Today is the 300th day of 2009. My New Year’s resolution for this year was to produce quality blog content on a daily basis. Therefore, today marks the 300th day of my non-stop blogging (at least one post a day). To celebrate it I have decided to put together a contest.
The idea for the contest was born yesterday morning when I was enjoying breakfast in beautiful California with fellow affiliate marketers, Shawn Collins, Mike Allen and Sabrina O’Malone. We chuckled over how our kids are describing what their parents do. Some tell people that their parents just play the computer all day long, while others believe that money is not really earned, but received from cash machines when needed.
What do your children say about your work? Post these precious explanations (or views of our industry through kids’ eyes) of your children, grandchildren, nephews, etc below, and on October 30, 2009 I will pick three winners. The prizes to be awarded exceed $700.00 in value, and they are:
Prize #1
Thanksgiving Dinner for two from GourmetStation.com
and
Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2009 (thank you, Shawn!)
Prize #2
$50 gift certificate from HalloweenMart.com.
$50 gift certificate from UpscaleLighting.com [added to the prizes on 10/29].
Prize #3
Any one of my two books — autographed.
Looking forward to reading your entries.
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It’s important for me to involve my kids on anything I do. I try telling them what I do and how I do it as often as possible, but my kids think what I do is checking out sites online. My younger one says what I do twitter and facebook and My older one says I do something with ads online. They really don’t get it, but it’s o.k. as long as they don’t think all I am doing is social networking!
The best example of how my kids view what I do for a living…and how it’s different than what most people do for a living came from my oldest daughter…
When she was about 19 or 20, she entered the “real” workforce, which she defined as working in a corporate office environment with grownups, rather than at a store in the mall with other kids.
One day, she called me and said “I just learned something at work that I never realized before…there are people in the world who actually HATE their jobs”. Shocked, I said “How do you not know that?”
She answered “Because you love your job, and everyone you know seems to love what they do too. I’ve just assumed all my life that EVERYONE loved their job!”
I guess there are worse things in the world than having your kids see you loving your work!
Marty M. Fahncke
Speaker, Consultant, Marketer
http://www.martyfahncke.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FawnKey
Ayako, Marty, thank you for your comments. Yes, I absolutely agree with your daughter: we love our jobs and other online marketers (not only affiliate marketers) we work with love their “jobs” too, and it shows. A miracle, isn’t it? Or is “a dream” really a better way to describe it? I hate to sound like one of those gurus that promise you millions overnight. No, I’m not implying any kind of quick enrichment here.
My son (10) tells people his dad “builds the Internet.” Considering I once worked for a web design firm, and still build my own affiliate sites, I’d say that’s simple, yet accurate.
I tried to explain what I do to my daughter (6) one day, and she seemed to understand. She then proceeded to ask me if I built the Webkinz site. If only…
Explaining to my kids what I do is very similar to how I explain it to my parents 🙂
The man who “builds the Internet” sounds like some job description. Thank you for chiming in, Eric
LOL at Marty’s comment. Sometimes our kids do get a skewed view of reality. I’ve been working from home for over 5 years and my wife doesn’t work, so our two youngest kids (ages 6 and 3) haven’t really experienced the normal routine of at least one parent being gone for most of the day. I think neither those two nor our 9 year old they realize how fortunate they are…
As for describing my work, I guess I’ve already explained it to them in basic terms so their answer to the question above is pretty boring — “Daddy sells things on the Internet”. Simple, but accurate.
Great contest Geno!
While we (my wife and I) do not have children of our own we have a nephew who visits us often.
But I find that is not only children that may be confused about what do we really do.
Please do not count me as part of this content. I am just leaving the comment so I can follow the other stories.
Ok, Vlad.
Rehan, thank you for your entry. My daughter says something very similar: “he helps others sell stuff on the Internet”.
When I asked her just now, my daughter, who turned four about two months ago, said “you talk on the internet, on your podcast. I talked on your podcast, too!” – and she did; I recorded her thanking our listeners and we’ve been using that as part of our show intro. She also said once that Mommy makes all the money and that Daddy spends it. Her point of view is understandable because Mommy goes to work in her home office and closes the door – she’s Working. Daddy sits at the computer in the living room, but is constantly getting up to do things with the kids, so clearly, that isn’t Working. Plus, she sees me spending more than my wife because she’s out and about with me running errands during the day. I guess it’s good that at least she equates work with earning money. She (hopefully) won’t grow up thinking that it just comes to you.
“Mom is not working; she is spending dad’s money.”
If you were to interview any one of my four children and ask them what their mom does for a living – you would hear a choir of voices stating that their mom spends all her time in front of the computer working on her website.
Apparently, I don’t hold as much value as dad does – simply because he goes to an office where they can’t see what he is doing all day. I concede that he leaves the house smelling great, wearing a sports coat, and his hair is in perfect order. My work wardrobe requires no hair products, make-up, or high heels. I tend to prefer NIKE over Chanel while swiveling in my home office chair. It is easier to deflect incoming teenage angst messages and lacrosse balls gone awry.
I’m not bitter, really. I honestly wouldn’t know how to work in front of my computer all day without the joy of cycling in 4 loads of laundry, baking four dozen cookies for the soccer team, discussing for the 30th time the reasons why homework exists, and cleaning up after a leaking dog. Who needs a “real” office? I have the roar of leaf blower to keep me awake and can “do lunch” in 10 minutes with a peanut butter jar and last night’s mashed potatoes.
I think kids should earn their own money. That way, they can stop spending “dad’s” money, too!
Linda Raasch
Chief of BIZ
http://bizkidz.com
http://twitter.com/BIZKIDZ.COM
Thank you for the new entries!!
@Daniel: LOL at “Mommy makes all the money and that Daddy spends it”
@Linda: Wow. Sounds like Daniel’s story, only with laundry, cookie baking, homework monitoring and cleaning up after the dog added to it…
Who are these people who are saying/writing that the life of an affiliate/online marketer is easy, spreading around pictures of people lying in hammocks under palm trees (one the beach!)?
Interesting question Geno — I just pulled the kids into my office and asked them, here’s their responses:
my 14 year old is thinking about this hard… he’s started with ‘marketing stuff’, then realized I was typing his answer and said .. no wait, you are a strategic marketer… but then he looks at me and says “wait… i don’t know – what do you do?”
my 10 year old says “writing emails, marketing; all together stuff on the computer. Running gourmetbetty, which is managed on the computer…can I have dessert now?” as he bolts to the kitchen.
hmmm.. I guess I need to give a little internet sales & marketing 101 course for tweens and teenagers. I thought for sure they knew what I did! It’s funny they didn’t mention how they believe I actually make money.
there you have it!
Eh…my niece (8) and nephew (11) don’t even grasp that I work.
Recently, my nephew walked up behind me while I was in the admin area of my site posting some stuff. He looked at the screen and our conversation went something like this:
Him: What the heck is THAT???
Me: I’m working.
Him: You WORK?
Me: Yep.
Him: People pay you to do THAT?
Me: Sometimes. 🙂
Him: I thought you were playing computer games all the time you were on the computer. Hmmmmmm….
My niece seems to only know that I go away on trips sometimes. Her main interest is in what swag I may bring home. All of our conversations pretty much center around if I’ll be going away again soon and will “Mr. Brian be giving away more bears” (a reference to the SAS bear I brought home from Vegas in Jan). When I got back for ThinkTank last night she had been pestering everyone about when I would get home. As soon as I walked into the door, she said “Hi Aunt Kellie…did Mr. Brian have any bears.” At least she did say hello first. 🙂 She will ask me every once in awhile “Did you catch any bad guys today?” but she doesn’t really connect it with me working.
Betty, Kellie, thank you so much for chiming in. Good stuff. I can totally identify with the questions about Mr. Brian’s bears. One day my daughter lined up all of the bears she got from hotels, conferences, planes, and we all realized that she already has a good dozen of them. 🙂
I have teenagers (14 & 15) so they completely understand that I work and *almost* have a grasp of what I do. “You play on the computer all the time and send a lot of emails.”
From the mouth of babes…or teens! Glad to see I’m not the only one who hears this sort of thing about the job that puts food on the table!
My daughter says that I’m a “computer guy”.
I’m pretty sure she got that from her mother.
Thank you, Sharon. Thank you, Scott.
Less than 48 hours left until I announce the winners!
Good news for the participant who will win the first prize: “if you win a Gold pass to Affiliate Summit, you can buy an upgrade” [source].
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My 2 year old says
“daddy….work…..chair……round and round”
so I guess she just thinks I spin in my chair all day 🙂
@Fraser: good one! 🙂
“Uncle Matt makes people buy computer thingies” (via my nieces Madison and Meaghan)
I used to babysit them from time to time years ago when I worked from home and they would often ask me “Uncle Matt when will you be done talking to the computer” since I often founds myself mumbling about computer performance or replying to an email out loud and they wanted to play.
They are so cute…how could I deny them? Not much work done those days 🙂
And the winners are…………..
1st place — Fraser Edwards
2nd place — [tie] Daniel Clark / Linda Raasch [we have two prizes for the second place, so the first one to email me his/her choice will get to choose]
3rd place — Marty Fahncke
Congratulations to the winners, and thank you so very much, everyone who has participated!! It has been hard to award the places. I loved all of your entries.
Thank you, everyone! It’s been fun.
Thanks Geno – it was a fun topic to post about 🙂
Unfortunately since I live in the UK I don’t think the Thanksgiving Dinner would reach me in great shape and I can’t make it to Affiliate Summit. Would love to read one of your books though so perhaps you could swap the prizes around a bit?
Thanks again and sorry I didn’t say sooner not to consider me for the competition 🙂
I hear you, mate. 🙂
Let’s rearrange the places/prizes then.
Here’s what I’m suggesting then:
1. Linda Raasch – Affiliate Summit West 2010 Gold Pass
2. Daniel Clark – GourmetStation.com’s Thanksgiving dinner for two + HalloweenMart.com’s $50 gift certificate
3. Marty Fahncke – UpscaleLighting.com’s $50 gift certificate
4. Fraser Edwards – book of your choice
This works out GREAT! Linda Raasch from BizKidz.com NEEDS to be at Affiliate Summit, so I’m very happy she won that prize. (Disclosure: BizKidz.com is one of my clients.)
I just got done checking out the UpscaleLighting.com website, and was VERY impressed with the selection there. Too many great lighting fixtures to choose from, so now I have to decide what room I want to upgrade with a new light.
Big thanks to Geno for having this fun contest and to Lars from UpscaleLighting.com for providing a cool prize!
Marty M. Fahncke
Thank you. The contest would’ve not been such fun if no one participated.
Glad Linda could use the pass for the Summit. I have sent an email to her earlier this morning.
Yes, UpscaleLighting.com is something. We’re happy to be working with them, and glad that they were able to chime into the prize fund as well.
Congratulations again, and thanks again to all the participants!