What`s the first thing you hire?
 

Ok... so you start making content and your first site is up for a few years and you`re working on some other sites that will be up within a few month. You do everything by yourself but you grow and then you have some money surplus every month. You can`t really become big when you don`t get a team around you and you can`t (well... that`s my personal experience) build a solid company and really grow with freelancers around you....

What would be the first thing you hire in house?

Programmer?
Affiliate manager?
marketing guy?
etc...

Thanks for your thoughts in advance!

The job you dislike doing the most.

Affiliate Manager.

No not that one... his smile is on FreeOnes:1orglaugh

What is it exactly what a affiliate manager does?

I assume not only chatting and bullshitting with the affiliates on gfy:-)

-Do THEY monitor Nats?
-Calculate the amount of payout each individual affiliate gets?
-Do they actively search for new affiliates?
-etc....

Sometimes it`s boring to do the same things week in week out.
Time comsuming is getting screenshots and put a pic-collage togheter for the movie pages. BUT it is also one of the most important things (it`s what and how you present your merchandise). It would be great if someone else did it but i don`t think there is anyone that can do it without me doing it again after i didn`t agree with the selected screenshots that were used for the collage:-)

I don`t know if i can take a step down regarding to some activities...
Maybe "letting go" and "trust others" is also a condition of growing...

first thing?

A top notch, stand up bro.

Still want to know what it is an affiliatemanager does...
what contains his job?

Any affiliate managers around here who want to share?

Thanks for your input!

bumpbump

A good affiliate manager knows where to get discount liquor and can negotiate with pimps for wholesale ho rates. Keep those tgp and blog owners happy at the shows!!

Most comon things:
1: Reply to messages saying I'll get right on that / I'll get that done for you
2: Post funky pictures on GFY / Facebook and the like
3: Plan what shows to attend
4: Increase your show budgets
5: Bitch about available tools
6: Bitch about the affiliate system
7: Bitch about the members area
8: Bitch about tours not converting
9: Bitch about affiliates that doesn't deliver
10: Bitch about free content on tubes
11: Bitch about not having enough free content for tubes
12: Explain in details about a couple of huge deals with some major players thats been in the works for a while.

I'm an affiliate and expect, but rarely receive, the following from affiliate managers (there are a couple good ones though):

- A timely response, even if it's not an immediate solution, to any issues I encounter.
- Knowledge and advice on how best to promote the sponsor program.
- Working knowledge of all tools available from the sponsor.
- A social networking presence with updates and responses via different social networking platforms.
- Ability to negotiate custom payout percentages based upon quality and quantity of traffic (even if approval is required).
- Contact me just to ask if I could use any help with anything once a month or so.

5, 6 and so on - aren't the affiliates who bitch about that? Or at least manager is just delivering their complaints and not actually bitching himself. If he does that himself then he is golden as most manager don't care about that (at least until he does not get compaints from affiliates)

How do you pay an affiliate manager? Do you have him on payroll, or some kind of per-affiliate arrangement? And where do you recruit a good one?

Sorry I worded it incorrectly.
He will blaim the lack of results on those reasons :winkwink:

A good affiliate manager has open communication with affiliates, answers questions, solicits biz via forums and social media, and helps bring increased business for a brand. I've wanted to be one but never went through on it.

Can pay w2 or 1099 to them. Bonuses based on target and profit. Goals. Good luck.

Handle support for affiliates
Actively search for new affiliates
Actively try and get back old affiliates that have stopped sending traffic/joins
Handle contacts with tubes and review sites
Keeping a board presence and posting in relevant threads
Being available on ICQ/Email/Skype as much as possible
Getting custom stuff done for affiliates, banners, tube clips etc
Handling nats admin to analyze traffic/joins
Look for fraud patterns etc in nats
Answer questions regarding the program, payouts etc

Those are some of the things I do at EuroRevenue.

Don't discount remote workers. Although you eventually want to have as many people as possible in house one day a remote workforce gives you more flexibility until you get to that point.

aff for sure

cheap whores

Great! Thanks a lot for sharing! If it was only: "A good affiliate manager knows where to get discount liquor and can negotiate with pimps for wholesale ho rates. Keep those tgp and blog owners happy at the shows!! " then i think i would handle the job myself... i think i can do that:) and would save a lot of money...

A funny way of admitting you have no real business plan.

Yeah... and i always thought that i allways wanted to keep working with freelancers (remote workforce)... The flexability is great... especially in the beginning when you don`t hava a lot of money and you want to control costs... BUT... working with freelancers is also a big pain in the ass... You`re never a freelancer's only customer... so sometimes it takes a while before they have time for you.... i think you also don`t want to hop from one freelancer to the other... I think that if i had money for inhouse employees in the beginging when i started, i would be at least 2 years further in developtment and sales volume... I seriously doubt that you can build up a serious business based on freelancers... but maybe i`m wrong... it`s a bit scary to get your first inhouse employee... i think it`s a big responsability... the guy's family got to eat too...
With employees you can`t afford to decrease sales volume....

What do you mean with a businessplan? A piece of paper with theoratical bullshit? Which you need for getting money at the bank? And find out that banks don`t fund adult?That`s right i don`t have that! I started a couple of years ago making the content i like myself... didn`t know what to expect from it... I`m slowly struggling through this complicated business and learn step by step... Everyday i learn and every time i learn something i realize that there is more to learn... I`m not ashamed of not knowing all bits of this business. This forum helps! So thank you all here for posting valuable info!

A fuckable secretary

I thought about it! But i came to the conclusion that a "remote fuckable workforce" is more flexible so when you`re done fucking them you can send them home without them sitting around and pay for them :1orglaugh