ClickFather Update – Summer Roller Coaster Ride!

Wow, this summer has been some ride…

No summer vacation this year, as we went into acquisition mode.

In June we bought buymyvalue.com; a daily deals site that already had several thousand customers. Since then we have made some significant improvements to the site and now have it ready to do high volume sales. The compelling offer is get 2 movie tickets and a $50 Restaurants.com gift card for only $29.95! Great deal huh? You can learn more by going to BuyMyValue.com

Not just a fun stylus!

So back in April I came up with a “fun” little side project called Draw Anything Better. I really wanted to experience what it was like to take a product from concept to the market and boy was it a learning experience! From the patent process to getting picked up by buyers of major retail outlets to now being one of the select few products being showcased at the Emmy Gifting suite in Hollywood this month!

Early on I enlisted the help of one of my best friends James and we went through the process together. It has been a great learning experience and I am really happy I did it. Plus it is making money. 🙂


Amanda, drawing The Joker.	Another drawing by Amanda, one of my race horses!

Amanda drew James with his cute hat on 😉	Our booth was buzzing at the ASD show in Las Vegas!

Politics are heating up!

Xy7Elite now has exclusive WAP and display Democratic and Republication campaigns. Make no mistake these not “one field” campaigns these are real campaigns that support each party. Interested in running them? Please contact me personally as we are only accepting a select few publishers.

What I am buying…

Mobile ads for investment IRA leads
Idea Tank
Credit Repair
Dish TV (on PPV as well)
Political WAP and Display campaigns

With so many companies going out of business, many people ask me how we do it. So I am sharing my 5 keys to success with everyone.

– Stay small and always keep an eye on profitability

Find employees that can do more than one thing. Example: My Network Manager Anthony does not just put up campaigns. He also buys media, helps on creative & manages a few affiliate accounts. All my account managers are on a performance basis, which gives them unlimited earning potential but also weeds out non-performers rather swiftly. At one point we went from 4 people to 30 in about 7 months and our gross sales and profit went south. When someone asks me, “how many people do you have?” I smile and say “A handful of really sharp entrepreneurs.”

– Keep a close eye on expenses

Bedsides, paying too many salaries to non-performers many companies go broke because they over spend. Foolish employees think everything is a “write off”: so without proper guidelines in place they overspend on meals and entertainment when there is no real reason for it. No matter how well we do I always look for ways to save money. Don’t get me wrong I have no challenge spending lots of money on clients and Affiliates. We are well known for giving away cars, laptops and iPads by the hundreds to deserving publishers.

Trade shows and traveling are one of those things. I cannot tell you how many times I went over expenses and said to myself “I spent what on rooms??” We now take a serious look on who goes to shows, what the outcome is and what we expect. And if that does not happen, we then evaluate it and make changes before the next show. Don’t get me wrong we have spent upwards of $70,000 at Ad Tech on parties/Booth space & traveling it is not about how much but about the result.

– Create, do not follow

The “big” money we have made over the years has been by creating campaigns and new marketing angles. In 2004 we were the first to create a “combo offer” on ringtones and at one point we were doing over $260,000 a day in volume on it. We repeated that success over a dozen more times over the years with many products and services most of you know about.

– Know your USP in every situation

So many people attempt to “broker” a deal without adding any value. Always ask yourself, “by me being a part of this deal what do I bring to the table?” If the answer is nothing, move on as you will be chasing your tail and the other people in the deal will be wondering what the heck you are in it for.

– Stop talking and listen

Early on I blew a few large accounts by pitching them what I wanted them to buy. That seldom works. In 2007 I happened to run into a CEO of a very large coffee house Chain who was very impressed by what we did. He put me in touch with his agency who I went ahead and pitched tons of ideas like adding a birthday club and how we would re activate 5 million gift cards online for a CPA. When the agency was lost on how they would bill their normal 30% I did not have an answer…I just figured they would make it work. They did not instead they just took all my ideas and put them into play without me. Had I first asked them how they worked I could have avoided the frustration of my ideas being used and my firm not being compensated and I would have probably made quite a bit of money off it.

iPhone 5 coming out!

Seems like tomorrow will be the day the big news will be out and the iPhone 5 will be ready for pre order. Some of the rumor sites claim it will have unbreakable glass, which would be awesome. Although, I’ve got to tell you…having cracked 4 screens so far, the 4S has a great tolerance to being dropped. Check out this video on the gorilla glass they used for the phone’s case. And yes we will be doing a giveaway around it stay tuned.

Let’s roundtable it!

A few times a year I get together with serious media buyers to sit down for a few days at either one of my homes or a exotic location and really round table our marketing efforts.

These small groups are from 1 to sometimes 40 and from them we create some amazing campaigns and joint media buys. These are full transparency brainstorms where you get to see what we are paid and many times work directly with the advertiser and us to get campaigns profitable. Out of these roundtables we have come up with some really awesome stuff. We just finished one that lasted over 2 weeks and started in San Diego and then moved to Beverly Hills. No worries it’s not all work there is some fun involved as well. If you are interested in being a part of one of these drop me a line theclickfather@yahoo.com

ClickFather Update – Summer Roller Coaster Ride!

Wow, this summer has been some ride…