Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
Welcome to a special UK edition of TGIM!
For those unaware, I’m actually Scottish. While I reside in Canada now, I didn’t move here until I was 16. All my family is still back in Scotland – my mum, sister, aunts & uncles, cousins etc.
I used to go back at least twice a year, but with time constraints I find it hard to go back now – and the only time I go back is when I attend the London Affiliate Conference.
Due to that, my mum and sister visit me here at least once a year. It’s just a lot less hassle that way. My mum is over just now – she arrived last Thursday night. Due to that I’m in the “UK mood” – eating primarily UK food, watching UK TV shows etc. As I write this my mums just catching up on Coronation St from Friday.
So I thought we could have a TGIM focused heavily on the UK this week! Sorry for the lateness of it – with my mum here I haven’t really been on the computer since Thursday, and catching up on e-mail took a LOT longer this morning.
UK Food
The one thing I miss more than my family is the food in the UK. Nothing beats it. All the crisps(or potato chips) in North America can’t even come close to comparing to Monster Munch or McCoys. UK chocolate is a lot better, and I crave Irn Bru pretty much 24/7.
Thankfully when my mum comes to visit, she always brings me a suitcase full of teeth-rotting crap. As soon as the hugs are out of the way, I’m already diving into that suitcase to begin hugging the food that I grew up with.
As you can see, I got quite the nice haul this time:
Not pictured is a Galaxy Selection Box that I was too busy making love to.
Sadly, my mum is unable to bring over the real goods. You have no idea what I’d do to get a battered sausage supper. It’s quite funny living in Canada where you see people dab the grease off their pizza with a paper towel. I’d love to see their reaction to a pizza from the chippy!
There are places about 4 hours away where I can get some of that stuff thankfully, so we sometimes make the trip to grab some tattie scones and black pudding in preparation for a traditional breakfast.
No joke though – when I come back from the UK, I’m literally covered in a layer of grease from all the chip shop food I’ve eaten. We have fish & chip shops here but they’re not even close to the same.
I actually found a restaurant that sold Deep Fried Mars Bars here a few years ago. I was extremely excited at that, and went racing over there only to discover that they covered it in CRAP:
I guess that’s the only way North Americans could handle it though.
“I Don’t Believe It”
One thing I do when my mum is over is watch a lot of UK shows with her. One of those shows is of course One Foot in the Grave. I don’t visit affiliate forums anymore because I find more and more, I start to channel Victor Meldrew when I read through them.
I think a large part of it is affiliate laziness, or affiliates that don’t get the big picture. So many affiliates just don’t seem to want to do any research or actual work – even if the work is outsourcing. I see so many threads where people question the tracking of a poker room, casino etc – but don’t do any actual work to investigate it.
Seriously – audit these freaking places! For example, a long standing claim is that Cake Poker tracking doesn’t work correctly, yet I’ve never seen any actual proof beyond people bitching about it on forums. If you have a problem with tracking then do something about it! Either test it yourself, or hire people to test it for you. I have a few people that for $10 a month, each one signs up at 10 different programs I promote to make sure all tracking is working. Sometimes I give them money to deposit as well just to make sure it works fine.
I saw one over the weekend, where the poster(who is a good guy, and no offense intended to him with this rant – he runs a fantastic Poker Bonus Code website) was concerned that bonus codes weren’t overriding cookies anymore. He had 6 CPAs in September, and nothing since.
He said it looked suspicious to him – and asked what everyone else thinks. Well I think that you should have acted on this a long time ago. To go from 6 CPAs in a week to 0 over the next 8 weeks when rankings are still the same seems really messed up. What’s more messed up is that he hasn’t acted on it sooner, and even now has posted a thread about it rather than actually spend time looking into it.
Let’s say the CPAs are $50. Even if he got just 50 CPAs in Oct/Nov that’s $2500 minimum that he lost out on. Wouldn’t you spend an hour testing out your bonus code when you think you’re guaranteed a minimum of $2500?
Seriously guys – if you ever even have a TINY issue with tracking, immediately check it out. This is a business and those are your customers and you NEED to get credit for them. It takes less than 5 minutes to sign up at any of these properties to test it out.
Honestly I think most people just assume tracking is working fine which can be a big mistake. Always run frequent tests on any programs if you are the LEAST bit suspicious or concerned. Don’t expect an affiliate manager to look into it – if they discover a problem, more often than not they’re not going to inform you about it. You should do the work to find the problem, then present them with the proof in black and white.
“This Time Next Year We’ll Be Millionaires”
Another show we watch is Only Fools and Horses. Not only is it arguably the funniest show ever – but Del Boys constant optimism and perseverance is something that should inspire everyone. Everything he does, he’s always aiming for the top, and nothing can hold him back.
I remember years ago, when I hired one of my friends on an incentive plan. He would write content for my websites, and would get a share of any specific income that content brought in. He wasn’t too convinced about this whole “making money from the internet” lark, however he was unemployed and had nothing else to do, so decided to give it a try.
He wrote 5 articles on slots. Just 5 generic articles that he probably copied from a “Casinos for Dummies” book and rewrote. 1 of those articles hooked a whale, and he went from being unemployed and broke to making $10,000 over the course of a few months.
He’s now one of my main writers, and he churns out 8000+ words of excellent content every day, without fail. Even on Christmas Day. I asked him once how he manages to do it. He says that he always remembers that one article he wrote, and how from that article it made him $10,000. He says that every time he goes to sit down and write an article, he stops and tells himself that this article is worth $10,000.
That’s something to always think about. When you launch a website, take pride in it. When you write an article, picture the thousands of potential readers. And always aim to do the best possible job you can. Because that 800 word casino review has the potential to make you thousands and thousands of dollars.
We also watch Bottom…
But there’s not really any life lessons to be learned from that.
Videos of the Week:
With this special TGIM: UK Edition, I decided to go with a motivational UK video.
Of course as soon as I came up with the concept, I knew without a doubt what video I’d be choosing. I remember watching this live with a bunch of mates – even just watching it again now, I still get goosebumps:
Speaking of amazing British athletes…
You have to give the guy credit. He’s been able to con 5 different clubs and numerous different managers at both club and country level that they should pay and play him. Just remember – you don’t always need talent to succeed and make money.
Just ask Emile Heskey.
TGIM. I’m off for some sausage rolls and irn bru, then some Scotch Eggs for dinner!
This article was written on December 5, 2011 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.
