Brian Littleton, CEO of Shareasale.com and the winner of the 2008 Affiliate Summit “Wayne Porter Affiliate Marketing Legend” Award, posted a great blog entry today, which really hit home with me.   His overall theme in his post deals with treating others with respect – something that I believe can definitely be improved within our industry.

- While I was at several parties that took place at Affiliate Summit 2008 Las Vegas, I witnessed a lot of networks in attendance at their competition’s parties. Now that’s cool. That’s the kind of spirit that embodies our industry. What wasn’t cool was that several of them actually had the audacity to try to poach affiliates, merchants and OPM’s, while they enjoyed drinking their host’s booze and eating their host’s food. How did they not know what the proper etiquette would be?

- I saw an affiliate raise-up their hand, turn around and walk away from a CPA Network employee while that employee was in mid-sentence. There are a lot nicer ways to say that you don’t want to do business and excuse yourself than that.

- A former Affiliate Manager, turned “network owner” who apparently doesn’t like the Affiliate Summit show (although hasn’t attended the last few) decided to flame Shawn and I on various forums and blogs, citing that he could do it better, although he has never actually ran a conference before. (Dude, have at it. Any additional exposure for Affiliate Marketing is awesome for the industry – just make sure I get an invite to attend.) Since when did it become acceptable to publicly bash other people in an effort to make yourself look good? Don’t most people still see right through that?

Here’s the way I see it. We work in a diverse industry made up of many different business models, business sizes, work ethics and experience. It is this kind of diversity that can make all our business and professional lives much more enjoyable, interesting and worthwhile – but only if we get along with each other. And to do that we have to respect each other.

As I’ve said many times before, people need to treat others as they want to be treated, because what goes around comes around. Besides, no one will really care how wonderful or brilliant you are, if you respect nothing.

‘Nuff said.

So a few weeks ago I was expressing my frustration to my trainer and he suggested that I try sitting on a stability ball (aka swiss ball, yoga ball, exercise ball), instead of my chair, so that I can do something good for myself while I’m just sitting around all day.He explained that stability ball works your body, even when you’re not working out. Because the ball itself is not steady, your body needs to make adjustments using its muscles, in order to obtain stabilization and prevent you from falling over. The muscles used during these adjustments known as the “core muscle group” (abdomen and back) need to constantly work and as a by-product get stronger.

If I’ve inspired you to give the stability ball a whirl, send me your picture. I’d love to post it here.

Scott Jangro on his stability ball.

Todd Crawford’s ball on the way to his office

Todd Crawford on his stability ball

I’ve been crazy busy over the last few weeks leading up to Affiliate Summit  2008 West.   To top it off, I decided to go out to Palm Springs for the eTail Conference, when I probably shouldn’t have.

That being said, it was an interesting conference.  Not one that I’d likely attend again, but it did offer up a few interesting topics and a cool Carnival.  But like all conferences before eTail, I overdid it.  How could I not?  It is afterall, a conference — an opportunity to network and that’s what I love best.  I’m good at it.

Nonetheless, I left Palm Springs beat.  I hopped on my flight from Palm Springs to Phoenix on my way to Orlando, clad in my Geekcast.FM T-shirt and sweats, determined to snooze.  Unfortunately, my neighbor was already snoring before the flight even took off.  So, I plugged in my iPhone, pulled an Audible (The Appeal, by John Grisham) and chilled out for the flight. 

At one point, I must have gotten up to stretch and put my iPhone in the pocket of the chair in front of me.  Well, that’s where I left it when I got off the plane.   It wasn’t until 1/2 way to Orlando that I realized that.   So, I did what every person in my shoes would do.. I bid my iPhone a fond adieux and cancelled the phone number.

Six days later, the night before I was leaving for Affiliate Summit, I checked my office voicemail and heard a conversation between a friend/business acquaintance of mine, Alan Rafeli of Rock Solid Colo and a gentleman named “Dan” who apparently found my iPhone.  Alan, being the solid kind of guy that he is refused to just give Dan my phone number for fear that this person was a nut case or something.

Needless to say I was in shock.  Dan the Man, found my iPhone!  So I gave him a call.  Turns out, he is a fine older gentleman who works for the railroad system.  The reason why it took him 6 days to call me to let me know he had my iPhone was because he works 5 days on and has 2 days off.  On his first day off, he went to Wal-Mart to get a charger to turn my phone on since the battery had long since died.  He then messed around with the buttons and came across the contact list.  (Alan was one of the first contacts and he got the call.).  After a pleasant 30-minute conversation, he told me that he’d be overnighting my phone and the new charger to me. 

I told him that I wanted to send him a check for $200 bucks for all of his troubles.  Dan said, “just send me 25.00 for the charger and we’re square”.  I ended the call with a question to Dan:  “Dan, how come you just didn’t turn the phone into the airline’s lost and found.”   Dan said, “Honey, if I would have done that you’d have never seen this dang phone!”.

When I got back from Affiliate Summit, sure as heck, the iPhone was waiting for me.  Dan is now $200 richer and I’ve roped another person into affiliate marketing.

Life sure is weird.  When you least expect something to happen, it fires one right at ya!

Occasionally, there would be a rave or rant totally unrelated to first haircuts, hockey scores, weddings, parties and so on, that my visitors would read, and simply say, “Huh?”

I was probably talking about affiliate marketing, which to this day, I have a hard time making some family members understand –  (those would be the ones that Webtv has been trying to shake for the last two years so they can properly shut down their services.) 

So, in order to prevent the “Huh?” blog comments and the “keep this crap off your family blog” emails I’ve decided to separate out the content.

Friends and family, you can still get your fix of the boys on www.TheSpauldingScoop.com.

Friends, family and business associates that want to contend with my famous ideosynchracies that I love to share, my rants and raves on affiliate marketing and my gooberish videos that I love to make, stick around here and enjoy.