Interview: Michael Dunlop

Michael Dunlop is a 21 year old internet marketer who is most well known for his large income blogs such as IncomeDiary and Retireat21, together receiving millions of visitors and have been featured in newspapers, magazines and books around the world. Find out how he did it and, more importantly, how you can do it too!

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I grew up in a small village called East Preston on the south coast of England and currently live in Southampton. I am 21 years old, but have been working online since around 15.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
Honestly, I really couldn’t decide what I’m most proud of because I have very high standards, but to give you a cut down list of a few things I have done:

* Had millions of people visit my sites
* Featured in books, magazines and newspapers around the world
* Asked by MTV to be in a new show they are working on.
* Being young and financially independent is probably the most important one.

How did you come to learn about this industry? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in blogging and affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I was 14 at the time and I was at school competing in a competition called the Young Enterprise and I had to build a site for my business were I was selling brand new mobile phones and digital cameras. My dad connected me with someone who knew how to use Dreamweaver and I really just took it from there. I chose to do this as a career because I knew I had to be an entrepreneur anyway because I lacked any qualifications from school and wasn’t prepared to be paid $5 a hour to work for someone else. The internet just makes it so easy as an entrepreneur to start and see a return so that's why. I first saw the potential when I connected the dots between finding a problem and creating a solution, that’s where the money is. I created IncomeDiary and the very first month the blog earned $5000 and since then it has just gone through the roof and I never looked back.

What do you think it takes to be successful as a blogger and affiliate?
I think the most important thing for me was to think big, sure you need to provide value and do all these other things but if I didn’t think big, I wouldn’t be BIG. GO BIG, or GO HOME.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
I wouldn’t really say I had failures, definitely a lot of set backs and things not working out as well as you had first thought. I think failure and success go hand in hand, any success I have had, there has always been some failures involved, that’s how we find out what works and what doesn’t.

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
Spelling, like I mentioned at the beginning, I failed most things at school as I was very dyslexic, I was one of those people who read a page in a book, it took me so long that I had forgot what was the page was even about. If you look at anything I wrote 2 years ago on Retireat21 and look at my writing now, you wouldn’t believe it was the same person, It has improved greatly just because I do it every day, however I still get a few dicks who like to mention I have grammar issues, at least that’s my only issue. My teachers wouldn’t believe that I now write for a living.

Which methods of promotion do you favor?
As I’m a blogger/affiliate marketer - I have found by providing great valuable content on my blog, I have been able to bring long term great traffic to my site with no effort at all, it simply comes. People are always look for amazing content, that’s ho we learn.

How have you made those promotion methods successful?
I connect all my affiliate promotions with a HOW TO. So for example, anything I’m writing about, it has to involve them using a product of some sort that they have to buy. So for example, how to get more followers on Twitter, I show them how I do it with TweetAdder and so it’s educational and a promotion at the same time.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
Recently just launched a Clickbank product called Popup Domination, I’m getting 100’s of new subscribers daily so it felt only write that I put the tool I’m using to do it into a WordPress Plugin so people could duplicate my success. I’m always working on my main site called IncomeDiary - there is always something I can be doing to improve it and up my game so that I stand out as the BEST.

What problems have you had with those new projects?
Rushing it although I do think this is why it was successful. So many people plan to do something and they plan it out but they never get much further, I just powered through and got my team working constantly on it so that it was done ASAP. As we rushed it, we didn’t have many affiliates on board and so only myself and a couple other friends brought in the majority of the sales although I believe it will sell every day for years because it solves a HUGE problem and easily.

What are your greatest strengths?
Quick thinking and getting what I want.

One thing I have found in life and business is that if you want something, just ask for it. Jon asked me for this interview, he got it. Jon asked for my plugin to review it, he got it. I asked Jon for a review a while back and although I can afford full price, I might as well ask for 2 for the price of one, nothing stopping me and I got it. You can get a lot more out of life and business if you just ASK!

What are your greatest weaknesses?
Consistency, work ethic and short fuse at times.

You take your eye of the game for one minute and you will start to lose momentum, traffic and sales.

What motivates you?
Lifestyle.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
Entrepreneurship is about living a few years of your life like most won’t, so you can live the rest of your life like most can’t.

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
So many people have impacted my business, perhaps my Dad (barrydunlop.com) would be at the top of list.

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
Slow thinkers, honestly, I think 10x quicker then the typical person and I expect everyone to keep up and if you don’t, I have very little time for you. However, I have learnt to slow down and be more considerate

Anyone who thinks they are better then me when they aren’t - sure there’s a few people I work with that I really clever and I look up to, however sometimes I come across people who just think they are. They usually have a little overnight success and think they are really clever when really they know nothing and when I make suggestions they throw it in my face, I have little time for these people. I’m always learning, never think you're too great to learn.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
Grow a new business I’m starting to earning 7 figures monthly and selling for a 9 figure deal in a few years to come. Money doesn’t mean to much to me, sure I would like to have enough to live very comfortably, but selling a company for hundreds of millions would just be for my own personal benefit, knowing that I could do it. Money is like points for me, it’s just a way to see how well I’m doing.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
Considering I’m young, there’s so much I plan to do still, the first two things being, buy a house and a old mustang which I believe will be soon anyway. As for achievements... killing 1732 zombie on COD5 Nazi Zombies. To be honest, that question is just to hard to answer. Things have just begun for me.

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
twitter.com/michaeldunlop

facebook.com/IncomeDiary

Interview: Justin Goff

Justin Goff runs 31DayFatLossCure.com, which is a fitness/fat loss product that helps people to lose belly fat (here’s affiliate info). He’s also one of the highest paid copywriters when it comes to sales letters & video scripts for the fitness & internet marketing niches...

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I grew up in a very small town in Ohio - after graduating from high school I went to Ohio State, where I majored in Sport & Leisure studies (real tough major . I actually got started with affiliate marketing in college to pay off some gambling debts that I got myself into. I'm currently 26, and this has been my career ever since...

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
I’ve busted my ass for the last year to become a good copywriter and that’s really paid off lately. I’ve written copy for some of the biggest internet marketing product launches, and also copy for the sales video for our own product which I’ve actually gotten some kudos from the big A-list copywriters for....

I’ve spent tons and tons of hours learning how to write copy and I feel like it’s all coming together for me now...

How did you come to learn about this industry? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I used to be a big sports bettor in college, and I was really good at it. I wouldn’t bet much, but I would win like $5k for a college football season, and that would be enough money to keep me from having to get a real job in college.

One of the seasons though, I got in over my head, went on a little bender and ended up owing some shady people over $3,000. At the time, I didn’t have the money. I ended up getting a job as a valet to pay it back - and then I also made a website where I decided to sell my football picks. The site was ugly as HELL, but I made like $1,000 that first year and I was absolutely hooked.

From there, I went on to dabble as a poker/gambling affiliate. I did that for a few years and learned a ton about SEO. Since then I’ve sold most of that stuff off, and now I focus solely on the 31 Day Fat Loss Cure site....

What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
1. The right mindset
2. The willingness to see failure as a learning experience
3. The willingness to find a mentor
4. A deep understanding of what influences people
5. Discipline

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
I had a lot of bad “mental blocks” when it came to making money when I first started.

Growing up in a small town in a middle class family I always thought that $50k was a ton of money to make in a year...

That kind of thinking really held me back in a lot of ways. I would make a bunch of money with something but when it came to leveraging that and making even more money, I would always put my foot on the brake and sabotage myself.

I read Dan Kennedy’s Wealth Attraction For Entrepreneur’s book and within about 2 months my income went wayyyy up. Dan’s been one of the biggest influences on my business and this book really helped me get over a lot of mental blocks that I had that were preventing me from making money (I highly recommend this book to all entrepreneurs)

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
Honestly one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with are going through a break up. I’m sure I’ll catch shit for saying that in the comments, but it’s true. When you work from your house and you don’t interact with co workers throughout the day, going through something tough like a break up, or a death in your family is 2x as hard.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs are constantly thinking about their business so we mostly live “in our heads”. And when you live like this, you don’t have the same outlets that most people have with a typical office setting...

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
Honestly I hate writing copy. I’m really damn good at it, and I get paid a boatload of money to do it for clients, but I just don’t really like to do it. Just the thought of writing for 5 straight days makes me tense up.

That’s why I'm pretty picky about who I take on as a client. I probably get 3-4 proposals a week from people who want me to write a sales letter/video for them but I only take on the projects I really want to do...

I really like to play around more with the testing side of things once the copy is done. That’s when it gets fun for me...

If it’s possible for you to share, are there any particular niches that you currently favor? Or that you aren’t necessarily in right now but that you would recommend?
All I do is the fitness/fat loss niche right now. I’m pretty much just focused on promoting our product and helping our affiliates to promote our product so that I can build a real, sustainable business.

But being in this niche, I do know there are a lot of opportunities...

Here’s one that I think is going to blow up...

- Gluten free diets

If you’re not familiar with it, gluten is a protein found in foods like wheat, barley, oats etc...

A lot of people are intolerant to it, and millions more are intolerant to it and they don’t even know about it. It’s catching on with a lot of people, and the Hollywood crowd is beginning to notice it as well. It’s probably a smaller niche now, but easily something that you could build a product and make 6 figures a year with.

As we get more and more health conscious, more people will start to learn about it and it’s going to be the next big “diet craze” in this country...

What niche has worked best for you?
I used to be in the poker/gambling niche and did really well in that. A lot of my friends are still in that niche and they’re all raking in the dough.

Anyways, poker/gambling and then fat loss are the only 2 I've ever really done any serious work with...

Which methods of promotion do you favor?
I used to be a big SEO & blogging guy, but I've fallen in love with paid traffic. I'm just getting my bearings with paid traffic since I could never use it back when I did poker stuff. But I’m doing a lot with Facebook, POF and some smaller media buys...

If anyone wants to coach me with media buys I’d be forever grateful to you

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
Mostly recruiting affiliates for our product, and then working on dialing in our upsells so that we can make more money off each sale. We’ve seen a big increase in the value of our customers from testing our upsell process.

What are your greatest strengths?
I understand what influences people and I truly understand the fat loss market. I’m pretty relentless when it comes to learning new things, so you’ll always catch me reading 1-2 books on advertising, and then I’m always learning new things from the guys in my mastermind group as well.

If you want to be successful you have to keep learning from other people...

What are your greatest weaknesses?
Getting complacent. I always have to remind myself to not settle when stuff starts going well. This was a big problem for me back when I had a lot of the mental blocks about money. I would let off the gas before things got really good and just try and stay in my comfort zone. I've learned to recognize that now, and I understand that I need to keep pushing when I get to that point...

What motivates you?
Hitting my goals. I’m nowhere near where I want to be financially, but I make sure I remind myself everyday about what my goals are and what I need to do today to get closer to them.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
The day I realized that I was solely responsible for everything (good or bad) that happened in my life was a big day and a big shift in my mindset for me.

I used to have a victim mentality when it came to a lot of things - so once I got over that and figured out that I was solely responsible for all of my success, I really started to see a big difference in how I looked at everything.

As human beings, whenever we don’t reach a goal or we aren’t satisfied with where we are in life, we always rationalize it to ourselves and put the blame on something outside of ourselves. Sometimes we even say it’s our own fault, but deep down there’s a rationalization that we let ourselves use.

It’s this kind of thinking that allows us to rationalize our existence when we’re not living up to our potential.

Understanding that was probably the biggest change in my life...

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
Dan Kennedy and Shoemoney - I've read almost all of Dan’s books, and I get so much out of every book & seminar I listen to of his. You can pick them up on Amazon for like $12 each, and they are just filled with useful business knowledge.

And then Shoemoney has been a massive help ever since I met him 2 years ago at Elite Retreat. He’s one of the most helpful people I know, and he’ll do anything for people that he actually knows and cares about... Just getting to know him and helping him out has opened a lot of doors for me...

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I'm a terrible employee. I really am. If you were to ask any of my former bosses back when I had a job in high school, they would probably all tell you I wasn't cut out for being an employee, haha...

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
Honestly, I love what I do. I wake up on Saturdays and Sundays and have to force myself to not get on the computer and work. Even if I had 50 million in the bank, I would still be doing stuff like this...

How do you like to spend your free time? What does work-life balance mean to you?
Working out, boxing, being on the lake. I'm a pretty simple guy. Anything to do with sports or the outdoors is where I like to be...

I also spend a lot of time with my dogs... I usually take them to the park or for a long walk everyday. They hang out in my office with me so making sure they are worn out is always a priority when I have work to do...

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
Start with building my business sooner - and also stick with 1 business until it was successful. I fell into the trap of jumping from niche to niche for a while before I really settled on the fitness niche.

Once you have a plan, just stick with it until it works. Most people don’t need more information or the “newest thing” to get started. All of that is useful as you have a business is growing, but just get started with 1 or 2 things and make those successful.

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
facebook.com/justingoff is my personal one. I have a Twitter, but don't use it anymore...

Ending
I personally work with our affiliates for the 31 Day Fat Loss Cure - if you’re interested in promoting a legit product with high conversions, and no shady rebills then get a hold of me. You can check out the affiliate page on our site here....
- Justin Goff

Interview: Bradley Nordstrom

Bradley Nordstrom is a 10 year old affiliate and blogger who is very well known for commenting on several Internet marketing blogs. We were lucky enough to snag this exclusive interview and I think you'll find that it is a very entertaining read and a great look into the life of one of the youngest affiliates and bloggers the world has ever known.

Tell us a little about your background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been using the Internet?
I am from Wellington, Florida and I still live there now. I am an awesome 10 year old and my birthday is October 20th. I have been using the internet for 5 years now. I first started blogging with my blog www.bradleyiscool.com then when I turned 9 I got into affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is one of the most important things I do to make money now next to blogging. My parents and I also run an infotainment paper called "Tidbits". You might have heard of it.

What accomplishments so far are you most proud of?
The accomplishments I am most proud of is being a young 10 year old that makes over $5,000 a month. I am also proud of being invited to People To People International which is a organization that picks kids from all over the world and those kids get to go to different countries. I am going to go to Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland.

Your main website is BradleyIsCool.com. How cool are you and how did you get to be so cool?
I am awesomely cool and I got this cool because I have a cool blog. My cool blog helped me get really cool because my blog has cool blog posts.

How did you get to be so good at creating websites at such a young age?
Well it all started at "StarBucks". My dad owned a company that created websites. I was really bored at Starbucks so I asked my dad if he could teach me how to make a website and he said yes. So from that day on he kept teaching me all kinds of stuff I couldn't even understand. From that day on whenever we went to the bookstore I got either a HTML or CSS book that taught me everything I needed to know to make my website the best in the world.

How did you come to learn about affiliate marketing? Is this something you want to do when you grow up?
I learned about affiliate marketing when I was 8 1/2. My dad was an affiliate marketer when he was young and he taught me some affiliate marketing. Everyday after school he would teach me one part about affiliate marketing.

What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
To be a successful affiliate you have to be able to sell at least one product a day. You also have to be able to like being an affiliate.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations with your websites and schoolwork?
My biggest failure was not listening to my parents for my science project. I had a different answer than they had and I was wrong and they were of course right. My biggest frustration I had with my website bradleyiscool was not posting in 3 weeks! I was on vacation and had no access to the net so I just had to deal with it.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
I am creating a business that is going to make wordpress blogs for people.The name of the business is WildWebPro.

What are your greatest strengths?
My greatest strengths are meeting people and making friends.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
Milk is probably my greatest weakness. I can't stand the look and taste of milk.

What motivates you?
Being invited to special groups pretty much is the only thing that motivates me.

What is the best advice you've been given and try to apply it to your life?
My dad teaching me how to blog is the best advice I ever got in my life pretty much.

Who has impacted you most in your life, and how?
My dad because if it wasn't for him I wouldn't be getting this interview right now.

Where do you want to be 10 years from now?
I would like to be living on Hibiscus island in Miami and have a few high end cars like maybe a 7 series BMW and a few Lambo's and Ferrari's. I would also like to make a million dollars a day. I actually know someone that does make a million dollars a day.

How do you like to spend you free time? What do you do for fun?
I like to spend my free time sleeping. What I do for fun is blog. Blogging to me is my favorite thing to do. It is fun and is easy to do. I can tell my fans that I have been to disney world or I can tell them about affiliate marketing.

As you get older, what career choices do you think you will make?
I will probably have the same career choice as a blogger and being an affiliate marketer. I think I might own a multi-blillion dollar business.

BONUS: Bradley breaks down affiliate marketing...