Dustin Howes: 0:28

Hey folks, welcome to Affiliate Nerd out. I'm Dustin House. You're nerderated of the day. Spread that good word about affiliate marketing. You're gonna find me every Tuesday and Thursday around 12.15 on LinkedIn Live and anywhere you get your podcasts. So please consider subscribing. And my nerd guest today is Blake Cantrell, old CJR friend of mine, and I don't know what he's doing these days, but we're gonna find out here shortly. Blake, welcome to the Nerditorium.

Blake Cantrell: 1:01

Wow, what an intro. Thank you this is really good.

Dustin Howes: 1:04

Thanks, I made that myself. It's been about 40 episodes and you're gonna find that my outro is just terrible. I haven't honed that in yet, so don't get your hopes up. All right, so this is downhill from here. All right, perfect. We've reached the pinnacle of this episode, without a doubt. Blake and I go way back. If you have any questions for Blake, jump into the chat. We are live taken Q&A. Say hi, make fun of Blake's short haircut. It shouldn't be the short and gray, but Blake. Without further ado, who are you?

Blake Cantrell: 1:48

That's a great question. I think I chose the wrong background because my hair is just fading into this.

Dustin Howes: 1:54

You almost look bald. It's not great.

Blake Cantrell: 1:58

Who am I? Let's see, I'm a loving husband and father. Those are probably the biggest priorities. But yeah, I'm a guy who's, like you said, been around for 17-ish years in affiliate doing all kinds of different stuff. I think I've seen more than I care to at ASW and other places. Hopefully I'm somebody who's actually like, somewhat knowledgeable and helpful and hopefully, for anyone that's listening to this, a resource that they can reach out to if they need some help or need to talk to somebody or just need a different perspective. I think I don't know I kind of like you. It's always fun to just talk to someone new and realize that you might have learned something that would live along the way if you can help them out.

Dustin Howes: 2:50

It would be really hard to not learn anything over 17 years in this industry. You would have to be actively trying not to learn things. That doesn't seem like you're the kind of character that you are. I have some incredible memories of us working at CJ back in the day and playing softball and hanging out before the kids. We're going to get to some of those stories. If you would like to be in Blake's seat, you can go to DustinHousecom, Slash nerd and put in a submission here. Come and be my guest. Today's profile with Blake. I'm going to put his LinkedIn in the chat so that you can get a hold of him if you'd like to learn more about what he's doing. Let's talk about what you are doing right now. Blake, I think you're on the free agent list as we speak and I know you're doing some painting. You picked your hair gray.

Blake Cantrell: 3:50

Yes, I just color matched.

Dustin Howes: 3:54

Did you actually take care out and just give it to the Home Depot?

Blake Cantrell: 3:57

guy and match it. They'll give a wand over it. Oh, they have wands now, I didn't know, that. That's why I'll. Yeah, I'm between gigs right now, which is not the worst place to be.

Blake Cantrell: 4:10

It's nice to have a little break. Yes, I find a lot of my time taken up by house projects and laundry and fetching coffees, for my wonderful life is bringing in all the money right now. It's great. I'm just looking for jobs. I'm trying to find what's the good fit for me for whatever's next I don't know, even if I don't really land it. I think I've had so many good conversations with people that you start to learn what else is out there that you haven't even considered, or other places to poke around. That's more or less where I'm at.

Dustin Howes: 4:46

Definitely a free agent, though that's amazing that you are enjoying your time. I love that time off as well. In that in-between jobs arena, since I've known you, you've been working in the agency realm for I don't know. It hasn't been 17 years. I want to say you probably got into customer support early on, but since I've known you, you've always been working with agencies, at CJ, impact and at your last role. What is that life like? The landscape with affiliate marketing and the agencies. How does that work with networks?

Blake Cantrell: 5:26

Yes, I guess if you go back in time you're right. I started at CJ as the grunt guy. I was young too.

Dustin Howes: 5:34

I used to be young.

Blake Cantrell: 5:35

There wasn't always matching the gray wall. I was doing all the ad dev stuff back in the day CJ Pub app review and running reports and managing programs. That was a lot of it there. Impact was when I did the big switch to almost all agency stuff. I think the agency landscape and I guess we're just mostly talking around OPMs or affiliate marketing agencies it's crazy right now.

Blake Cantrell: 6:09

It's so crowded. There's so many players. There's so many more players than there were five years ago. That's even with the consolidation where AP and Gen 3 have been acquiring other agencies and becoming bigger and bigger. There's just so many people out there with small practices or doing consulting. This is the only take on one or two accounts, but there's more and more people just coming into the channel in general, even the big holding companies about two or three years ago they all seem to have taken their siloed affiliate practices across the hundreds of different agencies within the holding company and consolidated them into one single practice. That's good for us. There's something there in the industry. There's a lot of traction. There's more investment recognition that there's possibility. But it's going to be really interesting to see where it lands in the next two, three, maybe five years. As far as will consolidation continue? Will someone break out? Is it purely differentiated player somehow? How is it when the market gets that crowded, then suddenly it becomes a lot more about price, unfortunately.

Dustin Howes: 7:25

Who's?

Blake Cantrell: 7:25

going to break out and do something different. And then the same thing, I guess, would extend to a lot of the networks too, which is they're up against similar battles. They have their own services teams too. I'd consider them agencies to a degree.

Dustin Howes: 7:39

Yeah, I think being different than all the other OPMs is that important part of gaining some business in today's landscape. Out there there are some monster players Gen 3 and Acceleration Partners that you mentioned but being a small time consultant or a small time agency takes a little more. You've got to stand out in some kind of way or have different rates. Of course, this is the way you grow your base. You've worked with lots of agencies out there. How do you organize that within the network? What is your CRM? To keep going back, who do you work with at those networks and choose from all these agencies that you're working with?

Blake Cantrell: 8:33

Yeah, that's a great question, Because it was a tough one, especially when more agencies showed up and then every single agency wants a referral from a network that doesn't want a new business. The biggest thing and this is for a new consultant starting out, a smaller agency or just even the big guys too is you have to have some place where you draw a line in the sand and say we are amazing at X, whatever that is like, and they have a specialty.

Blake Cantrell: 9:08

There's nothing worse than when I talked to a new agency and Like oh, what you know? What's your history? What? What verticals are you strong in? Oh, we're great at everything.

Dustin Howes: 9:17

Like everything, yeah that means you're not good at anything like it just never.

Blake Cantrell: 9:23

I mean it might be true, I don't know, but it just it was not Didn't make them stand out when you have a lead to give out to somebody. So If you look at all the kind of more up-and-coming I guess verticals over the last few years, like there are places where it's really hard to find An in-house team at a network or an agency that can do it, so it's B2B. How many B2B affiliate agencies are there with great credentials? Well, not a lot.

Blake Cantrell: 9:53

Yeah yeah, and you know, the definition of B2B could be all over the place too, depending on who they are what they're doing.

Blake Cantrell: 10:01

You know there's a ton of interest, interest and like Asks for you know all influencer content based programs right now, and so who, who can really do that in a meaningful way? Well, also getting some crazy revenue out of it, which is what everyone wants to. That's a tough one. And then just the other, like vertical specialties, like are you amazing at travel? There's not a ton of people out there that are just great at travel? Or, specifically, you know, pick any vertical.

Blake Cantrell: 10:32

It could even be like you could just say we're only retail. That's fine, but what size are you? Mid-market or yes and B? Are you new to market it? Are you great with enterprise? Only, like, just really carve out something where you can say that this is what we are amazing at, so that you can justify why you should actually be able to charge a hopefully a reasonable premium for your services, as opposed to you know, we're, we do everything for everyone and we, you know, we charge 5k a month. Like that's not exciting. And you know, guys, sound, you're gonna sound the same as everyone else to the brand or you know, or the network who might be looking to enhance some deals out.

Blake Cantrell: 11:11

So yeah just anything that you can do to set yourself apart is a really big one, I Think. And then the last thing on this I'll stop talking about it is just Flexibility. Like the last few years to you can't be, you can't say that it's we're full-server, nothing, and you 12 month contract like doesn't really work anymore. You have to be willing to say, like We'll consult and help train your in-house person for six months and then they can take it over, or, you know, be open to short-term engagements or like all the cart offerings. That's a really big one now, too, because people are Even though affiliate's a very defendable channel like budgets are all over the place and no one knows what's happening with the economy, and so they're really wary of like adding a third party to the mix so they can have it on a low or no commitment kind of structure but still get some value out of it and not feel like they have to sign up for everything for 12 months. Yeah, those are the people that seem to be doing the best right now.

Dustin Howes: 12:59

That makes sense. So being different is an important factor of this. What about the portion you mentioned? Some dollar amounts there and some contract links, right, I think everybody's Nobody's out there trying to reinvent the wheel and you kind of emulate who you've seen in the past that is winning and doing the same kind of things. But I have seen some really interesting agencies working much more on a performance basis these days and I think that can be one of those differentiators that that people aren't aware of. Like one of my models with all of my clients I'm I'm working off a commission basis, off a two-tier basis or Some kind of revenue share for all the affiliates that I'm bringing to the table. I'm gonna get credit for in perpetuity of that program and I think that's one of the ways you can differentiate. Excuse me that word, I can never get that right. What do you? What do you think about that model?

Blake Cantrell: 14:00

Um, I Think it's totally right, like that's a valid and most of the most guys out there right. They're not just doing a flat rate, it's a flat rate with some percentage like layered on top but, you have to be careful too.

Blake Cantrell: 14:14

Right, there's um I. It would make sense if it's like okay, cool, you're a maybe a new to market program and you have no idea what you're forecasting and you don't know what's going on and you're not maybe Super discerning about like the. You know we're gonna be content only like you just want everything to come in. Great, I think you, there's room for people to be super successful for like the first year or two and just say, yeah, look, we're gonna just go full performance model and we're gonna Establish you and then we'll refine, you know, once we have some good traffic coming in. But where it gets tricky is like there are agencies out there. They're super aggressive with like framing up performance based packaging is almost free and then not doing a great job with those clients and then turning people off on the channel altogether.

Blake Cantrell: 15:08

And so yeah, it's, there's a I don't know just like anything. When you're talking about pricing, it's like you don't want to price it too low because then there's a perceived value of, so it's. I think there's a good fit for it. But, to your point, like it has to be the right customer and like where they are and their maturity and level too, I think you could start performance and then grow into like more consistent, like higher level payout structures.

Dustin Howes: 15:35

That makes sense. And for those that are maybe starting out as a Consultants like they, they get their experience in the industry. They did five plus years and then all of a sudden they're like, hey, what's the flexibility? I want to make my own agency. What are those steps for those consultants Reaching out to you as a network like to get some of that work, maybe some leads coming in.

Blake Cantrell: 16:01

Yeah, first, I mean, I commend you if you're doing that, you think you know how to do it better than someone else, or the networks or whatever it is, which is awesome. It's a brave place to be, have considered it, and I just can't do it. So, yes, I think there's room for all kinds of stuff. Cast, similar thing. Yeah, what's? What's your story? Why would I, why would I send a lead to you versus the hundred other agencies or potentially our in-house team? The other part would be you know, what are you? What are you hoping to do? Like, you need to have some sort of Every.

Blake Cantrell: 16:39

Every place I've worked where you know you potentially work with an agency would always have, like, basically, I can intake sheet of like okay, great, what do you do? Who are you? What regions do you cover? What are your ballpark, ballpark price points, how many people are on the team? Like, how do you assign? What are your service tiers? Do you what? Are there verticals you won't touch? What are your specialties? Like, what are all the what's? Every client you've ever worked with, whether you have them today or not. So we know, like, who who potentially would be a good fit for you. The more information you can provide the network and continually update them with Will get you kind of top of mind and more in the mix when it comes to doing matchmaking for outbound leads, and that's a big one. That I think is a struggle on being on like the network side when working with agencies Is like who's your current roster?

Dustin Howes: 17:32

like yeah, tell me who you.

Blake Cantrell: 17:34

Oh, you lost the account. Okay, great, like I'm not, it's not a ding against you I just know that maybe you're not great at home goods or whatever. It is like oh, you won three travel accounts awesome, like I need to know those things so I can kick them over. And then, yeah, same thing if you update your pricing or your packaging or your team members or whatever it is like, just continue to make sure you have some regular contact that gets updated with all that information.

Dustin Howes: 18:02

Great, great point. Reach out to your contact at each individual network that you're working with, super smart and you know, picking your lane kind of reminds me of people that say we do everything. It minds me of the person that says, hey, what kind of music do you like? And you're like everything, like, oh, really, mariachi, you're into mariachi, tell me.

Dustin Howes: 18:24

Mariachi band. Like I just hate that answer so much and I can expect it's the same like hearing that from an agency that doesn't know exactly where they're, what lane they're in no, that's pretty good because it's it's.

Blake Cantrell: 18:40

There's so much out there, there's so many, I guess, requests to that. I've seen where I didn't have anybody. That was a match. Like yeah, the agency that's amazing at gaming or amazing in latin, like those are just like no one's doing that in an amazing way. So like that's yeah, there's still places for people to jump in and pick it up. I mean, if you look at APAC, like in general, yeah, there are agencies that do affiliate, but there's not a lot of affiliate agencies. Like, if you want to move to Singapore and start your own practice and kill it right now, like you could probably do it, you'd also have to learn the native customs and culture, language and figure all that out.

Blake Cantrell: 19:21

But like no one knows how to just do pure affiliate, like it's not happening in so many regions right now.

Dustin Howes: 19:27

That's wild. Yeah, us is winning the kill. All right, so switching gears, a little bit Like you're a consultant out there and you're kind of ramping up your agencies, starting to either hire people or virtual assistants or whatever they do. Have you seen any good training out there that agencies can go and like build up their team? Is there a good strategy around building this team up?

Blake Cantrell: 19:58

I mean, honestly, I think what they do is like what we did at CJ a million years ago. Right, it's like there's some in-house tribal knowledge kind of stuff going on, or there's like people who are subject matter experts on like a particular network or particular vertical, but there's not a lot of like. Just here's how I mean. Look, my first six months at CJ I'm not sure I understood just the mechanics of how it even functioned. Like, what, yes, like, how does this work? Why does this happen? Like I don't. I think people skip over that, those basics that so many people need out there before you jump into the like, here's how you know broker, like a three tier deal with the public or whatever. Yeah, so I don't know, I don't think there's a lot of like formalized agency training outside of just their own in-house knowledge, which is obviously usually inherently a bit biased because it's coming from people who have big preferences.

Dustin Howes: 20:57

Yeah, and that training out there. If you are a big agency, you have an in-house capacity of somehow training and mix it in with shadowing some of the senior affiliate managers out there. But, like, as far as like affiliate management training, you have any like go-to solutions out there that you use.

Blake Cantrell: 21:19

No, I mean I've heard, I know that impact has their thing going on, but it's hard to imagine that that's, you know, completely unbiased. Yeah. And then there's what aphiverse and some others out there, but I've never really jumped in there and used any of them. But I don't know, maybe that's because I'm crusty and old.

Dustin Howes: 21:39

Yeah, your hair is showing it, so there's no one else you can think of out there that is doing some amazing affiliate management training. That comes to the top of your mind here, blake.

Blake Cantrell: 21:50

There's one guy, kind of a wild card, definitely a bad baseball taste. I think I've seen him at the shows. I can't remember his name now. It's something Dustin Wise, I can't know it's, how was. And there's something really strong he's doing with performance marketing manager. Yeah, I think he comes to mind Awesome.

Dustin Howes: 22:19

You heard it here, folks Blake Cantrell says Dustin's course is a slam dunk. Captain Blake, I absolutely love and miss this photo so much. You should replicate it every 10 years. Tell me a story behind this. How did you even create this masterpiece here?

Blake Cantrell: 22:38

Sure, so a long, long time ago. So.

Blake Cantrell: 22:41

I played volleyball forever in college and then after, and then I wrote for a volleyball magazine for a while and I had my own column, and so they sent a photographer to Santa Barbara, where I live, and said we're going to take some, a bunch of pictures for you, for like different ones for each column, monthly magazine. Just bring whatever you want with whatever ideas you have. That was what I did, and that shot took like 50 takes to get that one where I was like dead-eyed straight ahead and the ball was hitting my head. Beer and cigarette smoke is really terrible. Yes, glad that that's a lasting image for you.

Dustin Howes: 23:27

Yeah, I saw that on your Facebook and had to have to have that up here as part of our sponsorship. Thank you for promoting my course, really appreciate that Anytime. Such a glowing promotion from you.

Blake Cantrell: 23:46

Well, look, I'll be real. I think that I do think that there's a lot of room for what you're doing right now and it needs to be out there, because it is so siloed. Everyone's version is like a little bit different and you've worked across like every single platform that there is. So to have an objective third party who can come up with some of these trainings is like a much better place to be than learning it solely from a network or solely from an agency. Like every place I've worked, you know, impact partner, iocj, it's all. The training is all a little bit different, but naming conventions are all different. Like, have you out there to solve that for people?

Dustin Howes: 24:23

is huge. Thank you, and I appreciate that. And it is hard work and what I've found is, over this journey, over the last five years that I've been doing this and running this course and having to update all the content and keeping up with the folks that have signed up and training hundreds of affiliate managers in this space, like I've watched competitors come in and try to sell something similar and just pull their hair out, like I did, and give up after a year, and like there is a whole bunch of trainings out there that don't exist anymore, that try their best. And this isn't easy what I'm doing, but there is an absolute necessity in this industry for it, for coaching the next generation of affiliate managers and to helping the SMBs learn their strategy the right way so that they don't fail. And that's what I'm doing out here. So love being a part of it and the solution. So switching gears here. We're seeing some trends in the affiliate OPM region of PR. Oh, I love how on brand you are. Is that a beach, beach, plum?

Blake Cantrell: 25:40

Oh yes, beach plum, you know it yeah. Yeah, costco pack special.

Dustin Howes: 25:46

Yeah, they only sell that at beach front cities, I believe, like San Barbara. But get back into it PR, seo agencies and affiliate like where's the overlap you're seeing with affiliate agencies? Or like vice versa, like PR agencies jumping into the affiliate realm.

Blake Cantrell: 26:07

Yeah. So, man, since three, four years ago, you know, I'd always be the forefront of like new agencies, trying to figure out how to work with wherever I was working, and so, more than any other agency type, we were seeing PR agencies that were like hey, they're like. They'd always mimic the like kind of buzzword sentences that people would put out there. It's like our Facebook spend is declining and we're just no more room, and like so we need to figure out how to probably jump into affiliate, and it would even take one or two paths. It'd be like their brand told them hey, can you manage affiliate?

Blake Cantrell: 26:49

And they just say yes, because they wanted additional dollars for their brand would tell them we want to be on you know skim links or you know one of these other content driven sites, and they would say, yes, you can work with us, but we only do it through affiliate. So then they had to come over to a network to like figure out how the heck it would even function. I don't think anyone's figured that out at scale, like how to get them to transition in or bring them in, or they probably you should go find a million PR agencies because they definitely need training on how to do affiliate.

Blake Cantrell: 27:25

That's a big piece of it. But then we've, as you know, seen, you know, for years now, either networks and or agencies trying to go the other way and dip into content or influencer and figure out how to make that work. And it's been challenging because there's usually going through the affiliate person on the brand side and they say, yeah, go for it. But you have to do like content on a last click model which doesn't work or see, yeah, you have. I think it's really interesting.

Blake Cantrell: 27:59

You have people on both sides trying to meet in the middle, but then it's going to be up to you know someone to say, like who do I want to run this? Like, I want to work with skim links? Do I want my PR agency, who maybe has some expertise that's outside of my affiliate team, to dip into affiliate? Or do I want my affiliate team, who knows how all this operationally works and can scale it up quickly, to take on more PR like functions? I don't know that there's a great and clear answer right now, but I think the opportunity is so real for a good OPM to really jump in and have different contracts and give different contacts at the brand side and just take over all of that PR budget and hype it through affiliate and all the different content sites out there. But I don't know. I think some people are doing it in bits and pieces and some are having a degree of success and others are still chasing it, and the PR agencies are everywhere but not making a ton of progress. So yeah.

Blake Cantrell: 29:04

I'm sure there's exceptions I'm forgetting out there, like LaRue is an interesting one that does a little bit about both, but yeah, it's an interesting place to be. I think it will be very real in the next year. Somehow someone's going to break through and that could be a big differentiator, like we were talking about earlier.

Dustin Howes: 29:20

Yeah, I need to have them come on. I helped train LaRue's affiliate team, essentially because they were in that PR space and trying to get an affiliate game, and I commend them for being responsible. It's too easy for a PR agency to just say, yeah, we can do affiliate, try it out, take the people's money and fail at it miserably. It's very responsible for an agency to go out and get the training and that's exactly what they did. So there is that overlap and I think you're right. It is right for an agency to be doing both of those and maybe the solution is like a PR agency ends up absorbing some kind of really good OPM out there and combining their efforts and this kind of sense, and folks over at Backbone Media are really doing this well over in the space for outdoorsy stuff and programs on a vaunt bank and things like that.

Dustin Howes: 30:24

So there are some winners out there.

Blake Cantrell: 30:27

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think the other thing that's like just super interesting to me is that the other part of this is what's happening out there in the larger landscape.

Blake Cantrell: 30:37

Right, there's a million influencers that are just getting million dollar checks for like a day of live streaming, their Twitch feed and whatever you know, like stuff that is working today that can't be sustainable, and someday some CMO is going to come in there and be like, yeah, like we'll keep doing this, but I need better metrics or better data or better reporting, and they're going to stuff them into something at least like the affiliate channel, just to get the information about how, what's really happening here, and I think at some point it'll just all go over there, whether it's the affiliate channel or something tracking mechanism that looks very much like it, where they can be sure of what their actual spend is and what their return is on that spend, because it can't continue the way. It is like whatever.

Dustin Howes: 31:29

It's hard to imagine All right, and bucketing influencers into the affiliate is always a good play. It's going to make you look better, even after you have to like zero out the commissions if you're on an upfront sponsorship or put a little skin in the game. But getting them to use tracking links or some kind of vanity code is super essential to working with those influencers to track that and what they're doing right and wrong. Don't just blindly like, buy sponsorships and not track it properly. That's crazy talk. All right. And you touched on like agencies getting absorbed a while back. Like there's Gen 3 and there's acceleration partners and they seem to be taking on other agencies and putting them in their portfolio for whatever reason, if they get to a certain size or they see some value in them. And what have you seen out through the years? Like what does it take to get absorbed from like an agency perspective? Like you've seen this happen quite a few times, I would assume.

Blake Cantrell: 32:35

Yeah, I mean you have to. You were there, at least from what I know and you know, without over sharing and perhaps knowing too much. Like I think what Gen 3 and acceleration partners have done is found things that were complimentary or somewhat different to what they're offering today, that could help them expand, whether it be type of audience, type of or size of accounts that were being serviced or, like you know, this will fill in a blank for us in Amia or some other region, like I think that's a lot of what's been happening is just try to add pieces that would help fill in the blanks for them to have a more broad offering and be be able to service accounts in a better way. But what happens next is the more like to me interesting question. Like I don't. Where do you stop? You know, how big do you get, and then who else is?

Blake Cantrell: 33:31

going to take on that strategy, or will anyone else take on that strategy because they're outside of those two? Is there a third player that could do that? Or will the holding companies at some point like really dig in? Or or the network? Be honest, like I think that's at this point probably, if you're building up a big agency that can handle affiliate in almost every region SMB, enterprise, mid-market, and you can do, you know, search or influence there's something else for them, which is what a lot of these bigger guys are starting to look like. Well then suddenly you fit the profile more and more of what a holding company looks like and they have the ability to probably talk directly to like the top of the top of the food chain on the brand side and then eat your lunch if they want to just kind of roll affiliate under their existing larger, you know contracts. So it's good, it's going to be more competitive and healthier for everybody. But yeah, what where the end game is is.

Blake Cantrell: 34:34

I'm not sure that's clear for everybody right now especially with, like you know, there might have been a chance for, I don't know who knows like maybe tomorrow, impact by an agency like I don't know.

Dustin Howes: 34:47

I guess it is possible. My buddy, rick McGinnis, was talking about this how he started his own affiliate platform and it's it's walking backwards the way that it's traditionally done, where networks, you know, are gaining all the traffic, and then there's a conflict of interest because the affiliates that they recruit in-house, with the management team in-house. You could just fill up programs with coupon sites and collect all this additional revenue on top of it, and that is a real conflict of interest, having the agency aspect running your program within the network. And I think that's where impact got it right. Like really early on, they said no, we're not gonna have an agency within here. But like now that the things come around, they're like it might be a revenue model, like we might look at, but who knows honestly?

Blake Cantrell: 35:41

I mean, there's just so much out there and then it's tougher. I think, for again, this is peer speculation, but like a CJ or Rakuten, they're part of massively large companies. Now like, yeah, how nimble can they be? Or how nimble will they be, I don't know, or is affiliate, you know the total business represents what percentage of the total business of an Epsilon or a Rakuten, like you know it's? I don't know what's gonna happen there. It's all very, very similar. Again, probably back to our earlier conversation. We need to be differentiated instead of commoditized and figure out what a unique voice is out there in the market.

Dustin Howes: 36:24

Yeah, big time Evans says there's a point where we're all a little too integrated. Really good point. I hate the word in sessual that that so many people use in this industry. That word has to go and I will. You will never hear me use it, but like it brings up a good point. We're all interconnected in this industry and somehow and it's usually just so small and apparent when you go to an affiliate summit and see a hundred people that you've known throughout the years and you're having a touch on how, like we both matter, both work with our wives in the industry too yeah, we are.

Dustin Howes: 37:09

We are both in like the top 10 power couple zone right, I think there's only 10 probably, but yeah, I mean there's, there's some good ones out there, there's some big ones bigger than you and I, but like at least we're on that top 10 list, like we're making our name out there as the, as secondary bread makers at the house hold LLC. So one thing I'm then doing these days on affiliate nerd out is lesson of the day, and I think the biggest takeaway from today's conversation is, if you are an agency out there, be a little bit different than than the norm, because everybody is kind of doing that OPM thing and you should be trying to differentiate yourself from the the pack is that. Is that a good lesson take away there? Like what do you?

Blake Cantrell: 38:06

think. I think that's my. You know, if you're an agency looking for advice, yes, that is exactly what I would tell you, because there's a million out there that do great with retail. There's not a million that do amazing with all these other funky and upcoming verticals. If you, if there's an agency out there that's amazing at CBD, by the way, you can come and clean up. There's eight million CBD. Oh my god, there's like two publishers that do anything in CBD. So if you're gonna become the CBD specialist, yeah, I think there's room for you dude.

Dustin Howes: 38:40

And then, on top of that, like every one of those CBD companies thinks that their product is the best, like they will tell you, like we've got the best product out there and here's why. And yeah, it's all the same message.

Blake Cantrell: 38:56

I know there's a lot of money out there. That's totally. It's a valid industry. I just it's so. Again, this is part of me getting older. I'm so far from that universe that I have. It's hard for me to say what's right or wrong or what's good or bad, and, like I don't know, it's hard to find people to promote you.

Dustin Howes: 39:15

I've been doing this new affiliate thing where I just I buy a bunch of the liquid version of the CBD and pour it into a bathtub and like lay around with it and then video it and like give my yeah, nothing's live yet.

Blake Cantrell: 39:31

Well, yes, if I go to ASW, I'll look for you with your needs. Cbd leads t-shirt.

Dustin Howes: 39:39

I'll make sure to point you in the right direction to the meat market. Perfect, all right, it's time to defend your post here. Blake, this is a segment where I pull something from your history, and then awful then you have to defend yourself and much worse than that picture, so usually it's professional. But since we are Facebook friends, since we go back 10 plus years, I found I found this picture and I want to know why everybody looks like Eminem, except for you and like how did you get into this crew?

Blake Cantrell: 40:22

right. First, let's just acknowledge how dark and luscious my hair was it's a good look.

Dustin Howes: 40:28

Yeah, yeah, the key on.

Blake Cantrell: 40:30

A look right there yeah, I was killing it all right, so I am. That's me. At 17, my face is much thinner. That is my, my high school volleyball team and, at some point, what was happening we were going into the playoffs and everyone decided to yeah, this is 1995, for context, For sure.

Blake Cantrell: 40:56

Everyone decided they're going to either shave their heads and or like bleach it blonde, because one of the other guys on the team had done that. And then I was like you know what? That is just not going to happen for me. So I was the only holdout, but that's how I ended up like in that group. That's amazing.

Dustin Howes: 41:18

And there's no other team photo to like document that it's. It's photos were before championship, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blake Cantrell: 41:26

So that was just like at somebody's house after everyone had like gotten all bleached out and yeah there was like a big five minute chase where everyone was like trying to pin me down and do it. But I think, I think quite work, but it also helped us, you know, team captain, and told them to eat it Pull and rank. I love it.

Dustin Howes: 41:49

And it just goes back to the lessons of the day of stand out when there's a crowd in your whole team is a crowd of Eminem impersonators. Be the Keanu in the group.

Blake Cantrell: 42:02

That's funny. Yeah, I do remember that. Like next week after that, one of my teachers like really pointed me out, like in front of the whole class of like this is someone who sticks to their guns and doesn't do just what everyone else is doing.

Dustin Howes: 42:17

Okay, but it's more about just vanity, but sure there was morality to it, it was underlined, you just didn't know it.

Blake Cantrell: 42:26

Yeah, it was much more meaningful than I realized, I'm sure.

Dustin Howes: 42:29

Yeah, absolutely Way to take a stand, buddy. All right, for those of you who are affiliate nerd out fans, my guest on Thursday is going to be John LaBruto, so don't miss that. I'm going to have a great time with that old veteran. I love talking to John and hanging out and nerding out with him. If you would like to know exactly what I do for every program launch that I do, go to DustinHousecom, slash checklist and download that asset Like thanks for being here, buddy, always good catching up and let's see how would you end the show? That's my latest question, like what's a good sign off for you?

Blake Cantrell: 43:10

I feel like you're going to need, like like some, some exit quote that you say, like every single time, like you know, oh yeah, like Adam Corolla, mahalo kind of thing. Yeah, or like, or maybe like also with like a song that plays you off, or like. I think that that could work for you, but what that is, I don't know. Like I'm just the idea guy you got to execute.

Dustin Howes: 43:31

This is why I asked you. I don't ask every guest this question, but I'm glad I asked you. Like a lock off song with some kind yes makes sense for me. Maybe we'll cook a racha or something.

Blake Cantrell: 43:48

Yeah, I mean Pina Colada song like your choice.

Dustin Howes: 43:51

Mm, hmm, cheeseburger in Paradise. Yeah, all right, where can? Where can folks find you, blake?

Blake Cantrell: 43:58

Um, I mean, in beautiful Santa Barbara, I'll buy you a cup of coffee. That's number one. I got some time, so, yeah, let me know. Uh, the other place probably my LinkedIn is the easiest Like send me a message, go find me on there, it's just linkedincom whatever. Blake Cantrell, 14, I think. Um, apparently there are 13 other ones before me that were amazing. Um, yeah, I bought them around. I'm super excited to just talk to anybody who. If you have a job, lead great. If you have some contract work, amazing. If you need some help with something and you thought I was halfway insightful, let me know, too Happy to help.

Dustin Howes: 44:34

I've been working for 15 years of experience. Can't go wrong, blake, thanks for joining me. Um, for all those affiliates out there and affiliate managers, keep on recruiting and we'll see you out there. Take care.