Eric Nagel

Eric Nagel

CTO, PHP Programmer, Affiliate Marketer & IT Consultant

Pros and Cons of Working Together

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If you were at the last Affiliate Summit, or follow me on Twitter, you probably know I’m in a Mastermind Group with Todd Farmer and Tricia Meyer. In fact, we spoke about the topic at Affiliate Summit West this past January.

Eric, Todd & Tricia
Mastermind Group Session at Affiliate Summit West 2012

The first year of our group was focused on helping each other build our own businesses. But while at ASW, we brought up the idea of building a site together. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, so working together allowed us to work off of each other, and focus on what we did best. While our project turned out great, there are also somethings to look out for when working with a group

Pros

Deadlines

We set a deadline back in late January, and of course did 90% of the work the week before the date that was set! That’s not to say we did nothing for 6 weeks: we agreed on the framework, a theme (u-design), and divvied up the responsibilities to get the job done.

Forced to think creatively

Working alone, I really miss being challenged. With clients, they’ll say they want something; I usually say No, but then keep thinking until I can figure it out. Todd is a big fan of WordPress, which was used as the foundation for our site. But there were some parts that needed custom programming. The moment I figured out how to use [shortcodes] and the WordPress commenting system within my custom pages, I was thrilled! Now I can take what I learned, and apply it to my other sites.

Wordpress comments & related posts in custom programming
This is really exciting when it's not blurred out

Low start-up cost

I didn’t have to hire someone to write content, research the merchants, or design the site – Tricia and Todd took care of those things, while I was working on programming. When you have a diverse set of people, it keeps the start-up costs down.

Cons

Threat to friendship

Mixing friends & business typically isn’t a good idea. So far, we’ve managed to work everything out. Business & personal relationships are two different things, and when there’s a problem, get it out there, discussed, and put to rest.

Shared ownership

When the site takes off, and you see it make it’s first $10,000, remember: you get 1/3 of that. However, it’s the teamwork from the beginning that allowed the site to hit the first $10k in commissions.

Democracy

You don’t always get your way. Personally, I custom program everything because I’m a control freak. Todd loves his plugins. Loves. Them. Learn to let go (if I can, anybody can).

Summary

In less than 3 months, we’ve built one of the best-looking sites in this niche, and three months from now, I expect to be pushing some of the existing sites down the rankings. We’re set-up for a strong Q4, and have set exciting and realistic financial goals for the year.

Comments
  • Todd Farmer
    Posted March 23, 2012 9:46 am 0Likes

    Working with you and Tricia on this project has been more fun than I’ve had in years.

    As we mentioned in our “Masterminds Group Exposed” presentation at ASW12, one of the *potential* side benefits of a Mastermind Group is that you may *possibly* end up working together on a project.

    …and I’m sure glad that we did.

    Thanks, Eric & Tricia! (Now I have TWO favorite parts of my week: Our Friday MM call, and our Tuesday Project Call.)

  • Tricia Meyer
    Posted March 23, 2012 9:58 am 0Likes

    I’m glad that you wrote this post because I think it’s nice to show 1) another benefit of the Mastermind Group, and 2) how people in affiliate marketing can work together.

    Another “Pro” that I would add is how much you can learn when you work with others. I thought that I learned a lot from the two of you each week in our MM calls. Our new project took that to a whole new level because of the way that we assign tasks, compare notes, and discuss ways to make the site better. As a result of our group project, the rest of my business is going to be stronger as well.

    I’m a lucky girl to be a part of such a smart, creative, hard-working trio. 🙂

  • Milan Jara
    Posted March 30, 2012 7:19 am 0Likes

    Beautiful post, Eric.. I have not met you or Tricia but get a chance to meet Todd and if that is only the 1/3 of your team strength, you are in for lot of victories. I also really like when you mention that it is ok to let go. You are right, sometimes is better to let go.

    Anyway, I wish you guys all the best and will be seeing you around. 🙂

  • Trackback: Mastermind Success: Our First Joint Venture
  • Keith V
    Posted August 3, 2013 6:18 pm 0Likes

    Yeah I like the idea of partnership too. It’s like going to the gym with a buddy and having them push you. But if they get too pushy, you kind of start to resent them. Both methods work, it just depends which one works better for which situation.

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