Interview with Dan Schawbel, The Master of Personal Branding

Dan Schawbel is a leading voice in the area of personal branding, and he is the author of Me 2.0 as well as the publisher of both the award winning Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.

Dan-Schawbel-Personal-Branding

I recommend Me 2.0 to anyone who wants to know and buildup their personal branding. I especially encourage students to pick a copy of the book, it will surely be valuable tool for your future.

Interview:

Satish: Tell our readers about the idea of “Personal Branding”, and why one should care?

Dan: Personal branding is about uncovering what makes you special and then letting the world know about it. You should care because there is no job security anymore and because if you’re aren’t know for anything, then you won’t receive the same opportunities as others.

Satish: People helping us( evangelists ) brand ourselves start expecting the same help from us, while they don’t live upto the trust of their audience. How to deal with such situations?

Dan: You shouldn’t listen to people who aren’t proven experts in their field. Do some research on them first before asking for their help or trusting their content. There is an unlimited amount of people in the world, but only a select few that are trustworthy.

Satish: Some College students prefer to keep low profile, so that they do not get embraced when things go wrong. Your tips for students to fight their weakness?

Dan: You should always capitalize on your strengths and neutralize your weaknesses. The internet is now the global talent pool. If you aren’t active on it, then you have a lot of challenges in moving up in your career.

Satish: Your tips for students and employees to fight stage fear. Because we have observed that many people don’t get the confidence to face people and confidently tell about themselves. What would you suggest them?

Dan: I would recommend that students and employees really understand their subject matter before speaking in front of an audience. You can gain a lot of confidence when you’re an expert that will make you less nervous when in front of people. You should also get consensus among your audience before you speak, so that they are on the same page before you present. This makes it easier to get your message across.

Satish: How much important do you think the role of “Branding” in the success of a business/blog/service.

Branding is important for differentiating yourself from the competition, for recruiting new employees, for supporting your promotional program, and to charge a premium price.

Satish: With all the efforts to earn the Trust(for the sake of trust), when our blog readers/customers give bad personal
comments, how does it feel about the trust that we have built? And how to deal with such situations?

Dan: Trust takes years to build and you can’t force people to trust you. The higher quality of content you produce will attract more people and cause them to trust you.

Satish: Your effective tips for building personal branding.

Dan: You should understand how you want to be branded, then reserve your domain name and your vanity URL on the top social networks, and then invest time each day to connect with new people in your industry. You need your own personal mission statement, core values, and a unique design.

Satish: What have you learnt with the release of your book “Me 2.0”

Dan: I learned that if you promote other others and their books before yours come’s out, many will support the launch of your book. The lesson learned is that by helping others first, they will reciprocate.

Satish: What do you think are – some of the signs of Entrepreneurship.

Dan: If you are a control freak, have creative ideas and are very ambitious, then you’re an entrepreneur. Typically, if one of your family members is an entrepreneur, you have the gene!

Satish: Your Advice for job seekers(students who have just finished their college life and are applying for a job).

Dan: They should be networking every single day, both online and offline. They should also be specific with the type of career they want so they can target certain companies and positions. Use your current network too, including your family and friends, to make introductions to people that are employed.

Satish: Your advice to college students to fight the stress of studies, assignments, exams, seminars, projects and their little voice of “entrepreneurship”

Dan: You have to work hard no matter what the task is. If you’re an entrepreneur, then start a business in college. Don’t purposely flunk out!

Satish: If you have anything else to tell your fans/followers/readers, you can tell them.

Dan: I just launched my 3D corporate website for Millennial Branding, LLC. I also have a new blog called Student Branding Blog if you want to check that out.

We appreciate Dan for taking time to participate in the interview. Hope you all enjoyed it. You may also like to read my review of the book Me 2.0

Interview with Young Entrepreneur: Neil Patel

Today we have a young entrepreneur, who is an inspiration to many people around the world.
Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.
Neil Patel
Here is the interview:

1. Please introduce yourself and your companies to our readers.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a entrepreneur, writer, angel investor, and a marketer. Overall, I am just an average Joe. I am currently 24 years old and I am the owner of 2 .com companies: KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg.

2. Why did you choose Online Business?

I got started in the business world when I was 16 and at that time there wasn’t too many businesses I could get into other than on the web businesses. So in some way I didn’t have any other choice but to get into the online business world if I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

3. Your advice for people who want to start a company?

Stop thinking about all the details, just start a business. You are bound to stumble along the way, but you will figure things out as you move along.

4. Risks in starting a company and its remedies.

The biggest risk is that you are going to lose money. There really isn’t any remedies for this. But don’t let this stop you, sometimes you just have to roll the dice and take chances.

5. At an age of 21, how could you manage to get the money and support to start your own company? What was the motivation behind starting the company?

Borrow money from friends and family because it is the easiest way to get it.

6. Your advice for people who want to start a new blog or online business or online company and are still in schools or college (around the age of 20 – 21).

Just start a business. The younger you are when you start a business the better because you don’t have to worry about feeding a family and providing for someone else. Plus the younger you start, the more time you will have to succeed.

7. Your advice for new bloggers.

Write great content. This is the main way you are going to be able to build your readers is through good content. What I mean by this is write content that isn’t short, but instead descriptive. Don’t just write on the news, write on things that provide value to your readers.

8. Some of the strategies that you use to help your clients get more traffic and link baits.

Yes, I did use linkbait. I would write detailed blog posts such as how to guides, submit them to Digg, and push them hard until I got them on the homepage.

9. Order according to your preference – Stumble Upon, Digg,Delicious, reddit, Yahoo Buzz etc.

Digg
Reddit
Del.icio.us
Twitter
StumbleUpon
Yahoo Buzz

I am ranking them in order of link importance. Yahoo Buzz can be great, but most people will never get on the homepage of Yahoo.

10. What is your opinion about Twitter and Facebook, for marketing our blog/business. Which one do you think has more potential to drive more traffic/conversion?

Although Facebook has more users, Twitter has been more effective in driving traffic and conversions. This is mainly because Twitter is public, while on Facebook only your friends can see your profile.

11. I have seen many good articles going nowhere on DIGG. But a small piece of content submitted by a power user has more chances of getting to the front page. Don’t you think its highly unfair part of DIGG? Do you have any solution for this (other then telling us to be power user 🙂 ).

It is fair, it is how Digg is intended to work. If everything got on the homepage of Digg, no one would be using it. As for getting on the homepage a lot of it has to do with the content you are writing. Things like “Top 10 lists” are getting old, you need to be more creative with your content.

12. What are the main requisites for youngsters starting a company?

There is only 1 requirement, they need to have a passion for whatever it is they want to start.

13. How big or small are your companies?

My companies are very small. They make enough money for me to live off of, but none are making large amounts of money.

14. What about the programming aspects of your sites. Do you outsource them or you do it on your own?

I outsource all programming and design on my blog. As for Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, we do everything in house.

15. What were the major mistakes you did on your blog and business?

I have a lot… you can find them all here:
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/02/15/15-things-i-wish-i-had-known-when-i-started-my-first-blog/
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/01/25/7-reasons-my-first-business-failed/
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/01/14/7-business-mistakes-that-nearly-made-me-go-broke/

16. How do you define Success?

If you are happy with your accomplishments, then in my eyes you are successful.

17. How could you manage to get big clients in the beginning days of your company ?

I managed them through project management systems like Liquid Planner. This helped clients see what I was doing and it made communication easier.

Some Personal questions:

18. How you spend your day?

I spend most of my day in meetings, responding to emails, and working on KISSmetrics.

19. Personal hobbies and interests?

I love watching basketball games, movies, and hanging with friends.

20. Some of your life’s ambitions?

I want to become a billionaire one day. I don’t know if I will get there, but I’ll try.

21. How about your contacts with the outside real world (other than blogging life)? Do you meet and talk to people often or will you be busy almost all the time infront of your computer?

I meet people everyday. I try to get to as many networking events as possible. And when I can’t I try to meet new people through the web and my blog.

Hope you all enjoyed the interview.
I would recommend everyone to read all the blogs run by Neil Patel, we follow most of the article each day and all of them keep inspiring us. All his blogs deliver a lot of value to the readers.