[Trust]

I've already posted this a couple of places but thought it should have it's own thread:

Linda said:
“But largely I think many affiliates don’t understand the issue at all and have a fuzzy picture of something about maybe having to pay a little more income tax or something and aren’t that worried about it.”

My response:
There is a solution. You ever see the movie Philadelphia when Denzel was talking to Tom Hanks and said “All right, Mr. Laird, explain this to me like I’m a four-year-old, okay?”

We have to go there but visually. Make pretty illustrations, pdfs, video, etc. As an example and you’ll have to log in to ABestWeb to see it since it’s an attachment

http://forum.abestweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3486

Have to make it as simple as possible and not only for affiliates, imagine some of the politicians or interns they pass this stuff off to."

Now I want to move to NC one day but can't right now and I was explaining this to my brother and he pretty much understood it but the couple of pdfs that were made explaining it helped.

The above attachment is one example. I'm sure politicians and their interns probably read lots of stuff and after awhile might just become a jumble of words and based on responses people have posted from the politicians, a lot of them don't quite understand it. So I think something visual like a chart, pdf, video would be better. Not only for them but other affiliates. Something that can be passed around on blogs, social networks, printed out etc.

Is there anything else out there? If somebody can get something together hitting the key points and make something or even hire somebody and if we did that, I don't think getting money raised to pay for it would be an issue.

Thoughts?

[markwelch]

I agree that there's a need for clearer "10-second" explanations of the issue -- but ithe illustration linked above is inaccurate, doesn't address the advertising/affiliate issue at all, and confuses the issue.

[loxly]

Trust, the link to the attachment isn't working. It is trying to link to:
http://attachment.php/?attachmentid=3486

Not sure why.

[Trust]

Originally Posted by markwelch

I agree that there's a need for clearer "10-second" explanations of the issue -- but ithe illustration linked above is inaccurate, doesn't address the advertising/affiliate issue at all, and confuses the issue.

Then that's one of the reasons we need to get clear on this, get our main points together and explain this as simple as possible, visually. Have to find the thread, there were a few pdfs he made and he was updating them as people were pointing some things out. But I'm looking at more the concept, something like that, correct and easy to understand.

Originally Posted by loxly

Trust, the link to the attachment isn't working. It is trying to link to:
http://attachment.php/?attachmentid=3486

Not sure why.

Looks like some type of board issue with how it's handling links, have to copy and paste it. There was another one but forgot what thread it's in.

[bcwaller]

I don't know if I still have the sheet I used when I visited Sacramento, but it was a printout of two screen shots from a California newspaper Web site. The page was the same except for the banner ad at the top.

Both banners were from the same merchant. One banner was placed as a CPM buy, and the other was an affiliate link.

We showed them the page and asked which banner created nexus, and could they explain why. Nobody was able to and they understood our issue pretty well after that.

[Working Mom]

Thanks for this. FYI: I had to copy and paste the link to get it to work, even though I am logged in.

Caution: I think the attachment might play right into the hands of Politicians, and offline businesses who claim e-commerce has been a loophole that allows state residents to avoid paying taxes and in part, cripples traditional retailers.

Of course this might go over well with constituents though. (It is kind of nice to have the option of getting stuff without paying taxes on it - at least at that moment.)

My personal opinion is that you'd do better emphasizing drawbacks that will directly and immediately negatively impact the state budget revenue.

1 - The state won't generate a dime of this new "tax revenue" once all the affiliates in their state are dropped. When the online businesses drop their state's affiliates, they can continue to sell to the state's residents without collecting the taxes.

2. When that happens - and it already HAS happened in other states, the state loses the income tax revenue they currently get from their residence who pay taxes on the income they make as affiliates. If they're put out of business because few online retailers will work with them...income tax revenue goes down.

NUTSHELL
-State DOESN'T end up with this money
-State LOSES income tax revenue
-State's unemployment goes UP due to out of work affiliates
-Voter BACKLASH at the elected officials who tried to find a sneaky way to tax them.
-Politician has a TOUGH time getting re-elected.

I apologize if this sounds like an oversimplification, but perhaps this is a way to "Explain it like we're talking to a four year old." :-)

[Rehan]

Here's the attachment:

http://forum.abestweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3486

[Trust]

"Caution: I think the attachment might play right into the hands of Politicians, and offline businesses who claim e-commerce has been a loophole that allows state residents to avoid paying taxes and in part, cripples traditional retailers."

Forget that one, it was from this thread -
Internet Tax Flyer for NC Affiliates
http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread...rnet+tax+flyer

Point was more a pdf like that but accurate and easy to understand.

More the main points you brought up under Nutshell and what delsol brought up -
http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread...870#post992870

[Working Mom]

@Trust - Yes, much better. The second pdf makes a stronger, clearer case.
(And I like Delsol's explanation better than my nutshell too - but I was aiming for creating a super-simple "four year old" understanding thing.)

[Linda - 5starAffiliatePrograms]

Thanks for bringing this up in it's own thread Trust. It's a GREAT idea!

As I initially said over at Revenews, I think affiliate and merchant misunderstandings about the tax problem are a big industry issue, but you have a really good point too about how a simple, well done graphic would also help legislators understand the issue.

The example Trust showed... I don't think he's saying that would work for us because it's the wrong message and leaves out the entire affiliate piece. I think he was just using it as an example.

Here's another example - a simple graphic that explains the affiliate marketing process. Not saying it's the greatest or anything we should use, it's just an example of conveying information visually. aceaffiliates.com/affiliate-education/images/affiliate-marketing.jpg

Shawn offers some really good resources here, as far as copy and explanations. http://www.scribd.com/affiliatetip

I can't quite get my head around how to boil it down to a simple graphic or series of images that would illustrate the issue. I'm swamped today but will try to put some thought into it. However one of the strongest, simplest messages that I think we need to get across to legislators is that affiliates aren't sales people. They are independent business people that do online advertising, so that should not create nexus because other types of advertising do not create nexus.

In fact now that I think about it - there is too much info to try to convey to affiliates/merchant vs legislators and the focus of the info needs to be different. So one image to educate affiliates/merchants and a different image to present a KISS picture to legislators/media may be a good idea.