Would you mind giving our readers some background on what your business is all about?
I have two main websites that fuel my affiliate success:
- The Plug-In Profit Site -
The purpose of this website is to help people who would like to start making money online with affiliate programs. I provide a turn-key solution that gives someone their own website
setup on their own domain that promotes products from five of the Internet's top affiliate programs. As part of my service, I also setup a complete 400 day email marketing campaign
for everyone who signs up for the Plug-In Profit Site. As you know, there is big money in having an email list and following up with that list of opt-in subscribers. This is why the
Plug-In Profit Site service also includes a pre- written autoresponder campaign as one of the primary tools that are setup for our members. Of course, it doesn't stop there. Once
someone is a member of the Plug- In Profit Site, they receive my 30 Days to Success step-by-step marketing guide that walks them through the process of promoting their
website to achieve maximum profits. This is accomplished through co-registration list building, forum signature file promotion, ezine solo ads, offline advertising, article distribution,
publishing a blog, viral ebook branding and much more.
- Dotcomology: The Science of Making Money Online - This is the massive 325 page ebook I wrote and give away free to
anyone who wants to learn how to make money online. Inside the book, I also provide access to over 30 tools and software programs that automate a lot of the difficult tasks involved with
building an Internet business.
Can you tell us about how you got started on the Internet?
I got started in much the same way that I help other people get started with today. I signed up for a "Plug-In Profit Site" type service and paid someone $75 to build my first template website
that sold ClickBank affiliate products. I bought an autoresponder, ordered leads, sent offers to those leads and eventually started making some sales. I learned how to make changes to my website
and started experimenting with different affiliate programs and business opportunities until I found out which ones worked best for me. After a while, I was able to cut my losers and keep my
winners and eventually develop a full-time income working from home on the Internet. Over the years, I've been able to refine my marketing strategies and teach others how to duplicate my
success through my own Plug-In Profit Site service and 30 Days to Success marketing guide discussed at this website.
Can you give us some background about yourself?
I've mowed lawns, washed dogs, delivered pizza and a whole bunch of other stuff that pays very little and isn't much fun. When I left college, I went to a work for a company called "The Mental
Fitness Company". It was a resource center for human potential. I loved it. I learned from people like Anthony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, John Gray and so many other incredible teachers.
I also learned NLP, handwriting analysis and a lot of other really cool stuff that has helped me better understand myself and the world around me.
The Mental Fitness Company was run by some really passionate entrepreneurs. Their zest for business rubbed off on me and shortly thereafter I found myself as the owner of a thriving health and
vegetarian food restaurant in my home town of Dallas, Texas. During my time as owner of the restaurant, I was always trying different methods of growing my business. I would send out press releases
and get local newspapers and television stations to do stories about me. That was a lot of fun.
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I also got the idea to start my own magazine so I created a full-glossy magazine called Veggie World and distributed it for free in grocery stores and other retail establishments around the city. At its
peak, I was printing about 20,000 magazines per issue. The magazine was great because I earned some extra revenue from selling advertising and it brought more customers into my restaurant.
Again, it was a lot of fun but it was burning me out. Restaurant life is pretty rough: long hours, hard work and modest pay. But I wasn't getting anywhere. Year after year I maintained the same mediocre
financial status. Then one day I picked up a book called "Multiple Streams of Income" by Robert Allen and that book really turned some lights on in my brain. Robert talked about the necessity to create
multiple streams of income with an emphasis on creating "residual" income. He outlined ways to do this including the stock market, real estate and marketing on the Internet.
Marketing on the Internet is what really resonated with me so I got to work on it right away. I would still work long hours in the restaurant. But then I'd come home and brew myself a big pot of coffee
and often work until 3:00-4:00 am every night for months until I started figuring things out and making any real money. But the truth is, it wasn't until I was put in a "sink or swim" situation that my
Internet business really took off.
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After the 8th year of doing business in the space my restaurant occupied, the landlord of the building decided not to give me an option to renew my lease. Their goal was to give my space to a nationally
branded franchise because having big name corporations in their building was apparently much better for them than a small "Mom & Pop" shop. So I had to make a decision: Move my restaurant or jump
into this Internet thing full time. Well, I jumped in full force and haven't looked back since. It's funny. In that first month of being home full-time my Internet income exploded 1000% and it's been
growing steadily ever since. That just illustrates the power of what happens when you fully commit yourself to success.
To what do you attribute your success?
I consider my online success to be the cumulative effect of my entire life. It took a lot of reading and real world experience to prepare me for succeeding in an Internet business.
That being said, I've put a lot of effort into making the learning curve as short and sweet as possible for new members who sign up for my Plug-In Profit Site service. In fact, many new members
report that they have made money with their Plug-In Profit Site within 24 hours of signing up. That's a bit unusual but most people who use my system and follow my guidance faithfully do eventually
succeed.
Did you design the site yourself, or did you hire a web designer to do it for you?
I hired someone. Actually, I paid $75 for a template website that was setup for me to promote ClickBank products. From there, I just started fiddling with the code until I eventually learned how to
make changes to my site and build sites from scratch. Trial and error is what got me where I'm at today. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that difficult for new people just getting started. The
Plug-In Profit Site can help people get started fast.
Who is your target market?
My target market is people who want to make money online. They can be found through search engines, in web forums, in other people's newsletter lists, offline, etc. In fact, prospects can be found
just about anywhere. The fact is most people these days are looking for a way to earn some extra money and the Internet is one of the easiest, least disruptive ways to get started. And the Internet
home business market is simply getting bigger by the day as more people begin to trust and understand what is happening.
How much traffic are you getting to your site?
A lot. Again, if you want to examine my traffic just visit Alexa and you'll see that we're swamped with visitors every day of the week. For my site, it's a balanced mix of repeat visitors,
existing members and new prospects who are visiting my site every day.
What are you doing to collect the opt-in email addresses of potential customers?
I just use a short description along with a sign up form on my website. I do my best to practice the KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) principle in everything I do.How often do you make a point of following up with your leads and previous customers? What sort of offers do you typically follow up with?
For customers, I mostly contact them whenever I have news or an improvement to the system to report. My goal is helping my customers make money and most of the things they need to do that are free. It's very rare that I'm so inspired by a new product that I get motivated to sell it to my list. See, my customers already have everything they need to make money online with the Plug-In Profit Site system - it's just a matter of educating and motivating them to use what they have been given.
In order of importance, please tell us about the top five marketing strategies that you use on a regular basis.
- Affiliates - I spend a lot of time creating training materials for my affiliates and providing personal support through my member's support forum. Affiliates are the heart of my business. I
*love* my affiliates!
- Article distribution - I have a team of people and services that help me create and syndicate content all over the net. Therefore, I spend a lot of time creating content, but I also outsource a
lot of the work involved in getting my content published. It take energy to make energy. Money is energy. I find that whatever energy I put out, I get at least 10X back in return. Syndicating web
content is a powerful traffic and sales generator. Two resources that are essential to my article marketing and content distribution success are Article Announcer and Content Propulsion Lab.
- Autoresponder follow-up - I have a 400 day pre-written email marketing campaign that works for me around the clock on auto-pilot to pull in sales for my favorite affiliate products.
This is actually the exact campaign I setup for Plug-In Profit Site members.
- Interviews - Once you become successful, success gets a lot easier. People say that your first million is the hardest and that's usually true. It's the snowball effect. For example, now that
I'm a big success online, people always give me their latest products to review for free and I'm always being asked for an interview. Interviews usually work as a three-fold benefit: The person
conducting the interview wins by providing valuable and hard-to-get information to their readers and subscribers. The readers win because they receive access to valuable information that they
would otherwise not be able to obtain. I win because I get more free exposure my products and services to a market of potential customers that I didn't have access to prior to the interview.
- Testimonials - Whenever I buy a product or service and I like it, I always write up a short testimonial and send it back to the product creator or service provider. Most of the time, they
include my testimonial on their website with a link back to my website referencing who I am. Marketing on the Internet is all about the links. The more links you get pointing back to your website,
the more traffic and sales you'll get. Writing sincere testimonials is an easy win-win whereby you help the product owner establish more "social proof" that they have a quality product. And they
help you get more exposure too by listing your link on their website. Again, this gets easier when you become successful. At that point, everyone wants to send you their product for review.
- Other stuff - A lot of my sales also come through ezine advertising, pay-per-click advertising and offline advertising.
How much emphasis do you place on search engine placement and optimization?
It's very important, but not critical. Of course, that really depends on your business model. In my experience, the important thing to focus on when building a site is to make it serve your market.
The search engine is NOT your market. Build a site that serves the people visiting the site and let the search engine positioning happen naturally. Don't play games with the search engines. Build a useful
site, add relevant content your site on a regular basis and make your site worthy of other people linking to because of it's inherent value. Do this you'll have all the free search engine listings you can
handle.
Do you promote your site offline?
Yes. I promote my site everywhere. There is gold to be mined in offline classified advertising - directing people to online direct sales websites is an absolute goldmine!
Could you please tell us about a couple of online tools or websites that you've found to be powerful resources for marketing your business?
- GetResponse Autoresponder: GetResponse is the automated email follow-up tool I use to sell affiliate products like crazy.
I've made millions of dollars with it. It's also the same tool I setup and load for my members with a 400 day pre-written email marketing campaign through my Plug-In Profit Site service.
- Host4Profit - Host4Profit is where I host all my websites. There are two remarkable features of Host4Profit. First,
they have the absolute best customer support team in the business - period - bar none. Other hosts will leave you high and dry but with Host4Profit, you've got a team of professionals who are as
committed to your success as you are. In my opinion, it would be a huge mistake to host your website anywhere else.
The other great component to Host4Profit is they are the host that pays you back. For every person you refer to the Host4Profit hosting service, you get paid $10 per month recurring income.
I personally earn thousands of dollars every month from Host4Profit simply because people join through the Host4Profit referral link on my
website. I absolutely love Host4Profit!
- Blogger - Blogger is truly incredible. It can do so many things for your business and it's 100% free. Additional free software and tools
that I use in my business can be found in the free tools and resource section of my Dotcomology ebook that you can download free here.
How many hours per week do you spend running your business versus growing it?
There was period of over a year where I was only spending about 15 hours per week running my business. I was not in growth mode. I had made all the money I needed at the time and was focusing on
building my dream home and other family pursuits. I'm back in growth mode now and spend about 40 hours per week growing my business and 15 hours per week running it.
I've focused primarily on building a *residual* income. Most of the affiliate products I promote are monthly service type products. I make the sale one time and get paid for the life of the account.
And once you sell an account subscription for a particular service like website hosting, the customer tends to stick around for a while. It's like phone service. Once you sign up, you rarely switch over
to another service. I urge everyone who is building an Internet business to focus at least 50% of your energy on residual income generating programs like those included with the Plug-In Profit Site.
What unique challenges exist for companies in your market?
The biggest challenge in my market is competition. Nearly everyone who wants to make money online gravitates toward the "make money online" market. I've become an expert in this market myself
and I've helped thousands of others make money online in the same field. That being said, I'm beginning to diversify my own online business portfolio now by creating new websites in several very
different markets altogether. That being said, competition is everywhere and people who say you shouldn't try to make money in the "make money online" market are foolish. It's one of the biggest
markets out there and one of the easiest to make money in as long as you come into it with the right attitude. And the attitude you must possess is the attitude of service. You must go into the
market with an intention to create real solutions for people within the market itself. In other words, help other people. That's how money is made. People give their money to other people who they
believe can help them. Be someone who helps other people and you will never have problems making money in *any* market.
What would you consider to be your major achievement?
My biggest achievement is that I've actually helped thousands of people on their path to achieve their own goals and dreams.
What do you think has helped to make your site so successful?
There is one critical distinction every website owner must make in order to become successful and I was fortunate enough to figure it out myself. Stop trying to make money and start trying to help
people. As soon as your focus shifts to helping people, you've adopted the true spirit of the entrepreneur: provide a valuable service and charge for it.
What major mistakes do you see other Internet entrepreneurs making?
Again, the biggest mistake I see Internet entrepreneurs making is trying to make money without helping others. It just doesn't work like that. Money is service. Money is value. You're not going to
attract any money if you're not providing service or value.
What advice do you have for beginners who are interested in selling over the Web?
Find one plan that resonates with you and stick with it until you've done everything in your power to succeed with it. If you do this, you will succeed and you won't have to move on to another plan.
Or you can simply add another successful plan to your portfolio of successful online businesses. I also recommend that your first business be with me so I can coach you to success here.
Finally, how has running your online business impacted your personal and professional life?
For me, it's all about freedom. Because of my Internet business, I can now go where I want and do what I want whenever I want. Last year I took my family to Maui for 3 weeks and stayed in the
exquisite Kea Lani Hotel. It was an absolutely incredible vacation. I could have stayed there six months and not missed a beat in my business. A couple hours a day, I'd just sit down in my hotel room
and plug into the high speed Internet connection and take care of my daily "work" to keep my business running smoothly. The rest of the time I was on the beach, drinking a Mai Tai, playing with my kids,
watching a movie or going out to one of Maui's amazing restaurants. We're planning a two month vacation to France this summer. The freedom to do what you want when you want. That's what a
successful Internet business can give you!
If you're ready to go beyond the theory and straight into the meat and potatoes of making money online, I encourage you to sign up for my Plug-In Profit Site service here. If you still need more
convincing that an Internet business is right for you, I encourage you to download and read my Dotcomology ebook free of charge at this website.
Whether you choose to follow my path or chart your own course, I wish you unlimited success and happiness in your journey ahead.
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