Inside the Secret Life of a Super Affiliate - Zac Johnson dot Com Let the Reign Begin

During my time at San Francisco, CA for Elite Retreat, I experienced a lot of big problems with outsourcing… and surprisingly enough, none of it had to do with actually being in California. Out sourcing sucks for everyone that is losing a job as a result of it, but it also sucks for everyone using it… especially when you can’t even understand the person on the other line. In the end, companies outsource and save a few bucks, and the consumer will usually get screwed in the end. Here are a few issues I had with outsourcing over the past week.

Google Support
Just yesterday I talked about how I was sent an email from Google Support on how they appreciate me working with them and information on how to visit their headquarters… only to later find out I would immediately be asked to leave. What is the problem here? If my Google account manager was located within the United States or did some research, this would not have been a problem. I understand that Google is a worldwide company, but they should specialize in providing county specific responses. The response I got from Google on visiting their offices, was someone located in India.

US Airways Customer Support Hell Trap
Also mentioned in yesterday’s post was how I had to extend my flight plans. When I called US Airways to make the change to my account, they told me it would be a $100 transfer fee per ticket. The next day I was looking at my American Express statement and saw there were four charges from US Airways, two for $100 each, then another two for $468.50 each. I quickly called US Airways to find what these additional charges were. They said it was the result of changing over to a new flight in such a short time period. I (nor anyone else) would ever approve charges like this for one day extra to their travel plans.

Now, this is where the outsourcing problem comes in. I had a serious problem here and needed this to be fixed immediately as my flight was just a few hours away. My morning began in US Airways hell, calling multiple times and talking with someone from a different country and ascent every call. Every call was also a waste for the first several minutes, as I had to explain the situation to representatives just reading off of their procedure forms. I even tried talking with upper management and supervisors, but was then getting attitudes and still no help.

It wasn’t till my fourth try that I finally stopped calling them and had to step away for a minute. Frustrated, I had Reena call them and see who see would get this time in the game of who’s going to pickup this outsourced call?! Amazingly enough, Reena was able to talk with someone that redirected her to their supervisor (named Richard), who actually cared and spoke clear English. Everything was going smooth, and then the call went dead… the phone had died. I gave Reena my phone and she called back asking to be redirect to Richard, but was told it’s a cycle of representative from around the world and it could not be traced! Amazingly enough, after Reena was disconnected, Richard still was trying to make the change and remove these charges from the account. The representative that Reena was currently on the phone with saw the changes and let her know.

After all of the drama with US Airways outsourced support (besides Richard), I probably will never be use them again. I had to fly with US Airways this time only because I had a voucher to use, which was limited only to their company.

What’s the point of this post? Besides my rant on how outsourcing can really suck and screw over the support and relationship between customers and a company, it’s also to bring the situation to light and let others share their experiences as well. Outsourcing for products, fulfillment or labor is one thing, but person-to-person support really sucks. How has your experience over the years been with outsourced companies?

If you’ve been promoting the same ad campaigns for a while and looking to get into some new niche areas or follow the world media with what’s hot, a new site from Yahoo can help you out. While other search Yahoo Buzz for hot articles and use it as a new “Digg” type of resource, marketers can utilize their “Top Searches” features for new ideas on whats hot and what people are searching for.

Check Yahoo Buzz Daily for New Top Searches

The “Top Searches” feature on Yahoo Buzz is updated hourly, and not only serves as a top list, but also provides the option for you to search Yahoo results, or lookup to the Top Articles relating to the topic. How can you tell if a “top search” has any value or is worth targeting? Simply click on “search results” for the specific top search, then you can compare how many and what quality advertisements are shown for that individual keyword. The “Top Articles” feature is also there for research. Average users to Yahoo Buzz can look up the top articles, but as an internet marketer, you can see how others are targeting towards these keywords and link to these type of pages if you are going to create a resource web site for the niche terms.

If you watch Yahoo Buzz for a few days, you may see some drastic changes in the Top Searches. This makes perfect sense because people are only interested in something for so long. However in many cases, there may be a hot topic that you can focus on and grab a decent amount of traffic from the long tail of it’s related searches and any future news or media that may focus on the keyword/search in the future. Once you think you may have come across a new keyword or niche area to focus on, be sure to check and compare search and advertiser competition with Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool.

Everyone already knows how awesome it is to work at Google. When I visited their headquarters there were bike racks, people running around and jogging, a volleyball area and much more. If you are ever in California and wanting to visit Google Headquarters, make sure you talk with someone at the company first, before visiting. I didn’t want to just show up at their offices out of the blue, so I sent in a feedback form through Google Adwords admin area asking about visiting their offices and if any tours or anything were available, and I received the following response.

While I was in San Francisco, CA for EliteRetreat, I already had my flight and hotel booked for a set amount of time. Once I heard that Google Headquarters was only about an hour away, I wanted to see what I could do about extedning my stay and visiting their headquarters. Instead of heading home Monday (as planned), I extended my hotel stay another night ($289), transferred my flight for a day later ($100 transfer fee per ticket) and rented a car to drive over to their offices ($100). I didn’t mind the additional costs of around $600 for the chance to visit Google, after all I’ve worked heavily with them over the years and always read about how great their company headquarters is.

Once Reena and I arrived at Google, we went to the visitor center and asked if they have any tours of if we could roam around and check out the location. The somewhat lifeless soul behind the desk said, “No, we are a closed campus. We don’t allow anything like that.”. I then asked if I could take a picture in front of their big Google sign in the visitor center… again she replied, “No, we don’t allow pictures here”.

Very frustrated and confused, I called Google Adwords support over the phone to see what the heck was going on. I was connected with someone at Google Adwords and went through the scenario with them and explained I was currently at their offices in California and was denied access. The representative I was talking to on the phone was located in the Boston Google offices, so she could not help. I also told her about the email from Google, telling me to visit their offices. She then put me on hold for a bit and back tracked that email response to Google support in India! (So basically the representative in India had no idea what she was saying). Lastly, she looked up my Adwords specialist linked to my account, and they had the day off… though I am sure that wouldn’t have changed anything anyway.

Before leaving Google, we decided to go to the main lobby and see if they could offer any light to the situation. Once again, almost as a lifeless soul, they answered with the same response. I noticed with both secretaries, once you stopped talking directly to the (and still standing at the desk), they would just go back to work and just ignore your existence… it was very odd, and disappointing. Even after I explained to them both I had done well over six figures with the company through Google Adsense and spent thousands upon thousands through Google Adwords, the response was still the same.

My “less than thrilled” picture at Google Headquarters.

In the end, we left Google with a sour taste in our mouths. I’ve heard about how people have had to sign disclaimers on how they can’t release any information when the visit the campus, but I wasn’t expecting such a cold response from everyone there, but mostly how badly I was miss informed by their Adwords support. If you are ever planning on visiting the Google Headquarters, make sure you have something in writing that is on staff that day, otherwise you might as well just be their competition.

It’s been a few days since I wrote my last blog post. I’ve been super busy in California over the past week, attending EliteRetreat and taking some time to visit the area for a few days after. The event was awesome and I can’t say enough about, I never wrote so many notes from one event before. Guest speakers Matt Mullenweg and Guy Kawasaki were both great. I’ll be making a few updates this week on the event in whole.

Today I spent time visiting Google and eBay headquarters in Mountain View and San Jose. I’ll also be writing more on this, this week.

Tomorrow I get my flight back to NJ and will get back to work again. Sure was nice to pretty much take a week off and only open my laptop up a few times over the past couple days. On the flight back I’ll probably write a new blog post or two for this and next week.

March is over and April was kicked off with a bang… which was everyone’s own version of an April Fools Day joke or at least a Rick Roll or two. Getting back to making money, March was a full month with 31 days, so there was no excuses this month to fall short on revenue projections. During March, this blog also celebrated it’s one year anniversary! With a year under it’s belt, the blog just continues to grow in size and readership, and I thank you all! Let’s take a look at how the blog’s revenue performed during March 2008, compared to February’s earnings of $3,246.98 profit.

MARCH 2008 BLOG REVENUE REPORT:

- Affiliate Sales/Referrals: $1293.5
- Private Ad Sales: $1400.00
- Get Reviewed: $600.00
- ScratchBack Top Spots: $170.03
Total Revenue: $3,463.53

During March I had no ad costs, and the server costs are minimal since the blog is hosted on my own rack over servers.
Total Costs: $0.00

Total Blog Income for March 2008: $3,463.53

There was a slight drop in affiliate sales, but also a slight increase in private ad sales. There weren’t any big ScratchBack promotions going on during March, so the volume of advertisers was about half of February’s earnings. Lately there has been a high demand for advertising on the blog, so instead of placing advertisements all over, a new category called “Get Reviewed” has been added. This area will cover any advertised reviews on other ad networks, affiliate programs or blogs. All paid reviews will have full disclosure and I turn the majority of reviews down, do not expect this blog to become anything like paid review site.

This blog just keeps growing in size and I still have so much more to write up for you guys. Hopefully with the addition of my Twitter and FaceBook networking, I can start talking with my readers more and getting some ideas for new blogs. Speaking of new blog ideas, I would also like to start producing more video blog posts as well. The first three months since turning this blog profitable have been very close in revenue and exciting, can’t wait to see how April turns out!