What a wild few months it’s been since moving from PAW over to PAP. As with any major life change or career move, it has been quite hectic. So far in 2008 I feel like I have worked more hours than most people will all year.

This is one of the most exciting times I have experienced in my professional life so far. I am very thankful for what I have and where I have been in the past. Throughout my career I have always seen various business moves as “going to the next level”. I feel as if I am about to take another one of these steps in the coming six months. Not nessecarily with the consulting company I am going to write about in the next paragraph, but just life and business in general.

Sometimes poker players and professional athletes will talk about being on the top of their game. With my 29th 32nd birthday coming up in a week, I feel as if now is the time to make big things happen, and I’m mentally ready to put in the effort.

So, in regards to the title of this post. I have done a fair amount of private consulting over the past few years, much of it has been with some of the big online poker affiliate programs or companies. Throughout 2008 though I have been so busy I have not been accepting any consulting opportunities.

Amazingly though I have an affiliate consulting tab on this site that still generates consistent leads each month. All year I have felt like there has been a ton of money left on the table by not pursuing more consulting work. With my new partners at Affiliate Programs Inc. I now have the resources to launch a proper and professional consulting company. We already have a handful leads, however to be honest we are only looking to work with first class companies. The company has been established as ChipStackMedia.com.

As much as I’d love to bring on tons of clients, I’d rather only bring on really good clients who I am confident we can take them to the next level.

Ideally I’d love to work with a few start-up poker sites, as well as a few established poker sites. Our goal with the consulting company is to take good affiliate programs to great. Not only will Greg and I be managing the consulting company, I imagine we will be growing our overall staff quite a bit over the next 12 months as well.

Either way I am strapping my seatbelt on for a fun ride throughout the rest of the year!

As many of you know I have wanted to do a radio show for PAP for quite a long time. Web 2.0 is all about creating an interactive community and having your members contribute and get to know each other better. I can’t think of a better way than doing a radio show.

So today I spent pretty much athe entire afternoon pulling my hair out and trying to adjust knobs and settings on a big mixer of which I know nothing about. At dinner with my wife, I actually told her “I don’t think this is going happen tonight.” Nonetheless I focused called and bothered ton of people through the computer, and tweaked the settings enough that we could go live.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the first show. We had a great audience, and awesome guests. I am already looking forward to next weeks show and growing the radio segment of the business to be a a staple of the PAP community. This will be the official PAP Radio show page. It’s not being promoted yet but you can always check back at this URL for podcasts, schedules, and updates. If you’d like to listen to the most recent beta podcast you can do so below bt clicking the image. Also please share your feedback or suggestions for the show next week.

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!