Dustin Howes: 0:28

Hey folks, welcome to Affiliate Nerd Out. I am your Nerderator, dustin House. Spend that good word about affiliate marketing. You'll find me nerding out with industry folks and legends on LinkedIn live every Tuesday and Thursday and anywhere you get your podcast, so please consider subscribing. My nerd guest today is Rick McGinnis and over at Bearcat Media. Thanks for joining me, rick, and welcome to the Nerditorium.

Rick Magennis: 0:58

Thanks, dustin. Like I said earlier, I've been following this for a while and it's good to final beyond and talk.

Dustin Howes: 1:03

Awesome. Love to hear that. I need a little bit more chatter from you in the chats and, speaking of that, anybody who's over in the chats and watching this live, come on in, say something nice, say something mean, I don't care. Say something to us. Me and Rick want to take on any questions you have about affiliate marketing. But without further ado, rick, who are you?

Rick Magennis: 1:29

Oh boy, that's a deep question. So I'm an affiliate marketing veteran, but beyond that, I have a family that we live in New Jersey. I've been here my whole life. I have two daughters, 12 and 9, been married. This is going on. This is 14 years in October and affiliate marketing really wasn't even on my radar until like 2011,. 2012, when I got laid off and then I was desperate, and then I squirmed my way into affiliate marketing because I was desperate.

Dustin Howes: 2:11

I need money. I had a kid, a baby.

Rick Magennis: 2:12

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I know the wife was not exactly thrilled. So I had to figure out how I was going to support the family, because I didn't want to go back to being a pharmaceutical rep because it wasn't treating me well.

Dustin Howes: 2:28

That's a tough industry, I mean, but I'm sure that gave you a lot of grit on the sales development portion of that probably gave you a lot of experience that was helpful today.

Rick Magennis: 2:39

Yeah, no, it was a good experience for the long time it lasted. I was like three or four years and I had a company car and that sucked getting that taken away and having to buy a car. Overall it was a good experience. But you've talked about sales and developing the sales chops. It was actually my first job out of college. I worked at Enterprise Renekar. I didn't like a minute of it, but it was a good experience in terms of sales and dealing with people and that type of thing. If anyone ever asked me if I want to work at Enterprise, I say no, don't do it.

Dustin Howes: 3:28

You need a little grit in your life, especially early on, to get an experience of what you don't want to do in life. You need that customer's experience. You've got to be a server or you've got to be something like me. I was a poker dealer and I knew I needed to change my life and get out of that industry. The money was good, sure, but at least I got a taste of what the service industry is like. I treat people much better in the world because of it. You being in that service definitely helped in what you're doing today, I would assume.

Rick Magennis: 4:04

Oh, it does. Honestly, I think a lot. Why would I stay in this industry if I was treated the way I was? I felt you marketing as I have clients and helping them grow their affiliate program the way that the service industry treated me. The first few years out of college I was thinking about what the hell you're doing and why are you staying. It's something you know and you gravitate to and you figure out you're good at it, even though you don't like it. But you find something in that niche that you're good at and you like it. And then here I am today.

Dustin Howes: 4:43

Yeah, beautiful, I've done probably 20 of these episodes at this point and you are the first person to say, hey, I'm Rick and I'm a family man. I've got a couple of kids. That was the first thing that came out of your mouth. Everybody else is strictly focused. This is my industry. It's kind of a European way of thinking. I've always admired that from the people across the pond. They're always focused first on what their life is. It doesn't define them as a person. Their career comes secondary. I like that kind of message that you've got going on there.

Rick Magennis: 5:23

Yeah, so my wife works full time. She's a director of nursing. She works a long, crazy hours. So I basically have two full time jobs. I run my business and I take care of my kids as well when my wife's not home. So I'm taking them to school in the morning, picking them up from school, taking them to appointments, going to practices and games and all that stuff.

Rick Magennis: 5:49

So I have two full time jobs and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love it. My kids come first before anything. If a client needs something and it interferes with, if a client wants to meet with me and that collides with my kids' events or anything, my kids go first. We'll figure out the client meeting later. So I never put my family second to anything.

Dustin Howes: 6:15

Beautiful, Love it, and that's the same life I'm living. My wife's working for Impact and she's gotten a demanding job over there and doing incredible work over at Impact. But most of the dating stuff pickups, drop offs, sports, a lot of it's going on me and Philly I'm in that same boat. Well, if we want to learn more about Rick, I'm going to drop a link in the chat profile so that you guys can go and see that. Looks like we got some guests here already Kristin Evans, so excited for Rick's insights. Beautiful, Thanks big time. Really appreciate you being here and joining in. Hey everybody, it's Patty.

Rick Magennis: 6:56

How's that, Patty?

Dustin Howes: 6:56

McGill. Oh, you know it, my first all-time guest on this podcast and he's been great. Good to see you two masters on the stream. Thanks, patty. Thanks for being here, buddy. All right, so getting into it. Bearcat Media, this is your company. Tell me about how this name got started, first of all.

Rick Magennis: 7:24

It was founded back in 2011 when I was still, I guess, technically 1099-ing it, okay, working. So I needed like just a business so I can write off expenses, things like that, and I'll try to think about cool name. But a lot of the cool names were taken so I was trying to figure out cool animal names and bear cat was was one of them. That looked up what a bear cat was. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool, it's, it's. It's a weird like. It's kind of like a Wolverine in a way. It's like that size. It's like it's it's. It's not what you think it is. It's not like a hybrid of a bear and a cat. It's like a. It's like a. It looks like a Wolverine in a way. It's like has a little little mean street to it. And I'm like, oh, it's cool name bear cat. And then we put media on the end. There we go. There's my LLC. Ever since, everyone asked me when they meet me, they're like did you go to the University of Cincinnati?

Dustin Howes: 8:16

Oh.

Rick Magennis: 8:17

And no, I did not. I went to a small school in New Jersey, but but yeah, it's. It's one of those things where it's it was no, no real intent behind it, just trying to find a cool name just just added in Necessity, like let's get the tax purposes, got the name and it's stuck like that's.

Dustin Howes: 8:39

That's pretty impressive that it's stuck around all this time.

Rick Magennis: 8:42

Yeah and my wife always asked me. She's like, first of all, she has no idea what I do. Yeah, not a clue. Like I can talk to her all day. She would just be like, whatever, just do you make money. I'm like, yeah, she's a good, that's all I have. But she's like what is your name mean? I'm like Nothing, like just just what I explained to you. That's what I tell everyone. It's just a random name, so it's. It's one of those things where I wish I had a cooler story behind it, but it is what it is.

Dustin Howes: 9:11

I think it's even cooler that that's your story. I enjoy it, like the story of why affiliate nerd out exists. It's kind of a long-winded one but, like my sisters were nerds, they were valedictorians at their school and high school and they were nerds but it was a badge of honor and that's why affiliate nerd out came about, because I like being an affiliate nerd and that's why we're here and Talking industry stuff. So tell me more about Bearcat and like who are you servicing over there?

Rick Magennis: 10:31

Now we used to serve as just about anyone that would that had an affiliate program. Right now we're more Nitching down a little bit more as we figure out as we go along, but we're now into a lot of the outdoor Firearm space. That's, that's where we, that's where we tend to Land. More of now is like just you, when you think about link in the brains that were a lot link like camping, hiking, fishing, firearm accessories, like tactical, that type of thing. That that's that's kind of where we're at right now Primarily. But we do have health and wellness and fitness, but but that's, that's secondary to to the outdoor space.

Dustin Howes: 11:17

Gotcha, and and I think that's a natural progression like when you take that leap into the agency life, you're gonna take on basically any client you can who's who's gonna pay your bills, and then you kind of Fall into this nice vertical. For me it's it's SaaS companies, right, like not a lot of people are servicing SaaS and I jumped into it and have a lot of experience With it and that's my database of affiliates, and so you're in that that firearm space is a little bit difficult, don't? Don't you have some like I can't imagine it's easy for like media buyers to be out there buying stuff for firearms and trying to Buy Google ads for that. That's gotta be a little bit difficult.

Rick Magennis: 12:04

Yeah, it is more challenging than than others. We don't. We don't deal with brands that sell firearms directly to guns. We do most of the accessories, which is a little bit different because those companies that sell the firearms like the actual firearms Can't have, like Shopify stores and things like that. They're just not allowed. So we we primarily partner with a lot of the content producers in that space, and there are a lot of them.

Rick Magennis: 12:31

Yeah the space is filled with content producers, whether be written, video, social. Just to put it perspective, this one person that we deal with. They have they live in Texas and we sent them samples. I just did a quick look up of their house. They look at a four million dollar house and all they do is have a blog on firearms and accessories and I'm like Good Lord, I'm like you must, must, be nice, like I'm doing something wrong here.

Dustin Howes: 13:01

Oh, man, man, I I love going down those rabbit holes and accidentally like Digging too deep on a partner right and like even looking up their address is hilarious because I I had their address from a sample.

Rick Magennis: 13:13

I sent them for a product. Okay, doug. D big they actually sent me their address and I'm like let me see what we see. Like I don't want to give away the town, but it's in Texas and I'm like good, I'm like wow, I'm like good for them. No, like it's like yeah, it's one of those things where it's you, you think that the industry is so restrictive in, yeah, I, but they've, they've made a name for themselves and they're they're doing really well dude that industry, that conservative market.

Dustin Howes: 13:42

Once you build that trust with them, it is really. They are really influential. Like I over at IP vanish, we we targeted some conservative markets and influencers and they absolutely late it because you know IP vanish is helping keep your privacy and I did the same over at true finders. Like going after that market was really valuable and the influencers are super valuable in that space as well.

Dustin Howes: 14:13

So their audience is so loyal, very, very true, awesome. So he got into that agency life. I want to take a step back, though, and like, let's talk about your. Your grind all the way until you started your own agency so what was your first roles in this Affiliate realm? And then like your progression into all the way where you, you know started your own agency.

Rick Magennis: 14:41

So it started back when I told you I got laid off his de Pharma suit a correct. I had to. I just Me and my daughter was just born again if she wasn't born yet, she was just bored. So it was like brand new and I was looking for looking for work and I was looking online on how to make money online. This is back in 2011, 2012, so it's not what it is today.

Rick Magennis: 15:04

And I came across affiliate marketing and I saw how people were building websites on certain products and sending traffic to it and link it to Amazon products and making money that way. So I'm like, well, let's, let's try that. So I spent a couple hundred bucks to get a website built and I the product I picked with baby strollers, which was perfect. So I I got a couple of strollers, reviewed them, put them on there, did the written in video reviews, put them on there, made a few bucks Okay, enough to survive. And then I'm like you know, I'm not really Digging this. I want to. I want to see what it's like on the other side of like working on on an affiliate program, and I Woked up how to do that and.

Rick Magennis: 15:45

I came across like companies that manage affiliate programs, which were agencies, and I just started cold calling agency owners and people that work the agencies just to See what I could do to get in there. I had no experience, really, so, don't I. And I reached out to Jen, jen Myers and she she gave me my first shot Beautiful and yeah, it was. It was good we. I.

Dustin Howes: 16:09

Had a good time there.

Rick Magennis: 16:10

She, she taught me a lot. Then I Moved on to Gino, worked for Gino Prusikov. I worked with him for like six years and and it was a it was a great experience that I learned majority of what I know now from from Gino and had a run affiliate programs and things like that and had a talk to customers and had a talk to affiliate. So I'd be lying to say Gino wasn't a big influence in my career because he was, and the only issue I saw that is like I saw All what I was getting paid versus what the contracts were, yep, and it really didn't sit well with me.

Dustin Howes: 16:53

Doing all the work right.

Rick Magennis: 16:54

I was doing a lot of the work and not getting what I probably should have been, so then I decided to just Cut that out and doing myself, and here we are.

Dustin Howes: 17:05

Yeah, great story. And and two industry legends. I love Jen to death and Gino's such an Incredible inspiration for like. That's why I created my own online course to teach affiliate management is I saw what Gino was doing with a M days and how is a lead generation for his agency and what he's doing there. It's super smart and he was a navigator before that in this industry. Jen, if you're, if you're watching, I want you on, so I'm gonna hit you up after this episode. But very interesting journey. So you left Gino and you took on your first client, like. What was that transition of? Like? How'd you take that leap to go and do this on your own?

Rick Magennis: 17:56

Yeah, it wasn't exactly glorious, to be honest. It was scary because I decided to go on my own right near the end of 2019. In the beginning of 2020, we all know what happened there, so I just went on my own. This was cold calling brands see if I can manage your affiliate program. I was at the point where I was doing it for performance. Only at that time, just get in the door and get my name out there, and then the pandemic hit and then I'm like, oh boy, this is not good. I thankfully got some retainers at that point, but it was tough slaying for the first like 12, 16 months. It was pretty rough. And from there in 2021, where I really started hitting my stride, and, yeah, I don't do any more performance only deals.

Dustin Howes: 18:56

Sure.

Rick Magennis: 18:57

It's just not worth it. Sorry to anybody who does, it's not worth it to me. But yeah, I've been on a solid growth trajectory ever since and I'm doing really well with what I'm doing now. But at the beginning it was very scary and it was the unknown, and I give my wife a lot of credit for putting up with it, because when I first started I had no money and then I was putting everything on the line and she had to support everything and it was tough for her and I give her a lot of credit. I thank her all the time for it. But thankfully now I'm the breadwinner.

Rick Magennis: 19:43

So, she can quit if she wants, but she just loves what she does, so she can. She's sticking it out because she likes doing nursing. But I tell her every day, like you can quit. I mean I don't care.

Dustin Howes: 19:56

I hope I can get to a point in my career where I can tell Sarah to quit. I know it's coming. It's one of those things like we're getting there but we're not there yet and I'm looking forward to it.

Rick Magennis: 20:10

Trust me, it was one of my longtime goals to get her to quit, and she's I don't know if she's just, she just likes to work. I told her, like, if you don't want to quit, just cut down. I'm like, yeah, you want to work. I'm like, please, I'm like, but whatever, it's like, I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing and she can. She can tell me two weeks from now or two months from now that she wants to quit, and I'll be fine with it.

Dustin Howes: 20:33

Beautiful. All right, we've got Jen, another Jen lover, over here in Chris and Big Time Evans. And then I got ties Todd Weiss, a former guest on this. I told him to hit the chats and look at him. Go way to go, todd. Thank you, hi, rick and Dustin. In a specific niche like you're currently specialized in, what do you find has been more responsive, new producing affiliates or getting more traction with older affiliates?

Rick Magennis: 21:03

Great question.

Dustin Howes: 21:04

Todd, thanks for jumping in bud.

Rick Magennis: 21:06

Yeah, it's really cool. I got a follow up question to that, but. But essentially we we have relationships with a lot of these big outdoor tactical affiliates already in half for you for a few years now. So we we onboard new programs. The first thing we do is go to go to the big guys and say, hey, we have this program, we can do this for you. They jump in. So it helps that we have a database of older affiliates that we can go back to and just plug in right away.

Rick Magennis: 21:39

But there's always new ones popping up immediately, like all the time, and we like to think that we have a special way of communicating with these people to get them to join, and offering free stuff is always good, but the way we go about approaching these people is different than many other agencies out there, where it's not just a cookie cutter template kind of thing, it's more of like personal and we actually go through what they do and try and see what we can do specifically with them, versus just a blanket program.

Dustin Howes: 22:20

Okay, gotcha, I mean that's why we have databases and that's why we're bringing on clients, we're trying to get new ones on but absolutely If you have the full program management solution in place, I think it's super important to get as much data as you possibly can about the existing program, checking out conversion rates of the existing partners and average order value super important to see Like you might have some hidden gems that you really need to tune it up with and do whatever you can because their audience is hot. So great question, Todd, the right mix is a little bit of both, but like, if you don't start recruiting immediately you're gonna look bad. I think it's a bottom line.

Rick Magennis: 23:06

It's true. Yeah, you always gotta be recruiting. That's my philosophy. It's one of those things where we're constantly on a lookout for new partners and, whether we're contracted to do it or not, like most of our contracts, we have like a certain number of affiliates we reach out to each month and we always exceed that number just because we don't wanna miss opportunities.

Dustin Howes: 23:33

Beautiful, great point. And that brings me up to the sponsor of the day. Oh, who should it be? I think it should be performance marketing manager, my online course. It teaches you how to recruit affiliates the right way and all the templates that you could ever want to come and join an affiliate program. Go check it out today. Let's turn on the affiliate best practices here. Like any tools and anything that you're using right now that you're really liking in the industry, that's helping you do more recruitment.

Rick Magennis: 24:18

What tool that we've been using. It's not like a recruiting tour or anything, but it's more of a CRM and it's called Copper and it's a CRM that integrates with Google really well. So we have email boxes for all of our clients and it just clicks. You click a button and just automatically sends all your email conversations to the correct place and so that you know. Then you can do a pipeline of where you are in the conversations with each affiliate. Are you just starting the communication? Are you negotiating with them? Do you want to do a placement with them, or they want sponsored content samples? Have they joined? So you can put them through the whole process there. That's what makes it so simple to go back and just see where we're at with all these different prospects, because spreadsheets are cool and all, but it just gets messy and having this little CRM is good and it's. I think I paid $21 a month or something for it. It's really cool.

Dustin Howes: 25:23

Wow, wow, that's good value. I'm specifically for my agency life. I like using Go High Level, which I'm a big fan of. They do all the things and they do them all really well and you know that's a $300 price point a month but it's helping me do my course and keeping me organized with all of my database of affiliates, which is really helpful. So I like how you're segmenting into different clients. It is really hard to juggle 10 inboxes and like keep opening up tabs to that Gmail. That can be frustrating, and having a one smart hub is super important for your organization skills.

Rick Magennis: 26:08

So I also. I don't do a lot of the work myself anymore.

Dustin Howes: 26:13

Sure.

Rick Magennis: 26:14

I'm still involved heavily, but I realized a team but I have a team of VA's that do all that, like moving from inbox to CRM, and it's been phenomenal how efficient it's become.

Dustin Howes: 26:30

A very good point. Tell me about that journey. Do you have employees, or is this? You do it in the consulting do in the top of the strategy early on and then handing this off to a lot of virtual assistants that you have?

Rick Magennis: 26:49

I don't have employees. I've cut the contractors, which is that's a lot of agencies that I've route with the contractor model. But I have contractors that do the account management and I have a couple of strategists that I have that do this strategy, that we work together. So when we have clients, for example, we have a client come on board, we have a strategy session and we go over that and I throw my two cents in and they come up with a strategy. Then it gets filtered down to account managers and then from there, vas are involved in that and they come in. So I have a whole system of how this works. But yeah, I have no actual employees, w2 employees at all. Smart.

Dustin Howes: 27:36

I think that's one of the key factors to scaling, especially early on, and it can be one of the strategies that you can keep forever too. I've always said I've never want to actually employ actual people in this industry. It's just, it's a lot of headache, it's a lot of effort, but virtual assistants have made my life so much easier. And let's talk about the training purposes. What are you using out there to train these VAs when you bring them on and need to expand the agency?

Rick Magennis: 28:19

Yeah, I'm not gonna get too deep into what it is because I don't want everyone just to start doing it, but I have, my whole business is systematized.

Dustin Howes: 28:30

Yeah.

Rick Magennis: 28:32

Like I have any tasks that you need to do with my business. There's a document or video on it.

Dustin Howes: 28:38

Beautiful.

Rick Magennis: 28:40

So they need to figure out how to, let's say, the coppers. They need to figure out how to upload a prospect in the copper and navigate it.

Dustin Howes: 28:48

I have a whole.

Rick Magennis: 28:48

SOP on step by step, with a video and everything like that, that they can get a link and you read it. You can do the whole thing without asking a single question about how to do it. Everything is A to Z on that sheet and the funny thing is I had one of my, my babysitter, who was watching my kids. For the longest time she was watching the kids but also she was doing this, so she actually helped me. My whole SOP library, which is thousands of hours of time.

Rick Magennis: 29:27

She did it all and she started when she was like 15. And she still works with me to this day and she's in her third year of college.

Dustin Howes: 29:36

So awesome Does that, all that.

Rick Magennis: 29:40

For me. She's like when she graduated college she'll. I'll be bringing her on in a pretty high role because she knows the ins and outs of my business and the SOPs are so important.

Dustin Howes: 29:54

Oh for sure Stand that operating procedures. For those that don't know it, it's super important to document all your processes when you're running an agency and if you wanna go out in there and try a virtual assistant for yourself I like online jobsph Go to dustinhousecom, slash VA and take a look at where I get my VA, and it is a super easy platform for you to go out there and check out and find the right virtual assistant for the work that you wanna get done.

Rick Magennis: 30:28

It's funny because I use that one at one point. I have a virtual assistant who I don't really. I consider her like part of my company. She's been with me for three and a half years now. So and yeah, that's where I found her originally is on that website and she's Beautiful, phenomenal. So it's like you're looking for good people. That's a good place to start.

Dustin Howes: 30:55

Yeah, absolutely, and what happens is virtual assistants that are good will have other virtual assistants that they know and they can bring on that make really good employees as well. So that's a great place to start when you need the help. Let's switch gears a little bit and go to affiliate partnership tactics, like what's been working for you out there lately.

Rick Magennis: 31:21

So since we got everything organized and systematized, the whole business is so much easier. But in terms of like the partnerships piece, no matter who's doing the recruiting or the activation or the management of the account yeah, you have to be completely organized or else it could just fall apart on you. And in terms of like the tactics that have been working, having we have someone that does just like research for potential new affiliates, so like some people have, like the account manager that does the reporting and the research and then the outreach and all that stuff it's I found that that's okay. That's what I did with Regina. I did all that.

Rick Magennis: 32:10

It worked, but it limits what you can and can't do. So we have the team that does just the research and they can do a lot more at scale and then bring it back to the account team and they can reach out in a more customized way.

Rick Magennis: 32:29

So instead of the account person wasting their time, finding them recently finding a forum and that's it's all, saved hundreds of hours of time just in that. And to think that people are still doing it the other way is kind of crazy to me. But again, if it works for them, it works. It's just. It's one of those things that until you try it, you don't realize how efficient it really is.

Dustin Howes: 32:57

Right and that's that natural progression of like running your own agency is developing that partner development team that's going to go out and do that legwork early on so that you can tap into that relationship when you get the right client with the right fit for those partners. Super smart, love the organizational aspects of that. Any, any kind of tools outside you said copper anything in the recruitment sector that you think is working right now for you.

Rick Magennis: 33:30

I wish I could say yes, but I haven't found the tool that I've actually enjoyed using. That's good enough for me to justify the cost.

Dustin Howes: 33:38

Right, that's the issue these tools.

Rick Magennis: 33:41

In theory they're good, but a lot of them are just for me. They just don't. They don't do what I need it to do and like maybe one day I'll create one that does everything I want it to do, but until then there's like you know what? I'm not going to put anyone on blast, I'm not going to even do it, I don't want to do it again, just keep it at that. So I just wish there was a tool that had everything that I desired, and I can tell you right now there's other affiliate managers out there that want the same thing. They just want some good, solid tool that is not ridiculous expensive either.

Dustin Howes: 34:19

Sure, sure. I mean, there are some great tools out there. Similar web comes to mind, but it's just starting to build out a really impressive tool for affiliate managers, but the cost of it is just way too much. It's out of my price range. Like I'm not just not going to pay for something like that, and so true, Like I'm looking for a really solid solution that works for all verticals and niches and is an affordable price point for an agency, but that kind of thing it doesn't exist.

Rick Magennis: 34:52

Nothing's perfect out there right and I found the way that I'm doing it, comparing it to the cost of the tools. It's less and to me it's just as effective, or if not more, for what I need it for. So I'm doing it my way and maybe one day I'll monetize the way I do it and help others. But until then, until I find more time in my day, until we get more than 24 hours in a day, I don't think that's possible.

Dustin Howes: 35:21

Awesome. Speaking of your way, like I know, you went to Affiliate Summit. Tell me about your experience of where it is.

Rick Magennis: 35:29

I'm never going again. I'll be honest. Okay, I'm never going to again and I live 30 minutes away. You know I'd rather get on a plane and fight a Vegas than go to New York.

Dustin Howes: 35:43

Vegas is such a pleasure to go to, and I gave up on New York years ago. I'm just not going to do it again, but tell me you used your free PMA ticket though.

Rick Magennis: 35:57

No, I didn't. I used it for West last year, but I paid for this one. I just I don't know. I don't want to get into like too much of the negative. I'm not really a negative person, but it's just really a. The people that I'm looking to talk to aren't there. Okay, that's just the bottom. I'm looking to talk to a lot of brands and a lot of like E-com related brands and affiliates, and then it still show up to East.

Dustin Howes: 36:32

I completely agree with you. It's a secondary of that conference. I love the brand that affiliate summit has created and the networking at affiliate summit West is really incredible. I hack my entire calendar full when I'm over at West, but I'd never had that experience over at East.

Rick Magennis: 36:52

Yeah, it is what. It is Real quick. The PI live. They're becoming an alternative to affiliate summit. They're becoming more of a player and you get a lot less of the I don't know how to put it.

Dustin Howes: 37:09

The CPA networks yeah.

Rick Magennis: 37:10

I was gonna say garbage, but CPA networks.

Dustin Howes: 37:14

They work for some people yeah.

Rick Magennis: 37:16

Just obviously not me, but but there's none of that at PI live it's a lot more. If you're looking to grow an affiliate program as an E-com business and you're an E-com affiliate, that's probably the one you should look at, because Matt Woods doing good things over there.

Dustin Howes: 37:34

Okay, awesome, I've heard that as well. Like we had a really good showing over part of the board at the PMA and they got us free tickets over to PI live as well and it's quickly becoming one of those go-to spots for the folks in the PMA and you get a free ticket. Like you buy your membership to the PMA for a couple of hundred dollars and then you get free tickets to all of these incredible conferences and it pays for itself instantly when you use one of those tickets. So for those of you that are out there that don't know about the PMA, go to the PMAorg and go check it out. I've got a comment here. It says I'm headed to CJU for the first time September. If you guys have been, what should I expect? Great question.

Rick Magennis: 38:25

I've never been to one. They don't let me in. They don't let me go.

Dustin Howes: 38:30

Oh no, you don't have programs running on CJ.

Rick Magennis: 38:33

Even when I did, they wouldn't let me in.

Dustin Howes: 38:35

So yeah, it's kind of snooty. It is a hell of an event, like I will tell you, like they do it right, but they bring in and I can select all the people that they're gonna bring in. Congratulations for getting in there.

Rick Magennis: 38:52

Oh yeah, you did something I couldn't do.

Dustin Howes: 38:56

Amazing. But what should you expect? Everything's taken care of. You really don't need to leave the radius of a quarter mile of and, unlike Vegas, where you might have a hotel in a virtual like six miles away. Don't walk from hotel to hotel. It is a longer journey than you think in Vegas, but CJU is. It's a good time. There's a lot of great networking there and it's very intimate in my experience. So have fun up there.

Rick Magennis: 39:29

I found the Rakuten's deal maker and CJU were kind of the same class. They pick who they want to go and I've not been able to get into either of them. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I just I'm not a bad guy.

Dustin Howes: 39:46

You gotta get on their good side. I used to work for CJ. I don't get invited to CJU, so maybe it's all my proimpactcom propaganda that I've got spitting out all the time, so you can't be too negative about them, right?

Rick Magennis: 40:02

I'm not negative about them.

Dustin Howes: 40:05

I'm a big supporter of what they're doing. Tell me about what you've got going on speaking to platforms Like you've got something that's comparing to a version.

Rick Magennis: 40:15

I hear yeah, so I guess you think of reversion and like go affiliate pro and then those, those types of applications. Yeah, we spent a year and a half building one out, trying to figure out like. We use a lot of platforms, since we're an agency, so we see a lot and a lot of what we like and what we don't like. So I decided to partner with a dev team and now we built a Shopify affiliate app, pmx, and it's live out there in the wild for Shopify only, but what it does is the main selling feature is the database of affiliates that we have. Compared to a lot of these others. These are all basically BearCats connections that we're moving into this SaaS platform and the way that payments are made to affiliates. So a lot of these other non networks you got to like set up PayPal. You got to pay each one individually and the pain in the neck.

Rick Magennis: 41:28

So we have an integration where we have a couple clicks and you pay all your affiliates, and affiliates get to choose how they want to get paid whether they want to get an ACH, paypal, they want to get gift cards, they want to give away to charity. So they get to choose and it's all a couple clicks and it's all done. So that's a real selling feature and if anyone wants to learn more, they can go to getpmxcom and that's where everything is about the app and I'd be happy to demo it for anyone. And if anyone's interested in actually bring the clients on, we're waiving the SaaS fees, like the monthly fees. We're just going to do a percentage of sales as well. So just the reason we want to get feedback on the app and how it works and things like that. So we're waiving all the fees for a few months just to get some feedback. And it's so far, so good. It's really going well. We're getting a lot of feedback. We got we got like 17 brands on it already.

Dustin Howes: 42:28

So it's going really well and I assume you're taking your database of affiliates that you've been working with through the years and getting them on board so that the merchants that come on board can access some of those right.

Rick Magennis: 42:42

Right, yeah, the whole point is we have a simple hit the profile view who the affiliate is. You can invite them to join from there. If the affiliate gets an email accept or reject and then the partnerships form. That that's simply it's. We try to make it as simple as possible. Like there's a lot of these other platforms, you either got to jump through hoops and do a multiple, you have to integrate your inbox or that stuff. Oh, that's another thing. Are the way you could communicate with these affiliates directly through the app. You know if they hook up email addresses and all that stuff, you just send a message through it. So you think of a share site. You know how you send, like the newsletter and you send it to everybody. You can send it to the whole list individuals and it just goes right through the platform to their email and they reply back. So it's really. It really cuts out a lot of the extra, extra noise.

Dustin Howes: 43:37

Yeah, well, I love that you're you're moving forward with the industry impact recently started doing that same kind of thing of like messaging partners through the platform, but it's still glitchy. It's. It's still in the tendency and I like that you're building that in because that's an important part of it, like if you don't have to leave the platform to manage the relationships. That's super clutch Like, and I love how you've got the payout forms. That's usually the biggest pain point for using a third party solution. That's not like a major network and the payouts just suck. Like. Doing all of the tax paperwork is really brutal and I like a post-affiliate pro and things like that where you need to get a topolty integration of some sort to make that life easier. So I'd love to hear that you're doing that. Get pmxcom, go check it out there.

Rick Magennis: 44:40

Yes, because we're not a bank, we're not like share sale and all those guys that handle the payouts on that stuff. We don't want to get involved in that because it's just opportunities for exposure that we don't want. So we have an integration that works really well.

Dustin Howes: 45:01

Awesome. Anna Marie says I don't want to see like a hater, but this is already for years.

Dustin Howes: 45:11

I don't know what that means, but I'm not quite sure. Maybe she's talking about the technology. It's been around for years. It might be, but everything's getting better these days as SaaS gets better. I'm looking forward to checking out your platform and bringing on a client in the future. So, moving on, as we close out here, I want you to defend your post here. I saw something on LinkedIn. Sarah Bunny made a comment about using chat GBT and explaining to her five-year-old about what it is, and then you made a comment like I think I'll use this to explain this to my wife Now. Defend your post here, Rick.

Rick Magennis: 45:54

So I think her post was about explaining to her five-year-old that believe it was, or explain how you do what you do. For years I couldn't explain what I do. I still have a hard time, even in the simplest terms. It's tough, but I did. I actually did use chat GBT to explain this to a six-grader or something like that. It was talking about how, with toys and how they trade toys with their friends in exchange for a commission, it made it so simple that anybody can understand it. I don't think my wife even still understands it. She's not business oriented like that. She's a nurse, she's a medical and things like that. I don't think she even cares. But yeah, my whole thing is just trying to figure out how to make things simple, even for clients. When I'm talking to them on a prospect, I don't get fancy words what's that going to do? It's just going to confuse them. So I keep it as simple as possible and that usually is the best bet. I never have anyone ask me what I'm talking about or anything when I do that.

Rick Magennis: 47:14

Grant, give me things. If you want to keep it simple, explain your wife Things. Just make it as trial-dicious as you can. That's why I can explain it.

Dustin Howes: 47:26

I'm lucky to not have to explain it. My wife knows just as much, if not more, about affiliate marketing than I do, so on the flip side of that, a lot of our dinner conversations might turn into that kind of talking about the industry, which can be tough, but I enjoy it. We're having a great time being that power couple. So well, rick, I'm going to wrap this up. I really appreciate all of your insight here today. Thanks for being with us.

Dustin Howes: 47:58

My guests next week are going to be Mike Curry and David Zerran, so stop in on Tuesday and Thursday for that. If you would like to be a guest of mine and take this hot seat where Rick is today, go to dustinhousecom slash nerd, or you can hit this QR code up here and submit your application. And lastly, if you would like 15 minutes of my time for free, go to dustinhousecom slash explorer. I will talk about affiliate to just about anybody that wants to come in and hang out, and I will point you in the right direction if I'm not the right person to help you out. So, rick, really appreciate your time. Thanks for being here and any parting words for the audience here.

Rick Magennis: 48:48

No, I'm good. I probably said too much. I don't remember what I said, so, of course, something stupid that I'll regret.

Dustin Howes: 48:55

Oh, I'll make sure to make a clip of that and send it to your wife, so I hope you're the first time I say something stupid, so all right, appreciate you, rick. Good luck out there. Keep on recruiting, take care.