deStone’s Blog

The question on everyone’s mind as of late — Are you going to be attending Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, NV? If not, you might as well stop building websites, accept wage-slavery, and give up in your quest to become a serious affiliate marketer. Seriously. Last year, my friend Nickycakes and I were building respectable blogs that the community was just starting to follow. I, personally, did not value the idea of spending time with other affiliates - honestly, I was concerned that someone would try to get me drunk and steal my ideas — so I chose to not go. Nickycakes, however, attended. While we have both become successful on different levels, it is obvious that making the connections at ASW really launched his career into overdrive. He met up with the Advaliant team, started slinging offers through neverblue using facebook — Hell, look at him; he is the posterboy for CPA-based affiliate marketing. No envy here - High five cakes, high five!

Why do I tell you this story? I have no problem admitting when I am wrong — and I was completely, absolutely, retardantly… wrong. I have been doing everything I can to meet the “movers” and “shakers” of the industry through online venues - but having had a real life conversation has given others a serious advantage over me, especially when getting access to exclusive offers.

So, I have suffered nearly 365 days! Finally, I am getting to attend my first Affiliate Summit conference. I even got myself a sweet platinum pass, courtesy of the Affiliate Summit Team (thanks Amy) - so I am going to attend all of the seminars and hopefully share my thoughts via the blog during the trip.

So, now, I toss it back to you — What’s stopping you from going? Is it the cost of the rooms? How about the airfare? Maybe the price of the passes scares you. Look, I will guarantee you that you will get more than $10,000 dollars worth of information out of this event. Why? Well, I will be there — and if you look me up, I’ll be glad to talk shop with you! There is going to be a posse of wickedfire characters there. Ryan Eagle is going to show up. Shit, Shitmonkey, er shoemoney is even planning on going!

So - for the excuses … let me offer you some solutions.

The Hotel Room - Gold Coast all the way. I am taking my hottie wife and staying in a premium room for a grand total of $160 bucks. Its a fair deal, for real. I think I get like $40 or $60 bucks worth of gambling change and food vouchers to work with as well.

The airefare - Ok, look, just book southwest - they are cheap, funny, and a good airline for economy flying. Look on craigslist, people are always selling rapid reward points for cash - you can get a cheap flight. I think I am spending a lil over $150 bucks for my airfare, but I booked early.

Conference Passes - Now, While i’m not as cool as some other bloggers handing out free press passes (check out ppc.bz - ask the barman, he can hook you up, I think he’s got like 40 free passes) — I do have a few options to help pay for it.

First off, use my code to get 10% off of any pass you buy:

ASW09DESTONE10
10% off silver, gold or platinum passes

Or if you have zero interest in watching me personally Rick-Rolling nickycakes panel, you can get a silver pass for a bit cheaper.
ASW09SLASH100
$100 off of a silver pass

Conclusion

Buy a pass, go.

Party like a rockstar, meet other affiliates, learn.

Call me, I’ll bail you out of jail — unless you “pedobear” a 15 year old that was in the skittles thread, … you’ll need to call aojon to help you with that.

I’m going to try and get some crap made up promoting this gay blog - if you want to tell everyone that deStone sucks via tshirt or ballcap or something else - Comment me. Feel free to give me some ideas, i’m pretty much down with whatever.

Update: ASW 09 Speaker Listings - http://www.affiliatesummit.com/09w_speakers.php

Disclaimer: Everything I say is simply an idea - I’ve not thought about all of the logistics, I have not done this — this is just a brain vomit of something I consider to be a good idea for someone who is 20 to 26 years old.

Credit cards give out good amounts of money for leads, right? I’m sure you’ve sat around and tried to think of at least one way to push them on some site you have. Maybe you built a site around credit cards — well, I’ve got an idea that will blow your mind away. What if you stop trying to push them online, and started doing it in real life. Think of how many morons you have seen signing up for Credit cards to get a free tshirt! They do it everywhere! Hell, I was in the Philadelphia airport the other day and I saw 6 people sign up for the Southwest Visa Card just to get a stupid 76ers shirt.

Here is 10 easy steps to make an asston of money doing affiliate marketing / credit card promotions:

• Sign up with Commission Junction or affiliate program that has credit card offers
• Find nearest university, find hottest sorority, ask what philanthropy they support.
• Give sorority girls laptop, your affiliate URL, and $10 to $15 per lead they get signed up
• Incentive: Give away free “Go CollegeName” t-shirts at tailgate events
• Earn $60 to $120 per lead gathered.
• Pay money to sorority as a donation to philanthropy (the elusive tax write-off)

Yes, You could shoot bullet holes in this idea all day long — or you could just do it, get a bunch of drunk frat guys to sign up for cards to pay their fraternity dues, and make $1000 to $5000 a weekend in a small college town.

Now, here’s the mindfuck — pay someone at different schools to organize this for you, and scale the eff out of this!

Don’t ever say I didnt give you a $100,000 dollar idea. You’re just too happy sitting in your office cube earning $13 dollars an hour to jump on this…

Comment extra thoughts and ideas please…