One of the main focusses of my online business is earning affiliate commissions from promoting home exercise equipment on my blogs and YouTube channels. Obviously some affiliate programs are run better than others, but over the years I’ve come across a handful of exercise equipment affiliate programs that were so unbelievably frustrating to deal with that they strongly made me consider completely giving up on affiliate marketing, or at least exercise equipment affiliate programs.

Prior to today, the worst exercise equipment affiliate program I’ve ever been a part of was the TRX (formerly known as Fitness Anywhere) affiliate program. Dealing with the people at TRX was unbelievably frustrating, and in general their affiliate program was a complete mess (not sure if it’s improved since I left the program three years ago). But an even worse affiliate program is the one offered by GoFit. That program is so ridiculously broken and messed up, I don’t even know where to begin when telling you about it.

I’ll spare you the long-winded rant about my negative experiences with the GoFit affiliate program, but the main detail I will share with you is that GoFit doesn’t even have an affiliate program manager (i.e. someone to contact if you have any questions, concerns, or problems specifically relating to their affiliate program). You just have to contact their regular customer service, and you’ll end up dealing with some low-level customer service drone who’s main focus is apparently answering miscellaneous order inquires, and doesn’t seem to have any interest whatsoever in working with affiliates to ensure the success of the affiliate program.

So if you’re considering joining the GoFit affiliate program, don’t. Just don’t. Trust me on that. It will be nothing but a frustrating experience, not to mention GoFit conversion rates are absolute shit (and remember, there’s no one at GoFit to even contact about issues like that).

This is one of my favourite quotes from Dan Kennedy:

If you don’t offend somebody by noon each day, you’re not doing much.

Amen. Don’t be afraid to keep it real and call things as you see them. Sure, you’ll offend some people, but in the process you’ll create much stronger connections with the people your message is really meant for.

I’ve decided that I’m definitely not going to bother using Twitter or Facebook. I’ve pretty much completely avoided both sites for years because I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in using either website because I hate passionately hate using both of those websites.

I briefly softened my stance on Twitter and Facebook recently when I read The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk. In the book, Gary goes on and on about how crucial social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are to businesses. I figured that Gary is a smart guy (he is), and he’s knows that he’s talking about (he does), so I should be more openminded about using Twitter and Facebook.

But my softened stance on Twitter and Facebook only lasted a couple of weeks. The more time I spent looking into ways to incorporate Twitter and Facebook into my business, the more I realized just how passionately I hate using those websites. So I’ve decided that Twitter and Facebook have no place in my online business simply because I hate using them so much.

The way I see it, the key is to focus on what you enjoy and what you’re good at, and don’t worry about trying to make money doing things you hate. I enjoy video marketing, and in particular posting videos on YouTube, so I’m going to continue to have video marketing and YouTube be the primary focus on my various websites, and I’m not going to worry about forcing myself to use other social media sites that I hate using.

I’m a huge fan of Dan Kennedy, but not just for his marketing expertise, I’m also a huge fan of Dan Kennedy’s attitude on success and enjoying the finer things in life. Here’s a quote from Dan’s book Making Them Believe:

I prefer the best option available to me in many things, and I am an unapologetic elitist. I worked hard and continue to work hard in exchange for opportunities, rights, privileges, benefits, privacy, and luxury that others cannot have, and I’ll admit that some of my enjoyment is fact that others can’t have it.

I don’t allow comments on this blog, or any of my other blogs. I used to allow comments on my Mode Athletics blog, but I eventually decided that I prefer my websites to be 100% my own writing, and not watered down by comments that I don’t feel add anything useful to my blogs. Also, managing spam comments was a pain in the ass that I no longer have to deal with. So I choose to not allow comments on my blogs, and I think the blogs are much better off that way.

I stumbled onto someone else’s internet marketing blog the other day, and I noticed that the guy allows comments, but rarely responds to them. So he ends up with lots of posts with one comment, and that comment is often a question, and those questions usually get ignored. Makes the guy running the website look like a complete asshole who likes snubbing his readers.

If you’re going to allow comments on your blog, you should read the comments and respond when necessary. If you’re too busy to respond to those comments, or just don’t feel like it, then disable comments on your blog. That way you won’t look like an asshole who doesn’t value your readers enough to respond to them when they ask a question via your blog comments.

Dan Kennedy is one of my all-time favourite authors on the topic of marketing (my other favourite is Seth Godin). I’m currently reading Making Them Believe, and I really enjoyed this quote from Dan:

Few people actually building businesses and reading Investor’s Business Daily and taking care to associate with productive people and profitable ideas have time to read gossip at Twitter.

I was reading a book today called “Internet Marketing From The Real Experts” (I didn’t like the book, but you might), and one of the things mentioned in the book is that apparently everyone and their dog now have a blog about how to make money online. That’s news to me because I do not read many blogs, and the few blogs I do read have nothing to do with internet marketing.

That got me thinking about whether Tack Marketing is just another “make money online” blog in a sea of blogs on that topic, and what I realized was that this blog is not about how to make money online. The primary theme of this blog is about how to perform all of the technical aspects required to make money online.

A few years ago when I used to read blogs about making money online, those blogs never, ever mentioned how to perform any of the technical tasks required to setup and maintain an online business. And I always noticed questions in the blog comments from complete web novices that had no idea what to do with the information that was being given on those blogs.

There were often posts in the comments from people who had precisely zero web experience, and they were frustrated that those blogs were writing about the importance of doing various tasks that required technical web knowledge, but did not explain how do perform any of those tasks.

I figured since I have an extensive background in web design and development, and I really enjoy that type of thing, I should start a blog and YouTube channel specifically designed to explain those complicated technical aspects of internet marketing to people who have little or no experience running an online business.

So the main goal of this website isnt to focus on how to make money online, but rather to focus on helping you learn how to perform all of the most useful technical tasks required to run an online business, so that you will be in a much better position to make money online.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Gary Vaynerchuk video I watched yesterday. In the video, Gary mentions time and again how important social media sites like Twitter are to businesses. I hate using Twitter (and Facebook) and I try to avoid them at all costs, but I really admire Gary and trust his judgement, so I’ve decided to setup a plan to start using Twitter and Facebook for my various online businesses, and I’ve also created Google Plus accounts for my various businesses.

But the most important thing that Gary talked about in the video is something that I don’t really agree with. He mentioned that the saying “content is king” is not accurate, and instead the most important word for your business should be “context” (i.e. the way in which you communicate with your customers). His logic was that there’s such a ridiculous amount of content nowadays, that it’s extremely difficult to stand out from anyone else just based on the quality of your content.

Perhaps I misunderstood the message Gary was trying to deliver, but that’s how I interpreted the main message of his speech, and I disagree with it. Yes, there’s a ton of content coming at us from every direction nowadays, but the vast majority of content I come across is absolute shit. From what I’ve seen online, it doesn’t appear to be particularly difficult to stand out from the crowd, attract attention, and generate lots of sales simply by posting better content that everyone else.

Either way, I’ve decided to trust Gary’s judgement as well as hedge my bets by trying to warm up to the various social media sites that deep down I really hate with a passion. Ideally my businesses will thrive based purely on quality content that’s significantly better than what that vast majority of people put out, but if it turns out that “context is king”, I plan to keep an open mind about sites like Twitter and Facebook so that I can use those websites if I need to.

I hate using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, therefore I hardly ever use them and put almost no effort into incorporating them into my online business.

I love Gary Vaynerchuk and receive a tremendous amount of motivation and inspiration from reading his books and watching his videos.

I was just watching a great video where Gary explained why he loves social media:

Because it sells shit.

Well said. At some point I think I am going to take another look at whether or not I’m willing to put some effort into Facebook and Twitter, perhaps for no other reason than, as Gary so eloquently put it, those websites sell shit.

If you’re an internet marketer and you’re interested in picking up some books that will help you with your online business, one of the best authors you can possibly put your trust in is Dan Kennedy. I’ve read the following Dan Kennedy books:

• No B.S. Business Success In The New Economy
• No B.S. Sales Success In The New Economy
• No B.S. Marketing To The Affluent
• No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs
• No B.S. Wealth Attraction For Entrepreneurs
• No B.S. Price Strategy
• The Ultimate Marketing Plan
• The Ultimate Sales Letter
• The Official Get Rich Guide To Information Marketing

All of those books are outstanding and worth every penny. I wish I could tell you which one or two of those books are the best of the bunch, but I can’t choose just one or two. They’re all phenomenal books and will help you make more money online.