Dustin: 0:47

Hey, welcome to Affiliate Nerd Out. I am your nerd narrator, Dustin Howes. Spread that good word about affiliate marketing. You're going to find me here every Thursday at noon on LinkedIn Live, where me and my guests get to nerd out about affiliate. And my nerd guest today is Stephen Robinson, old buddy of mine from back in the day. Welcome to the Nerdatorium, bud.

Stephen: 1:08

Hey, Dustin. Thanks for having me so much.

Dustin: 1:12

Yeah. Great to have you. It's a long time coming. If you'd like to be in Steven's seat there, come be my guest. Go to dustinhowes.com slash nerd. That's how Steven got in here. Dustin, I want to come nerd out. I want to be in that. I'm a absolutely bud. Steven, why don't you tell everybody who you are? Sure.

Stephen: 1:32

First of all, to that comment, Dustin, I feel like a radio caller, like longtime listener, first time caller. Let's see. I've been in the affiliate space. Back before it was cool, it goes back to the origins of about 2004. And so I've had the chance to work at quite a few different affiliate agencies as well as digital marketing agencies. And then most recently it was able to work at a ticket in Robinson at a brand. And also I have some experience consulting. Yeah, here I

Dustin: 1:57

am. And you're all over the place too with niches. I know you can do SAS. I know you can do B2B. I know you can do e commerce. You've got it all. You've been doing this a long time. And I think we started our relationship when you were at JAB like years and years ago, I don't exactly recall like how that, that thrived, but you've always been a guy that I've gravitated towards when I get to see you. So glad to have you in here today. Thanks

Stephen: 2:22

Awesome. Thanks. So glad to be here.

Dustin: 2:24

Steven, the affiliate manager, tell us what you do and who you serve out there. Oh,

Stephen: 2:29

that's a great question. So as you alluded to over the course of my career, really my specialty. Because as you mentioned, it has been, I cut my teeth in lead gen, a lot of retail background, some focus work, but it's always really come back to lead gen or B2B. It was often like, Hey, this is a really challenging client. Congratulations. They're now yours. And that was often that the cards I was dealt. So really my focus is outside of affiliate, I took four years in the car business. And one of the things I learned there was consultative sales. And oftentimes it's just trying to get to what is What's the solution we're trying to get to? What's the problem we're trying to solve? And so I would say if I had to put it in a nutshell, what do I do as often? I'm trying to find the client's problem to solve and then finding the affiliates to go help solve that problem.

Dustin: 3:15

I love that attitude and I love that framework and it'll bring up a lot of things that we do as affiliate managers throughout this conversation, but our topic of the day is going to actually be the AM job search coming up in 2025. So this will air live at the end of the year or at the beginning of the year. I'm not exactly sure yet, but the job search out there for affiliate managers can be a difficult one. And you have gone through this whole process over this last year. And I want to get your perspective on what you're seeing out there. So what's your first impressions? What do you want to talk about today in this

Stephen: 3:54

I said, not to brag, but it's going to be by the end of the year, it'll be. You could have had a baby by then over nine months that I was out. It's been incredibly challenging. I describe it as a very challenging and confusing job market. And what I mean by that is that I had a spreadsheet of hundreds upon hundreds of jobs I applied for where I felt like I checked all the boxes and then some. And then just the rate of the affiliates, we measure everything, right? Like the open response rate of, getting a call back is just stunningly low. It would not have a good ROI. I'll say that. Or the other thing is probably just. The applying for a job in April and finding out in October that they'd filled the role like seriously.

Dustin: 4:39

Goodness.

Stephen: 4:40

Yikes for sure. I think one of the big takeaways I learned Dustin is a lot of times. Companies are, they probably already have someone in line, but they still have to post it just to play by the rules. I feel like I fell to that quite a bit.

Dustin: 4:54

Which

Stephen: 4:55

is interesting, but it was one of the things I'd heard along my journey.

Dustin: 4:59

Also a waste of everybody's time. Like why go through that? Yeah. I too had a stint of unemployment where I was out there scraping and clawing for doing. Lots of odd jobs and surviving while I was on that job search and decided to go back to that workforce. And during that time, I had a very similar experience of I'm throwing out these applications. Luckily, my my podcast actually helped. My brand recognition got me. More in the door than I think you, you probably came across, but not everybody has that kind of luxury. With the affiliate manager roles, like you've had 10 plus years experience, like what are you qualified these days to do in an affiliate manager role?

Stephen: 5:47

That's a good point. Really I've done everything from Leading teams, large teams up to relatively large, 10 to 12 people overseeing strategy for a portfolio of 30 to 35 clients. When I was at JV commerce to just, in my most recent role at WP engine, it was a smaller team of just a few people. Driving strategy for the program, also owning like those top key partnerships, those top revenue drivers, as well as just managing an agency that we had, that was helping support some of the backend affiliate functions. And really anything soup to nuts, whether it's going zero to one, launching a program or taking a mature program and helping really. Grow and activate that program to get it to the next level are some of the things I really enjoy focusing on.

Dustin: 6:32

Oh, great. And it's awesome that your strengths and weaknesses as well. Like just knowing that I remember when you. We're going after that WP engine role on I remember trying to help you get into that space. Cause I knew all the people I'd run that program in the past and I knew the folks over there. I knew that was going to be a great fit for you and your skillset said could do a full launch, but taking over a mature program, I'm more than qualified. I feel I'm much better in the space of the launch phase rather than the take it over after five years. I don't love a lot of that part of it. I want to go in and recruit, and I know my strength is in recruiting and getting new blood into the program. So you feel like you've got both sides of that equation.

Stephen: 7:20

Yeah, I do. And I really think I have a lot more of that experience. of the other side of where you're at. Oftentimes in the agency world, we're taking a mature program. Maybe they're a couple of years old, they've been stagnant growth, or it's been on autopilot and really just looking at doing a deep dive, who's in the program, who's not, competitive analysis and really just understanding what are the activation steps to grow that program. And so I really enjoy that piece of the puzzle as well. Find that to be really, for me, it's really interesting just really getting into that data. Yeah. And understanding, who is a cohort of partners that was active a year ago that we should be talking to now, who are some partners that are our competitors are working with that we should be working with. And just really, I really enjoy that strategy piece of it.

Dustin: 8:06

Yeah, I do as well. Now being that you were on that job hunt for nine months, like there must have been some scrapping and clawing while you were out there, like trying to lock down that dream job. And so I know you were out there consulting and doing your own thing. And tell us about that experience of finding some side hustle work while you're out there putting in these applications.

Stephen: 8:33

Yeah, sure. So that became the, I think it's just part of that out of necessity. One, just the side hustle, you just, help make ends meet and two, just trying to find a way to stay sharp, try to, keep those skill sets up and, it was a mix of, people reaching out to me on LinkedIn. So it's really important to keep your profile updated with any new up skills you're doing. And I know we'll talk about that, but making sure that profile's updated, but it was also reaching out to people. I knew that we're consulting to let them know what I was doing. It was reaching out to former clients, letting them know what I was doing to find out if they needed help or if they knew anyone that needed help, they could refer me and just really being intentional about those conversations, affiliate. It's so much about relationship and especially. And that in this position I was in, that was key to make sure that I was making myself making sure people knew what I was doing and that what I was available for.

Dustin: 9:26

Great call. And you mentioned community. We'll come back to that a little bit later, but I want to talk about where these AM jobs. You're going out there and searching for it. Is this on LinkedIn? Is this on other Indeed or third parties? Like where do companies that want an affiliate manager traditionally go or where did you find like the best success?

Stephen: 9:48

Sure. So I think, you mentioned a couple like in, in LinkedIn, obviously, and Indeed the Martech Slack channel, shout out to them. That was a great resource. Glassdoor. I also looked if I found something on a link linked in, I would often go to their website and apply directly. That's probably pretty well known, but I found out a little better success rate in terms of response. If I did that if there's opportunities on LinkedIn to reach out to the recruiter, I often did that as well. The success rate wasn't huge. But those are probably the mean places where I was looking. Sometimes I'd look on X, but limited, response there. Were there other places that you saw opportunity as well, Dustin?

Dustin: 10:29

I feel like I beat up LinkedIn pretty badly and let my community and the folks that. Aware that I was on that job hunt and looking for that perfect role for myself. And I stayed busy doing consulting work, but not exactly all the things I would ideally love to do for a full time gig. I waited, I was patient with it and the, but I still feel like. My response rate was just pure garbage. Like just the same thing that you were going through. Like I could go to the person that posted I could easily using my skillset, like I could go find the hiring manager pretty easily. My LinkedIn connections with these people and I'd make a catered message and try to get a hold of them I'd email them at the same time. I might even try to call them like on the phone number. I can find that Information like yeah, I got a little like by month three when I was in Sure. If this is going to work out or not, I, I was going into desperation mode and starting to do what I had to. And luckily the right role came along at inflection and I and it's taken off from there. But there's a lot of things that you can do to really put your foot in the door to try to get their attention.

Stephen: 12:54

For sure. And you mentioned a lot of them. I think the other thing, and I may have even learned this from you was finding out who I knew that's connected. To that hiring manager to see if they'd make a recommendation on my behalf.

Dustin: 13:07

Oh,

Stephen: 13:08

sometimes that was helpful at well, at least to. Give my resume to the, through the AI mumbo jumbo to an actual live person.

Dustin: 13:15

Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen: 13:16

So that was key too.

Dustin: 13:18

Speaking of that, like I've heard that there's been a turn in applications, like going from a really like Canva pretty application is. Was like a trend for a while. And now the people that want the applications, they want them very professional, like old school. Did you find that practice the same?

Stephen: 13:41

I would say that I'm not very create like designer creative Canva. I leave that to like my wife nothing wrong with it, but it's just not my skillset. So I would say I've been more old school in my resume. I will say that. I did have the opportunity to meet with a resume writer who helped reformat my resume, but it was still very traditional. And that's what I found to be best for me. I shouldn't say best. It didn't have a huge open rate, yes.

Dustin: 14:11

Great point there. If you are not finding success, if you're not getting responses, go hire somebody like I did the same thing. It took me less than 100 for somebody to reformat and repurpose my resume to like really highlight what recruiters are looking for. So really good investment for those out there that are on that job hunt.

Stephen: 14:32

Absolutely. And also I would say, I also, leverage your network. I had some people that were in higher positions at other tech companies that were willing to take a look at my resume and give me some feedback. I found that to be really helpful as well. So it's vulnerable, right? You're putting out your career, but you have to just be willing to accept the feedback is someone having your best interest in mind, even though sometimes it can be tough to read that feedback.

Dustin: 14:58

Yeah. And. When I have somebody reach out to me. And ask for like feedback. I feel honored as a person that they would want my feedback or, and I do it every time. So those are affiliate managers that want to come up and ask me for help. I'm always there to help as well. Now with being like you were on that job search for so long, I remember at month three, I was really considering taking a step back in my roles. I was obviously looking for a director role, which I ended up finding, but I got to a point where I'm like, maybe I just take a junior role or just a regular affiliate manager role at an agency or at a brand prove myself and make my paycheck where I want it to be a little bit later, or even put in an incentive bonus, I'll take this lower salary, but I want a big bonus if I hit my numbers. Cause I'm just confident in myself. Where did you end up landing? And after nine months, this has got to be a little heartbreaking for you to take a step back. But ultimately like it's what you have to do.

Stephen: 16:04

Sometimes. Yeah. And what happened is I really focused in November just on consulting. Like I had to take a break from the job search. Because it's exhausting. It's time consuming. It's not just Oh, I'm just going to easy apply to, I would probably wouldn't really recommend that approach, but sometimes you can fall into that trap of just not putting a lot of effort behind it and just shotgunning your resume. But I, you're right, Justin, I had to open myself up to. Not only looking just at the role itself, but really looking into the company, looking into the opportunity where they were going. And so I did, I landed a role with partner commerce and I couldn't be more excited about it. And it's just an opportunity. I'm coming in at a pub dev manager role. But I'm so excited. And what I told them is it helps me to understand how they do things. Their processes are a little bit different. They're B2B focused. So I really want to understand how they look at the affiliate channel, how they look at the, how they work with their clients. They're one of the best at what they do. They just want a big partnership award for 2024. So it gives me a chance, as I explained so eloquently in the interview process, I want to see how the sausage is made.

Dustin: 17:13

Okay, so that

Stephen: 17:13

I can understand as I move on hopefully if I prove myself as I expect I would that I could then lead others Walking a mile in their shoes I took the similar approach when I came back to JAB commerce and not only is it great to understand how they do things But it also builds and establishes that rapport with the team so that when you're then, leading them, they know that you've walked a mile in their shoes and you're not just coming in cold, trying to understand a culture, trying to understand the products and solutions, trying to understand the clients, but also leading a team where maybe you don't understand exactly. How the sausage is made, if you will. Now, I don't want that to sound disrespectful for anybody that does come in at that higher level. But for me, I found it to be a way to really just, I'm going to bet on myself every time. That's how I ended up consulting because. I'm just feel confident in my abilities.

Dustin: 18:05

Awesome. And I think it's a really smart move as well. Like getting in there and proving yourself is, has a lot of merit and, building out those SOPs and the process is fun in itself and like coming to a fresh company with a fresh perspective, it makes me feel good when I'm getting to express those feelings. And And those strategies and coming up with them on the spot. That's a good time for me. So I liked the angle you're going there. I'm going to take a time to thank our sponsor of the day. Speaking of jobs, I've been a big fan of inflection. I've been working with these guys for the last six months. And this platform is based on personalizing funnels for the affiliate realm. Whether you're working for brands, agencies, influencers, or affiliates like catering to the health and wellness space, Inflection has a tracking solution that is helping build landing pages for partners in a matter of minutes instead of weeks. And I'm actually recruiting for the partners, the brands that we work with. So if you come on as a brand, you're working with me and I'm going to go hunt for you. So come check out a demo, go to dustinhowes. com slash INF or inflection with the K and come see about our solution. It's pretty amazing technology that we're coming up with and really excited for the future and what next year is going to bring for us.

Stephen: 19:33

And I have to check that out. That sounds pretty interesting.

Dustin: 19:37

Absolutely. It is, it's really great. It's more based for e commerce products, but it can absolutely work for B2B and SAS products as well. So come and give it a look. I'm actually. Yeah, I won't say any big names I'm working with that are coming up, but good things anyway getting back into it. So during your downtime here of looking for that job, I think one of the most important things you can do is upskill during your downtime here. What were you out there doing?

Stephen: 20:05

Sure. That's a great point. So one of the first things I did is I jumped into. It's most likely the roles I was looking at. I was doing research and a lot of them shocker for very, for a lot of reasons we could spend the next three hours talking about. And so it was a chance for me to get back into impact and get certified and really go through this training and really understand, the creator program and all the great technology to have available. Listening to podcasts like yours just to hear what other people are saying about the industry. Leanne has an awesome affiliate academy listening to what they're doing over there as well and Staying plugged in on the martech slack channel is just another great way. So I would say for me. It was a proactive approach And oftentimes in my career I would sign up for all these webinars with the best intentions of going back and actually watching them But now I have the time to actually go back and watch them and I just I found a lot of value in that And just hearing, you know What are some of the latest trends in terms of ai and how are people leveraging this technology and emerging technologies? So for me, I found that to be a really fun break in my day of applying for jobs. And then as I consulting, I got a little busier, but usually Friday afternoons, I try to allow a little bit of time to just take a look around the industry and head up from my laptop to see what others were doing.

Dustin: 21:25

Oh, that's a great time to do it. And Friday afternoon is learning time for me as well. Like you're winding down your week here. Nobody's answering emails at that point. It's a great time to be going out and learning from others. And there are so many. Other incredible podcasts out there in the affiliate space that I've been listening to and I think it's a super important aspect. You mentioned impact, like putting that on your resume is going to stand out at this point and

Stephen: 21:54

that's all

Dustin: 21:55

I had.

Stephen: 21:57

Oh, I was gonna say, it's a good thing to put on your LinkedIn too. I'm usually, I shy away from putting that stuff on there, but I found it valuable just to Hey. Got certified just to show that while I wasn't working, I was continuing the upscale process.

Dustin: 22:12

Oh, super smart. And one other big thing about this, you mentioned also is your community, like leaning on the people that you know, and you are familiar with. How did you go about like leaning on your community?

Stephen: 22:26

That's a great question. I think this is probably the third or fourth time we've talked in the last nine months. So you've been a great resource and send me jobs and send me introductions when it made sense. So I really appreciate that. And really just multiplying that a lot of it was. As I think I mentioned before clients that I've worked with in the past, just reaching out to them because oftentimes they've moved on just to understand what they're doing. Is there anything I can do to help them? Coming from more of a servant place than asking, but how could I possibly serve or help you? Former colleagues looking at some of the recommendations of the people that Had great things to say and just reaching out to them having conversations and just even partners that I worked with in the past like Christian at Kraler Maid, like who are people that I really had a good relationship with that might be really well connected. And also taking time for some of those vendors that I worked with in the past, that other networks that may have opportunities or could just be a good resource. So reach out to your contacts. It's not, there's a lot of people going through it, so it's not, it's okay to raise a hand and say, I need some help with this. Who do you know that I should be talking to?

Dustin: 23:35

Yeah, and they're this community itself is based on helpers and yeah When you do get vulnerable and ask for that help people are more than willing and just based on your track record I'm very happy to help you out. Like of course, I want to find you a role So I every in time I got some job offers. I was Immediately sending them your way, which

Stephen: 24:03

turned

Dustin: 24:03

out worked for you anyway. So

Stephen: 24:04

you

Dustin: 24:07

got it, buddy. Anytime. All right. Now it is that part of the time to defend your post. And I went through coming your social profile and I honestly couldn't find anything terribly nefarious. And he actually reposted something of mine of going. And watching nerd sessions and you have actively been, you've been one of the most active people. On my podcast and interacting. And I just want to take the time to thank you for being such a good fan of this show.

Stephen: 24:39

Sure. I just, I never know what hairstyle or mustachio I'm going to get. So it's always what's Dustin rocking this week.

Dustin: 24:45

You have no idea like what's coming. That's why you have to tune in.

Stephen: 24:51

Obviously. And of course the number of folks the quality of people you have, I forgot to mention Adam Riemer, but I like his, whatever he puts out on LinkedIn is always worth the follow to

Dustin: 25:01

Riemer is is. Always coming up with great content. You know what I love most about him is he doesn't keyword search. He writes on what he wants to read and what and topics that affiliate managers will find relevant and he doesn't worry about anything else. He just writes it. And I love that about him.

Stephen: 25:22

I will tell you if you ever have the pleasure of having breakfast with him, make sure that you don't distract him when he's going through the food line because I sat with him at ASW or ASC a few years ago and he somehow ended up with Bacon that wasn't actually bacon, dare I say a tofurkey product or just turkey bacon? We'll just say it wasn't well received. I don't know why, but that memory is just ingrained in my mind. How upset he, how fired up he got over that bacon.

Dustin: 25:51

He can get fired up with the smallest of topics. That guy's hilarious in that aspect.

Stephen: 25:57

Incredibly wise man, for sure.

Dustin: 25:59

For sure. All right, Stephen, how do we connect with you?

Stephen: 26:02

Yeah, the best way to find me is probably on LinkedIn. I've been living and breathing on LinkedIn. I'm also Facebook or even an SMR consulting. net.

Dustin: 26:12

Outstanding. Awesome. Thanks for spending some time in the Nerditorium today and good luck and congratulations on the new role, bud.

Stephen: 26:21

Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I appreciate all your support along the way, Dustin.

Dustin: 26:25

You got it, buddy. All right, folks, keep on recruiting and we'll see you out there. Take care. All

Stephen: 26:29

right. See ya.