I am making this blog post for two reasons. Number one to let people know about what is going on with my new project AffiliatePrograms.com, but also to clear up some questions many of you may have. Trust me, a lot will come clear after you read this. Sorry, it might be long.

Many people are confused as hell and have no idea why I left PAW and the PAW Network. In fact too many people still associate the PAP forums and PAW as one in the same. When I started PartyRiches, I had a dream of building the largest poker affiliate community in the world. Well, I did that and it continues to be a great experience. Then we started a network, and that was very profitable and still is. The PAW Network is actually a brilliant concept.

However a year or so ago I realized that I wanted to do more than just run a poker affiliate community. I love the poker affiliate market, but I also love the general affiliate market. I have always wanted to build the biggest general affiliate forum in the world. Plus I have always wanted to host conferences, and to be honest, be with a U.S. based company.

I’ve known the guys at AffiliatePrograms.com (who are also the parent company of CAP & PAP) for many years. I’ve always believed the way they run their business was second to none. In fact, in the back of my mind I always thought, “I want to partner with these guys”. So last year in Barcelona, I finally sat down with Warren and we had a great talk about the market and the overall future of the industry.

To make a long story short, partnering with them made sense. I wanted to work with a progressive company that owns the affiliate market. Likewise I think in millions, and I wanted the opportunity to manage several different brands and profit centers that will make the company and myself both seven figures. Leaving PAW was tough as my heart and passion is with that community. Luckily I was able to negotiate a deal with PAW to bring the forums over to PAP. This was a dream come true, as it would have made me sick to my stomach to not be a part of the community I founded.

Make no mistake, I walked away from $xxK per month. But in the grand scheme of things it won’t matter. I made the decision based on future expectations.

So enough about that, hopefully you have an idea of why I am here and not at PAW anymore. Besides, PAP and our entire poker operations is thriving and doing extremely well in just 4 short months. On to more exciting things though. I now have the opportunity to build a general affiliate community on the best url and brand there is, AffiliatePrograms.com.

I love building internet communities, and I look at this as a challenge. Every community I have ever ran I have made sure that the members know it is THEIR community, not mine. I hope to do the same thing with AP. The beauty of this opportunity though is that I have the most premium url in the world for this niche, and that the site already gets sick traffic. Although I think building the community will be fairly easy, I also realize the importance of establishing the right Karma and atmosphere within the forum.

So there you have it, that’s my personal story. You will surely here more about AffiliatePrograms.com in the coming days and weeks. For any of the affiliates that regularly read this blog, I’d like to personally invite you to join me in these new Affiliate Forums. Likewise email me your feedback or suggestions on the site. I just told an affiliate today; I would not be where I am at right now if it weren’t for surrounding myself with other successful affiliates.

Over the weekend my neighbor John decided to break out the classic board game monopoly. It has probably been between 10-15 years since I played monopoly last. During this intense Saturday beer drinking / monopoly session, I realized that internet marketers and affiliates can actually learn quite a bit from monopoly. With no further ado I give you 10 Things Internet Marketers & Affiliates Can Learn By Playing Monopoly.

1. Make The Right Decisions Early – As in monopoly, your future success as an affiliate can usually be gauged by the beginning of your career. If you make wise decisions and begin acquiring property and wealth early on, your future career will be bright.

2. Residual Income, This Is The Goal – In monopoly you are not playing to simply get lucky and collect a nice payday when you get free parking. You are building a portfolio of properties that will return dividends every single time someone lands on them for years to come. Likewise in affiliate marketing, most professionals are not in the game for one good month. Great affiliate sites are like Boardwalk with a hotel on it. They convert better and make more money than any other site on their block.

3. Acquire As Much Property On The Block As Possible – If you can acquire all the properties on one block (or color) in monopoly, you can leverage them to return better dividends by building houses and hotels. In affiliate marketing, if you can own or build all the top properties in a certain niche, you can leverage them against each other. If you “own” the entire niche, you will get more visitors and in return get paid MORE every time a web visitor searches within your niche. Owning only one site within a niche is never as profitable.

4. Improve The Property You Already Own – In monopoly, the more improvements you do on each property, the more money you will make when a visitor lands on it. The same goes for internet marketing. Although acquisition plays a key role in the success of both, so does constant improvements of what you already have. In monopoly you add houses to property with goal of owning a hotel. As webmasters, we add content and features. Once you own the authority site for your specific niche, feel free to stick a red hotel on top of your monitor!

5. Seize The Moment When You Get Lucky – There is no doubt that you are going to have to find a little luck and be in the right place at the right time to win a monopoly game. When you get lucky and land on boardwalk, BUY IT! When you land on Free Parking and have a windfall, invest it wisely. When your opponent doesn’t see you on their property, grab the dice and roll fast.

Every successful affiliate has had at least some luck in their career. The key is capitalizing on this luck. When you surprisingly find your site ranking great for a killer term, analyze your conversions every day and make them better. If you have a windfall month, parlay that windfall by doing improvements on your sites to make you more the next month.

6. Negotiating – Be In The Position Of Strength – When you are broke in monopoly, or you only own 1 of the 3 properties on a block, you are not in a position of strength to negotiate. The same goes for affiliate marketing. If you own and control your niche market, you can then negotiate what you want within that market. To get into this position of strength, follow numbers 1-5.

7. Jail Sucks And Is The Equivalent Of A Google Penalty – In a monopoly game, you can often go to jail by having a bad roll of the dice. Jail can be very expensive as you are not collecting on your properties. Not to mention, once you go to jail, your competitors can pass you by and laugh, and the traffic to your property is worthless.

As an affiliate you can also have a bad roll of the dice as well if you engage in unethical or black hat SEO techniques. Being penalized by google mine as well be called “webmaster jail” if you rely on SERPS for your traffic and income. Bottom line is be ethical and build authority for your properties. This is your virtual “get out of jail free card”

So there you have it. Here are 7 tips that can give you baller status in both the game of monopoly, as well as the game of internet marketing. If you’re like me and haven’t played monopoly in years I highly recommend it. You can learn more about the game of monopoly by visiting the previous link. There’s a also an article about Life Lessons from Monopoly there. Likewise if you’re an affiliate and enjoyed this article, pass it on!

And if nothing else, share a comment or two!

It feels like forever that I have been working on the internet or generating some sort of income from a web based business. When I first started making money online, I was still working 40+ hours a week in the corporate world. I remember I would try to get away with doing some of my personal business at “work”. But the majority of my work was done after hours at night or on the weekends.

This was fine, as it got me started in affiliate marketing. I still remember how excited I was when I got my first $1000+ check from PartyPoker. Then I remember when I started getting multiple payments each month from a bunch of different affiliate programs. It was literally too good to be true.

Several years later, I look at where I am at now and still think to myself that it’s too good to be true. I can honestly say that I love my job, and even more so I love affiliate and internet marketing. Every full time affiliate marketer has a point in their career where they make the decision to leave the traditional world, and work as a full time affiliate.

When I began working full time as an affiliate, I was working from my home in a third bedroom converted into an office. A year or so later I realized this wasn’t working. I was in the house and would get distracted all the time, especially once kids came! So I rented office space by my home for $500 a month and set up shop.

This actually worked out well, but to be honest there was still a missing ingredient; my time management sucked. I never gave myself deadlines, and I had no formal way to keep track of projects. I would show up at the office each morning with no proper plan of action for the day. I would somewhat just do whatever felt right that day.

It was when I started the PAW Network that I finally got serious about being building wealth and running my business like a true business. It’s great to be able to come and go as you please, but so many affiliates will never reach their full potential because they abuse this fringe benefit.

Now days I manage my time very well. I know what my daily and weekly goals are every single day. I have a whiteboard in my office that I track my projects and progress with. Likewise I treat my work like a “real job.” Even though I work out of my home office, I always start work at a certain time, and end at a certain time. Don’t get me wrong, my start and stop times vary, and if I have an errand or two to run during the day, I have no problem doing it. The key however is that I can personally account for all my time each day.

So many people who work at home can sit behind their computer for 8 hours and have nothing to show at the end of the day. So back to the title of this post, it is true. Once I took time management seriously and made myself personally accountable for each hour of the day, my income doubled.

The reason it doubled is because at 5:00 P.M. I wouldn’t look back at the day and only have countless skype conversations and random forum surfing to show for. To be successful as an affiliate or someone who works from home, you HAVE TO adopt to a system of structure in your day. If you want to make more money online, start taking accountability for every hour you are working. It doubled my income, and I guarantee it can double yours too.

Please share your comments below with your thoughts on time management and how you stay productive each day. make it a great week!

Personally I have never used any hardcore drugs, and at this point in my life don’t really see the need to.  I found this video on youtube and it is supposed to emulate for about 10 seconds what your vision is like while taking LSD.

Just gerting back from Amsterdam, I think it’s only fitting to post this. It’s pretty trippy, enjoy