Making personal connections in affiliate marketing will help you grow your business faster and better. Attending events like Affiliate Summit, Blog World and others are great places to grow those relationships.
Missy Ward and Shawn Collins, Co-Founders of Affiliate Summit, understand this and go out of their way to connect new attendees with people who will help them get acclimated to the industry. They do this through their “newcomers program”, something I participated in during Affiliate Summit West 2012.
I met some great people and I learned a lot about what I didn't know in the industry, simply by helping other people to connect with the right people.
Now, as visible as I am, I'm really quite shy until I get to really know someone. The “newcomers” program helped me as much as it helped the newbies to Affiliate Summit as I had to step up and be assertive.
Last week, I think Lindsay from Share-a-Sale caught on. She grabbed me at the Share-a-Sale Think Tank and put me together with some great Merchants, who I would have never met otherwise. Thank's Lindsay!
Another person that helped me already is Wade Tonkin, From Fanatics. Wade goes out of his way to help the people that he works with. I met Wade last year in New York City, and connected with him again in Las Vegas in January at Affiliate Summit Central. Wade manages the Fanatics Affiliate Program that's run through Share-a-Sale.
Wade and I connected just a few weeks ago in Austin at Share-A-Sale Thinktank 2012. He invited me to join in on an upcoming webinar for his affiliates. He's going to help me learn how to work with data feeds, installing them and then leveraging them in my websites.
Last year, I made a road trip to Chicago, a couple of times and spent the day with Jason Rubacky, also from Share-a-Sale. Jason has spent considerable time with me, teaching me what he knows and helping me to grow my business.
I'm excited to pay-it-forward, helping others to get connected with these great people and others as they venture into the Affiliate Marketing industry.
I'll be writing more about others that have helped me and my friends to become successful in the affiliate marketing industry.