Often times it is easy to look at the super affiliates and think they somehow had a magic formula or were “in the right place at the right time”. Or it’s easy to think that for some people, everything they touch turns to gold. This really isn’t true at all, especially for internet entrepreneurs.

I got the idea to write this post from a blog post over at shoemoney. The one thing I have always tried to do in this blog is be real and be myself. I realize some things I say may stir up controversy or could make me look like a clown. But to be honest I own 100% of JeremyEnke.com, and this is who I am. If you don’t like it, look to the top right and click the red X.

So now let’s talk about failure. When I think back over the last 10 years of being an entrepreneur, I can think of about 10 things that have been extremely successful. On the flip side I can think of 90 things that have failed miserably. The failures started with an online casino that I pissed away somewhere around $15K - $20K on. At that time I really didn’t have that kind of money to lose either, oops. I tried Ebay, I tried vitamins, I tried porn, you name it I have failed at it.

These were the early days though. Heck, for some of you that have been around over the last few years, you can probably think of some monumental JE failures as well. This is all part of the game though and I am not embarrassed by it or afraid to talk about some of my debacles in business. Aside from deep frying turkey’s, I am not perfect. Failure, risk, and losing money is all a part of this business at some point. Luckily so is making tons of money when your ship comes in.

Over the years I have seen many affiliates come and go. Typically the ones you see go are the ones that have some great idea that is going to make millions. When it doesn’t they simply give up. Nothing gives me more pride though than seeing the guys that started out with nothing, and are now doing this full time making a nice income.

My favorite quote that I have in my forum sig. is “There are a million ways to make a million dollars, you only have to find one”. This is the truth too. And believe me, there is a 99.9% chance that you will not come up with this idea in your first 10 attempts.

In order to be a super affiliate or ultra successful, you have to realize that failure is part of the business. You also need to embrace failure and use these experiences as learning experiences versus discouraging experiences.

I hate to fail at stuff, but it is all part of the experience in the pathway to success. My latest failure was putting Adsense on this blog….. well that and the FullTilt banner. What a waste. FWIW, affiliates don’t click on anything here except that sweet corner peel! So I did the only logical thing I could think of and signed up for affiliate programs selling Pimp Chalices and Sweat Sedos! Play on Playa.

As many of you know Brandon has taken a promotion at ChanPoker.com. He started within the organization as Director of Affiliates and quickly has moved up to the ranks to now being in charge of the affiliate program as well as being the Poker Room Manager. I have been friends with Brandon since 2005 and have also done business with him on various levels. We have had ChanPoker on several of our language sites at PokerNews and it is converting very well for us.

Below are 5 reasons why poker affiliates should be promoting the ChanPoker Affiliate Program.

1. The Affiliate Department - In this industry it’s easy to sign up for programs, send players, and then realize that the affiliate department has terrible support. I can’t count the number of times it has taken me over a week to get a response from AM’s at various places. With Brandon running the program here, this will not happen. We have had queries at PAW, and our emails always get answered within hours, not days. The support is amazing.

2. The Brand - When launching a new poker site now days, it is imperative to have a strong brand. I can’t think of a better brand than Johnny Chan. He is one of the most legendary players in the world.

3. The Gaming Platform - ChanPoker.com is on the Ongame network. This is good because when you send players, you know that they will have action. Nothing is worse than sending a 2-4NL player to a newer room, and the biggest game running is a micro-limit game. With the ongame network, this will never be a problem.

4. The Affiliate Platform - Of course I would encourage you to promote ChanPoker through the PAW Network to get the premium deal, but I do understand everyone has different needs and wants. Regardless, the ChanPoker Affiliate backend is very nice and easy to use. This was a custom designed interface and probably one of the nicer affiliate platforms I have dealt with recently.

5. Brandon Berndt - Last but not least; I think the shear fact that Brandon is not only the director of affiliates, but also the poker room manager gives me an added trust in the room. I have worked closely with Brandon on several projects, and I know his ethics are amongst the highest in the industry. Likewise he is willing to go above and beyond to make sure both his players and his affiliates have a first class experience.

I asked the man himself what he envisioned for the future of ChanPoker, and here is what he said:

“I am really excited about the opportunities for affiliates at ChanPoker.com. In the last month we have been seeing an explosive growth in the number of both players and affiliates signing up at ChanPoker.” I think a couple of our strongest assets are as follow;

1. The network is robust and already has a large number of players with action at all limits. This allows for a much better rentention rate than many of the smaller rooms in the market.

2. Our commitment to both players and affiliates is unparalleled. I will work on a personal level with any affiliate to help them achieve their maximum potential through our partnership.”

To start promoting ChanPoker.com, you can get a great 35% revenue share going through the Poker Affiliate World Network. Or you can sign up directly through the ChanPoker Affiliate Program and negotiate your own rate.

Happy Monday folks. Hopefully everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed watching the Bears win as much as I did. A “w” is a “w”, but for the love of God…………what happened to the defending NFC Champions that I watched last year. Every quarterback on this team is about as useless as rubber lips on a woodpecker!

Courtesy of Ron Turner & Co., I am going to lose a crazy prop bet and have to get my head shaved this year on New Years Eve. <————tape delayed on Youtube of course

Saturday night we threw a surprise party for one of my best friends Karl. My wife and I, along with our other buddy John and his girlfriend, and of course Karl and his wife ate at THE best restaurant in our town to get the night started. This is an Italian restaurant named Maria’s and is soooo old school Italian. Literally you are eerily reminded of several Soprano’s episodes when eating here. All the regulars (Italian’s) go back into the kitchen and exchange kisses on the cheek with the cooks. When I say hard core Italian restaraunt, this is what I mean.

I am fairly certain if my half Norwegian, half German, half Swedish ass went into the kitchen………….. I would have my kneecaps broken.

Nonetheless we had a 7 course meal, an unbelievable steak, and a $125 bottle of Merlot. Hands down, eating at Maria’s is always an experience to remember. The food is amazing, the atmosphere is incredible, and we were with our best friends. And we had an overnight babysitter for the kids. You can’t beat that for a Saturday night.

So after dinner we had to rush to the club where Karl’s wife Amy did a kick ass job setting up the surprise party for him. She rented out the back room of a local sports bar, ordered beer, food, the whole thing. And if this was not enough, she even had a band playing. When we showed up, there were between 75-100 people. Oh Snap, let the party begin.

We had an absolute blast. I couldn’t think of a good gift to get Karl, so I got him what any good friend would get a buddy turning 30; his very own Pimp Chalice. You can see the pictures below.

Overall it was a great weekend. I got to stand up and say a few words about the old guy Karl. I was a little buzzed, but Karl is a great friend and has probably accounted for much of my success. Many of my biggest business decisions have been made on Thursday nights over beers and advice with Karl. Here are a few of the pictures below.

Tomorrow’s post will be a good review of the ChanPoker Affiliate Program and 5 reasons why you need to be promoting them.

In the part of town this bar was is in, the average yearly household income is around $22K……..I suppose Karl and I would be considered ballas! Obviously only ballers drink out of chalice’s too.

This is Karl and his wife Amy. She did an awesome job planning this whole shindig. Plus her and Karl have 4 kids…..yes 4, and she is still quite hot.

This is my wife and I obviously. She got a bit tipsy that evening and tried to take advantage of me later in the night. I was so offended, but as always gave in to peer pressure.

This is Mrs. E, Karl’s mom. How could I not put a picture of her drinking out of a Pimp Chalice onto the internet? Sorry Mr. E, I had to do it…….

Please notice the man on the left of the picture below, also known as Johnny Maples. Someone get this man another beer immediately.

And finally let’s have a look at Karl. Anyone that knows Karl will tell you that this man can tell a story like no one else. Unfortunately on this particular evening I think the facial expressions on the other peoples faces pretty much sums up his level of sobriety by the end of the evening.

Happy Birthday Karl. Welcome to the old age club.

Hopefully all of you poker affiliates reading this had a great week and are spending all that affiliate money that came in. The first week of the month is always fun getting fedex checks, bank wires, and of course the random $32.56 checks that you have no idea where they came from.

Anyhow Kyle and I had a site made a few months ago called SocialMarketingWorld.com. We haven’t done anything with the site and we are really perplexed if we should scrap the idea, develop it, form a joint venture, or even sell it.

The concept is to do a site like PokerAffiliateWorld.com but for the social marketers. For example, all the mass of internet marketers trying to get into Digg, Facebook, Myspace, Stumbleupon, and all the other social media.

Essentially we would take the PAW business model and do the exact same thing, but for social marketers and obviously not poker affiliates. The PAW business model (prior to the network) was a business model that worked very well. And you can probably see the similarities in this site. Although the backend CMS and url structure on this site is way better than PAW.

The fundamental problem we struggle with however is that everyone knows how hard it is to get a new forum going now days. If we do move forward with the plan, I imagine we will need to buy some advertising on other webmaster communities. Likewise we will probably buy a ton of content, and with Kyle’s sick SEO skills we will be ranking for all kinds of terms. Then of course we would be able to monetize the site by selling advertising, or even just do 2nd tier affiliate deals with all the ad spaces you see on the right.

Normally I wouldn’t share plans for a new business or site with the masses. But today we discussed selling the site or what to do with it, and I think Kyle and I both agree that we are not sure. So with that, we’d love to hear all your comments both good and bad if this site has legs or not.

Keep in mind, it is just a shell right now and we haven’t done barely any work on it. Should we decide to develop it, obviously there would tons more content and we would get rid of the Nokia spam in the forums. There are so many other brilliant minds that read this blog, we would love to here the feedback from our affiliate friends in the industry. And don’t worry good or bad, we want to hear it all.

Likewise if anyone has interest in doing this as a joint venture, Kyle and I are open to any ideas on the site. There you have it. Don’t hijack the idea, bitches…… email me first.

Now don’t be shy, give us your comments and feedback!