I looked into things when I moved here and saw I had three options. One was to move my corporation from Minnesota to Florida which I found out is a major pain in the ass and requires a attorney to do the paper work and show up for a day in court. Second was to operate as a foreign corporation operating in Florida. This would cost me $300 a yr in fees and I would still have to pay MN state tax, which is retarded. Third was to start over and just make a new corp for $160 and move everything over to it. I finally decided to start a new corp since Florida has no state tax and is a much better place to have a corporation than most states.

I set everything up to go to my dads address in Key West so even if I move again my corp can stay in Florida. I really should have done this from the get go but didn’t. Lesson learned, its time to move forward.  I have picked a new and shorter name than I used last time which will be great as I had a lot of dumb looks when I tried to read off my old super long domain name. I also made sure to pick a name general enough that it could include my new business ventures and not seem weird.

If you are just starting your corporation you really should look at all of your options. You could have corporation in any state you want so long as you have a registered agent in that state. This could cost as little as $20/mo from some places since all they do is forward mail. This $240 could save you thousands of dollars in taxes so it’s well worth it to consider this. During my time in Minnesota I paid over $6k in state taxes that’s a hell of a lot more than $240/yr. Something to think about if your starting out or paying to much in taxes.

One of these companies running on CJ has just given me the boot from their program and retracted all of my earnings. This is a loss of about 2k and a few weeks of time. So what happened?

Lets call this company “Widgets” for the sake of this post. My first attempt at promoting this site was with a site called WidgetsCoupons.com a highly searched term. The company freely mails out these coupons to affiliates each month to help with promotions.

A few weeks go by and CJ contacts me about my trademark infringement and demands I fix the problem and gives me the terms again.  Yes I know I was breaking them by having “Widgets” in my domain but it was just for SEO reasons. I never claimed I was the company or had anything to do with them other than trying to promote the use of the coupons.

So I get a new domain, one without the term “Widgets” in it. I write them back saying I was sorry and everything had been fixed. I received an e-mail back thanking me and I move on. A few weeks pass and I have worked on the site even more. Suddenly I am presented with an email once again from CJ stating I am banned from this campaign and all earnings are being retracted from its sales.

They gave no reason this time, just stated that I was banned and could never run it again. I am waiting on a reply from them but having read their terms once again the only thing I can see is meta tags.

That’s right. CJ has listed in their terms that you cannot have the term “Widgets” in any meta tags on your site since that is trademark infringement.  This is where I feel things are getting out of hand. How can you ask people to promote your products and basically say that you cannot put the term “Widgets” anywhere on your site.  I say anywhere since my site was auto generating its meta tags based on the content of the page.

So because my page was about “Widgets” my meta keywords, and meta description both included the term. I was there by breaking the rules according to CJ and removed from the program.

I have two degrees in business and I understand the reasons behind this but many companies are just taking things to the extreme. They are so insecure with their online presence that they are afraid their affiliates will out rank them or some how confuse their customers. But in doing so aren’t they just hurting them selves more though a reduction in sales? If I make a site saying how great “Widgets” are and how everyone needs to buy them and then send that traffic to the “Widgets” home page. Isn’t this in fact helping the business make more sales?

Companies need to realize that affiliates are not the enemy. The whole reason you have an affiliate program is to gain marketing and sales. Affiliates should be seen as partners in your marketing efforts. They should be afforded just as much use of your trademark as you would if you hired a marketing company. By crippling us you are only crippling your selves. Allow us the use of your logo and brand name, we are not all scammers and fraudsters.

After a month of waiting I finally got my embody chair from the factory.  Now that’s is all together I am thrilled with how it turned out. Check out the pictures below.

The desk is a ‘Paper Clip’ desk from Blu-Dot and was one of the last 3 they had. They are a local design firm so I was able to order it from a boutique and pick it up at the warehouse my self. The desk would have cost me $500 bucks but because of a contest I was in with Tyler Cruz and Amped Media they ended up buying me my desk instead of another ps3. So special thanks go out to Amped Media for buying me my desk.

The chair is my custom made embody chair by Herman Miller. I was going to go with the Aeron until I got to the showroom and had a chance to sit in this chair. The embody is AMAZING it feels way better than the Aeron did so I had to step up and get it. It ended up costing a bit more since I added the polished base to match the legs of my desk but in the long run both the desk and chair were totally worth it and since my embody has a 12 year warranty I know I will be loving it for a long time. Check it out if your in the market for a nice chair.

The file cabinet and accessories I picked up at ikea. No need to go over board on the basics plus I love the lamp and cabinet they totally match the mod look I was going for. Very 1950′s meet the Jetsons. The thing on the left side is a Esterbrook Pen display case. I was a big collector of their old fountain pens awhile back. I found this case to show them off once I dig them out of their box. It all turned out great and I hope it will help me keep on track while working at home now. 

Well yesterday I decided that amex points suck ass and that I would rather have a starwood card instead of my gold card. So I can get hotel points.  For refrence 1,000 amex points is equal to 333 star wood points. So $1k for 333 points. If I had a starwood card $1k equals 1k points! Way better.

So I fill out their online application and the tell me I was declined because a card had its limit lowered. I ran into this before when I tried to get a new card for a new company but shit its been months since then. Rather pissed off at this point because after that card was lowered I called them and canceled it. What’s the use of an emergency card that only has $500 on it.. Anyway I really wanted a starwood because I want to go to paris next month. So I call them up and ask what’s going on today. My gold card is in perfect standing and is paid off 3-4 times a month since it has a low limit. There should be no problem right?

Turns out that once you have a card limit lowered with amex you can not be approved for a new card for a YEAR. Thats right. No matter what your standing is with them nor your credit score they will not issue you a line of credit for any amount for a year after you have a card limit lowered by any amount. It could be dropped by $50 and your fucked for the year. 

I have yet to talk to a single person who has NOT had their limit lowered this year. The credit crunch fucked over everyone I knows credit limit with american express. I wonder if they know that they can’t get a new card for a year. We have all just been ass fucked by american express and their system. Enjoy. oh yeah fuck you american express.

For the last several months I have been working from home off the couch, misc chairs, the floor, and the dinning table. This has not lead its self to being very productive and has really pissed off my back and posture.  It’s started to dive me nuts and has made my days quite uncomfortable.

January was a good start to the year and February also started strong.  Because of this ive decided to splurge this month and build my self a office area worth sitting in. Everything is now on order and here is what ive got so far.

The desk is a paperclip desk from Blu-Dot a local design firm in Minneapolis, and is 1 of only 3 left! I saw this desk and just had to have it I love the modern look to the table. It matches my style and should last me for years to come. 

The chair is the new Embody from Herman Miller. I had planed on getting an Aeron but when I was at the show room I didn’t like the feel of the chair. I saw the Embody in the show room and after a few mins in the chair I knew this was the one I wanted.

The chair feels amazing! If you have a Herman Miller dealer near you, you have to check out this chair. Just go sit in one for like 5-10mins and you will see why its so bad ass.

The whole office is going to have a modern organic feel to it. The chair is going to be the same model in the picture but will be a green color more like wheat grass. Which should go great with the birch table. I am really excited to get to work at my new area but it’s going to take a few weeks to get my chair in the mail. =/ Ill post pictures when everything is here and put together. Its gonna rock.

So I signed up for all this crap as he told me and sent him the info for the accounts since he needs to have it to do my taxes. Today I get a letter from the unemployment people. It seems that I now owe them $500 in late fees for not signing up with them before 12/30/08 and then I still owe them whatever retarded tax they have. Great so in a week period I just lost another 1k to the government.

Advice time. As a affiliate marketer if you start doing major numbers you have to incorporate or your going to get fucked over really hard on taxes. I made a LLC S-Corp as many others have done and I thought I did everything needed. Seems I was wrong. There is no manual for a corporation, when you make one they don’t tell you shit. I had no idea I had to pay unemployment until a week ago. No book I had ever read mentioned it, no forum, and no one personally told me. (I think its intentionally this way so the government can scam you out of cash with late fees.)

When you start your coporation you need to find this shit out ASAP. Now that you know about it make sure to ask your accountant how to sign up and where to do it before it catches up to you. I am really pissed off that he did not mention this stuff to me before it was to late, but its partialy my own fault for thinking this stuff was easy and that I took care of it all. Find this shit out and get it out the way as fast as possible and don’t move to Minnesota.

UPDATE: I made several pohone calls today and it seems when I registerd with the state I set my date of incorporation as the first date I took wages, insted of 12/31/08 so I was able to fix that and have the $500 in fines removed. Phew!

Now that I run my own corporation I wanted to do my part for the environment and keep up with our corporate responsibility. Which is why this year I have made my household and my home business 100% carbon neutral. Its not very expensive I cost me roughly $400 dollars to buy enough carbon offsets to cover my small apartment and my car.

I know a lot of people who like the idea but never go though with it because they have no idea how to or where to go or even how much to buy. My solution is to go to the source Green-e is the leader in carbon offset consumer protection and serves as a 3rd party verification that your money is going where they say it is. Green-e provides a list of verified sellers of carbon offsets on their site so you know where to go and who to trust.

I personally went with End Fossil Fuel since it was one of the easier sites to understand and because I wanted more options for the ammount of carbon to offset. They tell you where you money is going and give estimates on how much you should offset. My apartment is already on 100% windpower though excel energy so my offsets are much lower than most peoples would be.

To figure out my exact carbon footprint I used several carbon calculators found though google and on End Fossil Fuel and got my estimates. From there I added 10 more tons since none of these things can ever be exact and I would rather over pay to be absolutely sure I was at 100% offset so I could be sure I was in fact neutral.

Today I got my certificate form end fossil fuel and some marketing shwag. (5 buttons, 1 bag, 1 XL shirt) It was a very easy process and has been very fulfilling for me. Did I mention its a tax write off? Check it out if your looking for somthing else to invest in before tax season and help fund future renewable energy projects.