Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

DANGER: CHARLATANS AHEAD

Put aside any personal discomfort you might feel toward this new form of human-based affiliate marketing. That uneasy feeling is less about doing the wrong thing and more about doing something new and different. I’d go as far as to say it’s normal, natural, and even healthy to be a little uncomfortable. It’s what will keep us humble and honest.

Then again, it’s not you or me that we have to worry about.

Enter deception, manipulation and, opacity, which have reared their ugly heads in every single industry, format, or new approach since the dawn of time—from the snake-oil salesmen of the distant past to the telemarketers of the (hopefully) near past to the combination of entrepreneurs, opportunists and mad programmers of the present who are just looking to make a quick and fast buck (Tony Robbins, I’m talking to you). It’s still the earliest days in both the digitally and virtually enabled word-of-mouth eras, and the industry is struggling to deal with a rapidly evolving space. The infamous and maligned pay-per-post or Blogola debates rage on. The FTC has attempted to shine some light on this category; however, the mighty Google is still not amused and has publicly grumbled its disapproval of content that has been incentivized, sponsored, or paid.

This seems somewhat like taking the goose that laid the golden egg and barbecuing it. My hope is that the cream always rises to the top or in this case, the spoiled milk curdles and is thrown out in the ...