Independent sales people under siege in NC
Sign the petition against the NC Affiliate Tax NOW: http://bit.ly/siIab
and join the organized fight in NC: http://bit.ly/vCDAG.
Yes, Jeff Cress the Sales Guy has been too busy selling Outsourced Affiliate Marketing services for www.mgecom.com to blog much lately. That changes right now as this Sales Guy is fighting mad!
To understand why, you need to understand what Affiliate Marketing is:
Affiliate marketing is an online marketing/advertising channel in which advertisers (online merchants that sell products or services) pay publishers (independent parties that promote the products or services of an advertiser on their Web site) only for results, such as a visitor making a purchase or filling out a form, rather than paying simply to reach a particular audience. This “pay-for-performance” model is in essence the modern version of the “finders’-fee” model, where individuals who introduce new clients to a business are compensated. The difference in the case of affiliate marketing is that advertisers only pay their publishers when the new client introduction results in a sale or a lead, making it a low-risk, high reward environment for both parties.
There are many different ways in which publishers promote products and services. Here are a few examples:
_ Coupon Sites
_ PPC Companies
_ Loyalty Sites
_ Mall Sites
_ Blogs and Niche Sites like this one… see the ads on the right->
(fyi… I’m not a serious Publisher, I’m just playing around with it to learn how the industry works… but there are folks that do this for a living)
These “Publishers” are often referred to as “Affiliates”.
The great state of North Carolina is on the verge of sticking it to an entire segment of the Sales population in NC by enacting a tax on pretty much any business that happens via the internet, but was wisely previously untaxed directly. Details are here if anyone cares to read it (House Bill 558 and Senate Bill 487).
This will have a direct impact the on advertisers and online merchants that are challenged to keep up with tax requirements in every locality in the world (yes, affiliate marketing is a global business). The direct impact is that online merchants don’t have a practical means of ensuring compliance with this multitude of local tax provisions and will be forced to simply DROP any affiliates that are in North Carolina. Amazon, the big daddy of Affiliate Marketers, has already notified NC affiliates of their intention to do so (read Amazon’s note here http://bit.ly/R9IeH).
Seems like a pretty bad time economically to be enacting new taxes that effectively put thousands of productive North Carolinians out of work with the signing of this legislation into law.
Maybe they can use the taxes that they collect to pay unemployment benefits of all of the affiliates that they will be putting out of work.
Sign the petition against the NC Affiliate Tax NOW: http://bit.ly/siIab
and join the organized fight in NC: http://bit.ly/vCDAG.
In : Sales
Tags: affiliate affiliate marketing government mad marketing sales selling tax amazon tax
Jeff Cress: “The Sales Guy” is one of a kind.
Driven to succeed and fascinated by the sales process.
Always looking for a way to help people, and make an honest living… you know, the way sales should be done.
