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Originally Posted by Mr. Blue
they either want an affiliate manager that knows everything or one that won't be deemed as competition.
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This is a general observation: you just happened to provide the reason for making it. But in just the same way as many of us betray our lack of business experience by worrying about protecting secrets which aren't secrets at all, we also concern ourselves too much about so-called "competition".
Two hardware stores in the same street are competition. A hardware superstore is competition for all the smaller hardware stores within, say, a 50-mile radius. But regular hardware stores in cities 200 miles apart are not competition.
So it is for the vast majority of affiliates, most of the time. We work on the Internet and only in a few very specific instances (or if we exchange traffic), are we likely to confront the same surfers. SEO, providing we are talking about fighting over top spots and not about whether our site is listed at #400 or #500 is an exception. PPC is another.
I think it is extremely foolish to employ a rep who is active on his own behalf in the areas that he promotes. But that is because his usefulness may be limited because of how he will be perceived than because of any potential for actual abuse. In the wider context we generally lose far more than we gain, by limiting the exchange of useful information between ourselves.