Earlier this year (January I think) I interviewed Brent Hall, author of the Multiplier Method. I've never publicly released this information before.
So in the spirit of Christmas and giving… I've decided to publish this interview here for you. Read and reread this interview. There is a ton of gold spelled out — and sprinkled in between the lines.
Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2009 — Enjoy!
Andre: Hey Brent!
Thanks for agreeing to do this interview mate. For the benefit of my readers — briefly tell me about you and how you got started marketing online.
Brent: There is no amazing story for me dude.
I started a small offline niche magazine in the 90's while attending college in New York. It started as a class project and took on a life of its own because the reader base loved the content, and they loved being
associated with the "crowd".
I learned a lot about branding and creating a community
from that.
There were 5,000 paying subscribers by 2000. We took it online after I discovered Pay Per Click advertising that year. That didn't work so well because it lost its edge, so we resumed publishing it offline.
My first successful online venture came after I read Jeff Paul's course. That gave me the idea of creating niche info products.
I started with one and added several over the years. This works well for me because I apply everything that works offline to the Internet.
I've been a reader of his Zen Habits blog for the past few months. It's a blog all about "productivity" (getting shit done)… and he has over 81,000 subscribers.
It's tough to stay motivated and maintain a fitness regime on a "consistent" basis.
That's was until I heard Tony Schwartz(author of The Power of Full Engagement) speak at Eben Pagan's Altitude seminar.
The key is to create a "ritual"… a schedule that then removes the need to think (err… procrastinate) about whether you should do exercise or not.
However, the beginning is the hardest part — creating that ritual and sticking to it come rain or shine — until a "habit" is born.
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. — Jim Ryun
When I first did this I was amazed (a few months ago). After about 4 weeks my ritual become a habit… and doing daily running — dare I say it — become an easy task.
It become a part of my day. Just like eating. It become almost automatic.
Like I said — starting the ritual is the hard part.
Here's a tip…
Find something in the beginning that will motivate you to take action — on the consistent basis.
For me, it's this view when I go for my 8:30AM morning run…
This morning it was particularly amazing as the fog had settled in the valley below where I live (above).
By the time I had returned about 30 minutes later, the fog had gone and was replaced with a big blue sky and the morning sunrise.
That's my motivation.
Habit comes next. :-)
Here a cool video of Tony Schwartz talking at Google. It's about sustaining high performance.
It works like this. Instead of trying to "guess" what keywords your potential customers are typing into Google — which is the traditional way of doing keyword research — you can use this tool to "reverse engineer" the process.
So you start from the landing page and work backwards.
Like this…
Google has just "suggested" a whole bunch of keywords for me to target based on the content of my landing page… as well as the keyword/phrase I gave it. (Which is an optional parameter.)
This is what I have every morning. It's what I call my Power Breakfast.
I'm no crazy health-nut. Promise. But you should try this recipe for breakfast. You'll feel amazing afterwards. It totally sets you up for the day. Try it. :-)
Ingredients Required
1 Large Apple(or 2 medium apples)
1 Banana(optional)
Protein Powder(any low fat, low carbohydrate version will do)
Omega 3 Oil(Or an omega 3/6/9 blend. Use about 13 blanched almonds if you don't have omega 3 oil)
A few years ago I used to "blog" on my name domain. I eventually stopped. To be honest… I just didn't want to write about stuff on a regular basis anymore.
But I feel like writing again… I think. So fingers crossed… I'll stick at it this time.
