Hello everybody,

As you should know by now, our contest is starting tomorrow. So that I have more time to prepare for the contest, I would like to show you some interviews hosted by Michael Dunlop, rather than myself. I shall choose my favourite question from each interview and link you to it afterwards.

Bruce Livingstone
Bruce is the founder of iStockphoto, the world’s biggest FREE image and stock website on the Internet. Back in 2006 Bruce sold iStockphoto for $50 million to Getty Images and has since stayed on as the CEO and in this interview he shares his top tips and lets us know how he has built up iStockphoto to such a high level.

4) Since launching iStockphoto it has gone from strength to strength and has just been getting more popular everyday, what advice would you a young entrepreneur promoting their website? What has been the single biggest impact on your business with marketing?

Communicate openly, honestly and quickly with key stakeholders, media and with internal staff. Find your audience and make it meaningful. Constant innovation and progress is crucial. Find an evangelist. Get someone to help you promote your web site and get great press about it. Keyword optimization and buying adwords have had the most impact on iStock.

Interview with Bruce Livingstone

Michael Jenkins
Michael Jenkins runs one of the biggest affiliate networks on the net, in just over a year you have seen it boom into a power house for affiliate marketers and read multiple success story’s from it. In this interview Michael shares his top tips for making money online with Affiliate Marketing and gives us the scoop on what’s next for Market Leverage!

What were your original goals for MarketLeverage.com ?

I started and still own a company called PrecisionPlay Media.  PrecisionPlay is more of an online advertising agency and media buying company.

When we started MarketLeverage, essentially we automated a lot of what media buying was to PrecisionPlay Media.  PrecisionPlay Media would have a group customers and a group of publishers; we would make phone calls, handle legal agreements, build creative, and manage the technology to get those two parties to work together.

When it became clear to us that there were platforms out there that would allow us to automate that process, which is what affiliate marketing networks do, we realized that we needed to get involved in that. That is our principal reason for starting MarketLeverage.

Interview with Michael Jenkins

David Leggett
David is a 20 year old blogger who in the last 6 months has shown he’s definitely got what it takes to dominate a niche. Since launching his site a few months ago he has the rank of top young blogger on Retireat21 and has reached nearly 9000 RSS readers! This interview offers some great advice for bloggers young or old!

1) Tell us about your main project, Tutorial9 ? Why did you launch Tutorial9 ? Where are you at now with Tutorial9 ?

Tutorial9 is the worlds most popular, most free Photoshop Tutorial site for beginners and professionals. We do not however only write about Photoshop We’re slowly expanding into offering Photography, Web, and other Design lessons as well as offering quite a few free resources for designers along the way.

I launched Tutorial9 back in May of 2008 after 6 months of planning and preparing. I really enjoy teaching, and helping others (as well as learning), and It is my hope to transform Tutorial9 into a universal tutorial site for everything from design to flying a kite… to create a “Tutorial Bliss” if you will. For the time being, I use it to focus on my primary interest which is visual and web design.

At this point Tutorial9 has nearly 10,000 Subscribed readers, functions as one of my full-time jobs, and brings me great joy as I get to speak with so many interesting people in the industry.

I hope you found those interviews interesting, I certianly did! Make sure you check out Retire at 21 and keep track of it’s interviews.

Shane

Hello, I have always stressed that just one review has almost unlimited potential. Today I am going to share some tips with you that will help you with using reviews to achieve full potential. Many people think that reviews are only good for SEO and getting visitors. Whilst this is true, the best opportunity that reviews give you are the areas that need to be improved upon for your website or product (for this post we shall speak about Website Reviews but of course it can relate to anything).

1. Opinions – It is always good to know what people think of your website. I have noticed that many people seem to get very upset, perhaps even depressed, when somebody does not like what they are doing on their website. I believe that it is important to listen to these people, but instead of "taking it to heart" what we should all do is think about how you could improve your website.
2. Advice – This is not the same as opinions. Advice is when the person reviewing your website lets you know how to improve your website, or perhaps your writing style. Usually their advice is good advice, but you must remember that if one person says it should be changed, that does not mean it must. A good idea might be to ask people on your blog, or twitter, what they think of the reviewer’s idea.
3. SEO – Many people think this is the sole purpose of reviews. It is not, but that does not mean it is not a valid reason for being reviewed. Reviews give very solid backlinks to your website. Just make sure you remember that this is not the only advantage of being reviewed.
4. Visitors – SEO is all well and good in the long run, as it helps with being found on search engines, but what is more important is the visitors. Here at Success Circuit, you (the reader) comes first. So reviews are a very good way of gaining new loyal visitors as rather than just advertising, reviews allows for new people to become interested in your website.

What do you think about reviews? I believe that they are the best choice possible for advertising, as it is not “fake traffic”. Please share your opinions.

Thank you,

Shane

You have probably noticed by now that we now have ad spaces in the sidebar. This is something I promised myself, and you, that I would not do. As we all know, there is a fairly big recession going on at the moment and we are all looking for was to make money. Now, you may be thinking that if there is a recession going on then you cannot afford to lose money. You are correct. That is why I shall help you profit!

What we are going to do is take a look at how ads can help everybody.

• Value – As the site is ever growing, we are currently at a low amount of visitors compared to what is to be expected in the following months. This sounds bad, doesn’t it? It is actually very good for you because it means that it is cheap! As the traffic increases, so does the prices. As a incentive for you, instead of only getting a small amount of traffic for a small amount of money, opposed to a large amount of traffic for a large amount of money. What I am giving you is the chance to ask for help at any time. I am thinking about writing an e-book just for advertisers about how to use it to it’s potential.
• Brand perception – I have written about branding before. Basically, it is about getting out there and being known. If you have an ad with a black background and white basic text, it is not very good branding. If you include your logo or mascot, you will be more well known even if they do not click the link.
• References – Most people accept all ads, no matter what they are. I will not. I will only accept if I think the website is of high enough quality for my readers. I am not greedy, I will not link to a really bad website just because I get paid. No. So, this is good for you as a ready because it shows websites that you may have not seen before. This also means more traffic for the lucky people that are accepted.
• Change – This is not an important point, but it is valid nonetheless. It is common for advertisers to only buy one month and then the rest of the adverts are filled up for the next month, so they are not able to buy again. This means there is a change! Before the ads there was nothing different on the sidebar, so it got boring to look at. Hopefully the advertisers will have stunning ads which will add to the look of this blog!

Remember, Advertising is part of the content! So I will only allow adverts that everybody will like, because otherwise it degrades the the value (not money but personal worth) of the blog and it’s content.

I believe the answer to the title is no, advertisements can be very useful even to the reader! If you would now like to buy an ad then contact me. Also remember, we also write very in-depth reviews for you. The reviews will need another post, which will probably be published tomorrow. This will be a trial until all advertising ends, I will then decide whether it should be kept or not.

Thank you,

Shane

The Tweetathon last thursday, hosted by Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson, was really inspirational. Not just because of what they did for Water Is Life, though that too is very inspirational, but because they were able to do it. So, lets take a look at how they were able to do this.

Twitter

Well as it was a “Tweetathon” it makes sense to start at Twitter! What is Twitter? Well, Twitter is a social network but more specifically it is a micro-blogging website. This means we are able to send short messages (140 characters is the maximum) to anyone that is following our tweets. Sure, we now know what Twitter is… but how could it possibly be used to save thousands of children’s lives?

The answer is simple. They used their initiative!

It is commonly known that Twitter does not have many features that other Social Networks may have, but does that mean they are not able to use those features? Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson did not let this get in they way, they thought to use another platform at the same time!

UStream

UStream is a very useful website, as it allows live streaming of video! This is something I have not yet done myself, though I have watched many shows on it. Their team, including their technical people who do not get enough credit, made a website on Tweetathon2009.com which embedded the Ustream feed. This meant that they were able to create a wonderful website that even had twitter features built into it.

Tweeple

Tweeple is what the users of twitter are commonly called. You might be thinking, what do the users of Twitter have to do with such a powerful video? Well, think again! How could the event be publicised quickly? Ah, now you get it don’t you? Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson are very powerful people on twitter, because they have a lot of followers. Their followers have a lot of followers too. So it should have been obvious that to publitise an event like this all you need is people to “Re-Tweet”?  Maybe now this has been done once, many people will start taking control of Twitter in a way that could perhaps help the world’s economy massively.

The power of Social Media can probably only be told by Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson as they, and their team, set it up and really used Social Media to the top of it’s potential. So if either of you are reading this, please comment!

Thank you for reading and make sure you have input by commenting or perhaps tweeting about it!

Shane

Hello everybody,

Do you like to watch videos? Well it is getting near the end of our 10 weekly editions! So today I would like you to think about the videos you watch, why do you watch them?

• Who do you like to watch on videos? Perhaps tell us why? Maybe you like their personality, or their knowledge.
• What genre do you watch? Lately I have been watching a lot about Social Media and how to use networks such as Twitter.
• Where do you find out about it? Maybe you watched it on TV once or a friend told you about it?
• When do you watch videos? Sometimes people like to watch videos really late at night, is this a good idea? Tell me your opinions!
• Why? You know what to do! Why do you watch videos? Why do you watch them at the time that you do?

As you can see, the “5 W’s” that we get taught during the early years of school are very useful! Think about them carefully, and please answer if you have the time. This is a very short post as I would like to see what you like to watch and share loads of videos with you next week!

What video would you recommend to share on here?

Please comment, I would really like to make a good post next week!

Thank you,

Shane

In this post, Roland from In Business shares some valuable advice about how simple marketing can be.

Many times you hear people in business talking about how they are looking for new ideas on generating more business. They will talk about advertising campaigns both on and off line, promotional leaflets, customer vouchers and so on.

All of these different methods are of course valid and have their place. There is one very simple tool that they often overlook. It is something that everyone in business should have and indeed anyone dealing with customers directly ought to be issued with.

What is it?

It is the business card!

Really? I hear you ask. Indeed it is!

Over many years in business I have made sure that I have given out my business card to my customers as often as possible. People will generally keep business cards and will therefore be more likely to remember you when they require your product or service.

Another great advantage that your business will give is that when customers are satisfied they will likely recommend you to their friends and family members. If they have your card they can hand this out with the recommendation. This is much better than simply a verbal only recommendation because people are likely to forget what they have been told and to whom they were recommended.

I have had many new clients from such referrals and one of the first things they often say is “I have been given your business card”.

It is important that the business cards that you use are of good quality and reflect the trade that you are in. Quality business cards are no longer expensive and to have several thousand printed is not going to break the bank. There are many good online printers such as www.vistaprint.com where there are already hundreds of suitable templates to choose from or indeed you can design your own.

To make sure that your customers have business cards in their possession in order to be able to pass them on to others I recommend that every time you send out information to them, and it is a great idea to send newsletters, make sure you enclose several business cards. I always think that 3 is a good number. 1 or 2 seems mean and 4 may be cheeky! It works for me!

Using business cards will work for all types of business and this simple little tool will handsomely pay for itself over and aver again.

Roland Millward is a mortgage broker based in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. He blogs about business at In Business which is one blog you should check regulary! He has written a guest post before called Beat The Recession and has also been interviewed, so make sure you read that too!

Hello,

These weeks have been getting quicker and quicker!

Success Circuit’s Posts

Monday Should We Be Writing Guest Posts For Anyone Who Asks?

Tuesday What can I Watch? Edition 7

Wednesday The Recession in Pictures

Thursday Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Friday When I Grow Up

Saturday Do Interviews Really Help?

Posts from Elsewhere

Monday FiveStarHonolulu.Com – Internet Marketing Tips – Traffic Building 101

Tuesday UdaySutaria.Wordpress.Com – How to Start Up A Conversation

Wednesday LifeOfPookah.Com – Core Values – Respect Yourself

Thursday HomePartyPlanSuccessTips.Com - Party Plan Marketing Success Story: An Interview With Tracey Edwards

Firday Brookaam.BlogStream.Com – Life Mapping: A Vision of Success

Saturday MarketingWarriorPro.Com – Basic Of Home Based Business For Newbies

Sunday ProBlogger.Net – Smart Article Marketing For Fast AND Long Term Blog Traffic

I am in the middle of planning changes. Please let me know what you would like to see! Some ideas I have include changing the weekly video posts after Week 10 to another 10 week series and changing this post to something more useful or imformative.

Please give me ideas!
Thank you

Shane

Every Saturday so far we have shared an interview with you. This week I would like to take a break from the interviews and ponder about whether they help. Rather than just focusing on one party, I am going to see whether it helps the readers and the interviewees.

How could an interview help the reader?

• Motivation – By reading interviews about people’s successes it can comfort the reader if they are having troubles, and make them motivated to try harder and succeed.
• Inspiration – Many people are inspired by interviews they read, sometimes this can include actual life changing decisions such as moving house or changing job. It is good to be inspired as it makes you feel like you can do so much more with your life, and usually this is true.
• Knowledge – If somebody is being interviewed, it is normally because they have learned something through experience that is worth sharing with the world. So instead of just reading an interview and moving on, think about what you can learn from each interview. Many people say “Learn from your own mistakes” but I do not see why there is a problem with “Learning from other peoples mistakes“.
• Explore the Web – Many of the interviews I have read elsewhere have made me want to speak to the interviewee myself, this is where social networking is very useful. Not only is it good for meeting new people, it is also good for knowing about more websites. For example, the interviewee might be a hosting company which gives much better deals than your own. Interviews generally are good at seeing which websites are worth visiting.
• Crawl around in their skin – Reading interviews is a great way of understanding other people’s viewpoints about a subject. Surely it is better to understand different viewpoints than be biased? Understanding other’s beliefs does not mean you have to agree.
• Reality - Interviews are indeed very good for motivating and inspiring but they are also very good at telling the truth. This means you are able to understand how hard it is to be as successful as the interviewee is. For example, most people think that being successful in blogging is simple but it actually take a lot of hard work every day. Instead of being put off by the reality, think about how you could go about making the time to be successful.

How could an interview help the interviewee?

• Motivation – A lot of very successful people struggle to see their success. By being interviewed, it can motivate the interviewee to carry on as they are and proves to their self that they are doing well. This can also help with pride, which is something that most people think is bad… it can actually be a very good trait in some people.
• Helping – Almost everybody likes to help people. A lot of people seem to think the only way to help is to donate money, this is not true! If you give somebody a tiny piece of really good advice, it has the potential of helping them far more than any amount of money can.
• Free Publicity – This is one of the factors that a lot interviewees like the most but some people do not seem to realise that a quick interview could help their SEO massively. It is also a very good way (as I said above) of making readers realise that your site is a good place to go to. This often means more customers.
• Self-Actualisation – This is the last stage of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and is linked to motivation. Answering interview questions is a really good way of understanding yourself, similar to diary, as it allows you to write about yourself and can often show that you know a lot more than you are aware of. If you allow yourself to have a little bit of pride then it will help your Self-Actualisation and will let you feel very good.

You should now have a good understanding of how interviews help everybody. Please let me know (by commenting) how they help you and your beliefs about interviews. Also contact me if you are interested in being interviewed. Remember, interviews are not only for famous people! If you are a start up, or even just have an idea, then you can probably give a better interview as you are going through all the problems right now. There will be problems, there always is, you just need to learn how to succeed from them.

Thank you,

Shane

Was you watching the Tweetathon 2009 last night? I was! If you were there you would have heard Joel Comm speak to Gary Vaynerchuk saying something like “Shane Hudson wants to be like you when he grows up.” This is true, he is my role model, however I have been thinking about the “when he grows up.”

Why do I have to wait? I am a very ambitious person, but I always want things done straight away. This is no different, why should I wait until I grow up to be inspirational, motivational and influencial. Wait a second… that is what the idea of this site is, to inspire and motivate people to succeed! So does that mean I am already at Gary’s level? Of course not, but it is a start.

The second thing I thought of is: “Does this mean I am not allowed to be myself?” No it doesn’t. When I first saw one of Gary’s videos, the first thing I though was “Wow, his beliefs are almost identical to my own.” So that means I was already heading this route, even before I heard of him. So instead of following his every move, I am just very inspired but what he does.

Who Am I?

Today I have an exercise for you. Sometimes it helps to think about who we are, as well as who we want to be. So what we are both (me and you) are going to do is very simple… choose 3 words about what the people around us think of us now and 3 words about who we want to be. Here is my 6 words, please share yours!

Now: Friendly, Helpful and Honest

Who I want to be: Inspirational, Motivational and Trustworthy

Phew, that was hard! I could list thousands of words for who I want to be. My task for us both is to see how quickly we can become who we want to be. It sounds easy, will it be?

Thank you for taking part, please share your views,

Shane

Why do our needs matter? They matter because they define our ‘well-being’, if we have any problems such as depression then it will effect our performance ability in life and business. Now, you may be thinking “Why has this got anything to do with me” or “I am fine” but I believe it is important you understand our needs and well-being.

During the 20th centaury there was an American psychologist called Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) who dedicated much of his life to studying the needs of people. Rather than focusing on the mentally ill, which most psychologists before him did, he focused his study on realising how people had a positive mental health. This resulted in “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” which shows each step to well-being.

Stage 1 – Physiological

The first step to well-being is having the basic literal needs of survival. These are self-explanatory and include: Breathing, Homeostasis, Water, Sleep, Sex (personally I believe this should be on the third stage, but I am not a psychologist.), Food and Excretion. I really hope that as many people as possible, including those in the third world countries, are much higher than this stage of the hierarchy.

Stage 2 – Safety

Being safe is the next stage, and is one that has many different meanings. Firstly, for well-being it is vital that you personally feel safe. Some people suffer with paranoia, this means that they are probably “stuck” in this stage as they feel that their lives may be in danger. Another meaning of safety is to be financially stable which, especially during this dreaded recession, is a big problem for many people. Lastly, it is very important to be healthy and safe from disease because those that have health problems often are not able to advance to the next stage of well-being. It seems to me that a good definition of safety is “having your life under control”.

Stage 3 – Love and Belonging

I believe that this is the stage that most people have problems passing. In business, and this is true for general life as well, without the support of family and friends then it will be extremely hard to be successful. Everyone needs support, without it you will feel like you are on your own which will severely disrupt your work and may even lead to depression. I have found that many people feel better if someone talks to them, even strangers on the internet. Sometimes the best advice is from those that do not know you, as they have no judgement about you. Many people feel lonely, so even just a little support can go a very long way. I have always found that helping other people also helps me at the same time, as it gives a sense of achievement for being supportive.

Stage 4 – Esteem

I had to do some research for this one, the reason for this is that I have only ever heard the word used as “Self-Esteem”. It is actually quite surprising that this word is more often used to describe one’s “Self Esteem” as it should be used for others as well. Examples of this include respecting yourself and those around you. You must be respectful if you wish to be respected. It also includes confidence in yourself and others, as with respect it is vital to be confident in other people’s abilities. Lastly, it is important to be aware of your own achievements and the achievements of others, just complimenting them for what they have done will make you feel better about yourself.

Stage 5 – Self Actualisation

If you honestly are this far, then well done! Now you need to think about yourself. The first part of this is one that modern culture seems to be excessive about, aesthetics. It is very important that you feel good about what you look like. I do not mean what other people think about how you look, but how you feel about yourself. I personally am not into fashion, I just wear what is comfortable and I always make sure that my appearance is justified, for example today I wore a jumper because it was snowing but I would not wear one in the summer even if that was what everyone else was doing! Next, you must be aware of facts about yourself and not be ignorant of them or deny that they exist. Also it is very important that you lack prejudice, which means you must not pre-judge people before you get to know them. Remember, one’s appearance does not define one’s person.

Just so that you know, many people have said that this hierarchy is wrong and it is impossible rank any of the needs in an order. I am not trained in psychology but for this purpose I believe it is safe enough to use this theory as a guide for well-being.

Now you are familiar with the 5 stages of the Hierarchy of Needs, do you understand why I am telling you? Probably not. As I have already explained, the Hierarchy of Needs is a fairly solid foundation for building your well-being. Many of you will not understand what well-being has to do with how well you work. Basically, if you feel good about yourself then it will spread to the people you work with and everything you do will be of higher quality. This includes blogging, life and business.

I submitted this post as a guest post to ProBlogger.net and JohnChow.com, they both said that it was not focussed enough on their niche. That is fine, however I believe that the Hierarchy of Needs is very important to keep in the back of your mind as no matter what you are doing, your well-being affects it.

Thank you for reading this article, please share your thoughts!
Shane Hudson

Further Reading: As of 05/05/09 you can now find more  on this subject at A Psychologist’s Concept Of Learned Motives have fun!