Interview With Glen Allsop of PluginID

Today I’m pleased to share with you an interview with my friend Glen Allsopp of PluginID.  Glen is nothing short of sensational as he continually  offers powerful and practical advice through his personal development  blog. He is really down to earth and a fantastic guy to say the least.  I know you will find this interview inspirational. Enjoy!

ME: What is your motivation to succeed day in and day out?

Glen: Up until about 2 months ago, my main motivation was, quite simply, to survive. I was able to quit my job in January 2009 and work full-time on my online projects. To ensure success in this area I worked about 15 hours per day, 7 days per week. I never planned on keeping this up forever; it was simply done to ensure that I could be in a position of financial abundance.

Right now, my motivation to succeed is to make the most of life. I make it clear to myself on a daily basis that this is the only life we have (some people don’t believe this, but it’s just my opinion) and there’s nothing more important than making your dreams a reality while you can. I think one of my best friends said it best: “This is it.”

ME: For those are aren’t familiar with your blog, what got you started on the online business path?

Glen: At 15 I started messing around with websites and one day decided to build a site based on one of my passions. At the time I was really into computers so built a site sharing some articles on how to increase the speed of your computer and that kind of thing. I put a link to Paypal (payment processor) on the site and just sat back, ready to tell all my friends how rich I was. Of course, nothing happened financially. I do chalk this experience down to a ‘bug’ I feel has been instilled in me to start working out why I didn’t succeed but more importantly, how I could in the future.

Since then I have made tens of thousands of dollars online, had a website featured in the book DJ’ing for Dummies and I’m set to make at least 6 figures next year.

ME: It is well known that you are a college drop out. How hard was this decision and what was your motivation to do so?

Glen: College, in the UK at least, usually lasts for two years. Because I wanted to do computer programming I had to go to a different college than all of my school friends, but I managed to fit in quickly and made friends with some awesome people. It was at this time though that a website I was running MyDJSpace (barely operational now) started to take off, and I really needed to spend as much time on it as possible.

After a year, it clearly showed I had spent too much time on it as my college attendance for the year was hovering around 50%. Not enough for them to consider me to go on to the next year. I decided to kick myself into gear and they allowed me to come back to college as long as I started the first year again. I finished the next year with some good grades which included an A in Law.

All of my friends were now leaving college because their two years were up, while I still had another year left to ‘make something’ of my education. It was in the summer break that I was offered my dream job – the opportunity to become the social media manager for the likes of Land Rover, Nissan and other large companies in Cape Town, South Africa.

Knowing that the internet was where I wanted to base my career, and that no college subjects really interested me long-term, I took the job and quit college. I can happily say it was by far the best decision of my life.

ME: Your online presence has become increasingly strong over the past few years, what three factors do you attribute your success too?

Glen: Good question! I have actually been fairly well known ‘online’ for a while due to my work in the internet marketing industry and the blog I run about that. More recently though I have started trying to make a name for myself in the Personal Development industry and as you say, increasing my presence.

I would say the first factor to my success would be that I’m real, I’m genuine. I don’t claim to be some multi-millionaire, I don’t claim to be a productivity guru or anything like that. Instead, I’m happy to highlight both my flaws and successes. Saying that I quit college actually offends a lot of people as most of us are socially conditioned to believe that college is the only way to get a good job and make a lot of money and I ‘go against’ their thinking.

Secondly, I would say that I interact. This probably shouldn’t, but it really bugs me when I see successful bloggers really distance themselves from their audience. Like how Steve Pavlina says he gives auto responses to certain emails or how some bloggers don’t take the time to reply to the questions of their commenters.Your blog is only successful because of them. People matter and I try my best to respond to 100+ emails per day, messages on Twitter, Facebook and that kind of thing. It can get a little overwhelming at times, but I feel it is worth it.

Number three would obviously have to be that I (or I like to think so) provide value. If I didn’t, there would be no reason for people to check out my websites or follow me around the social web. I actually spend 90% of my time on a site that makes 5% of my income and 10% of my time on my most profitable ventures. The reason for this is that providing value, to me, is nothing to do with the money and simply a way for me to ‘give back’ and do something meaningful with my life.

ME: What advice would you give to someone who is trying to live a life of passion and financial freedom?

Glen: I would share with them what I believe to be 4 simple steps to help in this area.

1. Have a message – What is it you want to share to the world? Do you want to write articles on productivity, teach golf lessons, give seminars, become a teacher?

Find out what it is you believe you can share with the world to offer value to people in some form. Once you know what it is, you just need to…

2. Have a medium – Your medium is simply your way of communicating this value. It could be on your own blog, it could be via videos on Youtube or it could be by becoming a school coach for a certain sport. Once you know what message you want to share, consider the options of how you are going to get it out there.

3. Stay Consistent – Nothing is going to happen for you dramatically overnight. It takes consistent work to get where you want to be. I sold my blog, PluginID (which now has over 3,000 subscribers) for $1,500 when it only had 350. I wasn’t happy with the ’slow’ growth and decided to start another project. Then I realised that I’m just going to end up starting something else from scratch and that I had made a big mistake. Thankfully I was able to get the site back with a bit of bartering.

4. Network – There is probably someone out there who has achieved what you want to achieve. Who are they? How did they do it? What does their path to success look like? These are the things you need to know and should try to find out. Additionally, on your own road to success, don’t burn any bridges along the way – you never know when you might need the support of somebody to help you along.

ME: Anyone who has been reading your blog for a while knows you have had the wonderful opportunity to travel. How has this made you into the person you are today?

Glen: I have been to 11 countries now, my favourite probably being Vietnam (I have family there). I would definitely say that my 15 months in South Africa really changed me as a person though. When you live in the same place, you get sucked into a certain type of reality of how people should live, how you should behave and even what is possible in your situation.

I believe that going to another place for a lengthy period of time really helps to broaden your horizons and give you a more rounded view of what the world is really like. The Netherlands and South Africa are two of the most laid back countries in the world and they will really take you for surprise if you’ve been living in an active and hectic lifestyle. For this reason, I’m actually going to live in The Netherlands before the end of this year.

ME: One of the reasons your blog has become so successful is because your constant interaction with the readers and your honesty. Why do you think this has helped you so immensely?

Glen: I try to interact with people regularly as mentioned above. You have to respect the opinions of others and also their situation while trying to give your own input at the same time which can prove to be tricky. I have came to realise that you can’t please everyone, and certainly have a ‘type’ of reader who likes to visit my site.

If you stick to your guns (guns being your values) without feeling like you need to impose your beliefs on others then you’ll find that your audience is able to get a certain vibe from you and really connect with what you say.

ME: Thank you so much for your time.

If you would like to learn more about Glen Allsop please head over to PluginID.You can also check out his internet marketing blog at PluginHQ

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

1. Interview with Ivan of Ivancampuzano.com Today I have the pleasure of sharing with you an...
2. Interview with Alex of Unleash Reality While I do my best to provide unique content from...
3. Interview with Natural Bias Today I have special treat: an interview with my...
4. Benefits of a Mastermind I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some...