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When Working From Home Becomes Hell
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Brand New CPV Lab Released
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A Novel Idea to Help You Scale Massive Affiliate Campaigns

When Working From Home Becomes Hell

I just read a blog post from Mark Rofe, fellow Internet Marketer and creator of the ingenius Wank Sock, who has just made the decision to return to work.

It’s an interesting topic.

(Although I bet you’re now thinking about wank socks).

Is the 9-5 really such a bad thing?

Is there a time to forget the false paradise of working from home happily ever after?

I think Mark has made the right decision based on it being his career, his life, his happiness. Nothing more and nothing less.

There’s a small subset of the Internet Marketing community that believes you have to be earning big bucks from home whilst trolling the working class, or you’re doing it wrong.

There’s an even larger subset of the population that believes this myth before trying it for a single day.

Let’s forget about what goes in to running a successful business.

You can do this from home, from work, from a beach, or from a park bench.

Is working from home for everybody?

No, no and NO.

I divide the Not Working From Home majority in to three subsets.

  1. Introverts who want to work from home.
  2. Extroverts who want to work from home.
  3. The rest of the world who doesn’t want to work from home.

Why introverts and extroverts?

I believe your natural disposition here will determine the challenges you face working on your own.

But first, everybody else.

Internet Marketers can be guilty — myself included — of viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses and thinking everybody should want to do what we do. It’s the entrepreneurship argument.

“Why wouldn’t you want to earn a fortune on your sofa? What better way to live?”

The rebuttal is Purpose.

Not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, and many people are just fine following somebody else’s orders.

This should be a relief.

An economy full of entrepreneurs would have a lot of great ideas that never materialised.

For most Internet Marketers, purpose means maximising income whilst finding more time for pleasure. Usually from the comfort of home.

It’s a captivating pursuit for those of us who live by it.

But many people don’t.

And it’s not because we know something they don’t. They simply don’t want to.

They’ve seen what we do, they hear what we do, and still it’s not for them.

They are right.

Collectively as an industry, we should get over ourselves and appreciate that.

People will always moan about tax hikes, bills, outgoings and their financial responsibilities. It’s tempting to throw back the ‘You should have been an Internet Marketer‘ line.

Except it solves nothing and changes nothing.

That’s not what they chose to be, and their choice is always right.

The world simply cannot function with 7 billion Internet Marketers working from home.

Introvert vs. Extrovert

Now, for those who do decide to work from home, there are two distinct personality types:

Introverts:

  • Very self-aware
  • Thoughtful
  • Enjoys understanding details
  • Interested in self-knowledge and self-understanding
  • Tends to keep emotions private
  • Quiet and reserved in large groups or around unfamiliar people
  • More sociable and gregarious around people they know well
  • Learns well through observation

Extroverts:

  • Warm
  • Seeking novelty and excitement
  • Gregariousness
  • Assertive
  • Cheerful
  • Talkative
  • Enjoys being the center of attention
  • Action oriented

As with any personality type, these are generalisations. There are extroverts who keep their emotions in check, and cheerful introverts who live for novelty.

Which category are you?

There’s an easy way to tell.

Extroverts gain energy from frequent social interaction, introverts lose it.

That’s not to say that social interactions aren’t enjoyed by all.

Rather that while some extroverts will thrive on the ‘banter’ of a typical work day, an introvert will be looking pretty bruised and battered if he feels he can’t escape it anytime soon.

The Best First Day in the History of Work

The happiness (and productivity) you get from working from home is largely a combination of:

a) Your personality type
b) The environment you inflict upon it.

In Mark’s returning to work post, he touches on the sore spot that seems to have led his decision: isolation.

Nobody likes isolation. It doesn’t matter what personality type you are.

Isolation is used as a form of torture for good reason.

It eventually hurts.

But I’d argue that introverts are better equipped to deal with working in isolation.

And this is the point I’d make to any extroverted reader who wants to quit his 9-5 and work from home:

For a while… it’s going to be fucking great.

Seriously, you’re missing out on the best first day of any career in the history of Man.

But there’s a catch. Many of them.

Once you’ve cashed in the novelty of “Oh shiiiit, I’m doing work in my boxers with only empty packets of Popchips and my balls for company!”, the only way to share the grotesque image is to post it on your Facebook.

(Which many of us do, extroverted or not!)

If you need the social interaction of a thriving workplace, then the echo of your thoughts racing around an empty house will probably not suffice — not in the long run.

Staying Somewhat Sane

I am introverted by nature

I enjoy catching up with friends and meeting people who are interesting. Keyword: interesting.

I simply don’t have the capacity to enjoy being around people for shits and giggles. And I highly doubt they’d enjoy being around me. Not for any extended period of time.

I like the comfort of my own space and I protect it in the only way I know how:

By making a shit ton of money online.

Whether you are introverted or extroverted goes a long way to deciding if you will enjoy working on your own.

Yet it’s important to distinguish this question has nothing to do with running a successful business.

It’s possible to be a badass super-rich affiliate with any personality type. (Which makes it all the more baffling why so many choose to be bags of dicks.)

Knowing your own characteristics will do much for increasing your chances of happiness along the way.

My tips for extroverts:

Bear in mind, I’m not one. I could be very wrong. Please offer your own suggestions if these suck.

  1. Consider a shared office space with like-minded professionals. There are plenty of these springing up in major cities. At the very least, get a laptop and hit the road.

  2. Use your social wings and network, network, network. Many affiliates struggle at this, so cash in the advantage and use it to get ahead of us.

  3. Leverage the many online communities at your disposal, become a connector and embed yourself in the industry.

  4. Work shorter hours and join local clubs (sports or otherwise) with scheduled meets every week.

My tips for introverts:

  1. Make sure your friends, family et all respect the boundaries of your work space and work hours. Lest you go insane.

  2. Build a small circle of masterminds and use it as your eyes and ears. Focus on the quality of your contacts instead of quantity. A Skype group is a good start.

  3. Work out exactly what form of social interaction wears you out the least, then arrange a lot of it. For me, this is a quiet pub and several pints. Fight, fight, fight the urge to get lazy, which is so much more of a danger to introverts.

  4. Get a dog. Like me, you probably believe they’re better than humans.

  5. Separate your work space from your living space. If you spend a lot of time at home, you need to disconnect part of the house from your work activities. That’s why I’ve bought a LazySpa and created a reading room with beanbags.

I highly recommend the LazySpa:

Lazy Spa Finch

My tips for those who aren’t sure if they want to work from home:

  1. Try it for three weekends in a row. Are you still sane?

There, probably, is your answer.

If anybody needs to fill a vacancy for a creative, hard-working individual with a lot of wank socks in his wardrobe, give Mark a call.

Brand New CPV Lab Released

Here’s what I had planned for Monday:

  • Wake up.
  • Get henched on caffeine.
  • Detonate several Exoclick campaigns in the heart of mainland Europe.
  • Short the shit out of Manchester United FC’s share price, just for the LOLs.
  • Manage my tribe of Eastern Europeans.

Here’s what actually happened today:

  • Woke up.
  • Got henched on caffeine.
  • Frazzled the Frenchies, blasted the Germans.
  • Deleted browser history.
  • “HOLY SHIT, THERE’S A NEW CPV LAB SAY WHAT?”

Yes, it’s been a running joke that CPV Lab updates have been few and far between.

Well, joke no mo.

There’s a new CPV Lab in town, and it looks to be the dog’s bollocks (ROW: really good).

The update email is below.

CPV Lab 2.17 is Now Released!

In this update we addressed the top 3 requests from our users and also added many new core functions and improvements.

Please read through this entire post, especially the server details towards the end, as the server requirements and update install process have been updated.

Contents:
1st = Mobile Device Detection and Data
2nd = Volume, More Data and Fast Interface Speeds
3rd = Advanced, Yet Easier Ways to View & Customize Stats
YUP, There’s More…
And…there’s still more!
2.17 Update Installation

===== 1st = Mobile Device Detection and Data =====

After a great deal of research, Q&A + Feedback…we seriously addressed the overall usage and importance of mobile data across the board:

– Full Mobile Detection and Stats, including Mobile Carriers and Automatic Updates of Detection Databases every 2 weeks or less.

Over 30 Mobile Data Points available allowing you to go far beyond the traditional mobile optimization points of device name, etc. with actual content and media your visitors support.

– Mobile Audience Stats…Quickly View a Breakdown of your Mobile Visitors to identify top performing Brands, Carriers, Devices, Data Rates and Specific Features Based on the Visitors Device.

– Don’t Lose Your Cookies!:) Mobile introduces several issues with Cookie-based Tracking, however, with Desktop/Laptop users…Cookie-based tracking is the most popular method across the board and has been used since the dawn of the internet.

We didn’t want to lose the use of cookies completely, but had to support and track all mobile visitors regardless of their device settings. So, Live-Switch was born…this feature offers Cookie & Cookie-Less Tracking to Support All Visitors regardless of their device and settings. It’s all on the fly and in real-time, nothing extra to setup.

===== 2nd = Volume, More Data and Fast Interface Speeds =====
One of the biggest issues high volume users faced was sluggish stats once the database reached a certain point. To address this, we’ve added TrueCache to allow enhanced Volume Capabilities and greatly Increase Responsiveness of User Interface.

The reason it’s called “TrueCache” is because another concern many high-volume users had was the ability to customize data storage options to their hosting environment. You have this ability as well using a simple configuration file.

Check out the 2.17 Feature Guide for more details and setup instructions.
http://cpvlab.com/release/217_Feature_Guide.pdf

===== 3rd = Advanced, Yet Easier Ways to View & Customize Stats =====

The common thread from users, was the ability to group stats by specific data points using a series of dropdown boxes. But for most users, when asked…they generally and most frequently viewed their stats across all campaigns in a “routine” of specific data sets.

It became very clear, the solution wasn’t to “group” the data, as this can become somewhat cumbersome and limited based on the number of options available. But simply to view the Stats just as you wanted them…based on your Common and Most Used Viewing Habits.

So, we added just that.

Quick-Stat Views feature for Target Performance Stats allows you to quickly change you Target Performance stats by specific data points.

For Example…In 2 Clicks, go from viewing:
Carriers ‘ Visitors ‘ CTR ‘ CR ‘ EPC
To: Device Brands ‘ CTR ‘ CR ‘ Cost Per Subscriber

Anything you can think of…you can select the data points to view and save them to be quickly used anytime. You can even Drag & Drop the column order for each custom view to display the information exactly as you wish.

And…
– Multi-Select Controls Added to Show/Hide Dropdown Menu on All Pages
– Ability to filter by Visitor Type, Target, Page and Offer in Stats
– Drag-and-Drop Re-Ordering and Re-Sizing of Columns in Stats Tables

===== YUP, There’s More… =====

– If/Then Redirects to redirect visitors based on multiple conditions using over 30 data options. Send visitors to a Specific Page, Offer, URL or Campaign.

– Trends Heatmap Views to quickly identify top performing times of day by CTR, CR, ROI, Subscriber Rate, etc.

– Trends – Ability to Filter by Target, Page, Offer and by specific days of the week.

– Record Desktop/Laptop Users Operating Systems, Browser & Versions

– Greatly expanded features to Pass and Post Data to & from CPV Lab.

– Total Control Linking Options…you can now link to a specific Landing Page, Level, Option Group or Path.

This looks to be an impressive update, and a much needed shot in the arm for CPV Lab.

It will be welcomed by the many affiliates, like myself, who increasingly rely on mobile campaigns to fund their hedonistic needs.

I’ll post my thoughts once I’ve had chance to play around with the latest version.

If you are new to CPV Lab (read my very old review here), you can grab a copy for $297. If you are a previous user, or your license expired, you can upgrade for $147.

A Novel Idea to Help You Scale Massive Affiliate Campaigns

Every affiliate keeps track of his day-to-day profit and loss.

This involves tallying up total commissions and deducting total ad spend. The number you’re left with is the number that gets bounced around forums as “$X/day earnings“.

If you want an advantage over the competition, here’s a novel idea:

Don’t include new traffic sources in your spend column.

Record them under a monthly allowance as ‘Research & Development’ instead.

Why does this work?

Because it stings to lose money.

And losing money is guaranteed when you venture in to new traffic sources.

Instead of letting these losses affect your daily totals, you can assign them to a separate Research & Development allowance, which is just that: an allowance.

The amount you’re willing to spend on R&D should be set in stone at the start of the month. It’s an amount that you’re happy to lose in the name of scaling your business.

Whatever happens, it’s your duty to spend every last penny of that budget on testing and researching new markets.

Any money you make from the traffic can offset your R&D spend, but it shouldn’t go anywhere near your daily stats.

The effect this has is quite dramatic.

  1. It gives you permission to lose money regularly, which is the fast track to making money quickly.

  2. There is less emotional sting in new campaigns and more incentive to experiment. After all, you’re not collecting commission. You’re collecting insights.

Here’s the problem with most affiliates:

master-jp

There are two points I want to highlight from this fine piece of JPG (the best you’ll see today, I’m sure).

  1. Successful affiliates quickly learn that losing money is a prerequisite for scaling their businesses.

  2. Unsuccessful affiliates turn short-term failures in to long-term loss of profit by letting their emotions get the better of them.

I feel like I’ve let myself down with my artwork, but fuck you. It’s an important point.

How many times have you abandoned a traffic source because the first campaign bombed completely?

Chances are, you bailed because you didn’t like the effect it was having on your daily profits.

So remove those campaigns from your daily totals.

Give them a separate budget:

A Research & Development budget.

At the end of the month, look at your progress.

Do you have a profitable campaign? If so, start recording the totals.

If not, be grateful for your allowance. You might not have profit, but you do have data.

Data is one step closer.

Data is what runs through the veins of every successful affiliate.

Recommended This Week

  • Volume X is now the bestselling release in my entire Premium Posts series. If you haven’t picked up a copy, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?

  • The volume is sponsored by Adsimilis, a network that does a better job of appealing to affiliates than most. Register an account if you haven’t already.

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