Success,Stories,Doers,Share,Th DIY Success Stories - 12 Doers Share Their Secrets. Interview #1

When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in

There are lots of ways to make the Internet work foryou. Although selling a product online is the mostobvious business model, it certainly isn't the onlyway.This interview, with British voice-over artist, PeterTwist, shows how he has harnessed the Internet'spotential. Not only is he selling products, but he isalso selling himself, his services and those of hiscolleagues.Truly a man who understands the power of multiplestreams of income.BizE-zine: Peter, who are you and what is yourbackground?PT: My name is Peter Twist, I'm 41 and I live partly inLondon UK and partly in Monaco.My bread and butter is as a voice-over for TV and Radioin the UK and abroad. As I work for myself it has beeneasy to work this and the Internet alongside eachother.I am probably one of the best-known "unknown" voices:the guy who promotes Classic FM Magazine and sometimestells you what's on TV on Saturday night. Ioccasionally do work for clients in the US as well.BizE-zine: When did you discover the power of theInternet?PT: I first got involved about 8 years ago. I wentonline by joining CompuServe with a 2.5k modem! Iinitially set up a web site to promote my voice-overwork. In this business you spend a lot of time givingprospective clients details about yourself and demotapes. Being lazy I put it all on the web site withstreaming audio files and told people to go there.BizE-zine: Did it work?PT: Putting my voice-over information on the Internetdid work. It saved me having to send out CDs and tapes.It was also fairly easy to get a good search engineranking for 'voice-over' or 'voice talent' so I did geta lot of referrals from the web.If it was a choice between me and another voice who wassending stuff to prospective clients by snail mail, itgave me the edge.At about the same time, 8 years ago, the voice-overworld had a major upheaval. ISDN telephone lines camein. I went from driving around 60,000 miles a year toall the major radio stations in the UK, to building astudio at home and talking down an ISDN line.So I was already beginning to experience the benefitsof technology even before the Internet started to grow.BizE-zine: What was your next Internet development asfar as the voice-over work was concerned?PT: Now that all the voices were at home waiting forwork, the radio stations and production companies beganasking for weekly faxes listing a voice-over'savailability. Fairly soon they were getting up to 200faxes per week. Every time they needed a voice, theywould have to trawl through these faxes to find outwhether or not the voice was available, and of coursethat availability would change so the producer wouldhave to telephone the voice artist too.So where does the Internet come in? I thought tomyself how much better it would be to go to a web siteand see the list of voices and whether or not they wereavailable on that day.At the time, only the really big companies could affordtheir own programmers to write specialist software likethis, so I began the idea using Microsoft Front Page.Each day around 50 voice artists would email me and Iwould update the site. Phew, hard work! Also, if I put'no' instead of 'yes' for their availability I was inbig trouble! A few voices did ask whether they couldupdate their own pages, but it wasn't possible unless Iinvested around $30,000 in software development.Eventually, about 9 months ago, I finally managed tofind and adapt some web-based software that allowed allthe voice-overs to log in, and change their owndetails. There are currently around 35 voice-overs onthe site and around 100-150 producers access it on adaily basis.http://www.powercomm.co.uk/isdnThe key is not massive amounts of traffic; it's findingand filling a niche. The site is paid for by thevoices, it generates around $15,000 per year. That maynot sound like much but consider that it's renewable,regular income, and I don't have any ongoing labor: thevoices do all the work!BizE-zine: You got started by selling yourself and yourcolleagues, but what happened next?PT: Next I did what everyone seems to do - I tried tosell other people's products.I followed all the strategies for advertising andpromotion but saw that there were many more people whowere better at it than me and had more patience. So,after about three months, (I have no patience at all!),I decided to take the other route, produce my ownproduct and let the good marketers sell it.I just kept seeing the same products being sold overand over again, and it was always the marketers withthe best mailing lists (their own opt-in lists) whosucked up all the sales because they had alreadyestablished themselves. You really have to hand it tothose marketers who push stuff day after day and nevergive up.BizE-zine: Let's get philosophical for a moment. Youalready had a successful offline business - what needdid Internet marketing fulfill in your life?PT: I was attracted to the Internet mainly because Icould see the potential audience and the ability itgave you to work at your own pace, at times that suitedyou.I had always envied writers (novel & song) who couldlive anywhere, and, if they were successful, live offroyalties.Yet, I could see that for every successful novel andsongwriter there were thousands of others who weren't.In large part s seemed to be because other peoplecontrol their destiny. If your face doesn't fit, youhave no chance.The Internet creates a level playing field; you get achance to let the buying public decide whether or notthey like you.I love the "unknown territory" of the Internet, it'srelatively inexpensive to test and you get results,good or bad within hours.BizE-zine: You are very much a 'have a go' person,Peter. What checks and balances do you apply to yourideas prior to jumping in?PT: Whatever project I've thought up, I always like tolook at the end result and then work out how to getthere. If you analyzed any new venture and all thethings that could go wrong, you would never beginanything!BizE-zine: So how did your business develop?PT: I thought this web-based stuff was really somethingso I looked for other niches that would benefit and Ithought of auto dealers, real estate businesses andtravel agents. I have started off with auto dealers andhave begun selling sites like the one here:http://www.hendymotorsales.co.ukAll these guys need is a digital camera and aconnection to the Internet and no specialized software.Because I have my own servers I make money by settingup domains and renting web space to people.BizE-zine: Then, as if you didn't have enough going on,you created your own info products to sell. How didthat come about?PT: I really like to help other people and have alwaysbeen a fan of Brian Tracy and Anthony Robbins who aregreat motivational speakers. I love listening again andagain to their tapes and CDs. To me it is better thanjust reading a book - I find it much more enjoyable.There are many ebooks available online, but all you cando is read them. So the first actual product Ideveloped was "The 7 Secrets Of Success". It's an ebookin PDF form, but it has links so you can listen to mereading too. I had a great response to this, especiallyas people in the USA loved my UK accent.BizE-zine: How did you go about promoting it?PT: You can have the greatest product in the world, butif nobody knows about it, you won't make any sales.By chance I received a mail shot about these guys inthe US who were really successful online, and had justpresented a seminar in Las Vegas. I bit the bullet andspend around $500 on the videotapes of the seminar, all30 of them!That really turned my head around to see how these guyswere finding the customers and leading them into theirwebsites and products and making sale after sale. I putmany of their strategies to use for the "7 Secrets" andthey worked.The best product I bought after seeing the tapes wasYanik Silver's '33 Days to Online Profits'. Ratherthan just present a pile of stuff in one go, it tookyou a day at a time through what you needed to do. Heeven chases you with reminder emails!People then started to ask me for advice on how to gettheir Internet businesses going and so I figured I'dwork smart and muster up all that experience fromradio, TV and the Internet. I decided to interview 10of the top online marketers.Obviously I started with the guys I'd seen on thevideos. First, Yanik Silver said 'yes'. Then Icontacted Jonathan Mizel and so on. I set up telephoneinterviews with them all, transcribed them (nearly 200pages in the end) and converted them into streamingaudio for Real Player and Windows Media Player. Therewere many frustrations and heartaches along the way,not to mention numerous technical failures, but becauseI had committed myself big time to all these gurusthere was no way I could stop.BizE-zine: How much of your income is now derived fromthe Internet?PT: About 40% at the moment.BizE-zine: Is that fairly stable, or have youexperienced any slowdown online?PT: There has been a bit of a reduction in my voice-over work recently because of the recession inadvertising. But online, I haven't found a problem.BizE-zine: It is clear that you believe in investing inyourself, from all the tapes and books that you buy.What was it about these books that lit your fuse?PT: What really lit my fuse about the books I read wasthat they were real people talking about the challengesthey faced and setbacks they overcame. I always used tothink that people were successful because of theireducation, amount of money or talent. None of it istrue. Anyone can be successful; you just have to followa certain set of rules just like an instructionbooklet. Just follow other successful people and copywhat they do.BizE-zine: What is your favorite way of generatingtraffic?PT: Just to connect with people. I spend lots of timesending personalized emails to other successfulmarketers. I participate in discussion forums and justoffer help whenever I can.BizE-zine: Do you worry about making mistakes?PT: I have made thousands of mistakes over the years,but if you analyze them and don't repeat them, they canhelp. I've learned to keep all those boring things likeaccounting up to date, to pay attention to details anddouble check when people say it's no problem. You haveto take total responsibility for yourself.BizE-zine: What software do you use to help you runyour business?PT: Although I have swapped from one to another I wouldsay that I couldn't be without good autoresponder andmailing list software. I prefer web-based systems sothey don't tie up your own computer. Also you canaccess them from anywhere.BizE-zine: What is next for Peter Twist online?PT: The great thing about the Internet is that yourbusiness can expand whether you like it or not. By thatI mean new people are always finding out about you andputting links into your site, so it grows on it's own.I would like to develop a few more products and expandin that way.I'd be daft to try to re-invent the wheel, so how aboutanother book interviewing Internet experts? When areyou free Martin?A lot of books you read waffle on for page after page,I want to write one called "The Smallest Ebook in TheWorld" It will be one page with a list of what you needto do to succeed online. Watch this space...BizE-zine: I don't know if you are joking or not! Whatadvice would you give to someone who is just planningto start out?PT: Read as much material as possible from people whoare doing right now what you want to do. Then whenthings get tough, you can focus on them. Don't be aperfectionist, just take action, but learn quickly fromyour mistakes. Write down in great detail exactly whatyou want - down to how much you'll earn. Even moreimportantly, write down what you will do with themoney. Look to earning a good monthly income ratherthan $1 million.If anyone is thinking of writing a book now, you justhave to get on and do it. Write it with something likeMicrosoft Word, which has a spell checker. Don't gethung up about security and passwords, if people aregoing to copy and steal it that may be a good thingbecause it gets your name around! Try to get people tosend you their email address, offer them a free gift,or updates to your book - that way you can build up youlist and when your next book comes out they'll buythat.I have looked at all the formats and personally preferbooks that can be read with Adobe Acrobat. Then, peoplewith Apple Macs as well as PCs can read it and it looksprofessional. To collect the money, just use Clickbank.They process the credit card payments and pay you themoney, and, others can sell your book through them too.The most useful piece of advice that I have ever seenis to start building your own "opt-in" list. These arepeople who have seen information about you or your website and have then given you their email addressbecause they would like more information. It's up toyou to then develop a relationship with them so theybegin to see that the information you are sharing isuseful to them.I would say to anyone starting out, just get your handson as much material as you can and start learning.Choose a good mentor, someone who you can see is doingwhat they say, but also get online yourself and startmaking mistakes. It's the only way to learn.Peter Twist is the author of "The 7 Secrets Of Success"and "Success Internet Interviews, more info athttp://www.internetsuccessinterviews.com Article Tags: Peter Twist