Exclusive Interview with Mark Joyner By Cort McCadden Sep 21, 2005

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Recently I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing one of the most successful Internet marketers in the world: Mark Joyner. If you have been on the Net for any length of time you have heard of Mark!


Cort: Mark, I know that you are one of the pioneers in Internet Marketing, however I would like to know what you did before your Net involvement. When was this? What got you interested in the Net?

Mark: My first exposure to the Internet was when I was a very young man and the Internet didn’t even exist. My uncle had a teletype machine hooked up to the prototype ARPANET and it mesmerized me. We used to play these little text-based games where you’d type in instructions and then wait with excitement as an answer came back over the phone lines. The first one was a little adventure game called “Cave” where you’d see something like this:

“You are standing in front of a cave. What do you do?”

You’d then have to write in answers to these questions with a limited number of commands. It was extremely rudimentary, but the interactivity made it great fun.

Many years passed and I joined the US Army entering the US Army Military Intelligence Corp as a Korean linguist. Essentially I was a spy, but I was exposed to a number of interesting jobs while I was in. After a few years I was selected to attend Officer Candidate School where I was given the chance to serve as a Commissioned Officer in Field Artillery. This was combat arms and very different from my time in Military Intelligence to say the least. Now, while all this was happening around 1994 I started my first online projects and managed them in my free time whilst none were the wiser that I was actually a soldier by day.

There wasn’t really such a thing as “Internet Marketing Theory” then so I sort of concocted my own metaphorically applying my knowledge of military strategy and tactics and psychology to online marketing. It turns out the theories worked quite well. Over time I found that some of the theories had really been sort of a re-tooling of what had already been discovered by the great Direct Marketers of the past (Joe Karbo, Joe Vitale, Ted Nicholas, Joe Sugarman, Jospeh Cossman, etc. It became clear over time that psychology is psychology no matter the medium.

By the time I resigned my commission in 1998 I had already achieved great success online.


Cort: Did you see the value of Email Marketing almost immediately after it appeared? What made you get involved with Email Marketing?

Mark: Well, back in the early days “email marketing” pretty much meant “spam.” Very few people were doing legitimate opt-in back then. I spammed back then. A lot of us did.

I’m not excusing it, but that was sort of the atmosphere. Those of us who were around back then call it the “wild-wild web” days. Pretty much anything went. Most of the old-school guys who were around back then spammed, too, but very few will talk about it openly.

Over time I started to realize that spamming was wrong for a number of reasons: it annoys customers, it eats up resources that aren’t yours, it’s not a path to long-term relationships, etc.

But to answer your question, I sure did see the potential early on. It was obvious to everyone – reach a massive market for a tiny cost.

It’s still the same – you just have to understand and work with the rules now. Frankly, the movement to opt-in (and even confirmed opt-in) is better for marketers. It forces you to have a better relationship and that’s just better for business.


Cort: We all know that here in that Congress is trying to get tough with Spammers. Do you think that they have gone far enough? If not, what should they do? Do you think that there will ever be an INTERNATIONAL Spam Law? If so, would you be in favor or opposed.

Mark: I certainly hope there won’t be any international legislation as such. Industry needs to regulate itself before bureaucracy steps in. When the government gets involved it tends to be a stifling force for commerce.

I sure don’t know the solution, but a great many people are working on acceptable methods of verification.

The problem is, there are a number of people out there offering competitive solutions and no one is universally accepted.

Some very smart person with the brains and the ear of enough decision makers in the industry needs to come up with an industry-regulated solution that we can all agree on.

When one comes along that fits the bill (that isn’t someone’s self-serving profit stream) I’ll back it up 100%.


Cort: What are your feelings about Plain vs. HTML Email Marketing? What about the Audio and Visual Email?

Mark: I almost always use plain email and when I use HTML I make it look like plain email. Media-rich email is heavier to deliver, and sets off the “spam” warning system in the recipient’s mind.

Most will disagree with that, but that’s my take.


Cort: Arguably, Mark, you are one of the most successful marketers on the Net. What have been your biggest successes in your business and why? Failures? What would you do differently if you could do things over?

Mark: Biggest successes: using grass-roots marketing to make my last book a #1 best-seller, having an e-book downloaded over 1,000,000 times when I stopped counting (the e-book many say popularized the medium), having a website that hit #36 out of all sites in the world 6 weeks from its launch.

Biggest failures: backing people and companies on faith that I should not have and allowing myself to take the hit for it when they failed. However, I still might do that again (the taking the hit part – not the backing people on faith part). I’m not one to point fingers at others.

If I could do it over again:

a. If I’m endorsing another business, or someone else, I’d never again take responsibility for their actions. If someone else is in control of something, I would make that person’s role (and my role) clear. This kind of thing has bitten me in the behind several times.

b. I’d choose partners more wisely – if at all. Partnerships are possibly the worst business arrangement known to man. Most are problematic and fail. This doesn’t mean, “don’t do JV’s.” Not at all. Do them, but make sure the relationship is clear. Focus on the quid pro quo and if it’s even slightly fuzzy steer clear. Full on partnerships I’d avoid entirely (unless both parties have clear responsibilities and are both 100% dedicated to the business without question – even then I’d be nervous).

c. I’d focus on one thing at a time and not run too many operations.

d. But then again … I love where I am right now and I wouldn’t be here if anything had been different. The project I’m working on right now is my most passionate work.


Cort: What would be your advice to Internet newbies concerning Email Marketing?

Mark: Do confirmed opt-in. Focus on building a relationship with your subscribers. Make your subscriber a promise and fulfill that promise with each issue.


Cort: Mark I am so enjoying your latest project. Tell our readers something about Simpleology 101 and why you are giving this incredible program away?

Mark: While I was consulting for private clients, I realized that I was coming across the same kinds of problems time and time again. My clients all seemed to face the same kinds of blocks or needed a quick shift in perspective and as soon as I pointed that out, they were off flying! I decided I'd like to address these common issues with an easy "course" that anyone could do and benefit from no matter how much business experience they had. I've spoken with people from every continent on the planet ranging from the hardest of the "hard luck cases" to millionaire entrepreneurs, high power executives and super-achievers.

In my mind I had been operating out of a very specific set of rules and using a very specific formula that allowed me to get what I want again and again. Intuitively I could see my clients breaking one of these rules, or missing a single part of the formula. I'd simply point this out to them and then - snap! – every thing would fall into place.

Most people simply can't afford $2,000 for a private consultation, so I often donate my help to people in need, but again I simply can't do that for everyone who writes in.

What if my theory that everything I told my clients could be distilled into a number of easy to understand lessons was valid?

If it were, I could then create a systematic way for everyone to learn these principles.

Over time I began to take notes and consciously formalize these rules for success. Eventually, I decided to put all of this information together into an easily usable form that has become Simpleology.


Cort: Thanks so much Mark! I have been participating in Simpleology myself and would advise that everyone go to Simpleology 101 and get started with it today!

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Cort McCadden is the co-founder of a new AV/TV production company called Avmagination that will be specializing in producing HDDVD – High Definition DVD – for “edu-entertainment” info products like his soon to be released Barter Wealth. You can reach him at cort@avmagination.com and visit the website at http://www.avmagination.com to be on his mailing list to receive his newly updated FR*E*E Ebook Survival Manual for the Third Millennium. In this ebook you will find preparation for hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. Cort is a recognized authority on survival and has made appearances on Art Bell Coast to Coast, CNN and Fox News.

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