I’m kinda stuck, Dave. I really want to learn how to really focus my blog efforts so I can gain more business advantage, but I haven’t been inspired yet. Worse, I am stuck out in the boonies and don’t have any Internet folk or bloggers in the area who can help me advance. So, help, what do I do?
I hear your frustration and know exactly what you mean about the difficulty of finding quality professionals who can help you form what I would naturally call a mastermind group. I’m blessed to be in an area where there are lots of startups and very sharp people, but even then, all too many professionals seem to be focused on “what can you do for me?” without remembering that the best way to get help is to give it…
I won’t slip into some political diatribe, however! Let’s focus on your specific question.
The good news is that the Internet makes quite a lot possible that was darn difficult in the past. I’m in a business brainstorming group, for example, with members spread throughout the United States and we communicate primarily through email, but all have each other’s phone numbers programmed in our speed dials and often have one-on-one discussions rather spontaneously. If you ping a few people you think could be helpful to you, perhaps one or more of them are already in a group of this nature and could invite you to join them?
There are also training courses available in the business and blogging space, including my own well-regarded Exploding Your Business with Blogging course, 10 hours of recorded audio content and one-on-one coaching calls.
In fact, with this question in mind, I recorded a recent coaching call I had with Durk Price, and he’s consented to having it available here. You can listen to the Mp3 recording or I have the transcript available later in this posting too:
Finally, the best way to learn how to focus your blogging efforts is to just read a lot of other bloggers and keep asking the question what are they doing that’s working and what are they doing that isn’t working?
Good luck with your blogging efforts!!
Transcript of Coaching Call between Dave Taylor and Durk Price
First off, some context from Durk: “I have been doing Internet web design, programming and marketing for over 12 years. My current company, eAccountable Marketing Services has been around for 6 years and specializes in affiliate marketing. My affiliate targeted blogs are: AffGoo – Sticking Affiliates and Advertisers Together, and Affiliate News Review – Delivering News, Information and Press Releases Targeted to the Affiliate Industry.”
Durk Price: My two blogs are AffGoo.com and AffiliateNewsReview.com. Those are really targeted – what I’m |
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0:40 | Dave Taylor: Right. And I think – exacerbated by the fact that sites like Commission Junction, I think, have a – just a terrible interface. I think it’s extremely unnecessarily difficult to find affiliate programs. If you’re a publisher and you want to be able to say – “I’m going to write about this topic. Let me go see if there’s a way that I can make a few bucks since I’m going to mention this product anyway.” Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: That’s a real problem. And I think that |
1:12 | Durk Price: Yeah. And they’ve got – and one of the things is, of course, I was at CJ University this fall. They talked about – “Oh you got to build relationships with affiliates.” And I’m going – “Well, give me a break guys. You don’t even share their email addresses with the affiliate managers.” And I said – “Now, what’s happening is that firstly, all the good affiliates, in particular, are now sharing their email address and their account, manage your deal by squeezing it in there.” I don’t even know how they do it but they do it. And so, what What they’re afraid of and why they did it – they were afraid that |
2:19 | Dave Taylor: Right. I think that’s a little bit of red herring anyway because if I’m an affiliate, I want to know how I can be more successful. Durk Price: Yes. Dave Taylor: I want to know – what are the new |
2:51 | Durk Price: Yeah. And so what I’m trying to do is obviously do that, and I’ve got 7 or 8 programs I either blog for or manage. And so I’m in the process of blogging them up basically to get some natural stuff going to them with everything I can do to help them get their visibility up. This helps me recruiting affiliates. Dave |
3:21 | Durk Price: And so I mean, it’s kind of a straightforward deal. So my sites really aren’t commercial in the way that I’m trying to make an affiliate feed, but what I’m trying to do is show expertise in that industry. And I just did a post – again, I’m not – I Dave Taylor: That’s still pretty decent. |
3:57 | Durk Price: Yeah. It’s not bad. So, yeah. Very useful to me. It’s useful for my clients to want to know what I do for them. I just had a client who sold out their website to another company, and so we’re negotiating continuing on providing the affiliate management for them. And so we’re doing a new offer. The first time we’ve |
4:39 | Dave Taylor: Right. You know what? For the space you’re in, I think that a blog is a very logical communication tool between the merchant and the affiliate. Durk Price: Dave Taylor: If I want to learn more about an affiliate |
5:23 | It’s totally unclear to me why more affiliate companies aren’t doing that sort of thing either directly and sponsored or indirectly through having someone who’s an affiliate manager like you and outsource.
Durk Price: And the closest I’ve come is I’ve got one call But yeah. We’re in the process of – that’ll be a good resource. I was |
6:16 | Dave Taylor: No. I’m afraid I don’t.
Durk Price: He basically has Lobster Gram. And he’s |
7:06 | Dave Taylor: Right. I mean, it really is just very baffling; the whole fact that none of the companies that are doing affiliate programs are selling their program. Even Amazon – the 800-hundred pound gorilla in the space that pulls in $2 billion a year off their Associates Program. They still don’t sell the program. They still just assume that you want to join because you can make a dollar. Durk |
8:10 | Dave Taylor: Correct.
Durk What I’ve been pitching the merchants who have been trying to get to do Dave Taylor: Right. And the thing is that – one of the Durk Price: Yes. Dave Taylor: And I think that there are some very good Durk Price: Yes. |
9:01 | Dave Taylor: And they’re staying on top of, for example, the affiliate space. Whatever it is, they’re paying attention to everything going on. And they’re starting to do their own analysis. And then frankly, they’re going to start getting feedback. One The more you’re open, the more you’re actually engaging that dialog, then |
9:41 | Durk Price: I think the whole issue of openness is what scares retailers or merchants more than anything. They just don’t understand that in the internet, it’s an open market place, and the more you close it, the less likely you are to get the results you want.
Dave Taylor: Right. Having said that, I think that there Durk Price: Well, yes. Dave Taylor: I think that if you’re – I think it’s Well, that’s the kind of stuff where it shouldn’t be much of a surprise Durk Price: Yeah. |
10:36 | Dave Taylor: But it’s certainly quite consistent with a lot of organizations to just sway – “You know what? We’re not just going to have comments or we’re going to have comments but we’re going to check them before they’re posted just to make sure that no one’s being really mean.” But the thing is, that doesn’t really resolve the problem. So you don’t really help anything. Durk Price: Dave Taylor: Yeah. I believe some comments because my Durk Price: Yeah. Absolutely. Dave Taylor: Now I send like a parent but – Durk Price: Which you are. |
11:18 | Dave Taylor: But the comments that I believe are the ones where I have an extremely long and active thread talking about how to cancel your AOL account and how that can be really challenging. Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: And every so often someone will post and Durk Price: And it’s not purposeful either. It’s not – Dave Taylor: Yeah. But what I find interesting is that |
11:55 | Durk Price: And you know that’s a real person then it’s reasonable at that point. The only ones I’m getting because I don’t get enough traffic is I’m still getting the automated ones.
Dave Taylor: Right. And so the key – this is the $64,000 Durk Price: Yes. |
12:19 | Dave Taylor: And that is so important that I encourage my clients to spend more time doing that than writing their own blog entries. And then the other half of that is that by the very So if you’re generous and you link to other people, then you will find Durk Price: And I do that – do practice that and that – And the Shawn Collins of the world appreciate even – we’re only in quasi Dave Taylor: Yeah. |
13:24 | Durk Price: I’ll just be known as a good guy to him and vice versa which I obviously think of him. Dave Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: And we actually email back and forth Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: And I think that everyone who thinks – I This is a space of such great abundance. There are millions of people Durk Price: Yeah. |
14:15 | Dave Taylor: And there’s space for you and someone else and maybe 3 other someone elses to all be successful together. Durk Price: Yeah. I agree, and I think that’s And then at my AffGoo site, which is really where I shamelessly flog my Dave Taylor: Yes. |
15:35 | Durk Price: He has done a couple of – he used to be in the affiliate area, and he’s done a couple of really hilarious videos recently. So I’ve been plugging some of that stuff in just to be different. Dave Taylor: I would caution you to be a Durk Price: Yeah. We’ve been seeing that. Yeah. |
16:05 | Dave Taylor: Right. And if all you have is duplicate content from somewhere else on the internet, then you could actually end up with that site just not existing for the search engine. I actually have a blog that I’ve been experimenting that last I checked actually had vanished from Google. And it was just an article that I got from other sites. Again, I wanted to see what would happen, and sure Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: And that might be something where, in That – I think that that actually over time will be a less and less |
17:05 | Durk Price: More like Squidoo Lens. Dave Taylor: Durk Price: I’m just putting my RSS feed in there. And Dave Taylor: Right. And there are definitely some Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: I’ll do well for a while and then I won’t, Durk Price: Yeah. |
17:43 | Dave Taylor: But to me, it’s really much more about – I want to build a long-term business and I want to have something that I’m not going to have to reinvent in 18 months because something’s gone south. I want to know exactly what Google and MSN and Yahoo wants. And I want to always meet all of those criteria. And if they came back tomorrow and said – “You can’t use the word cat on your site.” I’m going to delete the word cat. Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: Because for better or worse, they’re the |
18:12 | Durk Price: Anybody who thinks otherwise who thinks they can get around them, they’re – world domination is a real opportunity for Google, I think. The way they’re doing some –
Durk Price: Yeah. Well that’s true too. Whether you Dave Taylor: So tell me a little bit about the specific |
18:43 | Durk Price: Well really, I have 2 targets. One is obviously getting affiliates to come to these sites and The second purpose, and really is much as main as anything, is the fact |
19:55 | Dave Taylor: Right. I mean, when I look at the AffGoo site, it still feels like you’re a little heavy on the sort of marketing hype. Lots of bold face. Lots of exclamation marks. It looks to me like the most recent piece on BeautyTrends, I’m unclear what these pictures are, there’s this 2 attractive women. I mean, obviously it’s typically never a bad thing to include pictures of attractive women in your blog entry. Let’s not go too far down that path. Durk Price: Dave Taylor: But, what that has to do with this site is |
20:46 | Durk Price: BeautyTrends sells wigs and hair pieces. So it’s a better description of the article. Yeah.
That’s really good because one of the first mistakes that I think a lot Durk Price: Right. |
21:35 | Dave Taylor: Because obviously the people just get fatigued. I mean, even if you’re the best catalog with thousands and thousands of products, the fact is I really don’t want to read a product of the day everyday for the rest of my life. Durk Price: Dave Taylor: I don’t really care how fabulous your Now, here’s something where they could, for example, really take over Durk Price: Yeah. |
22:30 | Dave Taylor: And I think that could be hugely successful. Durk Price: I’m probably running I think social bookmarking is important. And it showed us a pebble – |
23:18 | Dave Taylor: Right. As I look at the AffGoo.com – make sure people listening can get to your site. There’s also a lot of jargon here. And if I did What’s an EPC? Why should I care? And why is $174 high? And what’s Durk Price: Yeah. Well again, that is industry. Dave Taylor: Right. And so then that leads to Durk Price: Yeah. |
24:04 | Dave Taylor: One of the things that I’ve found very beneficial for companies that are getting into the blog space is to think of your reader as broadly as possible. If it’s someone who’s already a super expert and knows Commission Junction inside out and scrapes the database every morning, then you’re not going to be helping them. Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: Because they’re already going to know all But for example, if BeautyTrends Durk Price: Yeah. |
24:52 | Dave Taylor: And now, not only are you offering ideas to people that are doing affiliate sales because they’re going to be like – “Ooh I could do that. That’s a great idea.” But you’re also offering benefit to the companies. And so, wouldn’t it be a nice Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: I assume that would be a very positive Durk Price: Yes. Yeah because I’m sure that you found |
25:28 | Dave Taylor: Yeah. Frankly, I’m at the point now where I’m like – “Don’t email me. Don’t say I have this really cool new startup. Do you want a test account?” It seems like – “I don’t have the bandwidth.” Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: But on the other hand, it’s so incredibly What about an affiliate network that’s just launching and has 5 merchants How do you get on that radar screen? How do you be one of the top 10 in Durk Price: Yeah. |
26:18 | Dave Taylor: I think that there’s plenty of space. Durk Price: That’s my goal. Yeah. Dave Taylor: I’m sorry? Durk Price: That’s frankly my goal. Dave Taylor: Right. And so to get there, #1, I think Huge concept here is that it’s not about the sales. It’s about the Durk Price: Right. |
26:55 | Dave Taylor: And I think that the affiliates that are very successful are the ones that are saying – “I’m going to really build my own store. And it’s just going to happen to be affiliate links to other stores for fulfillment. But I’m going to think of them as my customers, not theirs. And I’m going to give them my customer service and I’m going to make this better.” You look at people like what Durk Price: Right. |
27:33 | Dave Taylor: But to get started, they were doing affiliate stuff but they always, from the beginning said – “I want this to be my store. It’s not a database. I’m not buying a template from somebody. I’m going to build the store.” And I’m going to have Things like that where you’re still very focused on your market but |
28:20 | And in the same way – some of the other articles you have on your blog – Google YouTube – okay, well that’s a fascinating one. What would it look like for you as an affiliate to start doing videos? You get a couple of products. Maybe you get the new iPod Shuffle, this tiny little thing not much bigger than your thumb. And what if you did a couple of little videos on how to use it and why it’s really cool and innovative ways you can clip this on women on bikinis or something. And so it’s perfect for the beach. Or you can put it in a Ziploc bag and now it’s water proof.
And then you just start putting those up on YouTube and those are traffic Durk Price: Yeah. |
29:04 | Dave Taylor: So that I think is very different from saying – “I’m just going to quote Mark Cuban’s blog about YouTube and Google.” It’s interesting but you’re not in the space of saying – “Here’s interesting news in the tech world.” You’re in the space just saying – “I’m going to connect affiliates and products so that everyone can be a little bit more successful.” Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: That’s the web, you can make up words. Durk Price: You can blog that and get in on Google. Dave Taylor: Right. And that’s not – If I may say, |
30:05 | Durk Price: Yeah.
Dave Taylor: Durk Price: Right. Dave Taylor: I noticed in the Durk Price: Yeah. |
30:38 | Dave Taylor: So even the voice of this makes it sound like it’s not your content. And that just – it’s just putting up a little speed bump, if you will, for someone actually joining or going through your program or subscribing to your blog. If you just asked Durk Price: Yeah. |
31:21 | Dave Taylor: And one of the things that I encourage people to do a lot, and I know you obviously already have the wear-with-all for this – is if you can’t write, speak. And then send it to a transcription service. Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: If you’re doing 5 minutes and then all You just find someone, and there are actually people for example here in |
32:03 | You know what? 5 minutes of voicemail – it sounds like a long voicemail message, it becomes 300 words of text. You go through the most rudimentary edit, you post it, and now you never have to type. You never have to look at a blank screen. You’re just leaving voicemail. And Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: And for executives also, it’s the kind of |
32:58 | Durk Price: I’ve got a friend of mine who actually drives an hour and 15 minutes to and from work each day, and he has his laptop open when he’s driving home. I don’t know how he gets any sound quality but he says he actually dictates into his computer on the drive.
He’ll get a couple of thousand words out into some kind of content that Dave Taylor: I think that’s brilliant. And I think Personally, that wasn’t anything I was interested in, but a lot of people |
33:47 | Durk Price: I’ve done a – we did a – there’s – speaking of emerging guys, I started working with a company out of Utah (www.avantlink.com) that has an emerging RSS technology for affiliate program for an affiliate network. And I did an interview with them in Park City at the Wasatch Pub right on Main Street in Park City with the trolley going down the road going ding-ding like he was in San Francisco. I like podcasting that way. I think it’s Dave Taylor: Great. |
34:18 | Durk Price: And yesterday, I was doing Jim Lillig’s podcast. He was actually driving and he had an ambulance go by him, so cut – we cut that and – that was shortly after he told me he had been in the adult industry for a while. But they weren’t coming to take him away. But, yeah. That’s the kind of stuff that’s – you can do that’s This CampSaver guys, they used to YouTube – if you typed in hiking or camping, that’s the point I’m trying |
35:25 | Dave Taylor: Right. And that’s all going to be changing. Durk Price: Yup. Dave Taylor: There’s a lot coming out in that space. Durk Price: Yeah. And it’s just going to get easier to Dave Taylor: Right. So, good. I think we’ve actually Durk Price: Yeah. I think that – what I’ve been just – I added the YouTube plugin to AffGoo |
36:33 | Dave Taylor: I have to say that generally I don’t really pay much attention to things like plugins because I think that at the end of the day, it’s really the content that’s going to make or break things. Durk Price: Okay. Dave Taylor: And I would encourage you, instead of You have a start and that’s good, but what can you – how can you leave Durk Price: Yeah. I like that. |
37:19 | Dave Taylor: If you look at stuff like ReveNews, not a day goes by that there’s not some solid excellent article on something to do with affiliate marketing. Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: And so, where are you in those Durk Price: No. And that’s – and I am in those Dave Taylor: Right. Well, and there are people that do Durk Price: Yeah. |
37:46 | Dave Taylor: There are definitely people that post very infrequently but every post they make is great, like Wayne Porter’s. He’s just head and shoulders above everyone else as far as I’m concerned. But even the people that might not be at his level but are Durk Price: Yeah. |
38:10 | Dave Taylor: And I don’t do it from the perspective of – how can I get those people to my blog? I do it from the perspective of – I want to be pervasive. I want people to say – whenever I bump into something from Dave, it’s always a good comment. Durk Dave Taylor: The guy’s really smart. He’s really sharp Durk Price: Okay. Well this has been great. I |
39:05 | Dave Taylor: I like to think a lot in terms of a cocktail party. If you and I were at a party with a group of other people, and you walked in the room or when you would first walk in the room, you thought – “Ooh prospects.” What would you say? How would you be You wouldn’t walk in and say – “Hey let me tell you about this great new Durk Price: Yeah. Dave Taylor: But if everyone’s talking about movies and Wow that is cool. How do you do that? “Well, let me tell you about how this works. That is – do you have a Durk Price: Yeah. |
40:02 | Dave Taylor: And so, that’s a very, very different approach. One of the things that you’ve heard on the audio Durk Price: Right. Dave Taylor: So all this revolves in – ever fast, Durk Price: Yeah. |
40:52 | Dave Taylor: And the way they got there isn’t by selling, selling, selling. But by contributing and thinking and offering new and interesting value, and really helping people be successful; as opposed to worrying about whether every single thing they did was to make them more successful. Durk Price: Okay. Dave Taylor: So great. Well thanks. I appreciate your Durk Price: Well thank you and how – |
Dave,
Just a note to say I really appreciate your transcripts. I’m hard of hearing and can’t ever get much out of audio files, so you’re not only helping the blind guy (assuming he might have done the transcrition ;)) you’re helping the deaf girl too.