Affiliate Marketing and Evel Knievel

Welcome to Las Vegas to all of the folks that are here or still making their way to Affiliate Summit West 2009. We’re hammering out all of the last minute details for the conference, which kicks off tomorrow at noon with the Affiliate Meet Market and breakout sessions.

I am very pleased to announce that we will have over 3,200 attendees at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas this year. That’s up from 2,932 in 2008. And I’d say it’s a sign that the industry is vibrant as ever, despite the shape of the economy.

As Affiliate Summit attendees check in, they will receive a copy of issue 4 of FeedFront Magazine. We addressed the economy and how it relates to affiliate marketers in the Editor’s Note in the latest issue of FeedFront.

Give it a read below and keep it up with your affiliate marketing action. Even bigger and better things for all of us in 2009.

Many affiliate marketers are scared about the state of the economy right now, and how it might impact their business.

While your peers tremor and consider how their business will fare, take control of your fate and be aggressive in your marketing and advertising.

So we’re in a recession or a depression or whatever. So what!

As Evel Knievel, the “King of All Stuntmen” once noted, “With every adversity, there is an equivalency to benefit. Sometimes you just have to look for it.”

It’s all about how you frame it. You don’t want to deliberate whether you’ll survive the downturn, but rather how you’ll survive and thrive.

Consider the experiences of D.G. Yuengling & Son, the oldest beer maker in the U.S., in the early part of the last century.

By the time the Great Depression hit, Yuengling had already endured seventeen years of Prohibition.

The company produced “near beer” throughout the Prohibition years to stay in business, and then diversified their operations into dairy farming, Broadway shows, and dance halls during the Great Depression.

These days, Yuengling is one of the biggest American commercial breweries and they continue to expand.

Down the road, there will be companies that are recalled as examples on how to weather adversity, and others will simply be forgotten. Which will you be?

Be a business daredevil. Now is not the time to fold up and go home. Go hard, go strong, and jump over anything that gets in your way.

If you aren’t going to be at Affiliate Summit, you can download the full copy of issue 4 of FeedFront magazine. And tune in Monday for Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote address – we’ll be live streaming it.