your job and cut off your biweekly paycheck, you’ll be pretty amazed at the gigs you won’t turn down if you’re hard up. I wasn’t afraid to throw everything at the wall and try anything to make it happen, but that also led to overextension and diminished time with my family and friends.

What can be improved, and how?

I wanted to build a business and ended up creating a self-directing job.

1. Focus on one thing, and one thing only.
   • My success was mitigated because I was chasing every dollar, client, or opportunity that came my way- rather than focusing on the most profitable core business model. (Which, I still believe, is scaling an affiliate marketing business).
2. Leverage and scale local lead generation to bolster cashflow required for ad spend.
3. Increase efficiency by limiting wasted time on unprofitable tasks < cough, Twitter, cough >.

There was a great article today on DIYThemes that talks, specifically, about focus and deliberate practice on one medium at a time:

When you’re getting started, working on several projects sounds good. However, the odds are against you. Many more people fail at creating a profitable online business than succeed. If you want to be one of the few who do succeed, you’ll need that laser focus you develop when you have no other option. So, focus on one project at a time.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

This was a pretty frank discussion of what I’ve done wrong, but I hope it helps you think about your own business interests.

Knowing and owning my mistakes helps every bit as much as the skills I’ve picked up while making them to chart a course in the right direction. If I want to be an affiliate marketer, I have to spend the preponderance of my time working on affiliate marketing and not with client work.

Know what you want, focus on one thing at a time and become obsessively good at it. The formula is timeless because it works.

“This is America. Pick a job and then become the person that does it.” -Bobbi Barrett, Mad Men (S2, E5)

Photo credit: Route 66 Photos

I quit my nine-to-five 1 year, 8 months and 21 days ago. There are a few things I wish I had known before setting out and quite a few I have to keep reminding myself along the way. So rather then scrawl it into yet another notebook I thought I’d publish it.

If you haven’t left your job yet

• Now is the time to become an expert at time and project management; as well as how to balance your work and real lives. You’d think working full-time and developing your own business in the late night hours would be worse but I’m here to tell you- it’s not. When you work for yourself it becomes that much harder to leave “work” at “work”.
• Save three times as much money as you think you’ll need. Campaigns will die, you’ll need a new water heater- whatever, something will happen.
• Read the E-Myth Revisited. Pay attention to everything he says about “having an Entrepreneurial Seizure”.
  • If you have ADD read this Cliff’s Notes version instead.
• I’m not kidding, read that book. I wish I had.
• Write out a business plan. Trite, I know, but if you don’t have a business you can write a plan about – you don’t have a business.
• Assemble your support services team now; CPA, attorneys, etc. Make sure you have health insurance covered for you and your family, if applicable, before you leave.

You’ve Struck Out on Your Own Recently

• Lower your expenses as much as possible.
  • “Most young people who take a business from four to ten million feel they deserve a watch and a car and a cool apartment as rewards for their savviness and hard work. Get over that. You come last. Before you invest in yourself, you have to invest in your long term future. That means your profits should funnel right back into your research, your content, and your staff if you have any.” -Gary Vaynerchuck in Crush It, pp. 92.
• Create a work space and leave work in it. Close the door and be with your family or friends when your work is “done”.
• Don’t steal from your company.
  • The first job I landed after college was at a small boutique intellectual property law firm that enforced (what I thought at the time were excessively) strict rules. Among them internet access was restricted because surfing the internet and taking personal phone calls was akin to stealing from the firm (they are paying you for your time, you depriving them of your time is tantamount to stealing). I, personally, wasted way too much time worrying about what other people were up to, goofing off on forums, twitter and blogs that could have been put to profitable use. The time you waste today will cost you twice as much to regain tomorrow.
• Work your face off.
  • Figure out what your most profitable action is and do it every day.

Refocusing After Being Self-Employed for a While

• Focus on efficiency of work over volume.
• Read “Work Smarter, not Longer Hours“
• Learn to Outsource.
  • You will, eventually, reach the point of “grow or die”. You’ll either need to commit to remaining “x” big and turning away opportunities/ clients/ campaigns or begin taking on staff in order to scale your operation. A tool I’ve found useful to gauge what should or should not be done by you is this flow chart found in The 4 Hour Work Week.
• Make sure you’re eating well and exercising. You may be comfortable with spending hours online but your body is not.
  • See: How that desk job wears your body down
• Conduct an AAR on your business.  (AAR defined on Wikipedia)
  • Identify problematic issues and needs for improvement
  • Propose measures to counteract problematic elements
  • Obtain “lessons learned”

This became tl;dr for one post, so tomorrow I’ll post a sample of the AAR I conducted for my own business. It was both humbling and enlightening.

Any advice from the crowd?

If you have productivity notes, business hacks, or lessons learned- I’d love to hear them.