Today I have a very special treat for you. Have you heard of Cameron Johnson? I expect so, but if you have not then quickly read this short extract from his website.

At the age of 23, Cameron has founded and sold more than a dozen successful businesses and has been featured in more than 250 media outlets worldwide including Newsweek, BusinessWeek, the New York Times, USA Today, CNBC, ABC, and MSNBC. He’s served as a consultant to several Fortune 500 companies and is a frequent speaker to a wide-range of audiences including corporate audiences, entrepreneurial boot camps, and even high schools and colleges.

Firstly, could you please tell us about yourself?

My name is Cameron Johnson, I’m 24 – started my first business 15 years ago and now spend the majority of my time consulting, speaking, and writing books.

Why, and how, did you start your career?

I was always interested in entrepreneurship and being able to create my own lifestyle. I started when I was 9 and all of my businesses (12 of them) have been created for fun – and for my passion – not for profit.

Who/what is your greatest inspiration in business and life in general?

I always looked up to idols such as Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, and others.

Most people at the age of 9 play computer games. You have a quotation on your website saying “[Business] was just something I did after I got my first computer” Could you please tell us what you did when you first got your computer?

Sure, I always enjoyed using the computer as the vehicle that enabled me to reach a mass audience (via the web) and to start my business with very little capital. I began by printing greeting cards, stationary, business cards, etc.

How would you describe your lifestyle?

Today, I spend a lot of my time on the road. I travel over 100k miles per year and speak to audiences all around the world. I currently live in LA but am from the east coast.

Many people, including myself, have always had dreams of writing a book. How did you go about making your two books?

My first book was published in Japan in 2000. It was released thanks to the massive media attention I received at that time and it was quite successful. M y most recent book here was released in January, 2007 and focuses on my companies that I started growing up and the lessons I learned along the way. After finding a fantastic writer to help me put together my thoughts, we partnered with a brilliant business book agent and the rest is history…

You have been on TV and in the newspapers many times, how did you get your first piece of publicly and how did it make you feel?

Publicity is a great thing. It costs nothing, it gives you instant credibility, and its free advertising for your business. My first publication was when I was 10 years old. It felt great because it was free advertising and helped the company grow.

When you are speaking at public events, what do you speak about? You are a very motivational and inspirational public figure, I have heard many people call you an “International Superstar”, have you always been able to speak publicly or was it something you learnt?

It was, by far, something I learned. Actually, something I stumbled upon. I was working in Japan when I was 15 and I was asked to start giving public speaking engagements but they were quite easy as I, obviously, didn’t know anyone in the audience. Today, I enjoy it because I enjoy seeing and hearing the reactions of the audience.

What do you believe has made you such a successful person?

Well I think that’s a matter of definition and to me, I’m more focused on what I need to do moving forward and less on what I’ve done in the past. I have plenty of friends and mentors who are much more successful than myself.

Have you ever had times where you thought yourself or your business as a “failure”? If so how did you stop feeling like it? If not how do you keep yourself so optimistic?

Sure. Failures are necessary, you learn from your mistakes and you can hopefully fix them in the future. For me, there are several businesses that I would probably consider a failure (internally). Externally, however, many people considered those businesses a success as they were profitable and maybe generated media attention. For me, it’s about the bigger picture and that’s what I’m focused on today.

What advice would you give to somebody wanting to start their first business?

To put yourself out there and take the first step. Everyone has an idea. Plenty of people have a great idea. But what differentiates yourself is taking the first step and getting started. It’s that easy.

What was the best advice you have ever been given?

For me, I’ve found that the most successful people are always willing to give back the most. So with that being said, I’ve been very fortunate to have plenty of great mentors and receive lots of great advice. If I could pass anything on, it’d be to think small and focus on your business model.

If you could go back and change one thing in your past, what would it be?

Nothing -

What plans do you have the future?

Lots -

If there was just one thing that you would like people to remember about you, what would it be?

I think that’s probably up to them but that I was focused on spreading the word of entrepreneurship and doing what I love.

I am sure you have all heard of Cameron but his story really is inspirational every time I hear/read about it. Do you know of any other inspirational people? Let me know about them and I shall try to arrange an interview!

Thank you for reading this,

Shane

Are you a creative person? You probably are. Almost all aspects of life need an element of creativity, here are a few activities that you may encounter in your daily life.

• Cooking
• Writing a letter
• Greeting people
• Creating a schedule
• Exercise

This list has probably confused you, how could any of those possibly need creativity? They do. When you cook you may want to add an ingredient, such as herbs or spices, that is not in a common recipe book so that the food tastes more enjoyable. Whilst writing a letter you need to choose what content will be in it, some people do not write as creativity as others but everybody uses some of their creative juices. If you greet people often then you are sure to be very bored of words such as “Hello”, because of this a lot of people tend to vary the words they use by using “Howdy” or “Good Morning”. When you schedule your day do you try to do the same thing at the same time every day? Some people like to but others, I am one of them, prefer making everyday completely random. Lastly, how could you make exercise to be a creative activity? Try varying your daily exercise by perhaps one day cycling and the next day try jogging.

As you can see, even the simplest of common tasks all potentially can use our creativity and reduce our boredom. You are probably wondering why I am telling you all of this. Well, similarly to the post I wrote about mind games, by changing our daily routines and adding creativity to them it gets our mind working much more quickly. Also, it can help to make daily tasks much more interesting and exciting.

Quite often when I write posts for you all to read, I hop onto Art Rage for a while before I write it. This is because it gets my creative juices flowing and allows me to write much much more interesting posts, I hope! Here is an example of what I did on Art Rage before writing this post and a video of the basic methods I use.

More often than not, I create abstract pictures as they do not focus on any particular object. I very rarely write about the picture I create, I use them for inspiration and to freshen my mind. I am very apt with Photoshop, which is a much more advanced art tool, but I do not use it for this purpose because it is so complex and makes me focus more on painting an object rather than just splashing about colour on an empty canvas.

I would like you to go away and try adding some more creativity to simple tasks such as those I mentioned above. Please share with us through the comments what you did to add creativity and how it helped you. If you are a blogger or do some other sort of writing, perhaps poetry, then please try using Art Rage or a similar program and let me know how you got on!

Thank you,

Shane

No matter what your job is, if you blog or if you promote affiliate links, you will always need to be marketing and advertising. Today you will see some of the strangest and most abnormal marketing techniques, commonly called Guerrilla Marketing, that I have been able to find. I could have done a top 100 very easily but I would like to show you these and to see what you can come up with. I have been thinking about this for quite a while but I decided to post it today because the ProBlogger challenge today is to write a list. What perfect timing!

1. Panasonic Vertical Tennis

   This is one very crazy marketing idea. Vertical Tennis! Watch this video and you will see why I think it is so amazing.

2. Graffiti WonderlandI do not have any examples, please tell me if you do, of where graffiti has been used for marketing purposes. However I do have examples of amazing art that would certainly have give the artists some publicity!
3. Dean Hunt and His Killer Bunnies You may have heard of Dean, I certainly have. This guy charges $1 million for reviews, “6 million RSS subscribers” and his website is run by killer bunnies! Why? Because he is a marketing extraordinaire. What is easier to remember: “Dean Hunt the marketing guru” or “Dean Hunt the guy with the bunnies”? This is a really good example of how to market yourself or product in a way that people will remember but without spending a penny.
4. Goodwood Festival of SpeedThis is an event that I go to most years, as it is just down the road. Every year they have a massive statue that changes each year. You can see a few examples below. I believe that this is a very good marketing strategy as different companies sponsor, perhaps even make, the statue so they always try to compete with the one made the year before.

What is the best marketing stunt that you have seen? One day I would love to try something like this, perhaps even for Success Circuit. Please let me know what you think!

Also, for those of you wondering which elevator pitch I choose… I didn’t. I have decided to keep my tagline, “Inspiring your Success”, and improvise depending on who I am speaking to. Remember, everybody is different.

Thank you,

Shane

I expect you have noticed that I have not posted very much at all lately. This is because I am getting very close to my final weeks of school, so all of the work is getting very stressful. So I have decided that I need to develop my inner self, including stress levels and my opinions of myself, as that is vital to how I am with other people and how I appear to them.

One of the ways I have decided to go about this is by doing the ProBlogger 31 challenge which started today. You may think it a bit strange to improve stress by doing more work? It makes perfect sense, to me, because if my blog is better than it helps you more and helping other people always makes me feel much more determined and motivated. So this month I will be writing about the daily events that I, and thousands of others, shall be participating in. Of course I shall be adding other posts as well.

Today’s activity was to create an “elevator pitch”. The first thing I had to do was work out what that meant. Luckily, Darren Rowse included an extract of Wikipedia’s definition.

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).”

Wikipedia – Elevator Pitch

He also included reasons for writing a pitch.

• Your blogs tag line – having a short, sharp and descriptive ‘tag line’ for your blog can be a powerful technique for quickly communicating to new readers to your blog what it is all about. Readers who don’t get a sense for what your blog is about are in danger of leaving quickly – so a tagline that is displayed prominently on your blog can be a great way to hook them in.
• Your about page - the about page of a blog (if you have one) is one of the most read pages of a blog by first time visitors. It is an ideal place to communicate what you’re about and to ’sell’ to potential readers why they should subscribe and come back.
• Real Life Conversation – whether it be at a conference, in business interactions or just in everyday conversation, the topic of your blog is likely to come up from time to time and these interactions can be an ideal moment to pull out the elevator pitch to describe what your blog is about.
• Business Cards – I get a lot of business cards given to me at conferences and to be honest at the end of the day I can’t remember who gave me most of them. Adding an elevator pitch to a card can help trigger who you are and what you do in the mind of those you chat with at these busy types of events.
• Pitching to Media – One of the things I’ve noticed about many journalists is that they’re very busy people who are constantly being pitched with ideas for stories. Having a thought through and effective ‘pitch’ can help you get noticed and give a journalist a reason to listen to what you’ve got to say.
• Pitching to Other Bloggers – Similarly, I find that if I’m being ‘pitched’ to as a blogger that I take more notice if the person pitching to me gives me a brief insight into who they are and what they do.
• Email Signature – many people have links to their blogs in their emails, but a link can be somewhat meaningless on its own. Why not add your elevator pitch? Similarly signatures in forums can be a good place to have a short description of what you do to motivate people to check you out further.
• Social Media Profiles – the same thing goes for all those social media profiles that you have. Why not use them to not only point people to your blog but to give them a reason to go there!

I believe that another reason is developing what I was talking about earlier, your inner self. If you do not truly know and believe what you or your blog (or any other product) is about then you will not be able to make others understand it.

So now I understood the reasons why to make one… how do I go about making one? I searched the internet and found many pages such as this one and this one. I already have a tag line so I decided to work on making a longer pitch which is more detailed.

The first website that I showed you has the following information:

1. What is your product or service?
   Briefly describe what it is you sell.  Do not go into excruciating detail.
2. Who is your market?
   Briefly discuss who you are selling the product or service to.  What industry is it?  How large of a market do they represent?
3. What is your revenue model?
   More simply, how do you expect to make money?
4. Who is behind the company?
   “Bet on the jockey, not the horse” is a familiar saying among Investors. Tell them a little about you and your team’s background and achievements. If you have a strong advisory board, tell them who they are and what they have accomplished.
5. Who is your competition?
   Don’t have any?  Think again.  Briefly discuss who they are and what they have accomplished.  Successful competition is an advantage-they are proof your business model and/or concept work.
6. What is your competitive advantage?
   Simply being in an industry with successful competitors is not enough. You need to effectively communicate how your company is different and why you have an advantage over the competition.  A better distribution channel?  Key partners?  Proprietary technology?

Business Know How

Even after knowing what I need to have in my pitch, I could not decide on one! I shall list a few of the ones I considered. Please let me know your opinions!

1. Learn from other people’s mistakes so you don’t make them!
2. Many people’s lives go around in circles, Success Circuit teaches you how to break through the circle and enjoy life.
3. Success Circuit interviews the experienced, the inexperienced, the rich and the famous. We have all made many mistakes, learn from other’s mistakes so you don’t make them.
4. Success is gained one step at a time and we help you along the path. By interviewing successful business and sharing our insight on entrepreneurship.
5. Success is gained one step at a time and we help you along the path to success
6. Do you want to be successful? We help you define the meaning of success. We show you were other people have made mistakes so you don’t have to make them.

By tomorrow I shall have to choose one, so please let me know your opinions and have your input into the running of Success Circuit.

Thank you,

Shane

It is all over. There was not as many participators as expected so if you did try, there is a higher chance of you winning! Before I tell you the winners, I would like to remind you that both the Twitter and the Email Subscription contests were done using Random.org. So… without further ado… here are the winners!

1. Roland (22)
2. Scott :: IrnMedia.net (11)
3. Web Design Manchester (5)

As you can see, Roland won the comments contest by doubling Scott’s comment amount! He has won a  Custom WordPress Theme that has been made and donated by Salwa. He has also won a review that will be published on Success Circuit very soon.

Scott and Matthew (Web Design Manchester) have also won prizes! Scott came second so he wins the second, and last, review that will be featured on Success Circuit. Matthew has won 750 Entrecard Points that were donated by BloggerStop.net.

For the Twitter contest our winner is…

@balajil!!

I envy Balaji, by winning the Twitter contest it makes sense that he should win Twitter Power which has generously been donated by it’s author, Joel Comm.

Our last winner is that of the Email Subscriptions (and people that use RSS that told me)…

Sophie Marston!!

Sophie is very lucky as she has won our last big prize… a Consultation with Lisa Torres, donated by Lisa herself. She has an amazing store of knowledge, so anybody that gets a chance should pick at her brain as much as possible!

I hope everybody enjoyed the contest, please remember that I do not hold any responsibility for the delivery of these prizes. Congratulations to everybody!

Thank you for taking part,

Shane