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The LFG Show
Make Money Move: Rikki Agarwal Is Must Watch TV 📺
🎙️ *THE LFG SHOW EPISODE ALERT!* 🎙️
🔥 "Make Money Move" ft. Rikki Agrawal, Co-Founder of Blink Digital 🔥
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Yo, LFG Fam! 🚀 Strap in because this episode is about to blow your mind! 💥 We’re bringing the heat with Rikki Agrawal, the genius co-founder of Blink Digital, who’s been in the trenches with giants like Amazon and KFC 🍗💻. Get ready to dive deep into the world of affiliate marketing, where trust, community, and sustainable growth reign supreme. 🌍💡
From COVID chaos to affiliate domination, Rikki breaks down how Blink Digital is changing the game, flipping traditional media buying on its head, and building a community that thrives on long-term relationships. 🤝✨
*Key Takeaways:*
- Compliance & Fact-Checking: How to navigate ad flagging on platforms like Facebook and scale your biz without the BS. 🚩📈
- Community Notes: The future of decentralized fact-checking and why transparency is king. 👑
- Cultural Insights: Short-term hustle vs. long-term grind—why patience and credibility are non-negotiable. ⏳💎
- Sustainable Growth: Ditch the quick cash grabs and learn how to build a business that lasts. 💼🌱
Timestamps:
0:05 Insights From the Affiliate Marketing Industry
6:48 Trust and Value in Affiliate Marketing
18:21 Challenges and Solutions in Affiliate Marketing
24:17 Building Trust and Long-Term Success
29:42 The Importance of Fresh Perspective
40:48 Next Level Networking and Masterminds
LFG fam. Man, what a past few days this has been. We completed Columbia Con 2 yesterday and actually we're wrapping up today. We're wrapping up with the co-founder of Blink Digital. He's this guy. He's been behind the scenes. You don't really see him sometimes that show he's kind of behind scenes. He's a wealth of knowledge doing really big things over here. And he's a wealth of knowledge Doing really big things over here, and it's a pleasure to have you on the show man.
Speaker 2:Thank you, david, I think I see your. I follow your show, yeah, and I always wanted to be part of it, so I guess I'm part of it. And guess what's my first podcast? Yeah, and hopefully it should be like insightful for a lot of people listening to it and can help them grow in this affiliate space. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great space. And Ricky Agrawal, I forgot to say your name. That's been a lot of sleep to pass on. We've been a great time. Blink Digital is very generous to sponsor be one of the sponsors for ColumbiaCon and we appreciate that. And we thought this would be good for you to sponsor and be beneficial because you saw there is about 40 media buyers here and a lot of people that don't know what blink digital does, so you had a very great topic about average. There's a lot of challenges they're going to come up about. Advertising on facebook, met all these different platforms. I want to dive into that before I do that. A lot of people, because you're behind the scenes, they might not know your, your, your history in this industry and what I'm pretty new to this industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, basically, blink started in 2009 and we used to work, or we still work, with some of the biggest brands in India, like Amazon, kfc, all the big brands. A lot of media buying traditional media buying in terms of digital traditional media buying. And I think during COVID is when I got into the affiliate space for the longest time I didn't realize they were affiliates. And then I attended the Affiliate Summit West two, two and a half three years back and that's where I got really exposed to the world.
Speaker 2:Like I was so new to the industry that I didn't understand why people were calling it offer. So because in the brand world, we call it the product, yeah, everything is an offer, right. So, like I, I was baffled then. Right, and then now, now I understand the business, now understand how media buyers think and all that stuff. And I'm not out there selling stuff. I'm mostly behind the scenes trying to make sure that we are compliant and we make sure things are running good. All that stuff. There's a lot of stuff that happens behind the scene that very few people are aware of.
Speaker 1:So let's dive into that and first and foremost, uh, going from brands, you're talking about kfc, you're talking in the amazon. You're talking about man 50 billion, 100 billion, maybe about Amazon. You're talking about man 50 billion, 100 billion, maybe Amazon's multi-trillion right now. Right, I mean, how do you even get into that?
Speaker 2:Because I could imagine, basically that's a long, long process. So so generally, to get a brand, we have to do like a pitch deck. So when you make a pitch deck, it's like the best resources of your office need to work on it and then some marketing head or marketing manager decides whether they want to work with us or no and it's a very long process and tedious.
Speaker 2:Tedious process generally, like if you pitch five, you win two, one like, and it's kind of uh like. It's not as easy as like an affiliate marketing where you just get the offer and start running campaigns.
Speaker 1:So it's very different well, I think a long time I could imagine yeah. So do you think that gave you an advantage? It had to give you an advantage when you got into, or was it just a completely different world when it came to the?
Speaker 2:affiliate world. So it's like, um, like, like, I'm a media buyer. Right, I myself I'm a media buyer. I've done media buying for the longest time, like. I remember launching my first campaign on meta in 2014, like, not like 11 years back, right, like, I used to do those insta post or not, insta post, facebook post, promotions and all that stuff. So that world is very different. Uh, that world needs a lot of justification of why you exist, like, why I, as an agency, exist and this world. I think, coming to this world, first, I didn't realize what like they are doing and I like just think of me as like a nobody in this space, right, like I didn't understand what they're doing, what they wanted to do and all that stuff. And now here I am attending every event, trying to sponsor or trying to actually look. My idea of, uh, reaching out to affiliates is that think long term, right, like, don't think of an offer for tomorrow, think of a business that you build that lasts, even if you're not there.
Speaker 2:Like what I've realized is the biggest Medicare guy and the biggest ACA guys have been doing that for the longest time and they don't keep switching basis. Some offer some quick money. So it's been a learning curve for me, learning curve of understanding what their psyche is and and trying to influence them to think long term. So I think that's that's what I did yesterday also when I did that whole uh facebook series of building trust and all that stuff with the system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I want to get into the way how you spoke about yesterday, but also what does blink digital?
Speaker 2:do exactly. So basically, we are a full service marketing agency, from creative to media buying, to anything and everything that we do. For example, we'll do performance marketing for some of the biggest app businesses in India, like Rummy Circle, my 11 Circles, swiggy, all that stuff, plus Amazon and all that stuff. So think of us. So basically, I'll tell you how marketing works. So there is a brand, then there is a agency that gets involved like a marketing agency. There are two kinds of agencies the creative agency and the media buying agency.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know, you've heard of group m. Uh, group m is the biggest media agency that exists in the world. Well, they, they, they handle around 60 percent of media spends across the world. So that's the agency. So we are one of them, like, not as big as them, but we are on them. And then what happens is then there are performance teams and then, finally, what performance team do is they give like, like. So they'll give like an offer to an affiliate, say, okay, drive my app, install at a 65 dollar, or drive this for 20 dollars, drive this for, uh, like, 40 dollars. So so we come at a level, like in india. We come at a level where we give businesses to affiliate. So we'll have, like a client offer, which can be an app install or it can be anything um, and then we will like give it to affiliates for performance. So that's where we come at.
Speaker 1:Yesterday when you did your great presentation. By the way, I think we originally had you for 30 minutes and I think we went double that. But it was good though, because it was very relevant and people need to know that, and there was a lot of questions that got asked, but one thing in particular I remember asked, but um, one thing in particular remember you said something like you.
Speaker 2:You, I think you said you don't like when people think of blink digital just as a cover that offers like ad accounts right, I think that drives you nuts, yeah. So, basically, I think I come from a business where I need to add value. Um, we are an agency and we are much more than just a solution provider. Uh, I think my goal when I entered in this business there's nothing like easy money, right, like I hope you realize, and in easy money can come, it goes that easily also. So what makes that money stick is when you start adding value to the ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Focusing on building a tip tool that we've been doing, trying to educate affiliates on how to run campaigns Plus, in a sense, connecting the buyers to the like. We now want to focus on connecting buyers to our affiliates so that they end up getting the right contact and all that stuff right. So, not trying to become an affiliate network. We don't want to arbitrage anything. We just want them to get the best offers and like scale that. So I've always been of the mindset that nothing in life should be that easy for you so that it can be taken away. So make it like if a client works with me, he doesn't just see me as one, he sees me as his partner where I want him to grow.
Speaker 1:And you guys have a good reputation in the industry. I've known Max for a long time. People like him a lot. They say that you guys have helped them grow their businesses in a big way. So let's say there's someone new. Our audience has a lot of experience meet-up buyers. We have people that are new, looking to learn. Let's say I'm spending, I'm a newbie and I'm I've finally cracked a couple thousand a day in ad spend. Is that? Is that too low for you? Like no?
Speaker 2:so there's nothing like low. So, for example, we believe in empowering, so for us, we onboard anyone and everyone. There is no like a minimum and the maximum. Our rates remain same even if you spend 100k and a 5k or a 2k. The idea is to give you the tools for you to start learning, or tell you what verticals are working, how you scale that like we are trying to get into that.
Speaker 2:So like trying to handhold a lot of the affiliates into scaling, and I think that's what at least we will do, business being business, if a small affiliate comes to us, we may not be able to give the same kind of attention that we give to a bigger affiliate. That's how the nature of capitalism works. But if you reach out to us and like we're trying to make decks and educate people on like paper call, like a lot of people in India want to know it. So we've been trying to like. One of the ideas that we had was like do like a, like a session on educating people on people call right, like more people get into it and more the right people get into it, it's better for the industry.
Speaker 1:So that's what I believe it is. So let's say on the other side, let's say I'm somebody that's doing big numbers. I mean, we had someone here yesterday. They did 900,000 in a day right, it's just crazy. But let's say someone 50,000, 100,000 plus a day, what's the benefit of working on Blink Digital versus someone else?
Speaker 2:I think you will get the insights that nobody in the world can give you. We will tell you why things are happening, why CPMs are down, why ads are getting rejected. Uh, we'll have like a compliance team who'll educate you on how compliance works, how to make sure your ads are running um, and we'll also like connect you to buyers. So if you, if you're scaling 100k, we have direct buyers like we work a lot with direct, we do media buy for a lot of like dead buyers, aca On an agency model, not on an affiliate model. So we'll always we'll connect you to the right people.
Speaker 1:It's smart business too, because if you have your, I mean at the end you have clients on both sides you got the buyer and then you got the media buyer.
Speaker 2:So if they can make more business together, you benefit too it's all about adding value, and I feel like affiliates have smaller mindsets, that they think very micro. They should always look at a macro point of view and I think people who actually look macro end up making a lot and lot in this business. So it's like survival right, like survival of the fittest, so the guy who actually knows how to survive ends up making a lot more. 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to talk about that too, because, guess, you see it more than more so than most people. You see these ad accounts again and there's all this crazy stuff going on, and I think that you have that. Sure, there's a lot of short-term mentality and that affects their ability to grow, whereas a long-term people, you know, they know how to do it right, walk the line without getting into issues, and that's how you grow. And I think I do say I see that all the time as well. Yeah, I think that's the look.
Speaker 2:There are two things right, like, people think it's money. What I believe it's not money, it's time and trust right. Time is money, trust is money right. So the more trust you build in the system, the more it will reward you the more time you give.
Speaker 2:Look like, for example, as an Indian company, it's easier for us to hire 50 people, right, and then like, just keep churning and burning, churning and burning, churning. But that's not the right way to do it. Right, like, because you are trying to game the system. The gaming the system never works because there are smarter people, a billion dollar, trillion dollar company engineers being getting paid a lot to fix those systems. Right, it may work for two days, but not, it's not a long-term plan, right, and then what happens is you break the trust for the entire ecosystem. So I feel like the clients that I've seen, the affiliates that I've seen, the ones who've consistently built trust with the system and have taken feedback, they're still going and scaling business, they still are doing really good numbers and they are not stressed like focusing on the right things.
Speaker 1:So we talked about, as in rejected all the time, like what's the commonality and what kind of verticals you see is kind of the more like, I would think, more like the senior audience, the medicare, that no, no.
Speaker 2:So it's basically it's right now. It's a lot of e-comm that gets rejected, and it gets rejected for this thing called unacceptable business practice and you're seeing less in paper call. So unacceptable business practices when you make claims like 70% off, 40,000 reviews, which are kind of like not actual reviews and like fake ratings and all that stuff it gets. So e-com is the one getting triggered a lot nowadays. People call gets triggered, but at a point where it's very aggressive and there's a lot of spend on those ads and people have started reporting it, uh, saying that this is like fake and it's actually not true. So the industry that I see getting most flag right now is e-com. Yeah, and they can be completely white hat e-com selling like complete stuff, but then like saying 70% off can get you flagged.
Speaker 1:So let's say you're someone in e-com or lead gen and you've been running pretty clean and all of a sudden you have this you get rejected, you can't run, and I'm sure this happens all the time. People call you up in a panic because I mean, you're talking a lot of money like that guy yesterday. There's 200 million year ad spend that we met yeah I mean what? How do you they call you like? How's the whole process work?
Speaker 2:so basically, the worst thing is I ask a lot of questions, uh, and I like investing time people who answer me right because he cares about it. Right, like it's so easy to just tell someone okay, give me an, give me an ad account, I'll start running right. Like, you keep moving. Like, okay, you do this, you do that, you do, you move to 20 like, and there are enough and more uh providers in the industry. Uh, I think the I want to ask questions and I want to know what's wrong and try to fix it, and I want to work with him to fix it, because it just doesn't benefit him. It benefits me also, because my systems are more stable. I'll learn a lot more of why these ads are going down and then I can make my system that's what I'm saying think long term, right, like there are always bad actors entering your system, so my job as an agency owner is to keep the bad bad actors out.
Speaker 2:Now I don't know what like for, like, there is a Chinese scam that's running across the world I don't know whether you know where. They get clicked to WhatsApp and then they get like information and then like investments and wrong investments and all that stuff. I think they've, I think. A lot of verifications are happening in Taiwan, australia and now it's coming in India. Like I knew something was wrong, so I wanted to dig deeper. What's wrong? I kept asking more questions, more questions, and then I realized it's a scam. So I said this business I can't do.
Speaker 2:Oh they want to work with you guys yeah so you're keeping the bad actors out ethically it's wrong, but also it impacts my system, right so? But then you never know who's right, who's wrong, so it's always, it's always important to be at the top of things, making sure you're always updated with policies, a lot of other issues and all that stuff there's a new endeavor called goofs in in the Box.
Speaker 1:It's just man from day one. It's taken off when.
Speaker 3:I first started getting in the roofing industry, what was happening was my fixed costs were always there, and so for me I was looking at how can we, kind of one, save on these costs? And then, two, how do I not lay people off during down times? But also maybe even the ability to pocket more money during the slow season or even the peak season. Since we've done this before, like with our lead gen companies where we have virtual staffing and from Argentina or Columbia, I'm like why don't we do the same thing in the construction business? Now, once we figured it out, we reduced their fixed costs by 70%, and so now during the downtime they have real, seasoned, veteran type of players, but during the uptime they pocket. 70% of their operational costs are now going back in their pocket, and then, when it's time to scale, you have the back end prepared, already ready to go to help them lift off.
Speaker 3:Depending on what state you're in, you're averaging about 12.5% on what you pay out on taxes, insurance, like all the different insurances that you have to pay out, right? So, yeah, you don't have to pay out an appointment, you don't have to pay out bike insurance, medicare, social Security the things that business owners have to eat. Roofs to Box is not just limited to roofing or home improvement companies. You can use it for any services, right? You can use it for IT. We use them internally for data cells, for hygiene, for analytics.
Speaker 1:It doesn't even matter what the vertical is Like business. It doesn't even matter what the vertical is, it's like business in a box at the end of the day, pretty much. Yeah, do you have an example of, let's say, someone was doing crazy amounts not a big amount, six figures, seven figures a day and they, for whatever reason they got banned and affected their whole business and you guys were able to turn them around quickly? What kind of revenue impact? Or how can you walk us through that whole story?
Speaker 2:basically I think, uh, two, one, one and a half years back a lot of fact checks were happening on like, uh, with like regenerate and a lot of other clients and they had come to us and obviously I didn't know what fact check was like and I had told them, okay, like, so we like we started working with them and like ad account went down. Then I'm like, okay, maybe there's something wrong because I didn't know the business right, like then, like I said, okay, we can't work. And then what happened is I did like a booth, my first booth in the Affiliate Summit West, and I met this guy called Kirby and he came with an actual like a problem, like saying my ads are getting fact-checked. So I told him okay, let's work together. I'm fact-checked. So I told him okay, let's work together. I'm hearing this term again and again. So he gave me like a doc on like why it should not get fact-checked. And then, like, then I read the doc, then I got involved and I got my rep involved and all that stuff. And then then I got the fact-check removed, like when I realized that the whole industry was flagging things wrongly, the fact-checkers were flagging things wrongly. Then, like suddenly like a client was 80k day or became 0k a day and with us it just scaled to an 80 100k a day. And then then then we realized that as an asset. That's a really good asset for us. And then we started reaching out to a lot of pay-per-call guys who are facing the same like. We went back to evision rate saying, okay, now you can run because we can solve those issues for you. Like it's like like your, like affiliates are always looked at it from a like not a good standpoint of you, right, like so we are always skeptical. So we said, okay, we can't work the fact that we realize they're doing something legit and I think it's. Then we scale that business, like with Regenerate and a lot of other people. So that's a good example of you getting flack for the wrong things.
Speaker 2:A lot of copyright infringement happens, right? So one of the e-com brands was being attacked by, like a Silajit brand was being attacked by a guy for nonsensical reason. He was not even being mentioned. Like some stupid content just going.
Speaker 2:Like like systems are designed where, like you just go and report and takes, you, takes, takes it down without even cross-checking, right, Because, like, it's impossible, humanly impossible, to check so many things right, so they take it down. So what what we did was work with the rep figured out okay, is the claim correct, wrong? We figured out that he was just abusing the system and then we got the ad account back and we got the pages back and then, once the page came back, that guy had done five claims in a matter of 40 seconds. They're trying to take things down. And then the internal team figured out that he was trying to take things down. Yeah, and then then the then, then the internal team figured out that he was trying to abuse the system, right, like, and then like, he's dropped an email to us trying to like, like, threaten us and all that stuff. And then we realized that it's all a false claim.
Speaker 2:And then, and the guy scaled to like a half a million, two million during the December Black Friday sale. So it makes us feel proud because we are adding value to the ecosystem and we are actually letting the right people run the right stuff, and because everyone's like, all about making money, right, so you will kill someone to make money, you will do everything, right. So it's kind of that ecosystem here. So it's very important that you protect the right people and and I like to invest time with clients who've stuck around, who don't look at it, look at us from a commodity point of view, like okay, we are just some provider. So I invest a lot of time with them, I try to educate them, I tell them this is wrong, this is right, let's do this, let's figure out a way to solve it, and I think it and it pays dividend for them as well as us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's great, it's a great model. So well, let's talk about the fact checking on Facebook, right? I mean, that's got to be great, for no? What's your perspective.
Speaker 2:So the perspective is I don't think so. It'll be great because there'll be community notes. There'll be what I'm sorry, community notes that gets interest. What is a community notes is like you sign up as, like, a group or a community that comes on board and then you can just post something on an ad. You can just say, like this ad is wrong or this ad is that right, like because right now it is very centralized with some fact checkers. Just think of it. Now the system becomes decentralized when, like, people across the world will come and join a community and then they are able to like a Wikipedia kind of ecosystem, right Like.
Speaker 2:It's great for platforms, for media buyers. I think they have to make sure that they're compliant, talking the right things, because if a community note comes on the post, that means everyone in the world will see it and then your CTRs will drop, and so I'm not sure whether it'll be great. I feel it's great for the. It will be great for the industry because it will remove a lot of bad actors. You need to always understand that if it's great for Meta or Google, it's great for the industry because, like you, you'll get a lot of, like, bad actors removed as short term people who think of short term money, it will affect them. But I think people who are here for the long term, uh, will stick around figure out a way, be more compliant and like do stuff the right way. So I feel like it's great for advertising as an ecosystem yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:I mean it's good to hear that perspective, but you know it, you know that's good. So let's go to the speech yesterday that your talk great, talk right. A lot of challenges ahead with meta facebook, all this going on. So can you, can you give like a synopsis? I know it was using hours people for the audience here like two minutes of all about.
Speaker 2:So what I call is like treat your infrastructure or ad account as like your, like a wife or your house. Uh, invest in it like if somebody, some wrong things enter the house, get rid of it. Make sure it's as clean as possible, because that house will give you a lot, lot in return. Right like it's like an invest. Like think of an ad account as an investment that will grow. Don't think of an ad account as a churn and burn commodity. Like I bought it, flipped it. Okay, move on. Right like so make sure your assets are in right place, make sure ads are getting approved, make sure everything is proper, make sure rejected ads are getting appealed, cases are being raised. If you're not able to do it, get the agency to do it. Stuff like that. Just have a very clean ecosystem and, trust me, like the biggest ones that we have have used a single ad account for the longest time.
Speaker 2:And once an ad account gets scaled, oh wow, it works so differently. Like the world changes. Like I call it the hiva tiring where you reach the highest level. Like you can do a chat gpt on, like how hiva Tiring works like and you realize how things like change. So that's what I'm trying to say. Right like, an account which spends a lot of money and is getting proper, giving proper feedback to Meta or Google builds trust on the ecosystem, right then. What happens is you can do a lot more with it. It becomes more open, more flexible, it's kind of like. But you have to be on it. You can't just be like like, oh, day one boom doesn't work. Like the world doesn't work. Right like, you go to a bank if you want a loan, you need to have credibility. You don't have credibility, you don't get shit right like, and then you build credibility. And once you build credibility, like the world works with trust. So like.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I never realized, never understood, is why are affiliates seizing money? They should change trust. If you change like like, for example, if you trust me, you trust me with your life. Money is just a commodity for you. Right like. So build relationships. If you have a direct buyer, build relationship. Keep building that relationship, because that buyer will reward you not today, but tomorrow. Make less money, but build trust. So follow the guidelines.
Speaker 2:Make sure it's on, because a lot of bad actors will move out and you'll be the only one remaining right, like look at crypto. People who made money in crypto are the ones who've stuck around since 2014. Yeah, like, that's how the world works. Oh, yeah, it's very different. Like, and and this world like, and I meet a lot of indian affiliates, uh, also, uh, and I feel like, like the american affiliates are a little more long-term than Indian affiliates and I try to educate them on thinking long-term, but it's difficult because, like, when even time is cheap, like, like with the US, the time is not cheap, right, like everything is expensive, right, so it's difficult, so it's always a lot of other factors, but I believe, I think, if you can build trust, you'll go a long way in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that was deep. Everything you said makes a lot of sense in terms of treating your ad account like your house or your wife, right, building that trust, and that's how my business has been able to grow. I focus particularly. I try to teach my team focus. Really, you have a good client. We're not looking to make a lot of money short term, because if you just do the right thing, you build the trust, you'll grow and grow and grow. And then what happens? Sometimes? They'll move. They might exit their company, go somewhere else, or they might move to another place and they remember that they can trust you and they're going to bring you with them.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that what I believe is you create business models and leave it for the team to scale right. So, for example, like, let's look at if you are doing aca right, like, let's just look at that now, if you're following the guidelines and having no issues, what you can do is you can structure the team properly. You can make sure the teams are, because the where you've reduced the, the variable right, consistency pays right. So what happens is, for example, if I'm doing an ACA business and I start doing ACA, what will happen is and I'm not running aggressive, my ads are not getting flagged what will happen is I'll create a system for it to run. And what happens? As a business owner, I move out because that system is so stable. Then what happens? I move into Medicare, I move into other stuff. So in a short term it didn't give you that kind of money, but long term it gave you a lot more money. And then what happened is you moved out and started building something new. You moved out of that and started building something new. Then that's how business diversification works. Right. Like I can't diversifying. Like there is a boat that I'm sailing and it's it's like. Like it's kind of like I will, I will have to fix the boat first, right, like, fix it, and if you follow the rules it will get fixed right, the boat stays up, following the rules of physics, right. So that's what I believe in. Like I believe that don't look for 30, 40 percent ROI, 50 percent RN.
Speaker 2:And a lot of these people are young, like um, I'm a little old, so I've seen all this, like I and I and I also get tempted. Like I. Like I've got tempted so many times. Like some Chinese guy comes and says I'll spend 300k a day, 400k a day, I'm like, wow, and pay you 5%. I'm like that's 15k a day for me, easy money, easy money, nothing to do. Like I'll make a half a million. But I know when someone comes and tells you all that there is something catchy going on for sure, and tells you all that there is something sketchy going on for sure, and it's important that you keep the bad actors out.
Speaker 2:A good business scales proportionately. Like no business, any business which scales disproportionately without the world factor impacting, there is something wrong in that business. So, like, if you look at companies like like if you look at people like companies, like people feel that running offers make you money. Like I feel, if your company is publicly traded, like, like, for every money you make in your company, someone's paying you 30x. So in your company, someone's paying you 30x. So, like, that's what? So the like? Let's look at the best affiliate in the world. He would have made 100 million.
Speaker 2:Mark Zuckerberg made that product and now it's a trillion dollar company, right, like, compare it like, just do the numbers it does like so, and how do companies go public? Companies go public when they show sustainable income over longer duration of life. Like today, a company who made 100 million in first year and didn't do well next year and made 50 million can't go public because people who invest in you are looking for their investment to grow for 10 years, not like tomorrow. Like, if you look at public markets, it's all about, like, mutual fund investing in your company, like all that stuff. Right, they look at long term. So, look, you have to understand money to make money.
Speaker 2:People don't understand money, like in the affiliate space. People don't understand how money moves. Once you understand how money moves, it's so easy to make money. That's why, like, rich people are getting richer right like that, because they understand the concept of money. So I believe that's that's like a knowledge gap that exists in the affiliate world and they keep running like avoiding taxes, moving to different cities to avoid taxes. I'm like good, you want to avoid taxes, but build something, build an asset, keep growing that asset right and don't grow it inorganically.
Speaker 2:For example, a lot of people use those discounted stuff to build a business. Right, that discount is going off, it'll go off tomorrow. Like, for example, like I can like build, like a lot of platforms give us a lot of incentives right. Like I tell my team that incentive is not, don't even look at that incentive, because that incentive is a depreciating asset. Hmm, like because the platform may give you 15% today, we'll give you 5%, next year, 3% and eventually, like, go off. Right, it's good to have 15%. I'm not saying I don't mind having it, but if I make that my primary focus, then then my company will ever grow Right. So my primary focus why am I getting that 15%? I'm I'm getting that 15 because I have clients spending on that platform. So my focus should be getting more clients and more clients and more clients and more clients, not ongoing talking to a publisher when I say pub.
Speaker 2:So in our world, publishers are facebook, google, all this, like any media we don't call, so affiliates are called affiliates, not pubs in the marketing world, so I call them publishers. So, if you go to Meta office, meta is a publisher for us. Google is a publisher for us, right? So they publish ads, so like that. That's why you need to focus on the right things, not on the wrong things, and build business to scale. So, like, a lot of affiliates use cashback and all that stuff. I, I look, I think if you want great service, pay for it and you'll get good returns. Yeah, anyone giving you a cashback will eventually move out of the business. It's not sustainable. Yeah, they're not sustainable. They like focus on the sustainable things.
Speaker 1:Well, that was great what you just said. You said a lot of digest there and I don't know if you saw that the very last speaker yesterday was Ankur Ankur with FlightPulse, and all he spoke about was money what to do with your money and, man, everyone loved it. They got up, people got out of their chairs, they went to the computer studio. They're people got out of their chairs, they went to this computer where they're taking screenshots and you know guys like that, big, big affiliates, guys like Rod Hart, zeeshan Manji, manny Perez and Lee Tycoon. They were. Everyone was blown away.
Speaker 1:I was blown away too, and that's what he talked about the psychology of money and the money should make money, in that you have to treat each dollar as something valuable and don't just like people in the affiliate world where there's so use of money coming in and out, they kind of piss it away, right. So that to me and that's why I wanted him to speak last is because I think that no one talks about this in our space yeah, so basically like, okay, so like like money money is important, right like.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that I don't like about the affiliate world is all affiliates hang out with affiliates, so the perspective is very little. That's big, that's, you're right. So perspective in life is very different. Like, so, generally, like I've been to the affiliate world so many times now I'm like kind of like bored of it because it's not adding to my perspective, right, like, okay, it's good to have money. Look, smarter people are looking for fresher perspective. Right like, and when you have different perspective is when you grow. For example, when I enter the affiliate world, on this, my, my perspective, I can't be a just an account, account, account. I need to have a different perspective, right, so that's why a tool got made. That's why, like, connecting buyers to sellers right like, always trying to protect my business. And what is the next? Like, okay, now I need to work with direct buyers, right Like, and when you talk to a direct buyer, the perspective is very different. Yes, right, so I think one of the things I don't like in the affiliate world is that everyone talks about offer which is scaling which is not scaling. Nobody talks about life. Nobody talks about offer which is scaling which is not. Nobody talks about life, nobody talks about what's the next goal that you have? Right, like, what do you want? Like, like, people will take a private jet and come and talk and like do all the flashy stuff and which is great. I'm not saying don't enjoy your money, but I think enjoy it. Enjoy it with people who can give you fresh perspective, because that fresh perspective can take you a long way. So, when you look at a solution provider, don't look at it from a solution problem solution. Okay, he's giving me a solution. Is he also giving me a fresh perspective? Right, rather than negotiating through 2%, 3%, what other stuff that he adds? Right, like, what is the other perspective that he can come and bring to my table? So I believe that, and I think, like, like, the point is, this world has so easy money, it's so easy to get into it and just like be like fuck it, let's just make easy money, let's make 2 million in like two months and just exit. Right, like, like, then you'll just go end up buying a expensive car, like when you get easy money, you don't even appreciate it. Right, like, you just like, splurge it, and then it's a then becomes oh, I've lost all my money. Let's just get back to it, right? So I believe I think perspective is perspective. Trust, all these are factors that make a lot of things change, and I think this factors that make a lot of things change and I think this, this industry, misses a lot of it. Um, that's why, like, if you look at summits, the same guy will not end up coming to the next one.
Speaker 2:Like what I've done is I've consistently come to every event that happens in the affiliate world, right, like, whether it be lead gen here, lead gen there, wherever. Like I've sponsored some of them, I've come everywhere and that builds a lot of trust across businesses. They see the same face again and it makes a lot of difference. There are events that I've not made any money on it. I don't even do an ROI calculation. I come for an event, I sponsor it, like, for example, example, I sponsored this, I sponsored geek out. I've never done ROI calculation. I know, like, long term, it'll just pay off, because marketing is all about top of mind recall. Yep, so when you have a problem, the first thing that you think of is where I enter. So it's the top of mind. Recall is what you should be chasing with buyers, with sellers, with everyone. So that's what I believe in.
Speaker 1:This has been great, Ricky. Wow, we've really gone. I thought it was going to be like more technical. We got into a lot of psychological, money, life advice. It was amazing. My last question to you is how was your experience? Was this your first time in Colombia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just saying In Medellin, I know you wife or the house, how you guys having a good time here. Yeah, just, I think we the event was great. Uh, I think a lot of interesting conversations, a lot of diff, like a lot of different conversations and like I like smaller events because you like a lot of a lot of them were my clients and it's great to meet them, have like faces in front of you who have been paying you money right, like I think smaller events are more like it does better for the community and you have better conversations, and then you can also build a lot of trust and I keep going back to trust, yeah. So, yeah, it's been great, it's been phenomenal, nothing to complain. Did you get any fresh perspectives while you were here? I think I met I think I don't remember the name he told me about the rights manager on Facebook which I never heard of, so that was like a good. What kind of manager? Rights?
Speaker 3:manager, Rights manager.
Speaker 2:So basically I don't remember the name of the guy who told me. So I was like, wow told me.
Speaker 1:So I was like, wow, this is interesting, somebody telling me about a platform.
Speaker 2:So you did get a freshman. Yeah, I did get a friend. Okay, good, right, so makes you feel good. It made me feel good because I learned a new thing, yeah, and and I learned it from a very different angle like let's just understand, I didn't learn it from. Rights manager will not make me any money, like not for the longest time make me any money, but what it'll do is it will make sure that when I take a call, I have more informed decisions to make, and it's decisions in life that makes you money. Like as a leader, I think the only job that you do is make the right decision. Your job is not like I like. The decision to onboard and not to onboard for me is a decision that I take right. So it's kind of the decision making. Leaders are the side. Great leaders are the ones who have got the decision making right most of the time and you'll falter right. You will falter like two out of ten times and if you get the ratios right, you'll end up like doing great things.
Speaker 1:Ricky, this has been amazing again. I did not expect us to go as deep as we did with this philosophical life lessons, money lessons. I mean we got deep into the challenges. Coming up with Facebook, it doesn't seem like there's challenges, but I think that working with people like you that know what you're doing, you can get ahead of those, you can pivot and you can those challenges become opportunities. At the end of the day, you know, yeah makes sense.
Speaker 2:So that's what I, this is what we want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Blink Digital we're going to put a link so people find out more about you.
Speaker 2:We Thank you. I hope you had fun.
Speaker 1:We had lots of fun. It was great value and thank you so much. People. When you spoke yesterday there were so many questions. You guys were like Popeye. That's why we went over so much. We got 30 minutes but he went over. It was an hour, but that was good. We appreciated it because I could tell it gave value to the community that was here. They came from all over the ticket, so that's what we wanted. So when that happened, I said to your member I said you did a great job because and it made me feel good man. So thank you again, ricky, great to have you on the show.
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