Never Let Your Business Grow Up to Be Stupid

by | Affiliate Marketing

I don’t particularly like the word “stupid.”  It’s the kind of thing I spend all day encouraging my kids not to say, and I think there is already plenty of negativity in the world.

But in this case, it’s warranted.

I have a massive following on social media for my Improve Photography website.  We have well over 350,000 followers and just the Facebook page is adding over 1,000 new followers every single day.  So for companies that want to market to photographers, it’s a gold mine.

I have been working on a resource for my audience to show them how to build a photoblog using wordpress.  Most of them either want to redesign their website or want to launch one to show off their photography.  The trouble I’ve had with starting this resource is that I couldn’t find a great WordPress theme for them that would be 100% trouble free, easy, and look great.

I found a theme this week that I really liked the looks of.  I wanted to give it a spin and see if it was something I could recommend to my audience.  So, I wrote the following email to the company:

my-email

 

In response to this GOLDEN opportunity, I received the following response from the company:

their-email

 

The affiliate program that he referred to?  It pays a whopping $7 commission on a product that costs between $199 and $279.  For those of you who are new to affiliate marketing, a commission on a similar product would normally be at least $70.

What’s the lesson to be learned?

You decide.  I’d love to read what you have to say in a comment below.

For me, though, the lesson is that if your business ever grows to the point that you have anyone handling customer service for you, you absolutely MUST give that person carta blanche to make no-brainer decisions.

Legal Information
Income School LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Income School LLC also participates in affiliate programs with Bluehost, Clickbank, CJ, ShareASale, and other sites. Income School LLC is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies.