I was inspired to write this Monday’s post by a few things. Number one is the personal business opportunities I have right now, however the blog title and idea really came from a book that I just bought and will be reading listening to on the way to Amsterdam. The book is a bestseller called “Good To Great” by Jim Collins. The tag line of the book is “Why Some Companies Make The Leap And Others Don’t”

Throughout my tenure in the business world I have been involved in several different companies. Before working for myself, most of my positions were sales jobs. Several paid very well, but to be honest they were Fortune 500 companies and I really didn’t have the opportunity to change the organization, or make a massive impact on the companies bottom line. Even as a sales manager, I was several rungs down the ladder from the executive levels.

After leaving these jobs, I spent a few years as a one man show doing my own thing. Although I did enjoy the few years that I worked by myself from home or a small office, I did miss the team atmosphere. I won’t even mention how much I missed the resources of in-house support, technology, web design, accounting, human resources, etc. Although I still work from my home and pretty much do my own thing, it is awesome being a part of a growing and progressive organization.

In my role with Affiliate Programs Inc., I now have the opportunity to use this leadership position to take my division from good to great. When I think of great, I think of a division that is generating several millions of dollars in profit each month. I foresee each of my employees honestly being able to say “I love my job”. I also envision greatness as having core business foundation that can endure and continue to thrive for several years to come.

Being only 31 years old and having this type of opportunity is truly amazing.

So here is a thought for the readers. Many of you often here the super affiliates talking about how great it is to not be in the 9-5 grind, or how none of us miss working for the man. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t miss all the bullshit involved in making <$100K in Corporate America. However, believe me, there are just as many hassles and nuances when you are working as a one man show running your affiliate business.

The point is that it’s important to embrace where you’re at in life right now. Going from good to great is actually much easier when you have a team to work with, and you’re surrounded by other successful people. The definition of good to great is going to be different for every person and every business. But no matter what you are doing as a career right now, why not try to take it from good to great.

Maybe you’re not working as independently as you would like right now. Or perhaps you want to get out of the existing company you’re in at some point. That’s all fine, but in the meantime, why not embrace what you’re doing right now and make it GREAT.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to get comfortable or complacent when things are going well. To be great though, or to build a great business, I think you have to always be progressive and be thinking about long term success. Once I finish this book, I’ll give a better wrap up of the actual concept and how to incorporate these principles into your business.

The week before a big conference is always somewhat busy. It seems like 100 people want to meet with me, and I want to meet with 100 different people. Anyone who knows me also knows I hate formal sit down chit chat meetings. The good news however is that every meeting I am scheduling or trying to schedule at CAC has a dollar sign attached to it.

I have been to enough of these things, and attend all the parties each night that it is really a waste to schedule a meeting, just to say “we had a meeting”. Any meetings I have scheduled should have a goal of me making money and the other party making money.

I don’t know what it is about Amsterdam though, but I can truly say it is one of my favorite cities in Europe. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the red light district, coffee shops, or live sex shows either. It’s probably just all the bicycles everywhere since I am an avid mountain biker. At least that’s the story I am sticking to.

Regarding Amsterdam, I’m not supposed to say anything yet, unless I could lose my position at Affiliate Programs Inc. But I heard a rumor that the bar directly in front of the Krasnopolsky will be occupied every day between 2:00 - 5:00 PM. Rumor has it that the bar staff and bar will be branded with PAP, CAP, Poker Conference stuff. I also heard that there will be shirts and pimped out PAP track jackets being given away.

This could be a great spot to relax and have some free drinks each day. Or an even better spot to schedule your meetings.

Also this blog design has gotten really boring and stale. The sitemap doesn’t work, it looks like shit in IE, the search feature is non existent, and generally there are several other things I just don’t like about it. Thank God I don’t depend on this blog to make any income. I’d be screwed.

Nonetheless it does get a fair amount of traffic, so I suppose I should do an overhaul. My friend Bryan Hauer does some pretty kick ass blog designs and is going to do this one. I just saw the mock up today and it looks really good. So don’t be alarmed in a few days when you show up here and see a new look.

Okay, I know I often make posts that would piss off the normal wife. But today I am going to give you guys an idea of something that will make your wife absolutely LOVE that you are in the internet business.

A couple years ago my wife was always bugging me to make her a website to simply post all her pictures on. This way our family members and her friends not living around here could see all our recent pictures. Plus it would be an easy way to archive pictures digitally. To be honest it sounded like a nice idea, but a pain in the ass to design or outsource. So I did a little searching and found a great solution.

For the record this is not an affiliate link or paid plug, it’s just what I use. We have been using Phanfare, and for the low cost it is a great solution. You can upload photo albums, and even do some kick ass slide shows. Actually the slide shows with music are the best part.

So a couple years ago, when I found phanfare I set up an account and uploaded my first album and slideshow. The site is easier to use than any CMS you will ever work with. You just drag and drop your pictures, then choose your background and select music for the slideshow. When I set it up and made my first slide show, I surprised my wife with it. Seriously, it brought tears to her eyes. Pictures of kids and sappy music….. you know this is going to bring tears to a wifes eyes. (I think I got laid a big hug and kiss for doing this)

Anyhow, this is a great site and I highly recommend it to anyone with kids or tons of pictures. Below is my wife’s site and our latest slide show from our Disneyland vacation. For a few dollars a month, you can’t beat it.

Watch this slide show, and this is what my life revolves around.  You could take away everything  I have in this world, and as long as I have these three girls in my life I will be happy. I love my family!

Our DisneyLand Vacation Slideshow
The Main Website

Well, I am back in the office today recharged and ready to go after a nice vacation. Below is a guest post from one our PAP members (ThePokerBank) from NewPokerAffiliate.com. I think the topic of procrastination is one that is very pertinent in the world of affiliate marketing. Nice article ThePokerBank.

Stop Reading This Blog

Whoa, for a guest post we can safely say that that is a pretty ballsy title. You would think I might want to be a little sweeter when being handed the privilege to write a post on J’s blog. But hey, it’s caught your attention and it has a lot of relevance to what this post is about. So without further ado, let me explain why you should stop reading this blog right now. (Well, maybe wait until after reading this article).

The problem that plagues many a poker affiliate is procrastination. If there were never any distractions whilst sitting down at your computer, you could churn out boat loads of articles every day, as well as avidly develop your site(s) to build them into big money making machines. However, it’s always a lot easier to just throw on some music and browse YouTube amongst other things, rather than open up your word processor and start typing.

In fact, I can safely assume that many of you that are reading this very post right now are procrastinating, and simply putting off ‘proper’ work that will be more beneficial in the long run. I’m sure many of you might be thinking “shit, he’s hit the nail on the head there”, and you can think of a great list of things that you could be doing right now instead of reading this post. I know this, because I can be a pro-procrastinator at times as well.

In fact, I’m lucky to have this post on Jeremy’s blog, because it’s at the end of the week that he allocated readers to send in guest posts. When I first noticed that Jeremy was accepting guest posts, I thought “great! I’ll get on it right away”. But here I am on a Sunday afternoon hoping that this post is going to make it onto the blog, and that I haven’t missed the bus. It’s terrible I know, but it just shows how easily things can be put on the back-burner, even for great affiliates like me *cough*.

There are always those stats that could do with an extra look-over, just so you can try and look for something interesting or useful. There are always those marketing blogs that you enjoy reading, which you can comb through for a good hour or so. There are always forums that you can browse in an attempt to pick up a new gem of information to help you make more money. However, all of this stuff simply distances you from the work you could be doing that will actually make you money.

It’s obviously a good idea to do all of the things mentioned above, but you have to do them in moderation. Looking at forums, stats and blogs is great, but they are only going to get you so far. You have to be able to distinguish between the times spent doing these things that actually help you in the long run, and when the time you spend doing them is just an excuse for procrastination. It’s not hard to know when you are actually procrastinating, but actually getting around to doing work is a completely different story.

If I can give you one tip, it would be to have a list of things to do placed prominently somewhere on your desk or wall. As Jeremy mentioned in one of his posts, having a whiteboard is a great way to list all of the things that you need to do each day, or over the coming weeks. You can get them for a few dollars (small ones), and they really make a difference when it comes to getting organised. Alternatively, a simple pen and paper is an equally effective way of getting yourself organised and putting your work into focus.

So there we go. I’m not going to drag on and keep you from your work, so I’m going to wrap up this post quickly. Plus its an excuse to write a shorter article and give my fingers a rest . So start focusing on what really benefits your site, and actually get down to work when you sit at your computer. Turn off all distractions, and start writing content and developing your sites. You can procrastinate as much as you like and dress it up as ‘work’, but it’s not going to bring in the money at the end of the day.

Greg Walker is an active poker affiliate and is known by many on PAP as ThePokerBank. Greg also operates NewPokerAffiliate.com which is a great resource for new poker affiliates.