Unique Perks in Affiliate Marketing

Eric Nagel

14 years ago

I have been, or can be if you click on a link and make a purchase, compensated via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value for writing this post. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

As an affiliate, I enjoy some perks that come with the job:

I work from home
I set my own hours
I can create a passive income
I get to travel to different cities to attend conferences, and often never have to pay for a meal

Yet this past week, I experienced a perk like no other: I got to spend a night in the house from A Christmas Story.

I first met Brian Jones at the ShareASale Think Tank in Chicago this past May. Brian owns the house that was used for the exterior shots of the movie, A Christmas Story. He also owns the company that sells reproduction Leg Lamps and other products from the movie.

I visited the house before, back in 2009. Once I saw A Christmas Story House was going to be at Think Tank, I registered a domain and decided to build a site.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I manually built BuyLegLamps.com (at the time, they didn’t have a datafeed). I outlined the entire process of building this site in another post, An Affiliate Website Anyone Can Build.

After exchanging emails with Brian (about the program, and getting a datafeed set-up), I mentioned that I was going to be in Cleveland, and wanted to get together. He’s still in San Diego, but offered to let me and my family spend a night in the house!

A Christmas Story House isn’t a typical bed & breakfast. Only a handful of people have spent the night (if you want to spend a night, watch for auctions on eBay, but be prepared to drop about $5k).

My daughter wasn’t too excited about it at first (she started crying, screaming “NO!” at me, then kicked me in the shin, twice) but she was OK after calming down a little.

We all gathered on the couch and watched A Christmas Story on our DVD player. It’s amazing, watching the movie and looking around the house at the details they’ve captured in recreating the interior of the house.

After the movie, we all went up to bed. I slept in Ralphie’s bed, and my other daughter slept in Randy’s bed, while the rest of the family slept upstairs in the guest suite.

The next morning, I even got to meet “Randy” from the movie, Ian Petrella! (I’m not sure he was too excited about meeting me, as I think we woke him up to hand over the keys)

Ian Petrella ("Randy" from A Christmas Story) and I

If my accountant asks, this wasn’t a vacation… I was procuring content. The dozens of photos I took and video tour of the house will be some nice, unique content for BuyLegLamps.com.

Thanks to Brian for hooking me up on this unforgettable experience!