Welcome to Week #3 of the Pepperjam Network “Meet the Affiliates” Interview Series!

This week I interview Rosalind Gardner.  Rosalind is one of the most recognized super affiliates in the world and has been sharing her secrets through best-selling books, blogging, and public speaking for years.  If you don’t know or haven’t followed Rosalind’s work you are in store for a treasure trove of great content.

I know you will enjoy Rosalind’s interview and we hope that you bookmark the Pepperjam Network Blog (do people still do that?) or simply click here to receive future “Meet the Affiliates” interviews via e-mail.

Here are the rules… 

The Pepperjam Network “Meet the Affiliates” Interview Series will feature an original up-close interview with an affiliate marketer every Friday.  Priority will be given to Pepperjam Network affiliates, but that is not a requirement to share your story.  If you’d be interested in being interviewed please submit your request here – please make sure to tell us why you think your story is especially entertaining or educational and worth sharing with our readers.

As the series progresses we will do our best to ask questions that both entertain and educate!  We encourage you to comment on each of the interviews, as well as ask follow-up questions of the interviewee.

Lastly, if you are a blogger or just someone with a network of likeminded affiliate marketing friends, we encourage you to share our interviews series with anyone who you think may benefit. Also, since you won’t want to miss an interview once it’s published I encourage you to join the Feedburner Pepperjam Network RSS Feed, which is located at the top of this page or by clicking here.

Well…let’s get on to the interview!

Meet the Affiliates: Interview #3

ROSALIND: I am happily single, child-free and live in Perfection… um, Penticton, British Columbia which is located in Canada’s peaches and beaches playground – the Okanagan Valley. In 2006, I convinced my (unofficially) adopted brother Ed to move into my way-too-big-for-one house, previously shared only with my very large, diabetic cat, Vic.

Question #2

KRIS: When and how did you first get involved in affiliate marketing.  Please share your story…

ROSALIND: Sometime back the dark ages of late 1997, I happened upon a banner ad that read “Webmasters Make Money” which was too enticing (and at the time, quite unusual) to ignore, so I clicked on it and found myself on the affiliate program signup page for the One and Only dating service network which included a cursory explanation about affiliate marketing.  Recurring commissions of fifty percent of the monthly membership fee sounded like a decent prospect, so I started a little dating service review site for singles called Sage-Hearts.com. The site is still my primary affiliate breadmaker.

Question #3

KRIS: What are some of your favorite online resources for learning more about affiliate marketing?

ROSALIND: There are SO many writers sharing good information about affiliate marketing that one could easily spend all day perusing blogs rather than working, so I limit my reading to just one or two on any given workday.

For staying on top of industry news, my favorites include Linda Buquet’s “5 Star Affiliate Programs Blog” and Revenews.com. My best source of commission-increasing information comes from phone chats with my Super Affiliate friends and colleagues, however.

Question #4

KRIS: What are your top two (2) favorite books of all time and top three (3) favorite musical groups?

ROSALIND: I’ve consumed copious quantities of books in nearly 5 decades, so my ‘favorites’ tend to be those that left a significant impression in recent months and years. In that vein, I’d have to say Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat” and Al Gore’s “Assault on Reason” are my recent favorites.

With thousands of tunes plugged into the iPod, I’m even more loathe to name favorite music. Basically, crank the volume on any Irish jig or 40’s swing to get me dancin’.

Question #5

KRIS: What is a day-in-the-life of Rosalind Gardner like?

ROSALIND: Because the opportunity to make money is virtually limitless, and time spent with family and friends doing the fun stuff is not, I try to structure my work so as to make the most of the latter.

To that end, I start each day by appreciating the beautiful view from either my hot tub or pool (or both) and usually cap them off in the same manner.

Once every couple of weeks I put in one to three long ‘working’ days during which I spend several hours writing blog posts, articles and product reviews; days that are followed by long stretches of primarily free time for travel, gardening, hiking and otherwise having fun.

Even on the ‘off’ days, however, I often make time to respond to blog commentary and support tickets that can not otherwise be handled by my assistant. Because I like what I do and do what I like (topical blogging), attending to business on my free-time days never feels like work.

Question #6

KRIS: Among other regular contributions to the affiliate marketing industry, you are a regular columnist for Revenue Magazine (BTW – I always look forward to reading your piece every issue!).  Can you share with our readers what you feel is the best advice you’ve ever given as part of your column in Revenue Magazine?

ROSALIND: Thanks very much for the kind words about my Affiliate’s Corner column, Kris. I appreciate having YOU as a reader!

Of the 19 articles that I’ve written for Revenue in the last 3 years, I’d have to say that my “Entrepreneur Sees the Light” piece (click here to read article) in the March/April 2006 issue offers critical advice that is too often over-looked by new affiliates – that having passion for your topic is essential to success in business and affiliate blogging.

I see way too many bloggers start sites around topics that they determine to be potentially lucrative, yet about which they know little or nothing. They end up frustrated and burnt-out  trying to research and produce regular content, while their earnings remain commensurate with their knowledge, i.e. little to nothing.

Ergo, starting with subject matter about which one you very keen and enjoy sharing information is integral to making the big bucks.

Question #7

KRIS: You authored the book “Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online.” Can you share with us a few tips from that book? Wait…you’re not done yet. You’ve also authored one of the best-selling and successful e-books of all time called “The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.” Is there an additional tip or two from that book that you can share?

ROSALIND: Published in 2007 by McGraw-Hill, “Make a Fortune…”  is actually a digest version of the “Super Affiliate Handbook”, which was originally self-published in 2003 and has gone through umpteen revisions in order to remain current in our ever-evolving industry.

One tip from the Super Affiliate Handbook that has generated loads of favorable reader response is about negotiating commission increases. Apparently, even some Super Affiliates didn’t realize that commission rates aren’t written in stone.

I suggest that affiliates who consistently send copious amounts of sales-producing traffic to their merchant partners’ sites have every right to request a percentage or fee-based increase.

I also recommend that they keep an alternate program in their back pocket to use as leverage just in case their request is denied. Pulling the first program and vigorously promoting the second often encourages the merchant of the first program to change their decision when that Super Affiliate is no longer contributing to their bottom line.

Question #8

KRIS: My guess is that as an accomplished author, international speaker, and uber successful affiliate marketer you’ve traveled the world many times. Tell us about the most amazing place you’ve ever been to around the world. Tell us about your experience there…

ROSALIND: You guess correctly, Kris, and the world is so full of amazing places that once again it’s difficult to choose a single location. I do, however, have a preference for traveling to countries where the people are primarily Buddhist and the aggressive ‘me-first’ mind-set is practically non-existent.

Imagine any major roadway in North America and you know you’d be dead meat in mere moments for simply having the audacity to believe that you had a right to walk to the other side without benefit of a traffic light to limit homicidal tendences.

Yet in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) I can casually and without fear, cross a 6-lane roadway teaming with hundreds of motorists, knowing each will veer slightly to give way to pedestrians and whatever else might be in their projected path.

Such co-operation and respect is a beautiful thing to experience. I also appreciate that they serve my favorite breakfast food, Pho.

Question #9

KRIS: Name one person in the affiliate industry you admire and tell us why?

ROSALIND: Name just ONE person? Impossible.

With all the b.s. affiliate marketing info sold by wannabe’s and pretenders, I most admire those Super Affiliates who worked hard to achieve success in the industry and continue to work as affiliate marketers, while honestly and openly sharing their knowledge and good information with others who may just be starting out. Among those people, Anik Singal and Jeremy Palmer are two of the best examples.

At the top of my list, I put my good friend Colin McDougall, who not only recovered from business-busting bad advice to build a highly successful affiliate business, but whose generosity for sharing information is unparalleled. If we all had 1/10th Colin’s tenacity, everyone would be uber-successful.

Thanks Rosalind!

To read Rosalind Gardner’s previous Revenue Magazine Columns visit here.

Next on deck for Meet the Affiliates: Super Affiliate Colin McDougall

Colin’s interview will be published here on the Pepperjam Network Blog next Friday, May 30, 2008.

Make sure you don’t miss it!  Click Here to subscribe to the PJN Blog and have each interview delivered to your e-mail box.

Read Previous “Meet the Affiliates” Interviews:

Week #1 – Sam Harrelson
Week #2 – Scott Hazard

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Affiliate Interviews, Anik Singal, Colin McDougall, Jeremy Palmer, Meet the Affiliates, Next Generation Affiliate Marketing, Pepperjam Chat, Pepperjam Network, Rosalind Gardner, Transparency, affiliate marketing, pepperjam, pepperjamADS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.