So it’s a balmy 80 degrees outside and sunny.  Most of us are making plans for summer - things like going to the beach, water park, ball game, campground, etc.

So why are we even thinking about tire chains right now?  Well guess what!  Our rubber tire chains are not only good for snow and ice, but they also work great all year round on dirt (or mud), grassy hills, and - yes - even manure.

The other day I visited a guy that uses a set of our tire chains on his lawn tractor.  The tires are pretty much shot, but with the help of the chains, he can successfully mow his sloped lawn and push manure in his chicken houses.  New tires are expensive.  These chains have been on about five years and are still going strong providing traction and saving the tires and the expense of buying new tires.

How’s that for hype?  I didn’t think about taking a picture (duh!).  I’ll get you one as soon as I can.

As February winds down and March rears it’s head around the corner and I mix metaphors, I also have mixed thoughts and emotions.  On one hand, I really am not a cold-weather aficionado.  Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff about it being easier and more efficient to stay warm when it’s cold rather than trying to stay cool when it’s warm, but I still like summer better than winter.  The short days, bone-chilling winds, brown grass and trees, the cold, and the sloppy wet snow, just kinda get old after a while.  There’s nothing like meandering outside into the warm fresh breezes of spring to watch the grass green up again and the trees push forth their leafy buds - but I wax poetic, so enough of that.

Of course, given my line of work here, summer is a business killer.  I’m afraid that our short season is already winding down and our bustling order book will soon slow to a craw, then a complete stop.  Even though it’s only the middle of February, it seems most people are happy with their current state of traction affairs and will leave them like that for the remainder of the winter.  So be it, and let it be so.  We’ll wind up again next winter.

Now that I’ve blathered incoherently for a while, allow me to share with you the subject of this blog.  This is a picture sent to me by one of our customers.  The snowman is in Orrville, Oh, and has a 50 gallon drum for a hat, large wheels for the eyes, a traffic cone for a nose, garden-tractor wheels for the mouth, and a 40′ scarf.  Although shrunken a bit when this picture was taken, it started out being 16′ tall with a base 41′ in diameter.  A pretty impressive work of art over all.

Snow Man

Well we’ve been happily selling chains left and right, and most (if not all) folks are more than happy with their purchases.  In fact, most folks are so happy they want to shout their delight from the rooftops (so to speak) and tell the world.  The only problem with that is, for most folks, such activities result in slipping off the roof and breaking one’s bones.  Since we don’t want to be held responsible for such activity, we’ve now developed a better method:

Not only do you not have to shout from the rooftop, but you can tell the world about our product and make a little money doing it.  Since the cheapest form of advertisement is word of mouth, we thought it only fair to monetarily help those that are spreading the word (not to mention that this is great motivation for the aforementioned individuals - all of which converts to sales for us).

Launched in December of 2008, our affiliate program now allows you to make a little money while spreading the word.  All you have to do is sign up for an account.  It’s completely free and there are no minimum sales or other obligations.  In fact, you can sign up for an account and then forget about it completely.

Once you’ve created your account, you will have access to several banners of various sizes that you can plaster unceremoniously all over your web site.  This will turn people off so badly that they’ll leave immediately and never come back.  We; however, recommend placing your banners carefully so as not to turn off the general populace.

An example of an affiliate banner

When someone or something clicks on your link and is directed to our site, the traffic is tracked and, if a sale is made, a percentage of the sale is credited to your account.  Right now that percentage stands at 3%, but it may change, so check the official affiliate site to make sure.

Once you’ve collected enough moola in your account, we will pay you VIA check or Paypal, whichever you prefer.

The affiliate program is a win-win for both us and you.  Obviously our mission in life is to sell as many chains as possible and your mission is to make as much money as possible with minimal work, so this does both.

Please bear in mind that there are rules regarding SPAM and other unscrupulous advertising methods.  ASTA Traction is categorically apposed to all such practices and we say so in our 3,005 page  usage policy which we encourage you not to read or you’ll go insane which means you won’t sell chains which means we won’t make money and then we both lose.  At any rate, since this country has gone to the dogs (ahem, excuse me, I mean LAWYERS) it’s necessary to go through such ridiculous procedures.  All this to say: DON’T SPAM, for Pete’s sake.

Sign up NOW for an affiliate account at: www.astatraction.com/affiliates/

This is my first post to the ASTA Traction blog and; as always, I’m thrilled to death to be doing this.  We’ve been working on this site since the summer of ‘08 and have finally gotten around to setting up this informative piece of work.

We started selling our tire chains online in October of 2008.  We are very hopeful that sales will increase wonderfully as we move into the wide world of Internet sales.

ASTA Traction has been in business for many years, but has never done a lot of publicizing.  All chains were sold wholesale and the web site was for information only.  In the summer of ‘08 we added a retail store to the website and began selling chains online.  Since then we’ve been working hard at publicizing our chains and getting the word out.  We feel that we a high quality useful product, and our customers would agree.

This blog was added in January of ‘09.  I won’t knock your socks off, but I’ll try to post any interesting news or other information about tire chains on here from time to time.  Come back often and read much.