What to do when interviewing or meeting someone Successful

First email/call anyone you're meeting in advance and ask them their expectations for the interview. This is also an excuse to get to know them to see if your personalities click. Ask them what they'd like you to ask even topic points and if they'd like to have any special accommodations in the interview or any type of questions/topics they like getting asked. (Make sure to keep this email or call short no longer than 30 seconds of reading.)

Then figure out how to blow their expectations out of the water. Ask great questions that show you actually read their stuff (read and everything about them). One of my favorite interviewers is Jake Hamilton check him out (he happens to interview movie stars and directors doing a great job):

Perhaps reach out to him and ask for tips?  Perfect excuse to do so. In fact reach out to everyone who is successful and use any opportunity as an excuse to expand. Later perhaps you can interview them and other people in the field you like as well. This is a simple way to leverage success and build momentum.

Think of 10 ideas for each of the people you're interviewing/meeting to make more money/succeed. You should always be coming up with ideas to create more value for everyone on whatever they need help with.  James Altucher talks about this check him out: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/10/how-to-become-an-idea-machine/

One idea example for a movie director would be: create social media accounts and do QA sessions once a month with fans to build up movie hype and enhance personal branding. You can also suggest they interact with anyone on twitter or other sites who are talking about similar movies. Or maybe suggest to do it for them if they are too busy. The importance is the value of the idea, people will naturally want to give back if you give first.

Everyone always wants something, so by helping them you help yourself. Another great leverage point is to use the ideas you give people for yourself! Perhaps you should make a social media account? Or do QA sessions?, etc whatever those ideas could be, some will apply and they'll be gold.
If the person asks for help on anything say yes. Figure out a way to get it done! One way is by asking other people for advice on whatever the task is.  :-)

Out of one opportunity create more and then out of those create more. Leverage is the name of the game, figure out how to get it out of everything. I for instance will use this content after I heavily edit it to make it sound more like a blogpost and even less like a talk directed for you. (this post was originally an answer to a person I know).

One thing you can tell everyone is: “You’re obviously an expert in this situation not me, how do you suggest I make the most of it?”

Then after they give you an answer, ask them again later to see if they expound more information. People will help you if you figure out how to help them first. The person who has contributed more always has more leverage.

After the interview or meeting write a thank you email. In that email ask them a question and tell them you'll follow up in a month. (again make sure it’s less than a 30 second read in the email). The question you should ask them should be short, but be very specific so they can actually give you good advice.  Make sure you’re grateful as well and they know it. You have now started a monthly cycle with this person you can email (if you played it right).

You might want to get them to be a mentor, if you do then I also suggest you read this post by Ryan Holiday on how to find one.
http://www.ryanholiday.net/finding-a-mentor/

None of the advice I just gave you is guaranteed to work. Hell, everyone wants a guarantee in life, but they don't exist. The only way to make something happen is to control what you can.
Good luck with your next meeting/interview.

Bonus tip:

You might ask, when is the best time to contact successful people to get this started?
Contacting successful people and politely interrupting them is virtually the same thing in our world. As long as people don't give you a direct no, such as: "Very sorry, but can't do this thank you" or "Sorry man heads down right now super busy", keep contacting them. You want to show them that you aren't the type of person to quit easily. 

I for instance just asked Grant Cardone a great entrepreneur from twitter the question: "What is your tip on networking with successful people" about 7 times before I got a tweet in reply. His answer was: "just tell them the straight up of what you want and then persist bit 3-5 times". I was prepared to ask him the same question 20 times daily as long as he didn't say: "leave me alone" then  I keep at it. The trick to keeping at it is to be fresh, don't just say the same message or even use the same platform for contact.

Kind of like a girl (or guy) that never directly tells you they don't want to go out on a date with you, if you persist enough you'll win. Obviously you don't want to stalk anyone so do it the right way. I tried different tactics/channels to get Grant to reply, I ended up having to tweet his wife and she got him to tweet back to me.  There's never going to be a perfect time for anything, the only time you have is now, that's when you strike, this game is about timing and there's no time like the present. :-)

When I was 19 I got 250,000 downloads on the Android Market Here's How

This was inspired by Noah Kagan, check him out:

https://twitter.com/noahkagan
He created: http://www.appsumo.com/

Originally this was gonna be an email, but it was so long he probably doesn't have time to read it all. (read all the bold parts to save time). Luckily I have so many tips, I figured I'd make this a blog post  :-D

"We have 400k downloads on the android market to date" I tell people whenever I want to puff myself up and start flexing. I'm actually not in the mobile business anymore, instead I do online real estate lead generation in a few states. >:) Even though I know how to generate downloads and growthhack the app ecosystem a bit, the dream of going Mark Zuckerberg viral has faded and I've actually grown attached to B2Bs. After getting up to 300k downloads and now probably 400k I only made about a few hundred a month when I was 19.

"Stop fucking lying to me! How the hell did you get 400k downloads, but only make a few hundred dollars a month?" You might say.

"Well, I don't claim to be a saint, but I'm certainly no liar my good sir or madam" I'd reply.

I can shed light on what I'd do differently and how I'd monetize now, but that'll be a different blogpost.
The company I started at 19 with my 17 year old genius cousin (convinced him to be a programmer not an aeronautical engineer) was called Shoplletes:

Before you judge me on this horribly made app...I would like to apologize and say I was young and hey it got over 150k downloads so...just accept my apology please!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shoplletes.android.dquotes

I'll warn you upon further inspection that our apps get complaints because people want updates, the quotes are only lyrics etc. No these app will never be updated, we actually made them to learn about the app market in 2010 by creating 30 apps in a similar field. On the other hand, my cousin aka CTO doesn't see much profitability and charity work isn't on his list of priorities so once again sorry.

Here is another one of our quotes  apps with about 70k downloads:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moonsoonmenu.android.eminemquotes

This company obviously failed, but feel free to check out all our other
celebrity quote fan apps as well. ;-) So what are my rules to getting downloads? How did I do it?

Tip 1: Pick a popular topic to get tons of downloads without trying too hard.

Obviously celebrities get searched themselves so we decided to leverage their popularity and create fan apps. This was in 2010 so it was a gold rush hour (still is). I checked various topics and saw millions of millions of downloads for mostly any popular celebrity.

This Lil Wayne Quotes app:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fender.lilwayne

for example has a few hundred thousand downloads so I knew we'd get great results if we could do something similar.

After doing about 50 searches manually I knew the celebrity fan app market was generating tons of downloads on mobile (It wasn't so apparent then, but still very apparent).

Tip 2: Make sure your topic doesn't already have the exact keyword solution

In comes my "Drake Quotes" idea. He was a popular artist at the time, but not on the celeb quotes market.
Since I was first to market it gave me huge advantages.

The google play store search algorithm loves promoting popular apps, therefore if you start early in a niche where no exact keyword exists and start getting traction competitors will have a tough time catching up.
As usual in business, timing is critical. What's hot today will not be hot tomorrow. Make a topic of what keywords you want to target or better yet let the internet do it for you.

When coming up with anything I try to leverage as much as possible. After creating a bunch of "Ayn Rand Quotes" and "Emily Dickinson" quote apps we wisened up and used the interwebz to let us know what juicy keywords to target.

I WISH I had done this earlier. We simply modeled our quotes apps after every celeb on this website (if they weren't taken).

http://twittercounter.com/pages/100

After this we didn't have to brainstorm anymore, now all we had to do was cross reference this popularity list with google trends.

In the future it would actually be cool if someone made a tool to tell you how many downloads certain keywords get for apps automatically. $$$ >:)

Tip 3: Let the internet to figure out what'll be popular, google trends does the job quite nicely

For your pleasure here is an example of me searching 4 popular quote apps I could make using google trends:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=drake%20quotes%2C%20eminem%20quotes%2C%20ayn%20rand%20quotes%2C%20rihanna%20quotes

So the term "Drake Quotes" is the blue line, Eminem Quotes is the red line so on. What are the odds that google trends shows us a very close trajectory to what my app results were after I put them on the store? ;) This is how I knew which celeb quote apps to create first. It's a bit counter intuitive since some people have never heard of Drake, but everyone knows Eminem aka Marshall Mathers aka Slim Shady. Surely one of hip hop's greatest rappers should have received more  traffic? Instead of blindly publishing an app google trends will show you whats in demand.

Tip 4: Use the same base code for your  horizontal integration strategy

Move fast...how fast? Faster than that Zorro horse what's his name Quick Silver? Moving too fast to google his name :P

When I created Drake Quotes, or Eminem Quotes or Blank Quotes. I didn't have any guarantees which one would break 200k or even 50k downloads. What I did know is that if I hit up as many different popular keywords as possible by attacking the app market we'd be able to generate serious traffic. In 2010, Google promoted your app on the play store right after it was approved in the new section, so instead of working super hard and being stuck promoting an "OK" app, launch the MVP, get it out there! I'm convinced today you'd be able to get similar results with a tweaked strategy. Everyone always complains, everyone always says: "all the best app ideas are taken", but those people are complainers, you can still do it.

Conclusion:

"What about submitting your app to magazines? Writing to TechCrunch, submitting it to show Hacker News or Reddit? What about paying $3000 to have a dude talk about my app on a youtube or website?" You may ask.

Well, the only method I used was launching fast and it worked great (except the monetization part). We got 250k downloads in the span of 3 months after that things started cooling down. In retrospect posting on Hacker News and Reddit is a good way to help growth, but they don't give you nearly as many downloads as solving a real need in a large market, at least not for B2C products. Each business strategy depends entirely on the product and target market. I don't even use the internet to gain clients for Skyreal we grow our business through cold calling.

Anyways, feel free to ask any questions and I'll answer them. I'm honored you read this and always happy to help. :-)

https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan

25 Ways to Get Book Pre-Orders

I wrote this article as a mind training exercise. I read one day that James and Claudia Altucher have “The Power of No” book coming out soon, so I came up with ways to get book pre-orders. Anywho, figured I should make it public so everyone else could benefit, as well. If you have any comments feel free to add them or tweet at me for tips and I'll add the to the post plus give you credit. :-) Most of these ideas are probably bad, but maybe some can inspire you.

1) Do a private spreecast/google hangout with everyone who pre-orders. Answering questions about the book and/or hanging out for an hour.

1st step: Tweet out a date to do a spreecast/google hangout and see if readers like it.

2)Early buyers get a paypal rebate or discount

1st step: Get reader to email their paypal email address information after they show proof of preorder in an email.

3) You get free merchandise for pre-ordering: a wristband, a pen, stickers, a pin, a bookmark, a t-shirt or mug (depending on the book price). What would you like?

1st step: After pre-orders are complete create your items on vistaprint.

http://www.vistaprint.com/personalized-pens.aspx?couponAutoload=1&GP=5%2f11%2f2014+7%3a19%3a46+PM&GPS=3181809884&GNF=0

Vistaprint can help you create your own custom logo pens t-shirts and other promotional items.

4) Answer 1 question from all people that pre-ordered. You have to provide a photo or copy of your receipt as proof of your pre-order. Or maybe it could be integrated into the pre-order website?

1st step: Create a new email address. Also, you could mark the sent email addresses as spam (just a way to not get random emails back from random people that might want to spam), but perhaps keep in touch with people who preorder?

5) Create a kickstarter to get access to another audience for the book plus accept bigger donations.

1st step: Start making a page on https://www.kickstarter.com/ Simply have someone record ypu on a cellphone camera explaining the books. Prizes can be anything on Vistaprint :-)

6) Signatures for the hardcover orders.

1st step: On the pre-order page, if you buy the hardcover you’ll get it signed after providing the name. This can be fun to do if you’re writing a book as a couple since it’s easy signing books and it’s a good excuse to spend time with your significant other..

7) You get a discount on other books for a limited time

1st step: At the thank you page of the pre-order website, readers get an email address to to ask for limited time coupon codes. There can be a new email address that auto replies the coupon code to everyone who messages it.

8) Get entered into a drawing. Maybe 1 out of 50 get to video chat with you personally for 20 minutes? Perhaps a winner gets to be on your podcast show?

1st step: After telling people about the drawing and when the pre-order period ends, number of winners will be divided by the total number of pre-orders. If 100,000 people ordered the book and you want 1/1000 to win then: 100,000/1,000 = 100 winners you (or someone else) needs to choose.

9) Use Gary Vaynerchuk’s famous bartering system. If people buy x number of books do something for them. Perhaps if I buy 50 books I get to speak with you on vidchat for 25 minutes? etc.

1st Step: Check out Gary’s system found here: http://garyvaynerchuk.com/jjjrh/

10) There can be a “shout out” page in the book to everyone that pre-orders.

1st step: During the pre-order process create an area for buyers to submit their names to shout out in the book.

11) There will be an exclusive ultimate cheat blog post only shared with anyone who pre-orders so they will know which tactics worked and which didn't

1st step: After everyone pre-orders they get a specific email address to contact with that blogpost as a reply.

12) Get a photo with you at the book signing.

1st step: If you ever considered doing a book signing all buyers have to do is print out the thank you for pre-ordering page and show it to you for a photo. Perhaps if you they preordered it, you could also let them jump to the front of the line.

13) A limited pre-order edition (perhaps these hardcovers are signed and have 1st edition written on them).

1st step: A graphic design artist could make first edition cover art.

14) People who pre-order get to receive 5 exclusive blog posts vs. those that didn’t. This is different from the ultimate cheat sheet bonus because these 5 exclusive blog posts can be on anything you want perhaps related to the book.

1st step: Outline which blog posts you would like to share with people who preordered.

15) A VIP invite to a private facebook group for people who only preordered the book. Great for us to network and talk about the material plus we can get notified later about any work.

1st step: Create an email address that people can contact with a preorder as proof of purchase.

Just in case people are wondering: Your facebook address is found by clicking on your name when you log in right next to the home button. It will show as: https://www.facebook.com/your.nameexample

16)

Get a thank you shout out on twitter, facebook or anything else. "Blank just preordered my book thank you :-)" This would encourage others to pre-order as well. You could even read something on the description of their profile and include it in your thank you tweet to make them feel special.

1st step: Have them send you their twitter address through email.

17) Whoever preorders can vote on the next book you write. Perhaps you give them a choice of 10 topics.

1st step: Simply collect emails after they pre-order and use survey monkey to poll them. You could also do this in a private facebook group.

18) Perhaps if they get a book they get it at full price, but they get an extra copy for the they can gift it to a friend who doesn't know anything about you.

1st step: Decide if your books profit margin is high enough to actually give away 2 for the price of one, for some people this might not work.

19) If peopel pre-order they can get the audio book for free.

1st step: Use mailchimp to blast out everyone with the audiobook when it’s completed.

20) A handwritten thank you note.

1st step: Outsource it? :P Perhaps make this an activity with your significant other aka and have another excuse to spend time together.

21) Get a bonus chapter(s) free when you pre-order

1st step: Outline a the bonus chapter(s).

22) If we pre-order we can play a speed chess game with you, or other board games. Perhaps everyday you play online scrabble with 8 people who preordered. OR

Make this a prize in the drawing.

1st step: Invite all those who pre-ordered to add you on your speed chess account and give them your name with times you’ll be available to play each person for a minute or two (depending on how bad you’ll beat them).

23) Every 10 to X number of pre-orders get grouped into a miniature facebook group together. This way buyers can form deeper connections and perhaps get to know each other better.

1st step: Outsource someone to create tons of facebook groups and batch people together after the preorder period is over.

24) Give people who preorder the rough draft/unedited version of your book. The unedited version is usually full of mistakes, but is a lot longer so a lot more interesting to read what the authors original thoughts/concepts were.

1st step: Find your rough draft and then auto-email everyone at the end of the pre-order period or on a certain date.

25) Anyone who pre-orders will get to do a lunch google hangout session or spreecast session with you along with 100 other people in a group.

1st step: Create a spreecast account: http://www.spreecast.com/ Then on one of the serveral big days create private spreecasts: http://about.spreecast.com/gettingstarted/how-to-make-your-spreecast-private/

Email people in advance on when they will need to have a spreecast account and when they’ll be part of their 100 people group.

How We Pivoted

I had messaged and called this guy six times. There was no reply (but no clear rejection either)...so what did I do? Well we were working with his associates and I figured I might as well get rejected face to face.  So right then and there I knew I would go knock on his door in his office. I had never been this bold ever. My heart was beating, I was too desperate to quit. I put my best poker face on and took the risk.

I knocked on his door as I saw him typing away on his computer. He looked up at me:

"Are you having a meeting right now?" I asked

Of course I knew the answer to this question because the room was empty. :-)

"No" he replied, I walked in and it was sales time.

After exchanging formalities I stated I was working with his colleagues and booked a meeting to see if we could really provide value for him. With the group of clients I have, if I don't provide value for them I feel horrible. We met the next week and I was in trouble! He thought my product did something else...My partner looked at me and said: "I don't think we can...",  I quickly interrupted with "I can run some tests on it we will come back with results soon!"

As we left the meeting I was the only one optimistic about the situation. You think my co-founders quickly agreed and said: "this pivot is perfect lets do it Vlad" because the answer to that is HELL NO. My co-founders said something like: "Not a good idea, waste of time, knock yourself out go test it". One of them actually left, although I don't blame him, I might have done it myself. So the semi-non-technical guy, which is me, did it all myself. I basically did everything our software does now by hand. We were lucky, however, because we weren't making money back then. Turns out when your original startup feels like you are putting your arm in a snake pit, it's pretty easy to convince people to join you.

So anyways back to the story. Two weeks later, and after spending hundreds of my own dollars I met back up with our first pivoted client. Showing him the work I had done seemed interesting to him. Before handing him my results for free, I made him promise me to call his boss. "Sure, ok I'll do that" he said. "When?" I asked. "I can do it right now" he answered, so we watched him call his boss to arrange another meeting then and there. The next week we met with the owner and went through the test results while putting on a show of confidence. They were happy to give us a shot. They then gave us a check for $1200 dollars, and the rest is history.

Later we would schedule a meeting with another client who completely blew us off. Luckily enough, their competitor wanted to do business with us first. That second client turned into a power user and here we are today with a much improved product. What about our first client? What is he doing? Well he ended up leaving us. However, by that time we moved so quickly it didn't matter anymore, because we had others on board.

An extra little tidbit is that our second client was ALSO willing to give us another shot at doing business together even though our first product burned him (If you're reading this thank you very much for everything). What happened after he gave us another shot? Well we got him a great return on his investment and exclusivity in the region, but it was well worth it. As they say risk is an entrepreneur's best friend. If you take risks and move fast past the failures you’re on the right track.

If you have any questions feel free to ask. :-)

How to Build a Community of Power Users

Recently I was having a twitter discussion with someone and said that I think everyone in a company should focus mainly on power users (real genius right? :p). These are those few clients who are addicted to your product and get you large chunks of business. They aren't just your Joe average client. These select few are your raving fans, they want to see you succeed, they see in you what no one else sees and they will tell all their friends about you.

From one power user alone it's pretty amazing what you can do. With our biggest one we have grown the business by getting 7 client referrals. On top of getting me new clients he has also suggested I work on other projects with him, which I plan to take full advantage of. Now we are also connected to other important figures in the field as well through him who with some luck will help us grow to the next level.

These clients are the ones who represent the "80/20" rule in business aka Pareto's law. You never know who can be treasure, so I very much hope you treat everyone like they are. Our first Power User was the guy who was willing to give us a SECOND chance (after paying and getting a bad product) even though he knew our new product was still in beta. He always talks about the field of real estate and tells me how much potential he thinks exists for the sector. Lastly, many people will tell you that they'll get you more business, but few actually do or come close to helping along the way. If anyone ever refers you business without you having to ask them then do anything to help them out and watch the profits rocket. :-)

So  How do you find Power Users? You may ask...

From my experience: 3 ways.

1) They Find You
Perhaps, they may suggest you do the project for them before you even plan a sales pitch (Happened to me). Do you know a person who sees the opportunity in the field and what's missing? Do they have real passion about your sector? If yes this may just be the person you were looking for. If anyone does suggest you do a project though (make sure you work out payment in advance).

So how do you help them find you?

Make sure you're on EVERY logical platform you can be on. If this is an early stage startup you don't know where customers come from so your best bet is to hit up every marketing channel you know plus every event related to the sector.

2) You find Them and they Quickly Agree to Join
You do a cold call one day and you find yourself having the easiest conversation ever (the sale is never hard with power users). Perhaps they say: "We're going to do business together for a long time" like one of ours did. In any case even if this is a cold call, conversations with them should be easy because they love that you're in the field. Your Power Users most likely have the most pain with the problem you're solving and that is why they are so easy to work with.

3) You Develop Them
Turning average users into power users is an art. As our company grows, we keep improving our product and gaining more and more feedback from people (call your clients each week). As we gain more information about the field and update our services average users can start favoring your company and grow to power users over time.

At the end of the day even though each client might have the same core needs they are also unique in their own rights. ***Warning*** Whatever you do make sure your clients are completely brutally honest with you to help save time. Establish honesty from the start by being honest with them. I also suggest you dig deeper into their personal preferences right down to the very last background color if you can. I know for a fact that they won't all want the same products and services as soon as you start cross-selling or up-selling. As long as you keep constantly brainstorming how to give them a high ROI you can't fail! One reason I think my clients are loyal to me is because they genuinely trust me. You'd be surprised how few companies actually reach out, care and have 1 to 1 interactions with people. There's a lot to improve on in our current generation of business and I've merely scratched the surface.Those are the basics, let me know if you would like me to go into more details about any of the topics in this article. If you have questions, comments or concerns feel free to add them as well :-)