I had the number four put on this bad boy to represent my bantam league soccer number.

Poker Affiliate Goals

Poker Affiliate Solutions has crafted our goals for 2008. When planning, we kept in mind the SMART method, and think that is valuable and necessary for anyone planning out business objectives.

S: SpecificAn overall vision is a necessary place to start, but goals need to be specific. Get more business is not enough. Continue to grow is not enough. So we have put specific targets on each of our business lines: Raketracker.com, YourPokerCash.com, and Poker Affiliate Solutions. We would like and have said things like: Maintain a top three position, be again known as the industry leader, equal our top competitor, etc. But these things are not enough.M: MeasurableBecause they are not enough, we put numbers on these things. A top three position is not measurable for certain. Neither is great customer service or being equal to our top competitor in this area. However, just because your vision and "specific" goal doesn't equal measurable doesn't mean you need to find a new goal - it simply means finding a new way to make it measurable.

• CS Email response time.
• Search engine rankings
• Forum posts - by us and by others about us
• Overall customer count broken out amongst various product segments
• Overall revenue and revenue by product line
• New initiative roll out time

A: Attainable"One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can barely achieve through one's greatest efforts." - Albert EinsteinThey key is to not set the bar too low. We should rather set it very high and miss by a little than set it too low and lose motivation somewhere along the line. However, incremental goals, which must also be part of the plan, must be relatively sure attains.The next R is relevant, but it could also be realistic. We aren't going to master everything tomorrow. Constant progress not just in hitting goals, but in improving our process and outlook is a must.R: RelevantRelevant actually is realistic to some degree. We must focus on what we do well. Our goals must be aligned with what we are doing now. There is no need to veer off unnecessarily.This isn't to say new ventures, new products, or new business lines aren't important or shouldn't be part of an overall plan. It is simply to state that goals for those things should be relevant just to them. Goals for specific areas of the business should stay within their area. Once each is defined, it can be put together with a SWOT analysis to determine which has priority and where resources should be allocated. Then, the list of goals can be redefined in order to help out the relevant and attainable pieces.For example, we know we are the best at providing software solutions to poker affiliates wanting to offer rakeback. That makes it far easier to create relevant and attainable goals.T: Time BasedWithout a due date for both overall, and for incremental pieces, a goal might as well be a dream.Good luck with your goal planning.

Jeremy Enke is right - it is absurd that most poker affiliates are paid their earnings via player accounts. Many poker affiliates have sizable businesses, demanding accurate, real-time accounting for operations and tax purposes. Paying into a player account is fine for an industry that just started, but unacceptable for one that has grown up (or should have grown up) that way that online poker has.However, waiting weeks or months for a check or wire is less an issue of the poker sites, more an issue of the US governments policies. I don't say laws, because there are none, at the Federal level, where poker is concerned. But that is a discussion for another post.Therefore, the question becomes: Are US financial institutions going to find a way to cut ties with FBME? Let's be honest - it's not Citi or Wells Fargo.I suppose I shouldn't speak too soon. I don't know FBME other than what I've gathered from their website, the Affiliate Speedpay website, and a few google searches. So it's hard to say. But that is my biggest concern.Our CEO Chris put a few other issues up on Jeremy's Blog.

1. What about currency exchange?
2. Wire Fees
3. $ Back to the Rooms

Chris,To answer Q2 - standard and reasonable. The others still need answering. Currency X is an important one obviously. It appears that ASP is looking to make most of their money from affiliates withdrawing from debit cards - .6% fee and, obviously, from the interest on cash that sits in the accounts. FBME cuts them back a % I'm sure.U.S. Affiliates,Be aware that you need to file an IRS form on your foreign bank accounts. It's no big deal. I believe the correct one is TD F 90-22.1 Check with your accountant though.Byron

You should be ready to field questions from your players about how rake is calculated, what it means, and which sites use which methods. These numbers are obviously important because they ultimately play a role in determining MGR.
Calculating rake is done via two major methods - dealt and contributed. However, the two types of contributed rake are different enough that they need to be explained as two different categories – average contributed and weighted contributed.
Dealt Cards:Under the dealt method you are allocated an equal share of the total hand rake assuming you are dealt cards. You are deemed to have contributed to the pot by being present, even if you fold pre-flop. If a six-handed game produces $3 in rake each player is allocated $.50 of it for purposes of determining MGR. Sites using this method include Full Tilt Poker and InterPoker.Average Contributed:Even though it is contributed, it is actually similar to Dealt in that the rake is split evenly – amongst players who contribute to the pot. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how much you contribute. It just matters that you contribute. Folding pre-flop without contributing to the pot (no BB or SB) means your rake consideration is zero. If you contribute $3 to a $600 pot, 3 people contributed something and the total rake is $3, your allocation is $1 or a third. Average Contributed Rake Calculation sites include Eurobet and Hollywood. Ultimate Bet Rakeback also comes from this method.Weighted Contributed:The weighted proportion of the pot is the proportion of rake you will receive. If you put in 0% of the pot, you get 0% of the rake. 50% contribution gets 50% of the total rake. Absolute Poker uses this method.

Raketracker.com, YourPokerCash.com, AffiliateEV.com, Checkraised.com and all of the rest of our properties have been around years. Raketracker, the business was born in 2003. Raketracker, the website, began back in 2004.All the work we have done for years has come together in Poker Affiliate Solutions. If you are a poker affiliate, it's a site you should know about. And we are also interested in opening up a window to our company. That's why we started this blog.