WHEN DID YOU START BLOGGING AND HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTO IT?
I started blogging about 3 years ago just with text blogging and the way I got into
it is that someone told me that I can get more traffic from that and it wasn’t until
recently that I started (I guess 2 years ago) video blogging and I started seeing the potential
for that and I really got into it.
WHEN STARTING YOUR BLOG, DID YOU EVER EXPECT TO GROW TO WHERE IT IS TODAY?
Well, when I started blogging, I guess, seriously blogging with video blogging I already saw
some results that other people got with text blogs and I wanted to duplicate that with
video blogging. So, I guess I was kind of prepared for the kind of results that you
can expect.
But I really didn’t expect how fast things would move and I think that a lot of it had
to do with using video as my main medium for communication, and so, that’s, I think made
all the difference.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT (AND FROM) HELPING OTHERS CREATE SUCCESS FOR THEMSELVES, AND
HOW HAS IT HELPED YOU BECOME A BETTER TEACHER/ENTREPRENEUR?
I think one of the best ways to learn something is to actually teach it to others and it’s
kind of a catch to in it to because, obviously, when you’re just new in a field, you’re
not really an expert – you’re not that qualified to teach it.
But one thing that I often did was, as soon as I did a new course or read a new book that
was useful to me and I wanted to really retain that information, I would immediately go and
teach it to someone else like a family member or a friend or to a pet–if you have one.
But I think that it’s a really good way of just getting that knowledge clear in your
head.
But once you become an expert and start teaching the information to other people, I think it’s
really an eye-opening experience because you kind of forget what it was like a few years
back when you were just starting out. And so when you actually teach other people just
getting into it new, you kind of have to go through that same thinking processes and really
put yourself back a few years ago into the people’s shoes that you are teaching and
you know that could be often quite difficult.
But it’s really an eye-opening experience and it helps you to really look at things
from a very different angle compared to if you were just doing it yourself.
So it’s very, very valuable. So, not only is it great to see what people are coming
from, but it also helps me to look at the topic from a whole bunch of different angles
which in the end, helps me to become better at what I do and also to teach in a much better
way.
BESIDES LAUNCHING YOUR OWN PRODUCTS AND COURSES, HOW HAVE YOU INCORPORATED AFFILIATE MARKETING
INTO YOUR BLOG?
Well, affiliate marketing is just–it’s huge. Just recently, I did a promotion with
my business partner, Yaro Starak, and you know we sold close to a $100,000 worth of
product for this promotion. Of course we didn’t get all of that $100,000 because we only got
a percentage and we have to split the profit (that sort of thing).
It just shows you the power of affiliate marketing and while it was combined list with Yaro,
a big push of that list was from my own people that I gained through video marketing and
using online video to gain that. And I think because it’s video, the relationship that
you build with people is just so much stronger. You can build rapport so much quicker with
video compared to just text, so I think that’s one of the key reasons why something like
affiliate marketing works really well with video blogging because you have that relationship
with someone. You’ve got that trust.
So if the people on your list (if they) trust you and they follow you, and they listen to
every word that you’re saying, when it comes to promoting an affiliate product, it becomes
a lot easier to convince people to go ahead and purchase.
Now of course, I only recommend that you promote things that you totally believed in and that
you would use yourself. I never promote things that I wouldn’t actually use myself. So
that’s the key ingredient for the success that I have.
IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT IS THE SINGLE, BEST WAY TO MONETIZE YOUR BLOG?
I think, the single best way of monetizing your blog is really to start creating your
own products. Getting money from (say) Adsense or advertising or even affiliate promotions–it’s
pretty good. But you need to build up your own brand and your own brand equity and for
that you need to create your own products—as simple as that.
So number 1, you need to become an expert on what you’re doing and number 2, you need
to start creating your own products. Once you have those 2 things you get instant credibility
– people start listening to what you’ve got to say, and more importantly, you make
more sales. You make even more sales than just with affiliate promotions and the reason
for that is because the trust level is even higher.
If you have your own products, people who follow you tend to be more inclined to buy
that from you because they know you and they know that it’s your product and so it often
converts a lot better than just affiliate promotions.
Affiliate promotions are great (don’t get me wrong) and it’s a lot less work but the
income potential for your own products is just tremendous not to even mention everything
else that comes along with it which includes things like credibility and authority and
potentially massive exposure worldwide.
WHAT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR A NEW BLOGGER THAT WANTS TO CREATE THEIR OWN BRAND OR PRESENCE
IN BLOGGING?
I think the first thing that you’ve got to do is to find what it is that you want
to blog about or video blog about and for that I often talk about the hedgehog model
or hedgehog concept that Jim Collins talks about in his book Good to Great (fantastic
book). I really recommend you read it and it talks about the 5 key things that some
of the world’s top businesses did to become great, not just good, great-– and one of
those 5 things were the hedgehog concept.
Basically, all it is, is the combination of 3 things–what you’re passionate about,
what you can become very skilled at in the world (to become the best out of the world),
and what you can make money from at the same time. When you combine those 3 things, when
you find something that has all those 3 elements in common, you can do really, really well
so that’s your hedgehog concept.
Once you’ve found that, it becomes sort of your niche and that you can create content
about and become an authority in, and then the next thing is just to go nuts with creating
really, really good content and especially with video, it becomes so much easier than
just text to create some really amazing concept.
So those are the first things, find out what you want to blog about, and use the hedgehog
model or hedgehog concept for that, then start creating massive amounts of content (really
good content) and that will automatically start getting you notice and getting traffic
back to your channel and back to your video back as well.
ANY RECOMMENDED BLOGS OR RESOURCES FOR BLOGGERS TO BRING THEIR BLOG TO THE NEXT LEVEL?
If you want to take your blogging to the next level, this course that me and my business
partner, Yaro Starak, put together, it’s called Become a Blogger. There are 10 free
videos at Becomeablogger.com that shows you exactly how to set up your own blog, your
WordPress blog and if you want to take things further, we actually have a course there as
well, Become a Blogger Premium, that takes you to the next level. Yaro, my business partner,
also has a program that he talks about and we talk about that a little bit more at Become
a Blogger as well. So just go to Becomeablogger.com and just check out the videos there and it
will help you tremendously if you’re new to blogging.
DO YOU HAVE ANY BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS OR UPCOMING PROJECTS YOU’D LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT?
Currently, I’m working on my ex-project which is Rapid Video Blogging. The idea of
that product is to show exactly what I do with my video blogging to get massive exposure.
Some people would take 5 years what I did it in about a year’s worth of time and that’s
all with using video blogging as the main medium for communication. So I got some pretty
good results with that.
As I’ve mentioned before and inside this program, I want to teach you exactly what
I did. So it’s going to be a free report that you can get about 80 pages long so packed
with content. And then eventually, there will be a course as well that will go into a lot
more detail with all those topics.
If you want to get access to the reports, just go to Rapidvideoblogging.com .