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Interview
With Audri Lanford... An Internet Success! Part 1
[Corey]:
What is your background, and what drew you to the Internet?
[Audri]:
I started out in academia. I got a Ph.D. in sociology
from Stanford University, with a focus on statistics
and research methods. I taught, and was involved with
cutting edge research at Stanford and at Catholic University.
The background
in statistical analysis has served us very well in business.
Especially in analyzing trends and usage patterns, which
is very useful for our work on the Internet.
[Corey]:
Did your husband, Jim, get you into computers?
[Audri]:
No, but everyone thinks he did. I actually took my first
computer class in high school in the late 1960's. Then
in college and grad school I learned to crunch statistics
on mainframe computers. This was all before I met Jim.
Sadly, college
professors earn almost nothing - in fact, my receptionists
have all earned substantially more than I did as a college
professor! So, in 1985 I decided to help Jim start
Micro Dynamics, Ltd. We were one of the first three
document imaging companies. Jim designed our flagship
product, Micro Dynamics MARS®, on a napkin.
MD MARS was
an amazing system. It allowed companies to scan and
store whole warehouses full of paper documents in a
very small space. You can retrieve documents with it
based on keyword searches, of course. But the most revolutionary
aspect of the product was that it was the very first
system to let the user retrieve documents based on full
text searches.
So in 1986,
we had a terrific product - but no idea how to market
it.
I'm a fairly
quick study, so I decided I had better learn sales and
marketing fast. First I looked within the software industry,
but frankly, I didn't find much there. Then we broadened
the search. I fortunately learned about Jay Abraham
in 1988, and finally, in September 1989, I attended
Jay Abraham's first $15,000 Protégé seminar.
At the time,
that was an unheard of amount for me to spend, but Jay
completely guaranteed the results, so I took the chance.
It was life transforming for me.
The seminar
started on Monday and was one week long. On Wednesday,
I called Jim to implement a strategy I had learned.
By Friday, we had earned an extra $60,000 in profit. Four times my investment before I left the seminar!
Within a
month, we had sold a system (worth over $250,000) to
Motorola. We had been trying to sell them this system
for two years! Motorola went on to be a worldwide client
for many years and they spent millions of dollars with
us. They also awarded us the Motorola Customer Excellence
Award. That's a very prestigious award, and we were
really proud of that.
MDL became
one of the fastest growing private companies in America,
an Inc. 500 Company. We sold controlling interest to
our venture partners in 1993. The company has been sold
twice since and went public a year and a half ago.
[Corey]:
That's great. So how did you get involved in the Net?
[Audri]:
Jim is a technology wizard and has always been on the
cutting, (or maybe I should say bleeding
), edge
of technology. He had MDL on the Internet in the late
1980's - long before the Web was invented.
I didn't
get into the Internet (other than email) until a bit
later. After we sold MDL, we took a sabbatical and moved
to Carmel, CA. (That's where we had gotten married in
1980.)
I started
looking into how the Web could be used by small businesses.
My passion is entrepreneurial activity. So, I wanted
to see if the Internet made sense for business owners.
Almost everyone thought not back then. So, we were among
the very first pioneers who saw the beginnings of the
promise.
Incidentally,
Jim and I both believe that the Internet is still very
much at the beginning of this revolution. Whenever someone
tells me it's too late (which happens frequently!),
I laugh. That reminds me of the head of the Patent and
Trademark Office in the mid 1880's who thought that
we may as well shut down the PTO since everything had
already been invented!
That's where
we are today in terms of the Internet. Just at the very,
very beginning. There's so much opportunity.
Early on
(now in 1994 and 1995) lots of colleagues were asking
our advice on putting their businesses on the Net. We
started to see so many scams, and so much misinformation
and hype, that we got really angry. One week we saw
three absurd proposals from Web development companies.
One was for a software development company and cost
twice their annual revenues!
Jim walked
around the house that day ranting and raving. We decided
we could do nothing - or do something. So, we decided
to start Internet ScamBusters, which has become the
#1 publication for Internet fraud. It's our public service.
Phew. Long
explanation, but there you are. That's how we got started.
[Corey]:
What was your first business online and how many do
you have now?
[Audri]:
NETrageous was our first online business. We got dragged
into it kicking and screaming, because just about all
of the Internet marketing information at that time was
just scams, and we wanted nothing to do with it. But
customers and friends begged us, so we put together
a program that was the precursor to our Internet Business
Advisory Service.
We then created
a separate site for our advisory newsletter, NETrageous
Results. We were committed from the beginning to put
out the very best Internet marketing newsletter. It
is completely results focused… and actionable.
We have a
very simple formula: We interview the top people in
the business - they must be making at least $100,000
per year from their online efforts - and get them to
share their strategies in ways that our subscribers
can act on directly. We interviewed Amazon.com long
before they went public, for example. It's been very
well received. And we're interviewing you this month.
:)
[Corey]:
Other sites?
[Audri]:
We've just launched a new site, and we will be launching
another two soon. The one we just launched is called http://www.AskNETrageous.com/ The main feature of
this site is our newest email newsletter, AskNETrageous.
Our focus is to provide top, real world answers to the
most challenging, provocative and tough Internet marketing
questions. We'll be taking questions from subscribers
and answering the best ones - in depth - each week.
We expect this to be very popular.
We're also
co-hosting what we are committed to making the most
important Internet event of the Millennium with Jay
Abraham in January called http://www.abraham-netrageous.com/imc/. (More on
that later...)
We've also
got a few other sites, like http://www.FreeFurby.com/, which let us do some
very interesting testing and allowed us to build a great
list of over 130,000 people who gave us fascinating
demographic information. We got completed demographic
surveys for $0.03 to $0.05 per visitor - which is 95%
less than what most people spend to just get visitors!
[Corey]:
How did you do that???
[Audri]:
Actually, it has been extremely easy. If your subscribers
visit the site, they will find a very focused site that
has only one purpose - to get people to fill out the
questionnaire. About 50% of our visitors do, which
is unheard of for a questionnaire that takes three minutes
to fill out. We offer an inexpensive prize - a Furby
- but it's something people really want. It's a very
well constructed questionnaire (if I do say so myself)
- the whole site really flows.
16% of our
visitors are small business owners, so that's another
benefit to us.
This site
is a great example of the first step of Permission Marketing.
If people haven't read Seth Godin's book by that name,
I highly recommend it. It's the best book I've read
this year - and I read a lot! Visit http://www.permission.com/ to sign up for the first
four chapters free.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR: Corey Rudl is the owner of four highly
successful online businesses that attract more than 1.8
million visitors per month and generate over $6.6 million
each year. He is also the author of the #1 best-selling
Internet Marketing course online.
To
Find Out How To Market Your Business
Online CLICK
HERE
