How to do affiliate marketing in your business without being a 💩 [Part 2]

Bet you didn't wake up this morning thinking "I need to hear Lucy attempt to sing Chicago the musical on a podcast" but alas, that's what we're giving you!

This animated episode is brought to you by Pippa and Lucy talking about their thoughts on all things affiliate marketing, capitalism, restaurant-running and tech.

There's ✨opinions✨, singing, laughing and knowledge abound on this auditory adventure so buckle in, keep your appendages inside the vehicle and enjoy the journey.

Oh, and the film Lucy was thinking of was Man on Fire. 

LINKS - there are so many!
This episode follows on from the previous episode with guest Alex Okell - listen first for context.
Get started with affiliate marketing with these fab resources from Alex Okell;
Aligned Affiliates Masterclass *affiliate link
The Anatomy of a High Converting Affiliate Blog Post *affiliate link
Looking for checkout/ cart software? Check out Thrivecart to build sales pages and more. *affiliate link with Disobedient Dosh to spend on DBCo goodies
Need transcription software? Looking for an easy audio editing platform? Want to make some cool audiograms or put a video project together? Lucy loves Descript for all these things and more! *affiliate link (check out the video trailer Lucy made using Descript here.)
Simple and pretty email marketing platform? Flodesk has got you covered with an easy email designer and simple automations and workflows. *affiliate link
Now have Chicago in your head? Sorry, our bad. Listen to When You're Good to Mama here. 

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Tickets available real soon, get on the VIP list and be the first to hear at disobedientbusinesslive.com

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Transcript

Pippa: 0:29

Welcome. Welcome back to the disobedient business podcast. I am Pippa Parfait, and my co host today is,

Lucy: 0:37

Lucy Parfait.

Pippa: 0:38

uh, is indeed the case. Welcome back to another 1 of our discussion episodes. So if you've, followed along or you've listened to previous episodes, We have, slightly changed the structure of the podcast this season whereby I interview a guest in the first episode. And then the episode that follows, Lucy and I get an opportunity to discuss, dissect, Disobedient ties, if that is a word, which it obviously isn't, and talk it through and perhaps think about some takeaways that we would want to to take from that episode. So the episode that we're talking about today is the 1, I the last episode and so if you haven't listened to it yet, please pause right now and scroll yourself back to the last episode and listened to that 1 before we continue. And the episode was how to do affiliate marketing in your business without being an tol with Alex Ockel. So we have lots of thoughts about this, Lots of thoughts about this. Some of which, obviously, I shared of our own personal thoughts, or my own personal thoughts in the episode with Alex. But, I thought it would be really helpful to kick this off with what our position is around affiliate marketing in the Disobedient Business Co. Lucy's got a lot to say about this, and I'll hand over to them in just a sec. But I think in a nutshell, We do affiliate marketing within the company. we recommend some software, a very limited quantity, and any Where that we have worked with personally, either very recently or currently, and, 1 or 2 services and courses and things, again, that we've taken and hold in high regard. We are also planning on launching, an affiliate scheme of our own for our templates and short courses and things. And we'll come on probably, I'm sure, to talk about that later in the episode. And I think my position on affiliate marketing has softened a little, as I said in the episode with Alex. In as much as I was most definitely up on my disapproving high horse, about affiliate marketing until the last couple of years, And it has a bad rep for very good reason. And I feel like it's common bedfellows with multilevel marketing And the pyramid schemes of hell, which, unfortunately, many of us are familiar with. So I felt like it's a very, very nuanced topic. It's not for everybody. Because we offer business services to other businesses, it feels like it fits appropriately with what we do. And it's also incredibly important to both of us that we do it with integrity, and we do it based in our values, which in the fullness of this episode, I'm sure what we mean by that, will become more clear. I know Lucy, however, has some very Specific personal opinions, and and I'd love to, to kick those around as well because they add Texture and flavor to, I guess, the official line if you like, which is what I've just given you. So, Lucy, the the floor is yours, my love.

Lucy: 3:38

So I think I know Pippa just said that It was only in the last couple of years that she stopped kind of disapproving of affiliate marketing. and I just like to say, I don't because I think a lot of what I'm gonna say in this episode or that's gonna come out And that came out when I was listening to the, or just thinking about affiliate marketing in general as a topic, and getting my notes together for the episode. They're they Feel quite negative. But I'd like to say that I don't disapprove of affiliate marketing. I just resent that it needs to exist. and there's I can't remember the film now. It's gonna come to me later, but there's something there's a film where someone says, I regret, I regret that your profession needs to exist, and he says, so do I, my lady. So do I. I Can't remember the film now, but anyway and So, yeah, I just I don't disapprove. I'm not hating on people that do it. I don't not like that we do it. I just ultimately feel that it's born from capitalism and that it wouldn't exist if not for capitalism. and so that's why I get really get worked up about it. I get quite worked up about it.

Pippa: 4:58

Say say more About the getting worked up about capitalism.

Lucy: 5:01

Yeah. All the time.

Pippa: 5:03

Well, yeah. No. I didn't mean generally, but I think because this would be a very different episode and will probably run quite long. So say say more about the, the sort of that into intertwining with affiliate marketing.

Lucy: 5:16

So here's the thing. Once upon a time, if you can even dare to dream that far back as not that long ago. We used to not to say, you know, that we should applaud the old days and that, you know, we shouldn't we should resist Change and development. But, there was once a time when if you liked something, You would just tell people about it because you liked it. and you respected how Jim cut your hair down the road. So you tell people, hey. Jim cut my hair real well. You should go see Jim. Or, you know, I used this particular thing product, and I think it really helped me, so maybe it can help you too. It was done as, like, an act of kindness and care both to the person that you'd bought the thing from and also to the person you're recommending it to. It was like, I care about you. This thing really helped me and supported me, and I would like you to feel helped and supported like I did. I would love to share that support with you. and I feel that that's now kind of It's not gone. Like, obviously, it's that still exists. but this whole will pay you to, You know, rant about our product is is born from capitalism. and So, yeah, I regret that it needs to exist because, you know, take Descript. We're an affiliate for Descript. edit the podcast on Descript.

Pippa: 6:43

You do?

Lucy: 6:44

I think DeepScript is amazing. I love what they do in terms of, like, the technology. Unlike a lot of other platforms, when they, you know, send you an email that says, we're rolling out a new upgrade. And it is buggy as fuck and doesn't work and grinds everything to a halt. Cough, active campaign, cough.

Pippa: 7:04

I was gonna say, not mentioning Email marketing or check out cart related software in 20 23.

Lucy: 7:11

But when they've rolled things out, new things and new enhancements, They've worked, and it would be physically possible for me to edit our podcast in a different way. It would definitely not be as enjoyable. It would definitely not be as quick and Ergo, it probably wouldn't be possible because it would take far too much of my time to make the podcast sustainable thing for us to do. so I love Descript. I would happily talk about Descript. I never know whether it's descript or descript.

Pippa: 7:42

No. Me either. But I love the fact that anyone that's got a podcast out there now is like rushing rushing to sign up for Descript through our, affiliate link, Berrigan, but it's all we've mentioned.

Lucy: 7:52

But, like, I fucking love it. I would talk about it to anyone. If someone said to me, Lucy, I'm gonna start podcast. What do you think I need to use? I would recommend Descript. I would also make sure they were aware of other things that were on there, and I would explain why I love Descripts so much. But I would do it whether I got money for it or not. If anything, I talked about it way before I realized that we could apply to get an affiliate link because I love it. Um,

Pippa: 8:17

You absolutely did. Yeah. Absolutely.

Lucy: 8:20

so In that way, like, it is an integrity because, I would recommend this to people as a kindness to them because of how much it supported me. And if it could support them with doing this project, then I would love them to be able to have knowledge of it and to be able to use it and understand it. Now I would happily not have any money for that, but then it's kind of like, well, I'm existing in in a capitalist society and structure. So, you know, these tech companies, way more money, so why shouldn't I get a bit of, Like, if everyone else is, and I'm happily like, I would happily talk about them whether I was paid or not, why shouldn't I get a bit of money if someone uses my referral link.

Pippa: 8:58

Yeah. Yeah.

Lucy: 8:59

but I just It's that thing. Like, it just can't get away from the fact that it just it wouldn't exist. And media is, for so many reasons, great and problematic. But once upon a time, I would go on Instagram, and I would just see pictures of my friend's lunch or a dog or like a weird picture of a beach or something, or quite often pictures of people's shoes in various places because that's what we all did back then. We Pictures of our feet in random places. Not like in a in a pornographic way, but, like, here are my shoes on the anyone of my generation. I swear we used to take of our shoes on our feet in

Pippa: 9:39

Yes. I've I've uh, several feet pictures in some way, shape, or form that were not pornographic. Yes. Indeed.

Lucy: 9:44

Exactly. But now if I had to open my Instagram, everything is selling me something. Everything is like hashtag ad, You know, the little thing, commission paid. unless I'm, like, just literally looking at a cat falling off the top of a wardrobe, which I'm all here for, But just, everything is just so commercialized and commoditized, and I probably sound like a bit of a.

Pippa: 10:06

Yeah. Yeah. You do, but that's fine.

Lucy: 10:08

But yeah, man, it just really fucking pisses me off, but it just, Yeah. It really pisses me off. because everything gets bastardized, and then I end up in this great big wormhole and debate with myself of well, like, how like, if we do affiliate marketing, then kind of Morally, in terms of, like, the integrity aspect of it, I'm fine. Like, I'm okay. I'm squared away with it because I know that I wouldn't recommend something if I didn't love it. if I wasn't either actively using it or say, for example, like, Flodesk is a email marketing tool. It is a fantastic tool. I love it, and I recommend it to people, and I've set it up for people. think it's really simple to use. I think it's really beautiful. it's not something that we use now because of the fact that we started doing Other more complicated things in our business, it meant that the the features of it weren't appropriate for us anymore.

Pippa: 11:06

Yeah. But we did it for 2 years.

Lucy: 11:08

yeah. If I could continue to use Flodesk and it had the things I need for various triggers and stuff, I would definitely still use it because as a product, I love it. But it's not something that we can use in our business at the moment. That doesn't mean that other people, whoever it is appropriate for, shouldn't get used to that. Any hoops. So the integrity part of it, I'm sound and squared away with with myself. The thing that I then get in a tizz about is that, Okay. In my opinion, affiliate marketing is born from capitalism. And so, if everyone else is benefiting from it, and I'm doing it in integrity, then why should I not also benefit from it? But then I and I'm not gonna dive into it because there's a whole different conversation, but then it brings up the well, how do we fight against capitalism if I go, oh, well, it's fine. I'll just join in and do it So, anyway, I'm gonna stop because, like, I know I've just rambled a lot, and I just it's just I just It's just such a complicated and loaded conversation more so than I thought. And I'd also just very, very quickly Quickly, in 1 sentence, like to say, this has nothing to do with because I know that we're having this conversation because Pippa did, the episode before with Alex. It's got nothing to do with Alex, and it's got nothing to do with people that do affiliate marketing in their business or even if that is their business. It's just for me the topic of affiliate marketing as a whole. I'm like to say again, I'm, morally, okay with it. If you're doing it with integrity as we are and try to continue to do. I just resent that it got born into existence at all.

Pippa: 12:52

I hear you. I hear you.

Lucy: 12:54

I'm sorry.

Pippa: 12:55

No. It's okay. I there's a couple of things I'd love to add into what you said just as to add flavor to to what you were saying. But I think probably the beginning of that is just to say, for those businesses amongst us that do give a shit about the fact that we are operating in a late stage Capitalist society that is also, heavily, obviously, influenced as a massive understatement by White supremacy, patriarchy, and many more of the fun bedfellows that live in that particular world. It is not a simple, I don't like capitalism, therefore, here is the situation. But, you know, I I'm anti patriarchy, and so here is a solution. It's far too nuanced and far too complexed. And you hit the nail on the head when you said, We may not like it, and we may be working to dismantle it in many ways, but we do exist within a late stage capitalist society, and that's certainly not gonna be completely changed in my lifetime, and it certainly isn't in yours. However, couple of thoughts around, what you shared around your views and, of which the in in in and of itself, you had lots of nuance in there as well. 1 of which was, I feel like, particularly when you were referencing something like Descript. Descript, and other software as a service type apps will inevitably invest a lot of money in marketing. And they invest in affiliate marketing because that's how they choose to be able to spread that particular app. Right? So what you're essentially getting paid for in that scenario is to be an effusive marketer on behalf of Their software. Right? You're literally being paid to be a marketer as if you were in their in house marketing, which feels like a fair exchange. Particularly, when I think about, again, this is just the way we approach this. We are not an affiliate marketing business. It's not the It's not probably not more than 2, 1, 2 percent of our our income if that. But When a and and the kind of folks that will sign up through our software links or courses or whatever they might be, will be clients. You know, this is not a send it out to the whole wide world and, you know, put loads of Facebook ads behind it and try and get people to sign up via that kind of thing. and so we'll put quite a bit of time into Lucy will, particularly, around talking about the nuances of a particular piece of software, how something works. And Even to the extent of fielding questions afterwards of, I've signed up for you know, even if we're not doing some kind of actual tech piece of work for a client, I've signed up for so and so piece of tech, and I'm struggling with x, y, and zed. We will willingly and enthusiastically, like I said, Lucy particularly, answer those kind of questions in that situation, because it's the right thing to do, not because we were being paid for it. And I think there's another financial thing in there that kind of grabs me a little bit, and it's something That as a business, we are incredibly anti, and that is the cost of payment plans. So much as we as a business have a lot of time for Descript in the way that they operate and how good their software is, they, like many other, if not all other, Apps and the things that we use in our businesses charge a premium, and in some cases, an extortionate premium. If you are a business owner who does not happen to have few hundred, few thousand pounds or dollars set aside to pay for the annual subscription for that piece particular piece of software. And there are many of us that don't. I Try to annualize as much of the software we pay for, but there's still 1 or 2 that even we pay for by installments because I don't have a a, you know, a a cool couple of grand sitting around to just go, yeah, sure, have that. I can only dream. Right? And part of me feels like part of me feels like there's a little tiny bit of sticking it to the man going on in there. You know, the man being the capitalistic patriarchal society been talking about. which is well, hang on a minute. I'm overpaying you by this 20 percent thing that you market as a discount paying annually, but we'll actually spin that and it's actually it's not a discount of paying annually. It's a penalty for paying in installments. Right? Now we feel very strongly and do not ever penalize people for paying in installments in our business. And it feels like a, I don't know, a little bit of a get back that goes, well, hang on a minute. You've just paid me to market your software so that in some way, Maybe I'm being petty, but that in some way compensates me for the fact that you've charged me 20 percent over the odds, 40 percent over the odds for paying in installments for your software in the first place. And listen, if I could get on my full moral high horse and only subscribe to software and apps It's that, didn't penalize people for, paying in installments. We probably wouldn't have any apps because it's, You know, it may not be quite so rife in the coaching and and business world, as it used to be because more people are, thank God, getting wise to that. But within the Software as a service industry, I can't think of an app that charges you the same for annual as they do for monthly. I don't I've you know, well, certainly none of ours do anyway. So does that does does any of that kind of have you got any thoughts on on that little that little contribution though?

Lucy: 17:48

a complicated world.

Pippa: 17:50

Okay. That'll do. That's fine. Okay. Listen. So there's a few other takeaways that I I grabbed from Alex's episode. Because it was a great episode. And if you are interested in in in affiliate marketing, Alex is is Brill. she's got great resources. She's got some great free bits and bobs. you haven't listened to the episode, go back. There's she shares, kind of things that are worth taking a look at at the end of the episode. But there were a couple of things for me that were Quite key. 1 of which was which we don't think we really touched upon in the episode. And And that is, this notion of credit, which is something that Lizzie Goddard, first Invented, I guess, which is this idea of you can issue credit. So think, credit voucher, you know, just money to spend in a business in the form of store credit. Works the same way as store credit does. And That's how we deal with some of the, products that have any kind of Even remotely substantial payout in terms of affiliate marketing. So if I pick a pretty obvious 1, which would be ThriveCart, we use ThriveCart as a checkout and cart software. Um, it has not been without its challenges in the last 6 months, I have to say. We are pretty up and, you know, up and together and, you know, quote unquote experts, if you like, in it. And we have set it up for people, Done. Check out templates, and sales page templates, and all sorts of things. But the commission, for ThriveCart is 50 percent. And as it say, 1 off purchase software, that can mean anything from, I think it's 247 50, US through to about 95 dollars more than that. So whatever that is, about 5 about 300 and something. And that's not an inconsiderable amount of money. And we wanna be able to pass that on. So we wanna be able to create a, it's just a very trite phrase, but we wanna be able to create a win win Situation so that it's something that we benefit from and it's something that our clients benefit from beyond the recommendation and the guidance and some suggestions and things like that in the first place. Because, you know, let's face it. We don't we don't feel like just a a modest recommendation should be worth a 250 dollar payout. Right? So we, like many, have something called disobedient dosh, which is our version of, store credit, which means that when folks sign up to some things, depends on what the thing is and depends on what the kickback is because it fits just a couple of dollars and it's a bit it's impossible to manage. But we do have, this obedient dosh that that is store credit that's applied to the client who signs up or a customer or a friend of ours who signs up to that particular product or service, through us. And they get 12 months to to spend that store credit with us on whatever they want to spend it on, on short courses, on 1 to 1 services against the mini mind or the mastermind, however they wanna use it. And that feels like something in business that is a really Strong core values of of of mine, and I'm pretty certain Lucy's, but of the businesses, which is this idea of reciprocity. I win, you win, we all win. you agree though?

Lucy: 21:37

Yeah. Sorry. you just said reciprocity, and it's made in the Fucking again,

Pippa: 21:43

got Lauryn Hill in your head now, haven't you?

Lucy: 21:46

reciprocity.

Pippa: 21:49

Oh, No. Not Lauren Hill. I had

Lucy: 21:50

No.

Pippa: 21:51

my head.

Lucy: 21:54

Chicago. That's what it is. It's Chicago. Fucking echolalia echolalia, whatever it is.

Pippa: 22:00

Walk welcome to ADHD and autism folks. This is what happens when say a particular word and it sets off a particular track in your head.

Lucy: 22:08

Yeah. Chicago. When you're good to mama, mama's good to you.

Pippa: 22:12

Mine is definitely Lauryn Hill, but I can't think of the, name of the track. Moving swiftly on.

Lucy: 22:18

The system it's so funny because that line is because the system works. The system called reciprocity. Anyway, what did you want my opinion?

Pippa: 22:28

that's fit. I think you gave it. It's totally fine.

Lucy: 22:30

Okay.

Pippa: 22:32

Another thing that I very much took away from Alex's episode is around this notion of, well, if a business is selling something for a hundred bucks, and there's a 40 percent commission, thus meaning if an affiliate Recommends and sells something for them. They only only get 60 bucks for it. Does that not devalue the product? And for a very long time, I kind of, I really did believe that. And and also, to throw into that mix, pricing is a construct. It's just pricing in the online business world is just such an absolute Crock of shit sometimes. Because it never ceases to amaze me the amount of times that I will get an email from somebody announcing their amazing new thing. and And I'll have a scan through the email, and it sounds quite interesting, and I'll click through. And I'll have in my mind that the the broadly speaking, this is a Smallish thing, a medium sized ish thing. It's a largest thing, whatever it is. Which will kind of in my mind equate knowing as I do that that business, you know, having a bit of an idea about Business. That it's gonna equate to, I believe, 250 bucks or or 500 bucks or whatever. And I'll click through and then suddenly discover that this thing that they're talking about is 2000. And I'll be like, What? Which where did that number even come from? But but in connection with Affiliate things, which as I said, and and Alex and I talked about in the, episode before, don't tend to be for products and services There's where there's any kind of 1 to 1 or direct delivery component because, obviously, that's gonna have a a very specific impact on the service provider's time, and earnings. But if you run, okay. Let's use us as an example. Because we are gonna be launching an affiliate Scheme of our own, sometime in the near future because we would love the people that have used our products and only the people that have used our products to be able to recommend them. So there's a key thing in there is about only the people that have used them because we feel very strongly that people are recommending us not just to earn cash, but because they valued the thing that they used. Right? we have a template shop. we provide, Copywriting templates. We've got short courses and all sorts of things. We're gonna have a a a new shop, opening soon. And We will we will we will have a 40 percent commission with that. Does that mean that that aforementioned hundred dollar thing is only worth 60? No. It doesn't. It means that a hundred dollar thing is to our mind priced at a hundred dollars, which is based on all sorts of things to do with value, marketplace, Where we choose to position ourselves, which for our templates, for example, we choose to position ourselves in the lower end of the market, not because we don't believe in the value of them, but because we believe So many copy templates and tech templates and things out there are wildly overpriced. They're just making up numbers. Willie and indeed Nilly. but that's the cost of marketing it. So You make a choice, which is how much money do you put into Facebook ads? How much money and time do you put into social media posting? How much money do you put into Donating a paid product to a bundle in order to get yourself in front of people to potentially make future template or short course sales. And affiliate marketing is 1, moderate, small, depending on who you are as a business, element of that around investing in your marketing budget. That commission essentially is your marketing budget. Right? And that feels Much better to me as a way of looking at this idea of devaluing a product because you are giving 40 percent of it away as commission.

Lucy: 25:54

I have the orcs.

Pippa: 25:56

You do. You might need to move your cat and, various things away from the microphone before you share them, however.

Lucy: 26:02

No. We're gonna do this together. This is Lucy and Mungo in the studio.

Pippa: 26:07

Great.

Lucy: 26:08

Okay. So here's the thing that I've been thinking about. You can't see this because we're not yet a visual podcast, but Lucy now has a prop illustrate their point.

Pippa: 26:19

waggling a stick of some description that's now making fun noise.

Lucy: 26:22

it's the the bit from a duster. here's the thing. Right? I'm thinking about this. I'm putting this in my brain, and I'm processing it in terms of something physical. Because I think when we think of, like, Doing business the old fashioned way, like, in person and having products and things. Let's put it into something in the real world. Say I've got a restaurant and I'm making a menu, when I price my menu, it's a lot clearer because I've got the cost of the food, the ingredients to go into that dish, And I've got the cost of and then so that's my thingy majiggy.

Pippa: 27:01

That's so so for anybody else listening, gross profit, in case that's not apparent.

Lucy: 27:05

yeah. So my cost of the dish minus the cost of the ingredients that go into that dish is my gross profit. But then when I Drill it down, there's then the labor of the person in the kitchen to cook it, the labor of the people to take the order, to serve it, to, polish the cutlery to wash up the pans to blah blah blah

Pippa: 27:28

Yep.

Lucy: 27:28

blah. Plus, then I've got to factor in the cost of having cutlery, replenishing cutlery of napkins, of of of plus then the energy, plus then bills, overheads of my lease or my, business insurance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So all of that gets factored in to this and including, go marketing because I need to get people into my business. So And then equally, this isn't gonna make a lot of sense if you've not run a restaurant or a pub before, but you then have Certain dishes on your menu where the that would mean that the dish comes out to, like, 50 quid and say you're aiming to not really sell anything above 40 quid. So then you might put it down to 45 because there's something else that's got a bigger margin on. So say you've got something cheaper, that would mean that, you know, technically, you could charge 10 pounds for that, but why would you have many with dishes that are 25 pounds and then suddenly something that's 10 pounds. So it balances out because you take a hit on some of your products and beef up some of the others so that overall, you sound. I think you kind of have to think about that with these things too is that, overall, you've got your offer ecosystem and you've got, you know, the products that you're selling. Some of them may be priced cheaper. Some of them may be priced, you know, strictly slightly more expensive than their actual raw raw cost, because it balances out as a business overall to make Sure. That you can pay for the ingredients for all of the things you're offering, that you can pay for the chef for all of the things you're cooking, that you can pay the waitress for all of the things that they're serving. You can cover everything. And marketing comes into that. But that's where, again, it comes back to this integrity thing because I'm sure there are people that go, Well, this is the cost of it. Well, I'm gonna put it in affiliate, and I'm gonna give people 40 percent, so I'll hand that up this to cover that.

Pippa: 29:30

yeah. At 1 that reference is what I was just saying about the cost of templates. There's a lot of template shops out there where the cost is wildly inflated

Lucy: 29:37

Yeah.

Pippa: 29:38

because, 1 of 2 things is happening. The majority of sales are coming from affiliates and so they're accounting for that 40 percent and increasing it, or the majority of sales come from big old short term buy it now because it's cheap, 40 percent off, and affiliates and so it's wildly inflated in the first place to account for that,

Lucy: 29:57

And I feel like in so many things in online business, People do lots of things when they're trying to do them on the cheap or on the quick, but I always try and remember what it would mean if I was a, like, a physical business. So if I was, same McDonald's, my advertising isn't going my marketing budget isn't going into affiliate marketing. It's going into bus stop adverts, television adverts. Like, because we're online business owners and We're not doing a television ad campaign. We think, like, we don't have a marketing budget. No. You do have a marketing budget, whether that's made up of Facebook ads, affiliate marketing, or whatever. Your email marketing platform, your time, etcetera,

Pippa: 30:40

Or the cost of your time.

Lucy: 30:41

you you I think we just think about it as like a Well, people just find me or whatever and, like, oh, word-of-mouth. I think we need to think of things a lot more Like, if we were running a physical business and you would have a PNL,

Pippa: 30:53

Yeah.

Lucy: 30:54

and you would have different lines for different aspects of the cost of running your business. And so, uh, go, it's not, oh, I've got a new offer, or it feels like be something that I'd put out for 2 grand.

Pippa: 31:06

Yeah.

Lucy: 31:07

You need to think about it and how it fits into the ecosystem of your business and it and budget for it in a Certainly. gonna show up

Pippa: 31:15

Fucking love that. No. No. No. Fucking love that perspective. Think it's really, really, really cool to to take some of the kind of decisions because we get very Preoccupied with things that happen in the online space. And, actually, if you spend any time with business owners or people that are not business owners that are either bricks and mortar businesses or have nothing to do with running their own business at all, and try and explain how some of the things in the online business space Work. They would look at you as if, something's not quite right. Just just like

Lucy: 31:44

Sometimes it's the fucking wild west. It's ridiculous.

Pippa: 31:47

It really is quite bizarre.

Lucy: 31:49

But, ultimately online business is we would used to have physical businesses, and just technology has meant that these have moved online. But it's felt like this moving to online has meant that some of the things that you wouldn't have got away with with having a physical business It's just because it's just online.

Pippa: 32:08

No rules, apparently. But it's like, it's the fucking wild west. Listen, can I finish us off with just a passing thought, which is, which feels quite an important 1, and wraps us all the way back to the beginning with integrity, and what have you? Which is this is a very personal take, that I know that Lucy that you'll agree with, which is do you affiliate for and how do you decide? And I feel like the answer to that question is super simple, which is Using the same due diligence as I hope you are, and if not, would recommend that you do, that you use as a business owner about the values, the ownership, the policies, and the practices of the, Services and companies that you are purchasing from. So I've been putting the finishing touches in this last week or so to a new Journal that we will be publishing, shortly. And 1 of them is in there 1 of them is in there is, right, am I buying from? You know, who am I giving my money to? whether that's, me as a business coach. You know, you're giving your money to me. What do you know about me? What do you know about my Investments and values and the ownership of my business and that kind of thing. Equally, what do you know about Descript? Just to pick the 1 that Lucy was talking about earlier. And Firstly, doing your due diligence for yourself about who you're paying your money to. And secondly, making sure that you have that due diligence in mind before you're deciding who you recommend products and services to Other people to invest in. Both are as important I feel. but yeah. Most definitely start with doing your due diligent. Do Why is it I can never say the phrase due diligence? Due diligence for yourself.

Lucy: 33:41

You say due diligence. You do your diligence.

Pippa: 33:44

I do. I do. I do my diligence.

Lucy: 33:46

Now do now now try and do your due diligence.

Pippa: 33:50

Do due diligence. Do due diligence.

Lucy: 33:52

3 times fast.

Pippa: 33:53

Didn't know. No. Not gonna do it. So yeah. That's it. That's that's it from me. I think, probably talk about affiliate marketing for a long time, but we're not. We're gonna we're gonna wrap it there. would love to know if you've got any thoughts. Come over to, Instagram is your best place, and pop us a DM, to at disobedient business Co. I think that's it. Lucy, any final words? If not, would you like to wrap us up?

Lucy: 34:20

I think it's best we don't start me off again. so in which case, that is all for this week, folks. We will see you again next week for more disobedient business fuckery and messing with the status quo. We will see you next Tuesday.