After I’ve been asked multiple times from members here to continue my Interview series with successful BHW members, I decided to give it a go and ask @MisterF who gladly accepted to answer my questions.
I know he is a very busy man because he runs multiple businesses but he took no more than 1 hour to give me the answers which I highly appreciate.
I’ll continue to do other interviews as well, so you can go ahead and suggest other people in this thread or by PMing me.
Without any further ado, let’s see the great answers that @MisterF gave us.
1. Can you tell a bit about yourself? What do you do and how did you get started in internet marketing?
I’m David. A couple of interesting facts: At 17 I got my gliding licence, and then passed my
driving test 6 months later. So, I could glide solo before I could drive solo. I enjoy travel, have
been to Dubai over 20 times in the past 10 years. I’ve taken a shower at 40,000 feet while flying
with Emirates. I have a close friend in the States who was a personal advisor to President
Obama, so the 6 degrees of separation thing is another claim to fame. It’s rather
interesting when he was across in the UK, we’re having dinner, and he gets a phone call from
the White House.
I live in Spain along with my partner and 3 dogs. Love the life put here and having a swimming
pool helps in the heat of summer.
I’m just into my 50s and left school many years ago to join the military. There I was a police
investigator undertaking counter-intelligence work. I also did close protection, including
guarding some of the UK and Saudi Royal Families.
I’ve run businesses since 1991 and love the freedom of being my own boss. My first business
was selling office supplies. I’d never done it but knew that all companies needed envelopes to
send out invoices and mail, paper to print on and pens or printer ribbons to create them with. I
borrowed £1k off my parents as a loan, bought stock and went door to door in my van selling
and handing out my business cards.
I paid my parents back pretty quickly. My first 12 months turning over £130k on a 25% net profit.
I love doing a deal, both as a seller but also as a buyer.
Around 1998 I was heavily into matched betting/sports arbitrage. Through that, I met people
building websites and cashing in on affiliate programs in the betting industry. Then 10 years
later, I found BHW when I needed scraper tools and people to build websites for me.
I’ve always been fascinated by SEO and keyword research; I love that I’m continually learning
new and more effective ways of doing things.
I’m fortunate to personally know some of the top players in the SEO industry. There are some
brilliant people out there who don’t promote themselves enough. People who work on
technical SEO etc. really fascinating stuff.
2. Tell us a bit of your current projects, what are you working on?
Along with my partner, we run or are partners in 3 different businesses, none of which are
purely IM based.
1) Firstly, we run conferences and seminars.
2) Then we have a specialist store, and we sell mainly through FBA. < That’s as much as I’m
saying
3) The third business is just being revamped. We’re moving and setting up our own
manufacturing operation. That’s as much as I’m saying
As well as the 3 businesses above, I am a partner with @WebMinati within an SEO agency.
We’ve had great results with clients of the forum, so we decided to open up a BST on here for
one of our services.
I also help manage my partner with her content writing business. She’s busy with that, and we
have a great team of writers. We deliver 350k+ words a month to clients.
3. What do you think the future has prepared for SEO?
SEO is ever-evolving. Quality over quantity still matters, as does relevancy.
I’m really interested in how BERT and NLP will become more significant considerations. If you
ever get chance to meet or listen to Dawn Anderson, do so she really does dig deep into this
type of stuff.
4. Do you do any other businesses besides the online world? How important do you consider
having something on the side?
My IM ventures have just been side projects over the years, to be honest. I have around 8 test
sites for assessing SEO strategies on, and then 6 or so affiliate sites too, which bring in a healthy
income.
Our FBA Amazon stuff is a regular income method. What we like here is we signed a couple of
manufacturers up, so we have sole UK/European rights to market their products.
As I mentioned, we are just opening up our own manufacturing operation too, which will help
with our bottom line.
The old saying about not having all your eggs in one basket applies in most things, from
business to investments.
5. What are the steps you take to optimize a website?
Clean structure, fast-loading theme, not too heavy with plugins and fast, secure hosting is
essential.
6. What are some books that have changed your mindset?
Key influences have been –
The Art of War by Sun Tzu ( hence the name of our SEO agency )
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson.
7. What’s been your biggest regret since starting out and your biggest lesson?
Biggest regret: Not focusing enough time on some projects that went by the wayside.
Biggest lesson: Don’t be afraid to jump into something, but make sure you have the time and
resources to commit fully.
I taught myself to trade options many years ago and was going to sell my office supply business
and go into trading full time, but sadly my then-wife and her family talked me out of doing it.
Could I have been the UK version of Warren Buffet had I had the bottle to do it? We’ll never
know.
8. Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
If I’m still alive, doing pretty much what I’m doing now. Having several income streams serves
us well. Selling into different markets and countries means we’re less vulnerable to economic
downturns.
We tend to have 2-3 weeks away end of November or in December somewhere nice and hot,
then the same January/February. We might just do a solid 3 months away.
9. If you could give some advice to people that are just starting out, what would it be?
Research your plan, do a SWOT analysis, look for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats. Have confidence in yourself. I ‘d never sold office supplies, but I researched my local
area for competition negotiated prices with suppliers and went out selling from the back of my
van. The first couple of months it was tough, so I took a second job working the doors at a
nightclub 3 nights a week. You have to be prepared to put the work in.
STAY FOCUSSED. It’s so easy to get distracted or to throw in the towel too quickly. Shiny object
syndrome is a disaster.
Treat your clients as you’d expect to be treated as a buyer.
Finally, it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver, than over promise and under deliver.