Dave Navarro is my mentor. My friendship and working relationship with him has been the most profitable in terms of income and lessons learned.
This post takes you behind the scenes to show you how we connected and supported each other professionally over the past year. It's part interview, part podcast, part case study and 100% awesome. I'll be regularly featuring bloggers' in a similar format. If you have any suggestions of people I should feature, or stories I should expand on, let me know in the comments.
He had time to do this interview thanks to the launch of his Create Products That Sell workshop. If you're interested, you can read my review or ask questions about it in the comments.
This is my first podcast. We talked at midnight my time so I have little recollection of the conversation. My minion however, who designed the funky download buttons, said that "He's got that motivational speaker thing going on ... he makes you wanna do stuff." He did go on to say that Dave is a nerd, but I think he's just cranky 'coz Dave said his twitter handle sounded like a cat.
We spoke for half an hour about his career before he became the blogging superstar he is today. He was just like us. He struggled to find an audience and sell his products early on. He turned those lessons around and showed what you can do when you hustle and focus on learning.
It was my honor to do this interview. Even if I don't remember doing it.
The Interview
How did you network with people when you first started out?
I targeted influential people and tried to do things to help them to get on their radar. Sometimes this worked, but often I basically got taken advantage of because I was a "nobody" and they were, well, old school internet marketers. This was before blogs, so there wasn't as much promoting of other people as you have now. People were basically hammering their lists and didn't want to promote others unless they could make a killing, and I was too small a fish for that.
It all changed a few years ago as blogging became mainstream - as I helped people, they talked about me on their blogs, and that started the ball rolling.
If you could start all over again, what would you do differently?
Instead of targeting the big influencers, I'd have target smaller people who had a growing audience but still needed other people's help to get by. People who are 12 months or so away from a business that keeps working without the hustle are more able to appreciate and reward help.
I'd look for bloggers who had audiences of 500-1000 people and get tight with them, and then as they grow in power, you're taken along for the ride. (I actually cover all this in the free workbook 7 Steps To Networking Your Way To A-Listers Fast).
What are you main networking methods now?
Now that I have a larger audience I promote others on my blog via interviews. Sometimes it's with affiliate links, sometimes it's just that I like the person and I'm tying to get the word out about how great they are. It gets them good exposure (which makes networking easier) and helps establish my blog as a place to learn how other people are doing things.
If you can do this with your blog, just use it to showcase other people, that's good networking because you're asking people "can I help get the word out about you?" instead of "can you do me a favor and give me attention?"
What is one tip to make it easier for people to network with you?
Use my free workbooks and tell me about your results. I like to connect with action takers and results-getters, even if the results are small, beginner stuff. You don't have to impress me by being awesome, just show follow through and that's pretty damned impressive to me. 
What is your favourite tip for getting on someones radar.
Promote their stuff indirectly by talking about your results with their content. Basically see yourself as a case study for them because then it's exciting for them to get to know you.
We first connected over my review of How To Launch on Problogger. How did that specifically help you?
Tons, Jade, tons. It was actually my psychological "we made it" moment when I got a call from Naomi Dunford saying "We're going to be on Problogger!" That actually helped me break past a few limiting beliefs I had (I was waiting to "get bigger" later, but it finally occurred to me I was waiting for no reason).
That review continues to bring in sales, but more importantly it put you on my radar as someone to watch and get help from. You are definitely an example of the "influencers" that I talk about in the free workbook.
We worked together for the launch of More Buyers Mastermind. I was allowed to distribute review copies to selected influencers. How did that help?
That was really helpful in terms of getting affiliates on board who I didn't have time to connect with. It's going to be even more critical for the 2010 re-launch, so I'll be calling on you again.
What was helpful there too was "shortcutting" the getting-to-know-you process - instead of having to find an "in" with those people, I was able to just have you make an introduction and run with it.
I've also helped out by filtering information about who to watch and connect with. How does this technique help you?
This is great because I'm so busy creating content and running my business that I don't have time to look around and find all those "rising stars" to connect with. For anyone who's reading, you need to find someone like Jade who can help be that liaison to help connect you with affiliates.
My previous questions have focused on how specific actions have helped you. Why is it so important to give first?
Once you start getting attention, everyone wants a piece of you and everyone has demands. They want you to promote, to re-tweet, to do stuff for them, and if you don't know them or have a connection, that's just not going to happen.
When you give to people first, you show them you're not a taker. You're out to contribute to their success, and that breeds a desire to help out in turn, even if it's just with a nod in a blog entry or tweet. Every little bit helps.
The Problogger Review: A Case Study
I think I got just as much from my Problogger review as Dave and Naomi did. I was able to see the effect that one review could have on a launch and career. This may sound smug but, like Dave said above, this review helped him change his perception. Heck, it helped me change mine.
I've spoken about this review before but this case study will focus on the various ways it helped Dave get more attention. One high profile review was something that could be leveraged multiple times and create more opportunities for people to talk this product.
The banner:
I'm usually featured in the sales testimonials whenever I do a product on a top blog. It's awesome. I get to see social proof of my one piece of content around the web. To the left is an advertising banner. Dave said 'As seen on Problogger' to convey trust.
I feel a little giddy when I see that banner because I'm so proud that I did something awesome enough to be mentioned.
The sales page
It was even better to have a quote featured at the top of his sales page. I was so surprised I had to double check the review to see if he was quoting my words. This made me feel fantastic as this was my first review and I was terrified of doing it.
The Problogger Ad
I saw this graphic just above the comment section on Problogger. It was a real shock. I bookmarked the image and sent it to Dave so he could see.
See, neither of us had anything to do with this. Someone else had taken the initiative. This meant that he thought the product was that good that he wanted to draw extra attention to it.
Its hard to describe, but I love it when I'm able to pull off something like this. Dave and Darren will be working together on future products and I feel so proud that I was able to help them out.
We have both benefited from our working relationship and the opportunities that have followed since this review. I look forward to sharing more about them in the future.
More Awesomeness:
I've reviewed most of his products on my blog and highly recommend them.
You can access many of his 2010 workshops as part of the More Buyers Every Month Mentorship program. You can also download quality free workbooks as part of his library.
Glen Allsopp kept on saying that Everett was going to be the next big thing but I had trouble resonating with his content. Then I became overwhelmed with my business and started devouring his posts in the hope of simplifying my life.
I actually started chatting to Corbett when he wanted to arrange an interview with Dave. Despite the minimal communication, I was really impressed with his professionalism.
I discovered Fabeku through Catherine Caines fear wrangling course. Despite the awesomeness of his site, I was kinda turned off by the woo-woo aspect of his sound healing.
Larry Keltto recommended Amy to me recently. Her name sounded familiar so I dived into my email archives. There was this lovely email from her offering to help.
I met Joi at the Connect Now conference and may have snobbed her. We soon bonded over being introverted misfits and she has corrupted me in more ways then getting me addicted to the duck song.
I found Danielle via Dave's interview with her. I figured that considering I worked for him, I may as well check out the people he interviewed. I'm so thankful I did that.
