[SYSOP]

I figured since I'm capturing some of my affiliates in here - It might be beneficial to everyone to also interview some publishers too... Well who better than the E4E man himself - Mr. Swerd.


Who the hell are ya? Where ya from, what kinda beer/drink do ya drink? and what's a random quirk you can say about yourself?

My name is Drew and I’m from Australia. I’m actually not a beer drinker but I love my rum & coke! We have a love hate relationship. I love it when I’m drinking it but hate it with a passion the next morning. Random quirk – I like vintage cheese.

This thing called marketing online... how the heck did you get started with all of this?

About 5 years ago I owned an import car forum and decided to put some adsense on it. I was over the moon when I had my first $1 day that I decided to look for other ways to make money online.

I then searched ebay for something about making money online. Then in one of the ads there was a link to ewealth.com. Not known to me at the time it was an affiliate link where ewealth would pay $2 per signup.

This is where I got involved in Clickbank. I think I started my first Clickbank account about 2.5 years ago now.

I understand you run ezcbcash.com - what is it basically?

This is basically my hub. All of my products are listed here with the affiliate material. Actually not ALL of them. I have had a few products that never really took off so I just don’t list them.

How the heck did you learn to do all that stuff?? Did you go to school for design or web or anything? Your stuff is great!

Trial and error + many hours taught me how to design websites. Google also taught me a lot. If I didn’t know something then I would Google it.

Cool, so what do you think are the most important things for affiliates to consider when promoting these clickbank or other online offers?

THE most important thing: For EVERY keyword group you target, put yourself in the shoes of the person your selling too. When I am setting up a PPC campaign I will actually pretend to be the customer. I will search google and run through the whole process until it is smooth and sells.

So my biggest tip: Become your customer!

I read over my sales pages about 100 times until I am sold on the product after searching from various keywords.

Do you eat Chicken McNuggets while you work? And are you ever late for work?

I think I am a little bit of a health freak. I stay away from bad food during the week. However the weekend I let loose with the drinking and fast food.

I think the question should be – Are you ever on-time for work?….Yes I am always late for work, seems to be a crash every day on the motorway!

I understand that you are pretty damn close to firing your boss!! How does that feel and what's it like??

I would say scary. I do like my day job, which is why I have not quit sooner. I’m actually doing this interview right now at my day job! It’s quite relaxing because we have our own deck that overlooks a park and I can leave the office whenever I like.

The reason why I would like to leave is to free up some time to get serious with my online business. At the moment I am not sleeping much due to work overload.

There is a lot of evil in this world that is much worse than your boss - if you could remove any evil from this world, what would you change? You're not allowed to answer with 'remove all the water4gas products'.

Hard question – Just so much evil. I’m going to take a break and come back……………. OK, just finished lunch. I could get serious and go into terrorists, rapists and murderers but wont. Evil = Calling your phone company, going through 5 mins of their voice recognition questions (with a bad cough) then getting sent to somebody in India. Then eventually them hanging up on you and having to do the whole damn thing again!

I see - ok so thinking downstream, other than hiring strippers and taking billionaire vacations on your big boat in the dominican... where do you see yourself in the years to come? What are your plans?

In 5 years I see water views, Lamborghini’s and my entourage. Will post pics soon

[SYSOP]

How do you feel about other publishers trying to zone in on your action? Do you find having some competition is actually helping you even though you were first to market with a lot of stuff?

I don’t mine competitors. What I do mind is out right stealing. I actually purchased a couple of the products that came out after E4E. One of them has actually copied my book word for word.

All my diagrams are copied and they have just taken out the part that says “copyright earth4energy”. This type of thing really annoys me because I put in many many hours of work and it takes them 20 seconds to steal it all and claim it as their own.

Just to wet their lips - what are your 5 favorite things about being a publisher?

1 –Helping affiliates go from $0 to $XXX+ per day.
2 - Designing the websites.
3 – Learning more about the product as I go.
4 – Connecting with customers.
5 – Ability to test different sales pages to increase conversions.


Now the reverse, what do you hate about being a publisher?? Don't lie - there must be something!

I don’t enjoy product theft from other publishers as stated above.

What are the three biggest mistakes you've ever made online?

I call them learning curves and without them I wouldn’t be where I am today. Some lessons I have learnt are:

1 – Don’t judge a campaign after 1 day. Let it go for atleast 2-4 weeks before you determine whether or its profitable or not.
2 – Don’t reinvent the wheel. Some things just work.
3 – Don’t launch a product prematurely.

What are the easiest ways to get yourself to googles front page in your opinion?

Build links slowly. Do not pay somebody to submit your site to hundreds of “high pr” directories. Build genuine links over time. Plus you must have unique content.

Seeing all that data back there as a publisher - what are some funny things you notice about the clickbank tracking or the way some affs promote? Got anyone sending you 129K hits with no conversions yet?

I have had some people send crap auto refresh type traffic and to be honest I don’t blame them. When I first started out I bought into that whole 1 Gazillion hits in 1 day type crap. It was a learning curve

Affiliates like when a publisher is active and available - do you think this has attributed to your success?

Definitely. I don’t know if its because I am young and still motivated but I enjoy helping affiliates.

If you could start all this stuff over again - what is the ONE thing you would do differently?

Nothing. I have made some errors but its all a learning experience.

Great - So now - you've got a few slamming products, probably more to come, you're banking big, you're about to quit your damn day job (please post in our success stories section the day you do), you probably got tha ladies sensing your success, what else would make your life more epic right now? Like imported wines and cheeses? Or just more strippers?

My own house would be good. I am planning to save the cash and buy one without the help of a bank loan. That would rock!

Thanks Swerd - If you don't mind - lastly - drop some respect to those around you that deserve it, from moms to your best affs to your local midnight drive-thru, or again just to the rippers clubs you vip at (haha).

+ respect to all my affiliates, Google and most importantly myself.


Awesome interview - thank you kindly mate and I'm looking forward to doing some surprise launches with you downstream. There is room for harmony and happiness even in this dog eat dog swerld... Cheers!

----------------------------------------------------

That's a mouthful of knowledge and experience coming from the hip of one of CB's biggest up and comers!

If you guys want to see someone big interviewed feel free to drop me a PM.

N.

[ashleybaker]

Great interview Always wanted to know a little bit more about Swerd!

You should let me interview you Norby

[JIMZ]

Originally Posted by NCmedia

I’m actually not a beer drinker but I love my rum & coke! We have a love hate relationship. I love it when I’m drinking it but hate it with a passion the next morning.

That is weird, I love Rum and Coke too. Must be something in it!

My favourite is Appleton Estate or Mount Gay if I can't get AE.

Nice to hear a bit more about you and what you are up to.

Jim

[inzpiration]

Ha! great interview Norb! thanks for sharing and thanks to Swerd to! It was nice to know a little bit more about him.

[bl4ckmaN^]

Cool. Was nice to find out some more about famous Swerd

I would like to know what happened to CENTEMAX guy from DP, who killed Clickbank with his "run your car on water" product

[mikey1090]

That was good to read. He's a clever guy, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of him around in the future.

[swerd]

Thanks for the comments

Some fun questions in there.

Also, when I say "Become the customer"... I really really meant it.

[Ganceann]

Originally Posted by swerd

Thanks for the comments

Some fun questions in there.

Also, when I say "Become the customer"... I really really meant it.

Becoming the customer is definately something most publishers/affiliates should think about as it gives them an insight into who they are targeting and makes it easier to get results.

[ashleybaker]

Lol i think he meant we should all buy his product/s

[swerd]

Originally Posted by ashleybaker

Lol i think he meant we should all buy his product/s

lol, no no..

[antantnz]

for some reason i never pictured swerd still working his day job ... don't know how he squeezes it all in, that's inspirational though ... time i stopped complaining about not enough hours in the day lol!!

awesome interview