Throughout my seven year tenure in the online gaming industry, I have seen a lot of crazy things. I have forged hundreds of quality relationships and made several business partnerships throughout this time. Anyone that knows my history in the industry knows that I have made a few different strategical moves along the way.

It’s funny when I look back over all these years. Many of the best relationships I have began back in 2005 when people bought my ebook, PartyRiches. During my tenure in this industry, one of the most rewarding things has been is seeing all the affiliates I have mentored who are now truly living the dream.

There are a couple fundamental principals in this industry however that have allowed the strong to survive, and unfortunately the weak to fall apart. I want to share these observations of mine because I believe they are of the utmost importance to affiliates, operators, and providers.

Although the gaming affiliate market is huge in our minds, it’s actually a pretty small tight knit group in the big scheme of things. If a program screws over affiliates, within a day it will spread like wild fire. If a top affiliate is caught spamming or cookie stuffing, the same will apply. If you get into a nasty battle in a forum thread with another affiliate, it will be remembered. Likewise as an affiliate, if you publicly slam an affiliate program and call them crooks because one player maybe didn’t track, this does not go un-noticed by every other A.M. out there.

With that said, always remember your reputation and how important it is in the online gaming affiliate industry. In fact, next to your performance, your reputation is everything. This is probably more important for operators and providers than it is individual affiliates. Nonetheless, I always ask myself if what I am doing is going to positively or negatively affect my reputation. Of course my first love is being an affiliate and buying new sites like  PokerSelect.com <—-Shameless plug for link exchange requests.

But as a provider, founding the PAW forums, the PAW Network, and now PAL; I have to be cognitive that although I may be a seen as a leader amongst poker affiliates and poker affiliate programs today, I could destroy my reputation in a very short amount of time by making bad strategic moves or not using common sense.

Secondly, I have learned throughout these years that it is never smart to burn bridges in our industry. In the poker affiliate industry I have been involved in several partnerships and various relationships. Some worked out while others failed miserably.

Regardless the outcomes of the various business relationships, I have always opted to take the high road and not burn bridges. The program or person you may be pissed at today, could be someone you are depending on or NEED to do business with years down the road. Remember, in this industry there is one thing that is constant, and that is change. If you can’t adapt to change, being a gaming affiliate, operator, or provider is the wrong industry for you to be in.

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