Interview with Paul Kinder

Just a note, Paul wrote this sometime in August so some of the dates mentioned are off. For instance, he mentions meeting Tim in DC, which has already passed. But it doesn’t affect the awesomeness of the interview ;-)

1) How and when did your online business get started?

When? December 24th 2006, a little over 18 months ago.

How? Well I wanna tell you a story :-)

I left the world of “real work” back in May 2000. I had worked in Logistics and Customer Service at a local brewery for 15 years (Adnams of Southwold, Suffolk: fantastic place if you ever get a chance to visit).

As a young lad, working in the drinks industry was pretty much a dream for me. I loved it so much I completely lost sight of the fact I had never planned to work for other people and so, eventually, very eventually LOL, I decided to walk away.

I actually only went over to Southwold to help out a mate for one Tuesday night in August 1985 and stayed 15 years. Like I said fantastic place, I truly loved it, and really good beer too!

Anyway, I then took nearly three years out and eventually started an MLM biz. I worked hard (surprise!) and became one of the company’s top 6 retailers in Europe. I just stopped enjoying it because most of my team weren’t earning very much so, I walked away from that too. I then joined a competitor where, in theory, the whole team would earn more. It was a young startup biz so a bit risky and in hindsight a huge mistake. They went bust in Spring 2006.

So, what to do next? I remortgaged the house so I had time to make a good decision. I knew I wanted to work online but I had no real idea what would suit me. I tried some online MLM’s and matrix programs, which seemed the obvious move, but realized quite quickly they weren’t for me. I’ve always been about customer service and these programs just weren’t making me happy. I wanted a real biz, with real customers.

So I kept looking and in June 2006 I joined Profit Rally (a forerunner for Affiliate Funnel for those who don’t know) That’s when I really struck lucky. My sponsor was a chap called Jon Olson and one of his recommended programs was Hit Exchange Survival Kit. Through HESK I found Hit Exchange 101, Hit Exchange News and the infamous NMF, or Net Marketing Forum. I was (and still am) fascinated by traffic exchanges!

I camped out in NMF, networking and learning from people who actually made money from these “funny little programs” (Jon’s words in an old HEN, very apt)

I researched TE’s all over the net, sponging up everything, and it seemed to me that most TE owners make a loss or very very little profit. So after talking through my financial situation with Jon, I took his advice and decided to try Adsense instead. Thing is, I hated all the Search Engine stuff - I lasted four whole days and that’s when I decided TE’s were definitely for me. I like simple, I need simple, simple really suits me! :-)

I joined 89 traffic exchanges for research, yes really 89! (not recommended for members - 10 is enough - remember I was looking to be an owner, a top owner, and I needed to learn about TE’s inside out) I started surfing about 10 hours a day, with NMF open for networking and then, in November 2006 I felt I’d packed in enough experience to get myself started. I bought Jon Olson’s Traffic Exchange Guy consultancy and started to build an LJ.

Oh, funny little NMF story. In my first week or two of surfing I got really frustrated with the Tic Tac Toe game in TCNTE exchanges. I posted about it on NMF asking what idiot made this game that made me feel like a loser (I wasn’t very good at it then). Up stepped this young lad called Tim Linden taking full responsibility for his idiocy LOL That’s how Tim and I first met. He might be an idiot but I really liked how he admitted it and Tim has become one of my best buds online. :-)

Anyway, two weeks later I was chatting to the owner of Traffic-Splash and he said he was willing to sell. It had been open for 9 months, got 1,500 members but only a few more than 100 active. It was a dead exchange only delivering about 2,000 hits a day. Didn’t matter to me. I wanted Traffic-Splash so, despite Jon’s good advice to carry building my LJ, I bought Traffic-Splash for the grand old sum of $250. See what I mean, $250, it really was dead and practically worthless!

So three weeks later, with a lot of new programming and a totally new cute dolphinized design, Traffic-Splash was reborn on December 24th 2006.

That’s the short and curly version of how I got into traffic exchanges. Well you asked didn’t ya? :-)

2) Which exchange(s) do you own or co-own?

Erm, well I might’ve just mentioned it once or twice already (I’m not obsessed ya know, really I’m not!) Anyone heard of Traffic-Splash? :-)

For those who don’t know Traffic-Splash, it’s about to break 30,000 members, delivers 150,000 to 200,000 hits a day and many many customers tell me (pretty much daily) that response rates are superb.

Traffic-Splash is the only exchange I own but it’s a tad complicated-ish because I spend a lot of time helping to grow Fast Easy Traffic for my good mate and business partner Tim Rash. It’s a great partnership, we work really really well together and are looking forward to finally meeting face to face in Washington DC in August.

While there is no link in ownership, I also work closely with Scott Martin of Blue Surf. I help with marketing, networking and general biz advice. Scott is a very talented programmer, among other things, and I absolutely love what he’s doing at Blue Surf and within our own programs.

Tim and I own a few TE related programs too …

Tim’s been hidden in his basement for almost a year now developing the much-fabled KR-TCNTE traffic exchange script. Tim’s in the final stages of programming now and we start beta testing internally in a day or two. I can’t wait to get this out there cos it is waaaay in advance of anything yet seen in TE world. If all goes to plan we’ll open out the beta testing in about two weeks and launch the script itself in September. IF :-)

We are partnered up with my mentor, Jon Olson, the TE Guy himself on Affiliate Funnel. Of course we’re in it to make money but I don’t know of any other program that gives so much free access to six figure earners as Affiliate Funnel. It’s great to help so many people start to actually make money online.

We were also brought in to resurrect SplashPoints. That’s taking a LOT longer than planned but Scott has now taken on the programming and is beavering away. We have a brand new Marketing Partner to drive it forward too. Look out for some big happenings in the fall.

There are some rumors about other new programs. One rumor says we’re launching something with a real TE legend very soon and, don’t tell anyone, but I heard we’re even partnering up with a certain Mr Linden for something sometime later this year ;-) …

3) Do you currently work exclusively online?

I don’t work. This is too much fun to be called work! But yes, playing around on computers is the only way I pay the bills. Well, I use direct debit to actually pay them but you know what I mean.

4) How many hours per day do you spend on your exchange(s)?

Erm, well I don’t know. I don’t count them but it is a lot!

I’m a customer service bod primarily so I want pretty much 24/7 service at Traffic-Splash. When I first started that meant I was covering support personally (and building the biz etc) for anywhere between 14 and 20 hours a day, every day. Armi who now owns TheHitDevil and MobHitz covered while I slept. As mentioned above, I put my home at risk in order to work online. That really motivates you to reach break even as soon as possible. :-)

I don’t work that hard now, it couldn’t continue forever, but I expect to “work” fairly silly hours for a while yet. Partly because I enjoy it so much but it is also the sole source of income for both Tim and I. The biz has been running little more than 18 months so it will take a while yet before either of us feels everything is solid enough to take significant time away. We’re still building our base.

5) Do you do support yourself, or do you outsource support?

Yes I do support myself, this is my fave part of the biz. BUT to provide 24/7 support personally would be a tad difficult. :-)

I get lots of help from the fantastic Mark Wieneke, Jackie O, Paul Conway, Jamison Raymond, Cat Heiter (at AF) and of course Tim. Teamwork works!

We receive about 350 support tickets a day at Traffic-Splash alone, plus emails, because we actively encourage it. I feel the single most important part of any business is customer communication and service is much much more than answering support tickets. I proactively contact customers away from the support desk every single day. For me, everything else pales into insignificance compared to customer satisfaction.

6) How fluent are you with HTML, javascript, and PHP?

Passable with HTML, can do a little PHP, what’s javascript? lol

I kinda understand some stuff. I worked with programmers and built lots of systems and processes in my offline career (am even a qualified ISO auditor for my sins) but I’m not even remotely technical.

To run an online biz there are certain basics you must have and will pick up along the way but get too techy with me and I glaze over, literally. Tim’s do techy stuff waaaay better than me. :-)

7) Approximately how many members join your exchange a month?

2,000 to 3,000 join Traffic-Splash most months. The principle reason response rates are so high is because I monetize the exchange and reinvest heavily to ensure fresh eyeballs are seeing members sites constantly.

At Fast Easy Traffic we grow by about 1,200 most months. We reinvest as much as possible here too so it grows far faster than the average exchange.

8) Does most of your advertising come from members referring, or you?

At the start a huge proportion came from me but really, even then, Traffic-Splash was a team effort. I flooded the exchanges with Dolphins, started up the whole Surf Rewards thang and thankfully people seemed to like it.

Two tips for owners - think big if you want to really succeed. I was regularly using 10,000 hits a day advertising Traffic-Splash right from the start. My advertising peaked at 14,000 hits a day. If you want massive results you need to take massive action.

And also - I didn’t go for a big JV launch even though I had built the relationships. I was too scared of service failures if Splash grew too fast too quickly. That was a bad decision in hindsight cos it slowed growth dramatically. I’m proud of the fact I started the hard way and thing’s are going superbly but it took seven long months before I was earning enough just to pay the monthly bills (let alone cover taxes) That was scary, and unnecessary!

9) Are you subscribed to any blogs? Which is your favorite?

Yup, I’m subscribed to LOADS of blogs. Mostly TE and IM related. Some fun stuff too.

I’m not really sure I could pick out an individual favorite although Hit Exchange News stands out as a shining beacon for me because I have learnt so so much from the archives and from Jon himself. I always look forward to Tony Tezak’s blogposts and I love your blog Tim (and am not just saying that, honest guv!) MikePaetzold.com and SorenJordansen.com are two particular faves. Mike’s depth of knowledge always impresses me and I really relate to his reviewer style. Watching how Soren puts marketing campaigns together is a real education. Robert Puddy’s blog is entertaining, though he doesn’t post too often. I really like Lee McIntyre’s blog and Jens Berget has interesting stuff to say too.

I guess I should say that the Affiliate Funnel blog is superb too (I’m not biased, it truly is!) because of all the free seminar recordings (and golden nuggets) that are available.

I also have a favorite non-existent blog cos well, mine would be really cool if I wrote one LOL Just kidding, my fave non-existent blog is Jerry Reeder’s. If Jerry found time to blog, I would be reading that for sure.

10) What would be the biggest tip you could give to readers?

Hmm, just the one huh?

OK, that’s a little difficult because the mindset for full-timers and part-timers is different. Well, it’s different for successful full-timers anyway :-)

So this is advice for full-timers, because that’s the walk I’m walking. I have never tried to earn a sideline part-time income since my career started. I’m an all or nothing kinda bloke so it wouldn’t suit my personality. I admire those who can work that way, but I’m not qualified to talk about part-time incomes.

So, here it is: Research, Identify, Align, Network, Promote, Serve, Research, Identify, Align, Network, Promote, Serve, Research, Identify, Align, Network, Promote, Serve and so on and so on.

Research: in other words, never stop learning and improving your skills and the service you provide.

Identify: find out who is best at whatever it is you want to do.

Align: play with the big boys, so to speak. get close, make yourself useful, build a relationship, learn from them, work with them.

Network: same as aligning, but not necessarily with industry leaders. Work with other people to create win-win relationships to build BOTH your businesses.

Promote: tell the world and anyone else who will listen about your offer and how it benefits them.

Serve: deliver more than you promise and continually improve your promise.

That’s it. It’s all about knowing where you’re going and enjoying how you get there. As Mr Olson always says “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!”

Oh, nearly forgot, another tip. Thinking of Cindy reminded me and this one is especially for all my fellow Brits …

Don’t forget to brush your teeth! :-)

Hope that helps Tim, and thanks for asking. Even if you did get more than you bargained for :-P

Happy Splashing!

Paul