Religion, sex and politics are the three topics that are supposed to be off limits in business. However, I’ve seen increasing candor, for better or worse, on this trinity of topics among folks on the Interweb.
This past Christmas, I posted a review for the book, God is My CEO, and I was surprised by the number of people that touched base afterwards to share their faith. Previously, I suppose they felt it was a taboo subject to commiserate on publicly.
Right around that time, I heard about a new group called Christian Affiliate Marketers. The group, formed by Wade Tonkin, is a networking community for, well, Christian Affiliate Marketers.
They hosted a successful and well attended event on the first day of Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas this past January, and it got me thinking about the role of faith, or a lack of it, in affiliate marketing.
So, Lisa Picarille and myself invited Wade to join us on the March 28 episode of the Affiliate Thing show.
We’re also having Shmuel “Shmuly” Tennenhaus, recently nominated Most Eligible Hassidic Bachelor at Shmais.com and a former affiliate manager for Ice.com, on the show that day.
Mark your calendars and listen – feel free to call in, too, to express your comments of support or condemnation.
Maybe some of the non-believers in affiliate marketing would like to make their case.
It’s always fun to get this great, big, dysfunctional affiliate marketing family together for a good spirited debate.
More Affiliate Thing shows at GeekCast.fm.
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I read the book after Shawn recommended it and i have to say i think it was the best business book I have read this year. Julian doesn’t beat people over the head with his values, he illustrates how putting your spiritual (in his case and mine Christian values and precepts) into play, business leaders were able to make a big impact on their employees, their companies, and their own lives became more rewarding because they were chasing more than the dollar.
In my personal ministry at ChristianAffiliateMarketers.com , I’m not looking to bash people over the head with a Bible. I’m encouraging people who are Christians now to live their faith in their business, and providing info for folks who might want to learn more.
I hope folks (Christian or non) enjoy it for what it is .
> Lastly, SHAWN, did you or anyone else get that alleged evangelical post from Joel Comm, I missed it on a couple of his subscription lits.
Hi Kenny -
I get Joel’s e-mails and I don’t recall it, either.
Why indict Shawn for posting this on his blog? Afterall, it’s a blog…a place where he should post about things from his *personal* point of view. I wouldn’t want an abridged / edited version where we only see a sterilized version of Shawn and have no clue about who he is on a personal basis, his opinions, etc.
As for in-your-face envangelism, I agree, that’s not a tactic that I’d personally pursue in my business. But applying Christian values internally to business decision processes / tactics like the “patience” example cited is something I’d applaud.
The book review post and this post above definitely isn’t trying to convert anyone (plus give him a break, the God is My CEO post was on CHRISTMAS DAY…certainly THE one day of the year you should be a little lenient on Shawn for bringing up God or religion or some current thoughts of his regarding business — and it wasn’t written as “you need to read this, you need to live this way, come on over to my religion”. If fact, I still don’t know if he’s Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, etc. Just that he’s pondering faith principles in his business. And one of the major points in the 12/25 post about increasing the use of “patience” in business scenarios can’t be considered offensive, can it? That’s something we all should be pushing on others…with patience of course
(couldn’t resist, sorry).
From my view, the fact that there is a 3rd party specifically merging the 2 subjects of affililate marketing Christianity (http://www.christianaffiliatemarketers.com/) formally into a SIG, makes it pretty relevant to this blog.
Lastly, SHAWN, did you or anyone else get that alleged evangelical post from Joel Comm, I missed it on a couple of his subscription lits. Wonder what your take on it was. I saw that his wife is increasingly dedicating her time to faith activities, but haven’t seen a hint of it from Joel himself to date.
Some stores in New York are closed on Saturdays. Their owners are Jewish. Some restaurants don’t serve meat. Tibetan Buddhism in action. It’s great to live in a (mostly) religiously free country.
I don’t mind knowing the religious beliefs of business owners. It’s one thing that makes small business more interesting than Wal Mart.
However, some of us prefer to keep our religious (and political) beliefs private. Some of us come from places where you could be killed for professing the “wrong” religion. Others are unsure of our beliefs, or even intolerant. (I try not to be one of the latter.)
So if you want everyone to feel comfortable doing business with you, you need to keep some stuff out of the way.
By the way, I do think that a review of a book called “God is my CEO” is sufficiently “out of the way.” There’s no way that someone would read it without expecting a discussion of religious belief, and it’s certainly easy enough to skip over the review if you want. Skipping it sure was easy for me – I’ve already read enough of the book to know it’s a confused jumble of bad philosophy.
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I’m religious myself, but since I’m Jewish I have little patience for being proselytised by those of other faiths who would prefer that I join theirs.
It’s of deep and abiding value for people to integrate their faith and beliefs into their business practises, and I applaud those who do. But that doesn’t necessarily mean including evangelical messages in, for instance, mass email campaigns. (I should be clear that I’m NOT suggesting that Shawn does this.)
For instance, I was surprised and a bit annoyed when I got an email from Joel Comm about three months ago that did just that. On a purely practical level, I don’t think it made me more receptive to future marketing messages from him.
I want to re-emphasise; I have no issues with his faith. I just have no wish to join him in it, and I found his use of an evangelical message to his customer base off-putting.
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Christian Affiliate Summit Coming Soon?
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I think there are 2 threads of thought regarding Christians business. 1st is being directly in a Christian-related business and 2nd is to run a business with Christian-oriented values & priorities. The 1st has been an appealing direction to potentially focus upon for me personally. And the 2nd is something that I think could only benefit all business — even the interaction with non-believers throughout the daily routine.
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