Dustin Howes: 0:26

Hey folks, welcome to Aphilia. Nerd out, I'm your nerderator, Dustin Howes. Spread that good word about Aphilia marketing. You're gonna find me every Tuesday and Thursday around 12.15 on LinkedIn Live and anywhere you get your podcasts. Go ahead and please consider subscribing. My guest today is Mike Carney, one of the finest recruiters in the field. I've known him for years and just such a pleasure to have him today talking about affiliate marketing roles in this industry. Thanks for joining me today, mike, and welcome to the Nerditorium.

Mike Carney: 1:06

Thanks, I appreciate the invite. You're pumping up some great content and it's a pleasure to be part of this.

Dustin Howes: 1:12

Fantastic. Hey, I really appreciate having you. I've known you for years, just meeting you at affiliate summits and being in the PMA together, and always admired the work you're doing and well deserved on the awards that you've gotten in this industry for generating a new way for people to get better positions and improve their own career. You're doing great work yourself, man. Oh thanks, appreciate that Awesome Today. This is prerecorded. We will not be live Q&A, so don't even try to put anything in that chat for questions to go live, but please feel free to drop some lines in that chat if you just want to make some comments about things. And, mike, without further ado, who are you?

Mike Carney: 2:07

I've been in online for a long time. I'll keep it short, sweet. I started in 1997. My first job was actually for a recruitment advertising agency. That company bought Monstercom. Basically, I was selling online ads, not online ads. Newspaper ads, which were super expensive, came out Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and then also selling online job postings, and the return on investment that we were getting from a job posting back then was phenomenal, and our business cards didn't even have email addresses on it. So I was like I don't know what this internet thing is, but I think it's going to be insane. It's just going to change the way the businesses can reach consumers and candidates. So then I got into full-time online advertising after that, did that for about 10 years. Then I joined the affiliate marketing space in 2008, worked for a couple of affiliate networks, and then I started my own agency and launched recruitment services as part of that, and performance marketing jobs has been around for just over 10 years now.

Dustin Howes: 3:26

Oh, outstanding. So while I was on ICQ and using Hotmail, you dived into this world of the internet. That's amazing. You've been around this long way to date yourself there. I know, I know.

Mike Carney: 3:48

At some point I did have a full head hair.

Dustin Howes: 3:55

That's going to be the same for everybody, right yeah, this industry. Long enough. I'm getting to be called a gray beard now from friends in the industry and I think of it as an endearment, obviously.

Mike Carney: 4:10

Some people can pull it off. When I do it, I look like a terrorist.

Dustin Howes: 4:17

That's tough, tough, yeah. You could find more information on Mike in the profile here. If you would like to be in Mike's seat and come be my guest, go to dustinhowes. com If you have something to learn out about an affiliate, whether you're a publisher, agency or merchant, let's talk. I'll put you in this hot seat and we can tell us more. Let's talk about performancemarketingjobscom. What do you guys do and who are you servicing over here?

Mike Carney: 4:48

In a nutshell, we're a headhunting network, a recruitment network. We mainly focus on performance-focused companies, online acquisition companies. They typically fall into two buckets, which is online lead generation and e-commerce. And then we're also focusing on more technology and engineering-focused positions.

Dustin Howes: 5:13

now Gotcha and the clientele have an in-house affiliate program that they need to hire for or in that kind of circumstance.

Mike Carney: 5:25

Yeah, they're mainly service companies affiliate networks, performance marketing agencies, pay-per-call companies. Typically what I see is I see advertisers or merchants and then all the companies that service them, and it typically depends on the payment model. So there's OPMs, outsourced program management agencies, and they mainly deal with revshare, cost per acquisition, those type of campaigns. The publishers that they deal with could be coupon sites, influencer, mommy blogs, that kind of thing. Then you have the lead generation side, which is a completely different animal, and that's when you see affiliate networks that are more lead-gen focused. You see a lot of e-mailers, a lot of pay-per-call, a lot of mobile marketing companies. So you always focus on where the money comes from first and that typically starts with the advertisers and merchants and then kind of filter out well, what are they trying to accomplish? And that normally dictates who they work with Gotcha. So I service the vast majority of the affiliate network ecosystem, but there's just a amount of players that are out there.

Dustin Howes: 6:41

Yes, excellent. And on the other side of the equation, you probably have a large pool of affiliate managers with some great talent that you tap into when the right job comes open, right?

Mike Carney: 6:54

Yeah, absolutely. And that was one of the things that when I started the company, I had already been in the industry for about three and a half years, four years I was on the front lines of two major affiliate networks, Media Trust and Epic, which is the old A Zugl, and I would be the ones bringing the offers into the network and then working with affiliate managers to get traffic on the offer. So when I launched the recruitment service I pretty much knew a good portion of the people in the industry that were either on the BD side or the affiliate management side or possibly on the operations side. Excellent.

Dustin Howes: 7:32

And so, moving into, like I've always questioned the difference between the affiliate manager and a performance marketing manager and I would love to clear up, like, what's the difference that you see between these two fields?

Mike Carney: 7:45

Sure, to start off, affiliate marketing performance marketing are basically the same thing. The terminology changed over the years because about 10 plus years ago there was a negative connotation with affiliates, affiliate marketing. But that was back to the Dr Oz and Oprah days, the Nutra, the trials, ftc, the whole bit. So people started referring to it as performance marketing and now it's kind of gotten to the point, especially on the OPM side, where they're now talking more about performance marketing and partnership marketing and influencer marketing. Excellent.

Dustin Howes: 8:23

When it comes to the actual titles.

Mike Carney: 8:25

I'll quickly cover that. An affiliate manager typically is somebody who works on the service side, so they work for a performance marketing agency or affiliate network. An affiliate marketing manager is typically somebody who works in the marketing department and an advertiser or a merchant.

Dustin Howes: 8:41

Great, great and I guess on the side of like those worlds mixing an affiliate manager can have some experience in affiliate but the more experience they have on the influencer and other disciplines and marketing maybe the more hireable they become down the loan and more knowledgeable about the greater ecosystem of affiliate. Is that about right?

Mike Carney: 9:08

Oh for sure.

Mike Carney: 9:09

Yeah, the more diversified experience that they have, especially if they have fairly long stays within those type of companies, it definitely makes them more valuable because they might have relationships that somebody who just comes from a cost per lead focus background might have.

Mike Carney: 9:30

When I came into affiliate marketing, it was kind of funny because I considered myself a web head Back then having been in online when online was new and I'd been doing that for about 10 years I thought, okay, I'll do pretty well at this, I understand online, but within the first week or two within affiliate marketing I basically was like, okay, I don't need, I don't know shit about affiliate marketing, I need to pay attention, and the terminology was different. The conversation models were different. I worked with some really smart people at Valiant, which became Media Trust. It was great to come to work and just be a sponge and you kind of keep your mouth shut and you try to listen as much as you can. That's what a lot of people need to do is they need to ask more questions instead of boasting how they're going to blow up a campaign. It's more of keeping the campaigns live and thriving and delivering quality conversions for the advertiser or the merchant.

Dustin Howes: 10:34

Well said. That's a great turn into our sponsor of the day, that is, performance marketing manager. If you don't know all the shit about performance marketing, I am happy to train you because I have had 13 years of experience in this space and a wide variety of opportunities have come across my door. I pound everything I know about performance marketing and affiliate marketing into eight hours of video training going over fundamentals, advanced tactics of affiliate management everything you need to succeed. Once you're in this group, you are in my community and my inner circle and I am going to go out there and help you find a job that is better suited for your skill set. I am going to do my best to get you to that next level so that you're making more money, and then you can go over here to Mike and tell him I'm ready for that next step in my career. Go to performancemarketingmanagercom to learn more there. Switching gears what is the affiliate job market and affiliate looking like right now? What are you seeing out there?

Mike Carney: 11:52

It's definitely a lot more competitive on the candidate side. Some candidates were working for more ad tech oriented companies, but they do have affiliate marketing experience. There was layoffs with some ad tech companies. There's more candidates on the marketplace and there's less openings. That's why it's definitely very important to have a strong LinkedIn profile and a strong resume. Obviously, network with folks like myself for you to try to get connected to folks before they launch a job posting.

Dustin Howes: 12:34

Got you that job market more competitive? Is that because there are so many people in affiliate marketing? At this point I felt like just like one or two years ago it wasn't that hard to get a job in affiliate marketing. But you're saying more people might be getting laid off lately and are looking for new opportunities.

Mike Carney: 12:56

There is more experienced people out there right now, which is fairly new, at least in my experience, that there are some quality candidates out there. It's just whether or not employers can find them and find them before they get picked up by another company.

Dustin Howes: 13:16

Yes, awesome In general, the jobs in this market. What would you say maybe even the percentage might be of these jobs being remote work rather than going into an office?

Mike Carney: 13:30

It would be hard to nail down an exact percentage. I know on a grand scale scale outside of our industry, the people who are fully remote within performance marketing is extremely high. The vast majority of people are very good at what they do, they've been working remote for quite a few years and they have no interest in commuting to anywhere. What I mainly see is there are still some companies out there that prefer to hire in-house only, but in-house only is mainly focused on junior level positions. You're hiring mainly because of personality versus experience.

Mike Carney: 14:17

One of the easiest equations that I always give as an example is historically, people would only offer in-house positions. When you do that, you're only really able to recruit from a, let's say, a commutable distance of an hour. For that candidate who lives an hour away, they're basically wasting two hours of their day every day. Eventually they're just going to burn out and they're going to leave anyways. What happens is when you start offering hybrid or especially fully remote, your talent pool expands. If you're focused on in-house only, now try to imagine building a pro sports team, but only within athletes that live within a commutable distance of an hour.

Dustin Howes: 15:14

It's a great analogy. I love that.

Mike Carney: 15:17

It would be pretty pathetic. If it was a basketball team, your tallest person would be six foot five. If it was a football team, your front line would average about 220.

Dustin Howes: 15:34

I assume that's part of your talk track. When you get on an un-client it's like, hey, we only want people that are in our area. That's great if you're in a Santa Barbara or a super heavy affiliate market. If you're not, I'm sure you're trying to talk them into and giving them that talk track. They get extended the talent possibilities.

Mike Carney: 15:58

Yeah, you want the talent pool to be as big as possible. On the flip side, you also have to deal with the fact that, I'd have to say, 95% of candidates are looking for fully remote positions.

Dustin Howes: 16:12

Wow, I didn't realize it was that heavy. That's great.

Mike Carney: 16:17

Yeah, especially for experienced people. They've already been working remote. We had COVID come along which made remote very acceptable. For two years they were fully remote even if they didn't have fully remote before. They have two years of fully remote. Now somebody is saying I want you in the office five days a week. They might do that for three months. During that three months they're looking for a new fully remote position.

Dustin Howes: 16:44

Great. You're losing the talent by pulling this in on double side of the sword too. It's crazy.

Mike Carney: 16:53

Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. I understand why they want people in the office, but the only people who are going to accept that position are junior level people.

Dustin Howes: 17:03

That makes sense. Looking more about that remote living, that remote life I don't think it's for everyone. Like honestly, I've been working that remote life for probably six years at this point, but my personality, I kind of want to go into an office once or twice a week. I don't have that option, I don't have that luxury and I'd probably hate it after I did it for a couple of months anyway. But is it for everybody that remote life?

Mike Carney: 18:18

I would say it's not, but in our industry almost everyone works for it fully remote but, they have a very heavy trade show schedule.

Mike Carney: 18:30

Ok, so they are traveling and seeing their work colleagues and their connections literally every couple of weeks at a different show, like everything from Vegas to Barcelona. You know like I'm headed off to the weekend so you know there's always opportunities to be at a show. You just have to look at the calendar. You know like probably the most traveled person in the industry is Butch. Everyone who knows who Butch is and I can't imagine the number of shows that he takes but it really kind of exposes how many networking opportunities are out there. So even if you don't want to be fully remote, if you want to be in front of people, you just need to travel the shows.

Dustin Howes: 19:20

All right, that's fair enough. What do you think in terms of pay for remote employees? Does it matter where you live in the United States, or globally for that matter? Like is the pay scale for affiliate managers different in the remote lifestyle than it is for an in-house, like coming to the office role?

Mike Carney: 19:43

It wouldn't be different comparing in-house to remote, but the pay would be different depending on where the candidate lives. If the candidate lives within a major metropolitan area, the cost of living there is going to be more expensive. But what you'll see a lot is that experienced candidates live in the suburbs of a major city and they have no interest in commuting even a half an hour to get downtown to some office. So their pay wouldn't change. But it might be more expensive to live in that city or live in that area and they expect to be paid more. And they'll just hold out until they find in the pluribus. Obviously that will pay them a competitive wage. That's fair.

Dustin Howes: 20:36

And speaking of wages, what's a pay, what's a pay scale for affiliate managers? Like a junior kid just getting out of college, what can he expect to make? And what can a 10 year plus vet expect to make in the affiliate realm?

Mike Carney: 20:51

Juniors I don't really get involved with that much, yeah, but typically you could probably get somebody for 50 to 65,000 salary, okay, and then commissions on top of that. Intermediate is kind of the next level. That somebody who has maybe three to five years of experience in the space you know they're typically making like 75 to 85, is kind of the norm. All right. And you know, with us being in the performance marketing industry, there's a lot that can be made based on performance. So you can make you know tens of thousands of dollars on the commission side. And then most experienced people you know they're making 80 K and above right and if they're managing people, they're you know they can be making you know 120 plus on the salary side if they're managing a team.

Dustin Howes: 21:45

Okay, gotcha, and as far as those performance bonuses and commissions you're talking about, what could you expect? I've always had like a gold standard of 25% of your salary should be an attenuation and I would say you have an attainable bonus depending on how good you are at your job. Is that about a right answer to that, or do you see more? Do you see less?

Mike Carney: 22:08

Yeah, it's normally like. The way that I look at it is you know what is the total comp and then you know 60% of that could be your salary, okay, and the 40% could be commission. I see, and it would depend. It varies greatly from the OPM side to the lead gen side More earning potential on the lead gen side than there is OPMs, because the commission structures are fairly small, from what I've seen over the years with OPM agencies. But there's normally, you know, a quota per quarter and there's typically a. What I recommend is a graduating commission scale based on their accomplishment versus quota. Thanks, Interesting.

Mike Carney: 22:57

That could be anywhere from, you know, 2% to 10%, based on how much profit volume they bring in that month, that quarter.

Dustin Howes: 23:07

Okay, that's some great information that people can use out there that are looking to hire that next affiliate manager what they can expect when they do hire an in-house manager. That's great insight. Thank you, mike. Okay, I want to talk about what makes a person more hireable. What are some of those big tips you're looking for when you're looking out there at resumes and LinkedIn profiles?

Mike Carney: 23:33

The biggest thing is the successful track record. You know that's where a lot of people miss out is, you know, when I was in the affiliate industry, like when I first started out, I had a mountain of clients. You know, like I was signing all kinds of advertisers, bringing in deals and stuff, and, luckily for me, I sat beside industry veteran who had two clients and was, you know, bringing in like half a million dollars of you know gross profit per month. And I'm like how the heck are you doing this? And it just comes down to knowing the competitor precious for offer category negotiating with your advertiser. Like if they want the herd of affiliates to run in their direction, give them a mountain of traffic.

Mike Carney: 24:20

If they want to get you know, a high volume of, you know consumer conversions, they have to have a competitive offer. Okay, they have to have one that converts well, pays well, allows you know, as many traffic sources as possible. And the person who is able to do that research and figure out how to make a competitive offer then for the advertiser to make an offer that they could possibly have an upsell in the back end so that they can have a higher lifetime value on each conversion that allows them to pay more. Okay, on the front end. So yeah, just being able to figure out well, how do you make a great offer and how do you, how are you able to network that offer, to attract traffic or affiliates to promote the offer on a performance basis, all right.

Dustin Howes: 25:10

So when you're when you get you, you're somebody that's looking for a new position and you get your interview with the either the hiring manager or somebody else within the company. What's a good idea of, like how to be best prepared for that interview? Like you were saying, like having numbers prepared and ideas for that that product or whatever company you're working for might be a good idea. Is that something you need to be prepared for to answer at those interview questions?

Mike Carney: 25:43

Yeah, absolutely Anybody who's been involved with sales like I was in professional sales for over 20 years Okay Right, any sales person on the planet knows their numbers. So you know. Somebody said to me what does your pipeline look like? I could say, well, right now I think I'm going to bring in X. I'm probably going to close X percentage of that. What deals are close to closure?

Mike Carney: 26:07

Like, you know every aspect of your sales funnel. You know that you need to. You know pump in additional prospects. So when you're when somebody says, you know, oh, you worked at you know so and so network for two years, how long do you take you to ramp up? You know what kind of challenges did you have there. You know what kind of offers did you run. You know where did the majority of your revenue come from. Like, you know which type of publishers or which type of traffic that you have. Traffic like you need to know everything about how you generated profit volume.

Mike Carney: 26:39

And then, on the flip side, like, if you're the candidate, you know you need to do your research before you go and have these conversations with these companies of well, what can I find on social media? But this company, how long have people typically been there Like what's the 10, the average tenure per employee? How long has the company been around for? Who's the leadership team? What shows do they go to?

Mike Carney: 27:00

When I go to a show, do I see a big booth? Do I see a small table? What do I see? You know, dive into discussion threads. What are people saying about this network? Do they pay their bills? You know, what offers do they typically run? What's the feedback that people are giving them on their post? So you know, when somebody in an interview, like you know an employer, say do you have any questions for us? Have some great questions, okay, great. The interview goes both ways. But you know you have to do your research to figure out well, what's a great question to ask them. That will give me what I need to know of whether or not I should say yes if they offer me the position.

Dustin Howes: 27:39

Okay, great tips there. I love that. I've one of my favorite interview questions of all time. David Vogelpool asked me this when he hired me in his agency. His first question to me are you smart? And he was just trying to get me on my toes and figure out like how I answered it. And he always told me, like he's never hired anybody that said no, and immediately my answer is I'm just, you know, self confident in myself. I'm like absolutely I wouldn't have got this far in life, I wouldn't be in this interview if I wasn't smart. Of course I'm smart, but I always love that question and like setting that tone in the interview early. Is that something you suggest for people that are interviewing people that they're hiring?

Mike Carney: 28:30

I'm not a huge fan of like whatever. You know what's your favorite animal Like? Okay, I'm not a fan of that stuff personally. Like, I think at the end of the day it's kind of like you know, what do you like about our company? Okay, that question right there will showcase whether or not they've done any research. Oh, great point. You know why did you apply to us? You know, why are you on the markets? You know, why are you looking to leave your current employer, like? Those type of questions will kind of open up of well, what's the motivation of them applying to us? What weren't they getting that they could possibly get with us and just fly there and ask them why do you think you're the best candidate for the position?

Dustin Howes: 29:15

Oh, oh, all solid, all solid wins. And love the tip about making sure you are ready for questions. I would say if you don't have questions prepared for that company, you can expect not to get hired. It would have to be some amazing interview answers if you didn't have any questions at the end. Right?

Mike Carney: 29:38

It's one of those subtle things that you know to a grand extent the employer. They do want to talk more and if you ask them questions, you're actually building relationship when the employer is talking.

Dustin Howes: 29:54

Yes, gotcha, such a good point. All right Moving, moving forward resumes. I'm always wondered should you be getting fancy if you're trying to get a job out there and you're making your resume? Do you stay classic, with the old school methodology, or do you get fancy and make a virtual one and put it online? What's your theory here?

Mike Carney: 30:18

I think it just has to be basic, but it has to be accomplishment focused. Okay, it has to. You have to put yourself in the employer's seat and the employer's, basically, if they have to read a hundred resumes as much as they're trying to figure out, well, is this person the solution to my problem? And the problem, obviously, is they have an empty seat and they have aggressive revenue goals, so, as much as that they're looking for the solution. What they're really doing is they're trying to eliminate resumes as quickly as they can so that they can figure out who they can interview. Okay, so it's the candidate who needs to present themselves as the solution and they need to summarize what the relevant experience is that they have for the position. That they just need to be able to do and they just applied to. Okay, right, so you have to think from the employer's point of view. If they see, like the traditional objective section normally would say something to the effect of this is what I'm looking for, well, the employer doesn't care about that. They're trying to, you know, solve a problem. So you have to present yourself to as I am the solution to this problem and I am looking for an affiliate. You know, remote, fully remote, affiliate management position and that's the role that they're trying to fill. But so from that point forward that's the basics Now they're going to think of.

Mike Carney: 31:37

Where did the person work? Do I recognize that company and understand what that company does? Is that relevant? Yes, it is. Were they in a relevant position? They were senior affiliate manager yes, it's relevant. Now, the most important part is what did they accomplish during their tenure? And they're looking for numbers. How did you ramp up? What is your total number for 2022? Where are you so far for 2023? How many affiliates did you manage? What were the traffic sources? What were the kind of campaigns that they run? Were they lead gen versus e-commerce? Were they home services? Were they paper call? Were they insurance lead gen? Yeah, they want to know where did you make your money, because, at the bottom line, that new hire has to self fund that hire quickly. That's the ideal scenario is hiring somebody who's turnkey, who makes the money.

Dustin Howes: 32:31

Beautiful, all right. So, bottom line there, know your numbers when you're going in the interview and really pound those into your resume to highlight what you've done in the past at your old companies. Right, yeah, best Hire is Approved Revenue Generator. Oh, that's special, I love that, all right. And then, coinciding with that resume, what's the importance of a good LinkedIn profile?

Mike Carney: 32:59

For me, I think it's critically important because the thing is, if you are open to opportunities or actively looking, that is, the first place that people are looking for candidates is LinkedIn. It's the biggest job around the planet and I see a ton of profiles and this is why the recruitment process can drag on. Is that you have to reach out to candidates when you believe that they might be a good candidate, but there's just not enough information on their profile to figure it out. But, having been in the space for you know, since 2008, I understand the companies that they work for, I understand what those companies specialize in and I know, to a certain degree, what type of campaigns that they run. So you know. When I reach out, you know and start asking questions. You know. Hey, you know, you've kind of piqued my interest. I need more information. No, let's jump on a call. I'm trying to get the information that the employer needs to see to make a decision of whether or not they should offer an interview.

Dustin Howes: 34:00

Okay, gotcha, and so it doesn't have to be necessarily fancy, but it's got to be updated and showcasing that you know your numbers just the same as your resume, I would assume.

Mike Carney: 34:13

Yeah, typically when it comes to LinkedIn, you wouldn't showcase your numbers, but you would showcase your tasks and responsibilities under that position.

Dustin Howes: 34:22

Yes, yes, and that's because they might have an existing job and they don't want to show their employers that they're looking for new stuff, right, yeah, yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. So, speaking about employers are looking at one of the things I like to say is I'm not extremely hireable. Like I have a lot of entrepreneur in me and I have a lot of content out there, and I've always known that my entrepreneur aspirations make me much less hireable. But is that the case for everyone? Do all employers not want entrepreneurs, or do some employers want entrepreneurs? What would you say like a percentage would be?

Mike Carney: 35:09

The percentage would be low.

Mike Carney: 35:11

In regard to employers, want you know, if they had a chance of hiring somebody who was traditionally an employee versus an entrepreneur, they would typically go with somebody who wants to be an employee, who has a track record of being an employee.

Mike Carney: 35:29

But where entrepreneurs might have an advantage over other people is for senior management positions, because they have clearly identified that they have a track record of essentially getting shit done and making money. Yeah, and at the end of the day, you want somebody who is a creative thinker and who is insanely driven to a certain extent, to prove a point that they can be successful with little to no help. Okay, and there are companies in there are small entrepreneurial companies that need people to wear a thousand hats. They need somebody to come in and showcase well, how are we going to make money, like we need to launch a new division? In those cases, it's good to hire an entrepreneur who wants to be part of a team and wants access to more resources, but also wants to leverage their creative thinking and kind of like their driven personalities to launch a new venture.

Dustin Howes: 36:33

Gotcha. Okay, that makes a lot of sense and I always cater. If I am applying for a job, I would be catering my resume to what I think they're looking for as well. Like, if you're looking for those many hats, that entrepreneur experience might be a good fit. Right, you might want to put that in, but you might want to leave it out on some resumes, I would assume.

Mike Carney: 36:55

Yeah, you should always create a customized resume to the audience that you're sending it to.

Dustin Howes: 36:59

Okay, Excellent point. And speaking of what candidates employers are looking for out there, are there any red flags that really are consistent in this world where, like, employers are looking at these candidates, what would be a red flag of they don't want to hire them because of these things?

Mike Carney: 37:17

The biggest red flag in the marketplace is short stays. Short stays, gotcha. You can have a short stay, like there's a lot of transitions, biots, mergers, layoffs, whatever. You can have short stays, but you can have three of them in a row. You can't work six months, eight months, nine months, three positions in a row. That just pretty much showcases that you either quit or they kind of figured out over time that you're not productive and they let you go.

Dustin Howes: 37:52

Okay, what qualifies as a short stay Like is that one year or less?

Mike Carney: 37:59

No close to one year is decent. I would say like six months or less is a deep red. Six to nine months is worth the question of what happened, okay. And then one year is a decent amount because there's a high turnover rate in our industry, because a lot of people burn out. I got you, like you said to somebody hey, I need you to go to 25 shows and I need you to travel internationally. And oh, by the way, you have a small family at home. At some point there's going to be pressure to quit and move on to something more stable. Right, I used to. I've been in online for so long that my wife has kind of gotten used to have been married for 24 years now. But back in the early days, when there's the dot com crash, we used to joke that B to B stood for back to banks. If you wanted a safe job, go back to banks.

Dustin Howes: 39:04

Okay, that's funny. And then those red flags. Here's a question, like if I'm filling out a resume and I don't want to put one of those red flags you just talked about with a short career and I lie and I say all my jobs were three years long, will HR figure that out?

Mike Carney: 39:27

Once, like you should always tell the truth on your resume. Okay, if you are laid off, you're better off to indicate in brackets laid off, or you know company-wide layoff or something. Oh, never, like, omit something, because once that it is found out, let's say that you're at a position for two years and then you're next. You let you're, whatever, you went to the next position, you were there for three months and then you decided well, I'm just going to omit that because you know it was only three months and I don't want people to find out. Once they find out that you are at that place for three months, everything that you've said to them potentially could be considered a lie. So do not line your resume at all costs. You're better off to state what happened and how long you were somewhere and it has to be accurate. And that's part of what I do with reviewing resumes and you know pre-screening candidates is I try to sort through any potential BS and, you know, get it sorted out before the client sees it.

Dustin Howes: 40:29

Okay, and so you're saying that HR will inevitably find out that?

Mike Carney: 40:33

information. Yeah, gotcha, it's small, like the industry that I ran is the multi-billion dollar industry, but the amount of actually the number of humans in it is actually fairly small. So when you go to trade shows it's typically the same people. So at some point they're going to find it where you previously worked and why you didn't work out. So you're better off to say exactly what happened and they might say yeah, we saw that coming. Yeah, that company's fly by night, don't worry about it.

Dustin Howes: 41:04

Okay, gotcha, honesty is always the best policy. I love that Always. Yeah, all right, mike, this has been great. Let's turn gears here, or switch gears, as the comment saying goes. I want you to defend your post here. About three months ago, you said in-house you won't be able to hire the best talent. Hybrid, you won't be able to hire the best talent. I've been saying this for years I want the best talent. You can't throw a talent fishing net only to reach in 30 minutes. Take a look at your team right now. I guarantee that you don't have a full deck of A players, especially in the digital space. Defend your post here, mike. What are you trying to say here?

Mike Carney: 41:47

It's pretty much what we already previously discussed and actually I think that post comes from.

Mike Carney: 41:52

Kevin O'Leary had a video with him interviewing, basically saying that he's always looking for a talent and if he has to choose between having someone in the office and hiring you know, basically you know the second or third tier candidate versus the A player who wants to work fully remote, he's going to hire the A player. Okay, so if you're only focusing on local town, especially for niche focused, experience positions, which in the digital space, like you're going to hire a junior media buyer or somebody who's been running e-commerce and lead gen campaigns for five plus years, they're going to cost you a lot of money. If you let a junior person have access to a budget like that, but within your commutable distance, you might only find junior media buyers. So if you looked at your staff of 20, I guarantee you you don't have the A player in every single position. So and that's just basic numbers of how much, like what is the level of talent that you can find that's willing to drive into your office and stay there Like it's not really high?

Dustin Howes: 43:04

Yes, yes, I have a phrase for that. Like that hidden ROI that you're talking about. Like, if you hire the wrong person, you're going to lose this much more than you would have for hiring that A player.

Mike Carney: 43:22

Yeah, there's definitely some metrics out there. I don't know off the top of my head, but I did write a quick LinkedIn post one time that basically said if you were only allowed to hire local talent, then I think it was like Joe Montana he's not from the San Francisco area, yeah. So imagine all the Super Bowls that the 49ers won with Joe Montana. That wouldn't have happened If you were only able to. You know Brett Favre. He's not from Green Bay. How many Super Bowls would they have? One of? The have Brett Favre? Yeah. So you just look at all the legends and take a look of. Well, where did they live?

Dustin Howes: 44:08

Yeah, they didn't live where they played. I think you're going to have to update your references there. I'm not sure the vast majority of people are going to get a Joe Montana reference today.

Mike Carney: 44:21

Okay.

Dustin Howes: 44:24

You say Brady, brady's still hip. He's in there and like and the goat. I'm a Niners fan.

Mike Carney: 44:30

That's true, I can call.

Dustin Howes: 44:31

Brady the goat.

Mike Carney: 44:32

So where is Tom Brady from? Oh hell, I don't know. I think he's actually from California, Is he?

Dustin Howes: 44:38

Okay, I think so. Perfect reference. He should have been on the Niners all along. That's what you're telling me, yeah.

Mike Carney: 44:46

All right, I think there was one that was pretty obvious, that you know, nfl legend that should have been playing for the Raiders, who who is it? I can't remember offhand, but it's just one of those things that if you looked at, you know whether or not you could feel the professional team with people, talent within a commutable distance. Naturally the teams in New York would do well, or LA Sure, right, it's within a commutable distance, but you know Denver, you know, are you going to get somebody in Minnesota?

Dustin Howes: 45:22

Yeah, Tough, tough pick.

Mike Carney: 45:25

I think the same applies to professional organizations. It's like if you're only relying on talent that lives within a one hour drive or you know, a half an hour drive, you're not going to get A players in every position, you just won't. So well said.

Dustin Howes: 45:42

All right, Mike, switching gears as we finish this up. The PMA, that's where we met. Tell me about your favorite perk here over at the PMA.

Mike Carney: 45:53

I think, outside of being able to network with you know industry veterans that have, you know, a wide spectrum of experience and they work for different types of service companies and just being able to pick their brains of you know well what's what's going on with your part of you know, like, when you think of the affiliate marketing ecosystem, people in the PMA they come from different parts in the ecosystem. Yeah, so it's interesting to pick their brain and saying, well, what's relevant with you guys? Like, are people hiring? Is there a slowdown? Like. And then one of the things that I think is just an automatic is that you know you get a free ticket to affiliate summit. Yes, once a year. So that alone is the reason to join is just like. You join you get access to all these industry veterans, you can join committees and you know, have a say on, you know, different things, from compliance to, you know, promotion of the industry to, you know, going to the PMA brunch. You know affiliate summit on a free ticket.

Dustin Howes: 46:59

Yeah, it is such a no brainer and it's so weird though we're always plugging this to push it more people to get in this but like they, they are my favorite organization to be a part of. Like, you need to be a part of the community If you want to continue your education, and the PMA dot org is one of the greatest out there. So thanks for sharing that segment and all this information today. This has been great, and how? What's the best way to connect with you, mike?

Mike Carney: 47:32

Probably the best way is through LinkedIn. I've been, I think, linkedin. I was like one of the original users. I think my user idea is like maybe about 17,000 of LinkedIn. So if you just type in, you know Mike Carney, you'll find my profile pretty quickly. Or you can send me an email at at hire H I R E, at performance marketing jobscom.

Dustin Howes: 48:01

Excellent. Okay, I will add the link into the profile of this video as well for those out there that want to see it and get ahold of Mike. Join me on Thursday affiliate nerd Igor Kefetz Kefetz. I'm never going to get it right, igor. I'm so sorry, but Igor is coming in talking about email farming and JVs and it's going to be a really incredible story. So please join me for that and if you would like to see my game plan for how I launch affiliate programs, go to slash checklist and check out that free resource. Mike, thanks for being here, really appreciate all the golden nuggets you gave out here today and good luck over here in Austin this week. Thanks a lot. I appreciate the invite. You got it.

Mike Carney: 48:50

We'll catch you later have great content, all right.

Dustin Howes: 48:53

Appreciate you. Thank you, take care, thank you.