Quote from CaptainObvious:
Like you stated, we ain't looking to create the tavern on the green, but one might want to separate their high profile business from this.
Take myself for example. I'm a semi-retired Project Manger for Industrial construction. I also have considerable experience in the industrial safety field. To date all my work has come from word of mouth. In this thin market it's getting tougher to do. I'm considering building a website that details and offers my services. Would I want to be linked to, or promoting penis enlargement on that site? Hell no! However, if I want to create a blog that discusses how to improve your love life...why not?
At the end of the day, it's about the money. It's always about the money.
Well for the penis enlargement site you'd pretty pretty silly not to use a pen name IMHO. That is a very common thing on the internet and as long as the name does not try to cash in on someone's trademark the law says you can call yourself Richard Dickson if you wanted for the penis site, and there is nothing wrong with that....however if you call yourself richard dickson that's gonna piss me off coz I'm already using it

In other areas, especially when the product is my own, then I'm generally Brandon Fredrickson, but that's for the business where I am trying to brand myself..so that would be in Trading Education and Internet Marketing. However, even in the trading field I have not always used Brandon Fredrickson...for example I created a forex product this summer that sold pretty well on Clickbank (about 3000 sales) and I did not use my "real" name. In that case I didnt use my real name because it was a pretty cheap product (not the quality, the price) and I try not to compete based upon price as I think it's generally a crappy way to make yourself stand out.
I guess as a general rule this applies for me. If the product is mine, my name is going to be on it in 99% of the cases. If the product is someone elses and I'm just the affiliate then it will depend. Like if I was going to tell you hey you should check out Deron Wagner's stuff or Ivica's stuff, then that comes from me as it relates to trading and I will be me, Brandon Fredrickson. However, if I'm just selling something and it's not a business I'm really for anything except to make the money then I probably wont be. I've been Dick, Angie, David, Dean, Lucas, Amy and Mr X. I liked being Mr X, the international man of mystery..that was cool!!!!
Those names serve several purposes, privacy for one. Another thing to keep in mind is that there is only so much money in a program. Each clickbank product is only going to sell so many units and since most people are not going to do all the research and work it takes to be successful then most people are not going to be successful. However, if you start to be known as a pretty good clickbank seller then whats going to happen is that pretty soon everyone is simply going to be looking around and saying...oh what is Richard Dickson promoting, he is a superaffiliate and very successful. Then the next thing you know there are 100 other affiliates trying to buy the same damn keywords you want for the same product that you are trying to sell and then your screwed. Products can become too big on clickbank to successfully promote, so if your good at it your not going to talk too much or too often about the exact products your promoting. Hope this helps a bit.
