Pivoting From Coupons to a Content Affiliate Marketing Program with Marshall Nyman

Dustin Howes: 0:25

Hey folks, welcome to affiliate nerd out. I am your narrator, Dustin Howes. Spread that good word about affiliate marketing. You're gonna find me every Tuesday and Thursday right here on LinkedIn live or YouTube live at 1215 Pacific time, so please smash that subscribe button and set it on your calendar to be here. My nerd guests of the day, marshall niman is that correct?

Marshall Nyman: 0:50

that is correct.

Dustin Howes: 0:51

CEO, owner, founder of. How do you pronounce it and why?

Marshall Nyman: 0:58

Nine Mo and Co.

Dustin Howes: 0:59

I'm ho and Co Love it. A great agency in this industry. Thanks for joining me and welcome to the Nerditorium there, Marshall of course.

Marshall Nyman: 1:09

Thanks for having me on excited to be here.

Dustin Howes: 1:12

Awesome. I'm gonna drop a link to Marshall's LinkedIn profile in the chat If you would like to join us for a little live Q&A. Please drop anything in the chat box that you would like, if you got any questions for us today. Our question of the day what is your coupon strategy? Look like we're gonna be talking all about coupon sites and the lack thereof in our programs, and I would love to hear what your coupon strategy is out there. But without further ado here, marshall, who are you?

Marshall Nyman: 1:48

Hey Marshall niman. I'm founder and CEO of nine mo and Co. Started the agency about six and a half years ago and went full-time about a year ago. We help brands who are just getting started in their early phase either Launch an affiliate program or basically Re-evaluate their program, get the right partners in there so they can have a content-based approach. I also am the host of the performance marketing spotlight podcast. We do about the space.

Dustin Howes: 2:17

You know, spotlight, what do you do on that podcast?

Marshall Nyman: 2:20

So we interview people from the industry. It's an opportunity for them to share their experience what they've been doing and where they're currently at and an opportunity to maybe Drive some connections and partners through their audience.

Dustin Howes: 2:33

Good to go. I am still Waiting for my invite in the mail. I can't believe I have not been invited to this yet. I'm gonna make it awkward.

Marshall Nyman: 2:45

I already invited you and I said we were gonna get it on the go, get it going a couple weeks, so we'll definitely make that happen. But yeah, we'll have you on for sure.

Dustin Howes: 2:54

I'm just messing with you. I know Everybody's busy man. Doing this thing twice a week was a miserable choice by myself, so I get it like we've got clients, we've got busy work to do. So I'm gonna drop Link to Marshall in the chat along with the question of the day there. So please join us. If you would like to be in Marshall's seat, go to dustin howes, calm, slash nerd and Join me as a guest. So let's go over your company name here Marshall Nine moment Co. What's the name origin? How'd this get started?

Marshall Nyman: 3:38

Yeah, it's actually pretty simple. I mean the business just originally started as Marshall nine and consulting like six and a half years ago, and I just didn't think anything about it. And then about three years ago, when things started to feel a little bit more serious, I was like I need a real name and I'm not good at coming up with that kind of stuff. So I was telling my wife like what are we gonna do? And she was like how about NIMO? And it's part of my last name and why for NIMO? And then my first initial is M. My wife's first initial is oh, so it's part of our names. And then our children are Myla or Orianna and Morty, so they both have an M or O. So it's just kind of like a combination of our Family and our names and so it's just a real representation of us.

Dustin Howes: 4:23

Awesome. Love to hear that story. I've had two Guests in the last couple of weeks sir Bundy and, oh my gosh, jennifer Kim. Such an idiot. This is live. Both of them started 20 years ago and had their own Companies. They started with the same name and I've stuck with it. You think you're gonna be last 20 years with this name.

Marshall Nyman: 4:53

Think so. I mean, I'm pretty happy with it. You know, I feel like it fits us and it's not like something that's so big and so long that maybe you don't want to stick with that. So hopefully, hopefully it sticks around.

Dustin Howes: 5:06

Awesome, all right. Well, tell us about what you're doing out there and who you're servicing right now.

Marshall Nyman: 5:12

Yeah, so we're focusing on early stage brands, usually around starting at that two to five million in e-commerce revenue, up to about 50 million, and so a lot of these brands that we work with, as I mentioned, they have no affiliate program. They don't know much about the affiliate channel. But maybe another e-commerce owner said, hey, you know, it's something you should look into, or maybe they have a program. It just kind of sat there, nothing's really happened, or they worked with the wrong partner and it never really got off the ground. So we're working with those types of brands and we're looking to help them build a High-value affiliate program with the right partners in place so they can really help drive brand awareness and get new customers in the door. So we do that by having a content focused approach.

Marshall Nyman: 5:57

And then, you know, we'll talk probably a little bit more about the coupon strategy, but we want to try to minimize those to partners that have strong traffic and that actually have like a strategy in place, instead of just saying, like I have coupon partners in my publisher. It's like, hey, these two publishers are coupon publishers, they're driving traffic this way, they're promoting us this way, this is the partnership. Maybe they're helping driving better conversion, or better AOV. You know, there's some sort of like Partnership there. It's not just like, hey, they're sitting in our program and there's a bunch of them.

Dustin Howes: 6:28

Gotcha, okay, and any particular niches or verticals that you're you're focused on, or can you do sass and retail? What are you guys looking for as far as customers go?

Marshall Nyman: 6:41

We really like to stick to DTC e-commerce side of things with a physical product. That really is where our strength is. So really anything betting home, outdoor Luggage, backpack, phone case, I mean pretty much any product that you could come across we've worked with and that's really our specialty. Nothing in like the financial industry or in the service-based industry.

Dustin Howes: 7:06

Okay, good, so some products that people can be influencers for.

Marshall Nyman: 7:12

So exactly, and we look for products that are interesting to people because at the end of the day like if you're looking for a publisher to promote a product, it's got to be interesting for them. So we look for stuff that stands out and that's why we like working with these early-stage brands, because sometimes people just don't know About these school products that exist. Yeah.

Dustin Howes: 7:29

I would. I've always wanted to get a baseball client. I'm such a baseball nerd and I've never mixed those worlds up and I've always wanted. Just on a bucket list Looks like Kristen big-time Evans jumping into the box. So excited to hear Masha's insights. Beautiful Thanks for joining us, Kristen. So let's talk about content and what it means to you. Can you explain what content marketing is is to you?

Marshall Nyman: 7:59

Yeah, I think when I say content, I'm using like a very broad definition, but for me, really, content can be an influencer that's on social, it can be Mass media partner that's creating SEO content. It could be a niche site. It really could be any site that's developing something that a reader can learn more about a product from.

Dustin Howes: 8:56

Okay, excellent, and you gravitate towards these in your affiliate program. I do the same. I've had the stance for a long time. But tell us about your coupon and loyalty sites. What is your stance here with bringing them into your program?

Marshall Nyman: 9:12

You know, I think it really just depends on what the goal of the program is. If your program is content heavy, you want to make sure to give proper attribution and credit to those people that are driving that first touch point, because somebody that doesn't know about your brand to me is more valuable than maybe somebody that knows about your brand or is already on your site. So that's really like the most important thing is really giving credit to who is due the credit. So with our coupon and loyalty strategy, we really want to think about what's going to elevate the program and what's not just going to fill it up with a bunch of publishers to make it look like there's a lot of revenue. We really want to help try to drive incremental revenue or new customer revenue. So that's really what we start to think about. So the first thing is just like, from an attribution standpoint, do we want to have a separate conversion line for coupon, so that way, like our loyalty and our content partners are still getting credit? And then you know if somebody comes through a coupon site they'll get credit, but it won't take away from those other partners. And that's really important to us to protect the content partners, because that's what we value as that new customer and so if we're not giving them credit for those sales that they're driving, they're not going to see value in the partnership because their commissions are going to be low. So we really want to do everything we can to have a strong commission for those content partners. We really just kind of want to segment out the coupon and loyalty sites so they have their own funnel. They're not competing against each other and that's really like what I think works best as far as like setting the program up.

Marshall Nyman: 10:40

As far as strategy, I think there's a lot of things you can do with the coupon site. I think most people, from what I audited a program, aren't doing any of them. It's just like, hey, we've turned this coupon partner on, maybe they've created a coupon page and like that's it. But looking to optimize that, making sure maybe you have a unique code that's only works for that partner, maybe you're trying to get higher AOVs or maybe there's certain products that you're focused on conversion. Whatever it is, if you tell those coupon publishers what you're trying to do, then they're able to put together something where you can work together and have a strategy where they're actually going to help you with new customers, convert or drive higher AOV versus just like. Hey, they're in our program, we have a bunch of them, so that's why I like to only have a couple, because you can really have a targeted strategy.

Dustin Howes: 11:27

Solid points. Let's see We've got a viewer in here that says Love this. Thanks for joining us, kellyanne and the. I feel the same way, like I'm always trying to give those content publishers that are usually top of the funnel the most credit I could possibly give, and limiting the amount of coupon sites that you can actually have contact with and can keep updated coupons that you actually have available is super important, and if you do do this strategy for me to coupon is a great partner to help keep those coupon sites with the right content and available coupons that are available, because it just makes for a bad user experience if you have a bunch of coupon sites that have fake coupons out there.

Marshall Nyman: 12:18

Yeah, it's something you got to really keep a close eye on. I think it's also a big responsibility of the brand to keep whoever's managing the program informed of. Like these codes are not active. These codes are active. This is what's coming on and really managing that. I feel like you know, if you have a good relationship with a coupon partner and you have a strategy there, you make sure the coupons are working all the time, because I think everybody's been there. You go to a coupon site, you look at the coupon, you put it in and it doesn't work. Like that's a bad experience. So you want to limit that for your customer. You want to make the checkout as frictionless as possible.

Dustin Howes: 12:52

Well said. So you get ahold of a new client that just had a program that's just not working. They haven't figured it out all of it yet. And first thing I like to do maybe you're in the same boat as going out at the program and figure out who's winning, who's losing, who we can cut and the gap analysis, essentially of who we're missing as big players. That could be effective for this brand. What's your audit process look like?

Marshall Nyman: 13:21

Yeah, we offer free audit to anybody that's interested and I think it's a good way to really get an idea of what's going on in their program and what the opportunity is. The first thing I look at is the publisher mix. To me that's really the most important thing. 95% of the time the publisher mix is pretty much all coupon. Maybe there's a few loyalty partners, sometimes there's no content publishers. So really, just looking at the mix of publishers, that's the first thing.

Marshall Nyman: 13:47

If I notice that the mix is not the right mix, that's really what I start with. Then, based on those partners, I usually go and look if trademark bidding is going on. If anything that shouldn't be happening, that is because that's always speaks to people very quickly. I got on a call with somebody a month ago and we were talking about his program and he was showing me all the revenue and then he pulled up skim links as the number one partner in there and then we kind of dived a little bit deeper and it was like okay, well, it's all coupon, it's not that much of other stuff that you think.

Marshall Nyman: 14:20

So I think trying to just dive into the partners is the most important thing. Start to look at the revenue. I like to look at the conversion rate. That, to me, tells me if the content sites are having trouble convert, then maybe it's not going to be a strong content program. So looking for little signs that this would be a good fit for us, for the type of approach that we have.

Dustin Howes: 14:43

Yeah, there are some affiliate networks out there one you mentioned. I don't like dropping a bunch of names here, but they can be notorious for being in your program and when you audit them and you see that their conversion rate is in the 20s, you automatically know what's going on. That trademark bidding is rampant and they cloak it behind a secondary affiliate network. That can be a little bit of a testing way about doing things and a bad start to a relationship. But hopefully you're working with some affiliate networks that'll actually do something about it and you can get responses from them and trim the bad affiliates that are doing the trademark bidding. So you get in, you do the audit and once you do the audit, what's going to be your first step here in making this client actually work towards the content strategy that you put in place?

Marshall Nyman: 15:49

Yeah. So we're moving forward and we're now auditing the program for the second time. We're really trying to understand what the goal of the customer is, or the brand, and is it to have a content-based program? Is it to drive as much revenue as possible? Really understanding that, and then we kind of go and act.

Marshall Nyman: 16:08

So most of the time people want to get away from just having too much coupon to having a more content-based approach. So the first thing that we'll usually do is look at which publishers we want to clean up. So just going through each publisher, deciding who's a fit, who's not a fit, removing anybody that's not a fit, and then starting to evaluate everybody's commissions right off the bat. A lot of times there's no grouping or buckets set up in a lot of the platforms when we jump in there. So we'll build out those different groups and buckets so that way your loyalty partners are getting the right commission, your content partners are getting the right commission and just starting to kind of get everything cleaned up.

Marshall Nyman: 16:45

We definitely want to rebuild the program too, so that way it's looking really sharp from when a publisher takes a look at the brand. A lot of great photos, a lot of great information. So that way, when someone comes, it's easy for them to say, hey, I want to promote this, but if it's something that we want to continue to maybe have some coupon on the program, we'll consider maybe setting up that separate conversion line. It's just really. I think the beginning is when you really want to understand what the brand is looking for, what their goals are, and then you kind of start to back in on like, okay, this is how we can deliver on what you're looking for, based on those goals.

Dustin Howes: 17:21

Okay, so we're getting into that attribution standpoint. Like what is that first step? Do you decide that with the client, whether or not to keep Last Kick or to go to Last Click or to do some kind of split attribution? What are usually your suggestions in this space?

Marshall Nyman: 17:41

I think for the most part majority of our programs are running on Last Click. That just seems to be the most effective way currently. Anytime we've kind of looked at doing split attribution, it gets very sticky, especially if you have loyalty partners in there. So that's why we like to set up that separate conversion line, because you can basically keep everything separate and not kind of break everything. So that's kind of like the way that we typically approach attribution. I think there's a lot of things that are happening in the industry now around attribution and things probably are going to get in a better place. I think there's things tracking the best way. There's been a lot of changes with the way the browsers act with things, so there's definitely a lot of things on the attribution. It's fun. I don't think there's any perfect science. Right now I would say the majority of programs probably are on Last Click, but I don't know necessarily if long-term that's where things are going to stay.

Dustin Howes: 18:41

I don't think there is a perfect solution in any program. I've never found a perfect affiliate program. Every company is out there growing too fast to really hone in on growing this affiliate program in the right fashion and keep up with that. It's just too difficult. Going into the conversion lines a little bit deeper, what are you looking to change with a company that might not already be there? Like, what are some of those common misconceptions that a company might have that you need to quickly arrange or fix for them?

Marshall Nyman: 19:18

Well that you know they should just let all the coupon partners basically get all the credit and that's why we're setting up that separate conversion line to make sure those content partners are getting credit. I think sometimes it's a tough conversation because it's going to drive your costs up. It's not going to drive your costs down because you're going to start paying more for conversions that some of those content partners. But if you feel like there's a value in a coupon and you want to have both of that and you want it to interact the right way, that's kind of why we go that approach, because a lot of times brands that we work with will say, hey, we don't want to do any coupon, but then maybe at some point they will, but they're afraid that like might affect the program. So that's usually kind of what we're trying to understand.

Marshall Nyman: 19:57

It's just like what's the best approach? How can we treat affiliates the best way? You know, think anytime. You can really think about it as an affiliate. It helps position things in a better light because you know they're in a tough seat. I can only imagine how many emails and how many people are hitting up the publishers. So just making it as easy as possible for them.

Dustin Howes: 20:17

For sure, at least the good ones. They're getting hit up on the daily hundreds of times likely. I don't even know how email marketing even works anymore, Like it is getting more and more difficult to get answers.

Marshall Nyman: 20:30

Yeah, I think a hundred would be not that many. I was talking to somebody about a year ago and he was like I went away for a week and I checked my email and I still had thousands of emails. So I was like, oh man.

Dustin Howes: 20:41

Brutal, brutal. All right, we're gonna pause right there and talk about our sponsor of the day, and if you guys were wondering why my face looks like I live in sector one of the Hunger Games, it's because I am a big fan of Movember. Movember is a big part of my history and my life. There is a statistic that every three out of four suicides are from males, and that is a sad stat to hear about. You never know what guys' health is going through and personally, it's starting to rain here. I'm going through a little bit of seasonal depression and I felt it and it took me two days to get out of a little funk, and it's okay to talk about that, and that's what Movember is all about. They are dedicating their dollars into this charity to bring more attention to men's health. And get out there. Go to dustandowsecom, slash mo, donate to my cause and learn more about what we're doing out here with Movember. Grow a mustache, if you like. Your beard, guy, looks like they're my son, but it's a good cause to get behind.

Marshall Nyman: 22:02

And I'm an open book and I think a lot of people aren't an open book. So I think, feeling comfortable to tell people things, everybody goes through stuff in life, everybody's dealing with challenges. So I feel like when you open up to other people, if they start to open up to you and you realize sometimes it feels like you're in this little bubble but actually you're not. Everybody's dealing with the same thing, so definitely a good sponsor, thank you.

Dustin Howes: 22:26

And they're not an official sponsor. I'm just trying to help the cause here today, so, and I'm glad you bring that up. We are transparent folks and I'm glad you can talk about it as well. And let's jump back into this network influx of applications. We're just talking about how many applications that you might get from a good program, but some networks seem to be going a little bit faster than others. Are you seeing any trends out here, with even more applications coming onto your doorstep here?

Marshall Nyman: 23:07

I mean I usually tell everybody deny, deny, deny. I probably accept maybe 1% of applications into our program.

Dustin Howes: 23:15

Oh my gosh really.

Marshall Nyman: 23:17

Yeah, I would from my experience. You have to go out there and get the people Sure. The people aren't going to come to apply to your program. What we're seeing, the ones that apply to the program are usually not the partners that we want, the ones that we want. We have to go and have a dialogue with them email, LinkedIn, conferences, whatever it is and that's usually what can kind of get the things moving. But sometimes there are good publishers that apply to the program. But I would say we probably get in some programs five applications a day and most of those were probably denying, and sometimes we get over a course of a week, a crazy amount.

Marshall Nyman: 23:52

And sometimes you'll see somebody apply to one program and then you'll check the next one and the next one, the next one. He's like OK, they've applied to every single program. They didn't take their time to actually see if I'm a fit for their brand. So I think, also with the affiliate world, like there's obviously fraud and so when people apply it automatically like puts me in, like a little bit of a defense mode. Like you know what, are you looking for them for us? Like you know, usually it's like we have to hunt you down. So if you want to work with us. Very badly. It always like makes me a little nervous, but for the most part, like we don't find Reaching out to people via the network or people reaching out to us via the network is the best way we find like you have to kind of go out and do with the human touch.

Dustin Howes: 24:38

For sure, and I I'm surprised to hear you would say 1%. I've always given it like maybe 5 to 10 percent, but it is. It is pretty bad out there. It's pretty bleak and I'd say some networks are a little bit Worse in that kind of capacity than others. I've got a comment from Kristen. Big-time Evans. Yes, you can learn a lot about yourself if you allow yourself to be open.

Dustin Howes: 25:04

Kristen is another open book character and that's why I love her so much. So the applications are coming in. What is? And your process is just try to get through that in the morning as quickly as possible and or have your team I mean, it's a great way for your team to learn a little bit more about affiliate marketing. I feel in applications is one of my, you know, favorite parts of the day. I like going through bad websites and like On the team.

Marshall Nyman: 25:41

They always send me like what we'll talk about it, like in slack, like somebody'll be like, oh, look at these applications, so like we're talking about it, but most the time it's like this isn't a fit. But they'll be like I don't know if I'm gonna click on the URL and, like me, I have to click on it. I just I gotta know. Like what?

Dustin Howes: 25:57

what is it?

Marshall Nyman: 25:58

and then I'll send it to him like, okay, it's safe to click. Oh hey, I Was on a call earlier day and she's one of our managers was saying she clicked on a link and it took her to a porn site. So you know, you just never know with some of those applications what you're gonna get.

Dustin Howes: 26:12

You really don't. It is a crap shoot, and especially if the, the networks themselves aren't doing some kind of filtering with the Websites and verifying that it is their own. That can get a little shady. But how about compliance? Like you've already let these folks in, it sounds like you've got a pretty Good bouncer at the door for for the applications that are coming in and the folks you're doing. So what do you have to do in terms of monitoring compliance?

Marshall Nyman: 26:41

Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head, like we have a bouncer at the door. Basically, so we don't find too often Bad players or bad actors. Most of the time we're very clear with the rules and we're following things very closely. One you know, if there's way to monitor Paid search compliance via the network, we're definitely setting that up so we can see if you know the terms that Are the brands are being used by any publishers and then just monitoring any of the publishers that are in the program over time and just making sure that they're following the rules.

Marshall Nyman: 27:14

I think also keeping a close look on performance. You know, if you start to see something performing Like it you know and you're not really sure what's happening there, look into it. You know we noticed that a couple weeks ago there was this partner and it's like what's going on and Reach out to the network they didn't have any info about it and we get rush out, reach out to the publisher again, couldn't get anything from them, we remove them and then the network ended up kicking them out as well. So like you know it. Just you just got to keep a close on it. But usually when it like seems too good to be true. Like start to look a little bit closer. You know it's happened to all of us like there's definitely fraud and you know, sometimes you know.

Marshall Nyman: 27:47

Publishers that aren't following the rules. But that's part of an affiliate manager's job is to keep a close eye on that.

Dustin Howes: 27:57

For sure, absolutely, and as far as the compliance goes, any trends that you're seeing out there right now, that is every once in a while I'll come across a case where I've never seen this before, like how are they doing this Kind of thing? I literally just got off a call, we were just talking about it and it was yeah, it was the one that I was talking about that we just figured out a few weeks ago.

Marshall Nyman: 28:19

But basically, like, what they were doing is they were using a fake credit card and Making a fake order and it was just going to like wherever you know, they just put in an address and then they were getting commissions on the sales and and and Nobody was noticing anything about the orders. And then they're collecting the commissions and I hadn't seen anything like that where they're using like a freight credit card. They're like noticed that there were some fake orders. All of a sudden we we noticed something was up to and kind of figured out what was going on. So that was like the first time I've seen something specifically like that. Usually it's like you know somebody's like direct linking or something like that to the site. You know that. That's usually what I come across most often.

Dustin Howes: 29:06

Yeah, okay, Be on the lookout. Those kinds of trends pop up until they're broken by either the networks or the word gets out on the street.

Marshall Nyman: 29:18

Yeah, yeah if you have a bad actor, definitely tell the public, the Network, and let the publisher team there handle it, because you know no reason to have that person on the network.

Dustin Howes: 29:29

Absolutely All right any other trends that you're seeing out there, that's that you think it's a good trend for the affiliate marketing world.

Marshall Nyman: 29:40

I mean, obviously there's a big push towards content. I think everybody's trying to dive into that. I think that's Not as much as a new trend, but it's definitely a trend. I think one thing that everybody is talking a lot about is tracking, and Is there tracking working properly? Is attribution the way it should be? So I think Maybe not as much as a trend, but more just something that people are looking at and trying to figure out, like how to Best move forward with. It's definitely tracking and we talked a little bit about that earlier on kind of you know how to best handle that.

Dustin Howes: 30:14

I think Better attribution and and deeper looks into data is definitely trending. It's it's getting more commonplace for smaller companies to be paying attention to earlier on than it used to be. So you got a great point there. What about? About the future of affiliate? What are you seeing? What's next for us?

Marshall Nyman: 30:36

So, like you know, you kind of turn your head and look back in time. And then you kind of turn forward and look ahead in time and it's like crazy just to see where the industry is today. Yeah, I remember when you couldn't get any budget and People don't want to work in affiliate and it was a last channel to even like People to even look at now.

Marshall Nyman: 30:58

It's looked at in a different light and it's definitely one of, like, the top marketing channels that people are running. So I think the future is bright. I think it's only gonna continue to grow. I think the really great thing about affiliate is, even though we call it the affiliate marketing channel, at the end of the day it's it's really a means to run marketing on a performance basis, and so, as you see, tick-tock and other types of platforms become popular, it becomes part of affiliate. You know, so it's.

Marshall Nyman: 31:28

It's not like oh, there's a new trend, we're not gonna be able to leverage it through affiliate. Like if there's a new content platform or a new way for creators to drive engagement, like, those people can still be affiliates. We're seeing other marketing channels email, social, paid search be run on an affiliate basis pay media as well. So, like you can really do everything through affiliate and it's just becoming like a beast. So I just continue seeing to grow and you know, maybe it just becomes a way that, like we run all our marketing, it's not like we just, it's just the affiliate channel. It's like affiliate is marketing and so you know we want to run paid search or social on a performance basis. We can.

Dustin Howes: 32:06

Okay, great, great, all right, it's time for you to defend your post, so let's get in there and talk about you and goofy wow, I thought you're gonna throw something tough on me, goofy last night.

Dustin Howes: 32:24

Oh, were you okay? Yeah, turn that time off, it's. It's okay to get a little goofy First off. Dad jokes always allowed on this show and totally acceptable. I took time off Disney with my two girls, had a blast. It was nice. Turn out a special family time. But the the statement here is if you haven't taken enough time off this year, you owe it to yourself to take time now. Defend yourself here Like what's a good amount of time to be taking off through the year as your own business owner? Because it's it's tough to get away from that computer for a week.

Marshall Nyman: 33:03

I'm glad you asked this question because it's actually something I'm, like, really passionate about. I think you know where we are today. Pre-pandemic, it shifted a lot. I think the affiliate industry was ahead of how people worked beforehand. So I think there was a little bit more flexibility and a little bit more Ease with things in our space. But I didn't notice it as much. But like I think people should take as much time as they need. We have that philosophy at NIMO. You know, when somebody just came on the second week they were working. They needed to take off to go on a trip. You know it's fine, you know they're gonna be going away for for two weeks. Again, like people take the time they need. I think you know we really need to start talking about like minimums and not maximums about people taking time off.

Marshall Nyman: 33:51

Like if You're in my company and you haven't taken enough time off, I'm gonna say something to you. Our director, or Lynn, like you know, I noticed you know you haven't really taken too many days off, like what's going on, and then she started taking a little bit more time off. She's gone camping, she's done some things. So, like you know, I tell everybody don't have to go on, like you know, big trip to Europe for two weeks, but like even just some days to get away from everything, decompress. I think going back to you know what you're talking about with Movember. And you know Mental health and taking care of yourself. Like you know, as a father, I'm responsible taking care of my family, got to take care of myself so I can take care of my family. So I think you know whatever you need to do for yourself. You got to know what that is and be able to take that time away. Going on vacations for me, traveling the world is really important, so that's what I tend to do when I have my time off. But hey, if it's playing with your kids, go into the park, sitting at the beach, you know. Whatever it is I think people need to get time away to really reset.

Marshall Nyman: 34:48

I think one of my philosophies is always just been let the people do the work. And I got in a big debate a couple weeks ago with another agency owner who is like, well, I don't wanna just let my employees take out as much time as they want. I was like I trust my employees. I was like if they wanna take as much time as they can, they can because I hired the people that I trust. And so like, take the time.

Marshall Nyman: 35:09

And I think you know, if you're pulling people away from the things that are important to them, like their family, a wedding or like whatever, maybe somebody's going through something, you need to be there for them. Like why should a business pull those people away? Like those are the times where you can really become a much stronger partner by allowing your employees to really know that like you're there for them. It's not just talk. So, yeah, I think if you haven't taken a time off this year, definitely take some time. Don't just wait for the holidays. That's not really like to me. Like you know, when people take time off, you gotta get away from everything, decompress and reset.

Dustin Howes: 35:44

Absolutely Looks like Kristen. Likes your philosophy minimum's, not maximums, for time off. That's so smooth.

Marshall Nyman: 35:50

I figure she would.

Dustin Howes: 35:52

Yeah, yeah. She is an extremely hard worker herself. She needs to take off more time for herself, but she gets to tailor concerts and has a good time. Great message there. Marshall Really appreciate it and love the spin off of your date with Goofy there. How do people connect with you?

Marshall Nyman: 36:19

LinkedIn is probably where I'm most active. You can find me there, Marshall Nyman, or you can look up our business, Nymo and Co, and give our page a follow.

Dustin Howes: 36:30

Fantastic. I wish I would have segmented this better, but my lesson of the day is absolutely minimums, not maximums, Like I feel. Like I don't take. I let myself go on the weekends and maybe I do two or three hours before kids wake up in the morning on weekends, but maybe I don't need to be doing that every single day. You bring up some really good points there. I'm gonna take that home. Thank you for that.

Marshall Nyman: 37:02

Going on Perturney leave, kinda told me that you can take a step back and things will be okay. Like I had to be away for a month to deal with my family, I came back the business was still good, so you force yourself to do it. You realize it's okay.

Dustin Howes: 37:14

That's what happens when you hire good people. Then you give them the time off. They're gonna have your back when you need to take that rest. So that's awesome to hear my guest next week. Tom Ratbone and Jessica Bishop kinda wanna join me. I won't be hosting the Jessica Bishop episode. Kristen Evans is gonna be in here in a new segment called that's what she said of Affiliate Nerd Out. So join us on Tuesday and Thursday at 12.15 for those episodes and if you would like my Affiliate Manager checklist, go to DustinHowes. com and it's over there-ish. It's just QR code above Marshall's head here DustinHowse. com slash checklist. Perfect, thank you All right, and that does it for today's episode. Thanks for joining me, marshall. Appreciate your time and your insight and, for all those out there, keep on recruiting. We'll see ya.

Marshall Nyman: 38:09

Thanks for the time, appreciate it.

Dustin Howes: 38:11

Later.