Hello Everyone,

As you know, one of my goals at IncomeDiary.com is to ‘mix it up a bit’ — bring you some unexpected interviews / podcasts and introduce you to some amazing characters who are making huge incomes online.

Today I have one such individual – Chris McCombs of Orange County, CA. Chris runs the website: Outlaw Fitness Marketing

Chris describes himself as a Personal Trainer, Internet Marketer, Fitness Entrepreneur, Blogger, Free Time Junkie, Ex-Convict, Marketing Outlaw and Biker.

This is going to be a very interesting Podcast — and as usual there is also a transcript below.

I look forward to your comments

Interview Transcript:

Michael: Hi Chris. Great to have you here. I’ll jump straight in. You have a great story, and I want to quickly cover how you went from the lowest point where you can be in business and in life, and now doing some great stuff. So if you just want to jump in and tell us where a few years back.

Chris: Oh yeah. Well, I was one of those kids with really bad ADD in school, and didn’t do well at school at all. Couldn’t focus on what the teachers were talking about, and couldn’t stand any job I had when I tried to get jobs. As a teenager I just couldn’t stand it.

So I found actually selling pot was something that I actually really enjoyed doing. And the pot helped a lot with my ADD. And I had OCD too, so I got really into my business, and I blew it up to where we were moving large amounts of marijuana all over the country. And after doing that for quite a number of years, I got arrested and I served time for what I was doing.

When I got out, I actually ended up homeless. I lost everything from my marijuana trafficking days. Lost everything, ended up homeless, ended up hooked on painkillers. It was just a frikin mess. And at age 30, I just said, “You know what? I have to change this.”

I just started reading literally hundreds of books on spirituality, philosophy, psychology, self-help, all that stuff. I would just take bits and pieces that applied from different books and completely changed my life. And at 30, I ended up broke with a minimum wage job, but at least I was walking the straight path and quit all the stuff I was doing.

And didn’t like my job, so I got into personal training, and within a few years of personal training I discovered how to get a lot of people from the Internet to my local personal training business.

And basically getting people from Google, from the Google Organic and Google Pay Per Click and now Google Local and also from Craigslist and MySpace and a bunch of different sources I was able to get enough personal training clients to give them to 15 different personal trainers in my area, to where I actually didn’t have to work.

And I took the business, automated it, systemized the whole damn thing, and outsourced basically everything. Outsourced the training to the personal trainers, the customer service to my wife and my assistant, the billing and accounting to my wife. And the sales calls that come in from my website, I outsourced that to some appointment setters who make the appointments to the trainers.

My whole business takes me 30 minutes to an hour a month, and that 30 minutes to a hour a month is basically just looking at the numbers.

And from there, I really liked the Internet marketing stuff, just completely loved it. So I started a blog about how I did all that. The blog got pretty popular pretty fast, and I got a really good following on there.

And after having the blog for the better part of a year, I launched my first information product. And that product, we did over $50, 000 in sales the first week, and about $300, 000 in global payments over the full course of the year – it was a year long program.

And since then I’ve been releasing a new integral product every month or two and that’s built up to what’s closing in on a million dollar a year business in the near future here. About three-quarters of a million dollars a year now for a business that really probably takes 10 to 15 hours a week.

Some weeks 20 hours a week, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of time, and it allows me to work where I want, when I want, and on my own terms.

I’m able to take off weeks or months at a time sometimes, and it’s a great deal. It all started from a blog. Basically I just built a following of loyal readers on my blog and turned that into an info-marketing business.

Since then, now I’m out making a documentary about the whole subculture of Internet marketing. We’ve got probably 80% of the big top Internet marketers that most people would know. We’ve got them in the movie. We’ve gone and interviewed them, flown all around the country.

And that’s the two minute version of my story right there.

Michael: That’s incredible. It’s amazing how you could go from one end to the other end doing so much great stuff. So I just want to go back to when you did start, and you just got out of prison. You had pretty much nothing. What gave you that kick, and what would you suggest others to get off your butt and actually do something, and achieve something in life.

Chris: You know what? There was just no place for me to go. There was just no friends left. I was totally miserable, totally strung out on these painkillers. And I just couldn’t imagine continuing living the way I was. Not to get too woo-woo or spiritual on you here, but I basically just said a prayer. I had no idea what I was praying to or whatever. I just prayed, “Help.” Whatever was out there, just help?

The next day I was at the library picking up books on spirituality, philosophy, self-help and all that. That became my new obsession for the next couple of years – just becoming a better person. Completely changing the way that I looked at the world, completely changing the man that I had become. And I did that diligently for a few years.

And I still do it today, but it’s not like I did back then. Back then it was like a crash course on being a good human being. And I can’t tell you how much all the different books helped. I literally picked up hundreds of them.

And a lot of times I didn’t agree with everything that was in the book, but I would just get one nugget. I would get one nugget from this guy, one nugget from that guy, and I would apply the stuff to my life on a constant basis.

That was huge. Just the willingness to learn and change everything about what I thought was true, what I thought was real, and be willing to grow. When you smoke weed and do drugs for over 15 years, and you start when you’re 14 or 15 years old, you kind of wake up a 14 year old 30 year old, if that makes sense. You have the emotional capacity of like a 14 year old kid.

Michael: Yes.

Chris: So I had to wake up at age 30 and just really go through some growing pains there. But, you know what? Slowly poked the twin cake on it [?] and pretty soon things just got better and better and better.

Michael: That’s brilliant. Thanks for sharing that. You just mentioned you read literally hundreds of books. What book was the best book you read, and how did it impact your life and why should others read it?

Chris: You know what? I can’t come up with a single book, but I can fire off a handful of them actually.

Michael: Sure, do that.

Chris: OK, the “Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle completely changed my life. That was the big one. Byron Katie’s books, she wrote one called “Loving What Is”. That book changed the way I saw things. Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”, that was a giant one for me.

Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, that completely changed the way I talked to people. I didn’t really have any social skills at all when I started all this. So that one helped me a lot.

All the Wayne Dyer stuff… Basically a lot of books and stuff like that.

Michael: Brilliant, brilliant. Cool. So after you got off your ass and you started doing some things and achieving things, you started your own fitness business and you brought in, I think you said 15 trainers.

Chris: Yes.

Michael: What did you learn from running your first proper legal business?

Chris: What did I learn? That’s a great question. I learned, well, basically I learned a lot by reading “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber, and I learned that I did not want to be the technician of business nor the manager. I just wanted to be the entrepreneur.

And that unless I systemized my business and created step-by-step systems for every part of it, that I was going to be working my butt off. No matter how big my business go, I would be working 70, 80, 90 hours a week.

I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to own something that made me money and gave me a lot of freedom. And basically through reading Tim Ferriss’ “4-Hour Work Week,” and Michael Gerber’s “The E-Myth,” I took that stuff and applied it to my business.

I think I quit training about a week after I read “The E-Myth.” I read “The E-Myth” and said, you know what, I’m just going to systemize my whole business. And I did it. I created systems for everything and outsourced it to other people. That’s basically what I did.

I created a business reliant on systems. And that was a huge turning point for me, to realize that, hey, why not have systems that do the work for me and get other people to do them, and just own the systems. Own the business instead of me having to go out and trade an hour to make a dollar. If that makes sense.

That was probably one of my biggest lessons in my life, and I basically learned it from Michael Gerber and learned more of it from Tim Ferriss.

Michael: That’s brilliant. You’ve just covered your business and what it’s like running your first business. But was the transaction going from illegal to legal? Would you like to weight it out for those people out there, some people could possibly be trading illegal, or could be even selling dope like you were.

Would you like to give us some comparisons on why it’s so much better to be in the place you are now?

Chris: Well, it’s funny, because I actually stopped – I pretty much stopped illegal activity when I was around 25. But I didn’t have financial success legally until I was about 33. So I was broke for the first five to eight years. The first five years I was jobless.

After I quite dealing, I was jobless. I would work as a bouncer here and there, throwing drunks out of bars. But I couldn’t hold down a regular job. So that sucked.

And then I would get minimum wage jobs, and that completely sucked too. I had to learn that. One of the reasons I think I did the illegal stuff was I never liked having a job and living by someone else’s values. I’m an entrepreneur by nature. I have to do something I’m passionate about, that gets me going, that I can be obsessively focused on. And it has to be something that’s in line with my values.

And if I’m doing that, then I’m a pretty happy guy. I’m willing to work hard. Sometimes before a launch, I’ll put in 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week. Usually we don’t, but before a big launch or something I will. And as long whatever that is, is in line with my passion and my purpose and my values, then I’m completely satisfied.

If I’m not, if I’m just out working a regular day job, I’m completely miserable. And to be perfectly honest, I had a lot more fun selling the pot that I did having a regular day job. A lot more fun.

However, it’s not in line with my values today, for one. Two, there’s this thing called Karma that can come back and kick you in the ass. Three, I used to have nightmares about getting busted. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and imagine they were breaking down my door. That sucked. I don’t have that today.

So there’s a lot bigger piece of mind that I have today. But I’ve just found that as long as whatever you’re doing is in line with your values, that’s the most important part. That it’s part of your purpose. And if it’s something that helps other people and can help you to be financially successful, then all the better. That’s the best place to be.

Michael: Brilliant. Great share. Thanks very much, Chris. OK, so you’ve gone and you’ve done all the offline stuff and now you’re coming online and you start a blog. Would you like to just cover with us quickly why you start blog and how it could impact your business?

Chris: I started a blog because I found out the thing I really loved to talk about was this Internet marketing stuff. I mean, I would be at a party and I just wouldn’t have anything to talk about with people, right?

I would feel a little socially awkward, unless there was one other guy in the room who was into marketing or Internet marketing, or business, and then I could really get into it.

So I go, hey, this is really stuff I love to talk about, why not do it in a blog? I could go do it my own way. I came out with a blog that was pretty controversial for my industry, it was pretty edgy. I made a blog that was a mix of good Internet marketing blog for the fitness industry mixed with “Maxim” madness.

It was a blog for guys from 20-40. 20-40 year old male fitness experts who typically might have a couple of tattoos and they either listen to some heavy metal music or hip hop. They like the movie “Goodfellas,” they like the movie “Pulp Fiction,” they like the movie “Heat.” They swear a little bit, but they’re generally good people. You know what I mean? That’s the guys I went after.

Those were the trainers I knew, so I went after them. I created a blog similar to them, and the industry had never seen anything like it. Most of what was out there, not everything, but most of what was out there was pretty bland.

So I came out with something edgy, exciting, controversial, fun. And I just poured my heart out in the blog, giving away basically my secrets.

Basically what I did in my business I was giving away on the blog, and that created quite a bit of buzz in the industry, because all of the sudden I’m on the top of the search engines for all these big terms that these other guys had been competing for these terms for years.

And all of the sudden I’m above them and I’m getting a lot more traffic than them. My Alexa rank is way better than them. I’m getting a lot more comments on my blog then them. And they’re like, “Who is this guy?”

I got in with all those guys, actually the big gurus in my market. I contacted them, I went out of my way to do some cool things for them. And then I said, “Hey, I’m actually coming out with an info product soon, I’d love you to promote it if you’re down.”

Now I didn’t go to these guys in the beginning and say, “Hey, would you guys promote a product I have coming out?” I made sure that three to six months in advance I went out of my way to help them and to be of use to them, and to create cool blog posts about them and send them some traffic, and to help them with their own websites and their own search engine optimizations and stuff like that.

And then I came to them and asked them to product my thing, and they pretty much all did across the board. However, if I didn’t have that blog, I wouldn’t have had the credibility that I did. I wouldn’t have had the traffic that I did to show these guys, hey, look, I’m creating quite an impact in the industry, and we should be on the same side.

So having that blog helped tremendously. It gave me a lot of authority in my market, it gave me great positioning in my market, it created a lot of buzz in market. It got me very well known in my market.

So it did a lot of things, and now it’s basically my funnel into my products. I don’t have an email newsletter, what I do is I have a blog. And I typically send out two to three days a week, I do blog posts, and I send people from my email list to my blog, and then my blog funnels to all my products.

The products are all in the navigation bar over on the right. They’re on my build your business page. And then usually in every blog post or two, I’ll mention a product or two in the blog post.

I’ll pitch it too hard. Sometimes I pitch it really hard, but other times it’s right in there in the content. And I’m giving, giving, giving people…

For one, that creates a law of reciprocity. I’m giving them all this great content, so when I come out with a product, they’re a lot more apt to buy it from me because they’re like,

“Damn. All this stuff he’s been giving us for free for this last year or two, that thing he’s selling must be really good.”

So it gets people buying my stuff because of the law of reciprocity, and they trust me and the position I have. And also it sucks in a lot of people from the search engines who are looking online for what I have to offer. So they’re searching. My stuff will come up to the top of the search engines, they’ll end up on my site, and then they’ll see all my products and services.

So it’s allowed me to sell everything from… I have low end products that are like $47 a month continuity products, up to $10, 000 coaching programs, and my blog is what helps me sell all of that.

Michael: Wow. That’s incredible. What a great share. I think everyone listening to this right now, hears instruction on great points on just personal branding for one, because your blog really brands not just your business but your name. And you can take your business so much further with just having a blog.

Tell me Chris, what your top advice would be for someone who is starting their blog and wants to do something like you have.

Chris: One is be different. Do something to separate yourself from everybody else out there. That’s really important.

Make your blog fun. I like to look at it as, make it a personal conversation between you and your reader as if they were your best friend sitting down with you at a pub or a bar. Or if you’re a female, maybe at a coffee shop having tea, right?

Michael: Yes.

Chris: They are your best friend, and you’re sitting down having a personal one on one conversation. You’re not talking down to them. You’re talking on an equal level. But once in a while, you’re cracking a joke. You’re telling a fun story. You’re doing some stuff like that. So make it fun and interesting on a personal level. That one is huge.

And the other one is, hey, be willing to do some work for the next six months or a year without getting paid for it. Don’t think you’re going to put up a blog post, and a week later the world’s going to come and go, “Oh my god, this guy’s got a blog. We all must come to see it.”

You know what I mean? Because, I don’t know what there are, but there’s probably millions of them out there now. You have to spend some time, find your voice, and start getting the traffic and building the relationships and stick to it.

I mean, for the first nine or twelve months I had my blog, I wasn’t making any money at all. But I was doing it because I knew the money would come, and you have to be willing to do that. Don’t think you’re going to put up a blog today and in two weeks you’re going to have a big paycheck.

Michael: I’ll tell you what, Chris. You’re giving it to them straight. I mean, I couldn’t agree more on your comments about having to be on their level, because I have to tell you what.

So many bloggers out there, and marketers – they’re up and they’re saying, “Hey, I am so much better than you.” But it’s almost like you have to be a bit humble and be their friend. I have to agree, you can get a lot further doing that.

OK, cool. So you start your blog, and then you launched your first information product, which I believe you made about $50, 000 in the first week. So would you like to just take us…? Because so many bloggers think about launching their own information product.

And I would like to cover just quickly how bloggers or entrepreneurs should launch their first information product.

Chris: Well, it worked really good for me. I saw what the big guys where doing, like Jeff Walker and Frank Kern. And I go, “Hey, that’s working for these dudes. It’s going to work for me too.” And it was basically a six week process.

Luckily, I had been building the relationships for the previous three to six months, right? One of the key things is getting the big people in your niche to mail for you. If you can get that, you can make 10 times as many sales, right out of the gate, if you can get the big guys in your niche to mail for you.

The problem is, most of them probably aren’t going to want to mail for you, especially is you just come to them and say, “Hey, I’m coming out with a cool product. Will you mail your list?” Actually, they’re probably going to be pretty offended by it, and not like you right out of the gate if you come to them like that.

Go become friends with them, no expectation of them doing anything in return. Go out of your way to help these guys. Whether you can help them with their marketing, you can do cold blog posts about them, you can send them some books or products that have helped you. Whatever it is, go out of your way to start the relationships with these guys.

That’s the first thing right there; because they can help you make ten times as many sales right out of the gate. One of my affiliates made, out of 152 sales that we did, he made I think it was 71 sales in that week. So that showed me the strength of having some big affiliates. I have actually four really power affiliates, and that helps tremendously. So get the affiliates lined up.

And then I basically did the thing where I put out two weeks worth of really good free content on squeeze pages. I mean, here’s a video. If you want to see more videos, give your name and email over here. And I would have these guys send traffic to it, and it would just basically it would hit their affiliate cookie.

Whenever they would send someone over, that person’s computer would get cookied with their affiliate tracking. So let’s say one of my affiliates sends someone over, but the person didn’t buy anything for a week and half. If they bought, that person who originally sent it would get the commission.

So I did the basic… What you see Frank Kern do with Mass Control and Jeff Walker do with Product Launch, and you see all the big item guys do. And I’ll probably do five or six pieces of free blind content giving away really good tips in the videos, and making the videos fun and stuff like that.

And then the last few videos where, “Hey, here’s what – my program is coming up. This day is coming up, this time. Here’s my guarantee. Here’s how much it costs,” and all that.

Then I launched it at a certain time. I launched it at 9:00 AM on a Tuesday morning. Immediately we did like $30, 000 of sales in just the first few hours. And I had a hard deadline, that at 150 people we’re closing the doors. That created a lot of scarcity which got me a lot of sales.

But I think the big thing was having everyone in the market all talking about me at the same time. When there’s five big viewers in your market, and four of them are all talking about you for two weeks, each of them are sending six or seven emails to these videos you are creating, it really creates a buzz, and you become the talk of the whole industry.

So that was huge. And that also helped me build my list really fast. It helped me build my list with a lot of buyers, for one, because the people who were coming over and opting in were the cream of the crop on these guys’ lists. Right? So it helped me get some of the best people on their lists. And now I reciprocate, and I go back and promote stuff in reciprocal promotions.

But it’s really important to be willing to promote these relationships by starting them off with a giving hand. Don’t just come to people and say, “Hey, will you promote my thing?” I get those emails all the time. We don’t even acknowledge them, because it’s a backwards way of doing it.

Go out. Help these guys who have the big lists in your niche, and don’t expect them all to promote it. If you can get 20%, 30%, 40% or more, you’re doing pretty good.

But don’t expect them to. Don’t do something with the expectation of something in return. Just do it and trust when time comes, when help from them will promote your stuff, that you’ll do pretty good. That one is huge, right there.

It’s just basically following that classic launch formula, that these guys, especially Jeff Walker and Frank Kern, especially, are the two big ones who really got it popular. It’s following that proven formula, because it works.

Michael: All right. Brilliant. Thanks very much, Chris. I want to quickly talk to you now about your documentary that’s about instant marketing. This is going to be something I’m really looking forward to, and I want you to tell everyone about it so they can look out for it in the coming months.

Chris: Well, Bedros Keuilian was my affiliate that I started a relationship off with a year and a half ago. He was the one who made 71 of my sales out of the 152 sales. We’ve become good friends ever since, and we decided that we both love Internet marketing, let’s make a documentary about the subculture about Internet marketing.

We have most of the big guys in the industry of the Internet. Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, Brad Fallon, Andy Jenkins, Yanik Silver, Jeff Johnson, Tucker Max, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jason Moffatt, Matt Trainer, I could go on and on. John Carlton, John Assaraf, Mike Koenigs, Vince DelMonte, Craig Valentine.

The list is huge. I’ve probably interviewed 30 or 35 of these guys, and like I’ve said, we probably have about 80 percent of the well-known Internet marketers in the world who are in the documentary. It’s basically showing these guys. A lot of them got kicked out of high school or didn’t graduate high school.

A lot of them have attention deficit disorder. A lot of them can never hold down a regular day show. They have complete ADD and are completely unemployable.

Yet here they are making seven- and eight-figure incomes working in their flip-flops, most of them from a home office, with just a few employees or subcontractors working for them, a lot of times virtually. And they’re helping a lot of people and making a lot of money. A lot of times, they take months off at a time.

Typically they’ll work really hard for a few weeks, like when it comes time to launch something, and then they’re taking a few months off again. They’re just working a few hours a day for a few months.

And we wanted to show this, because in this economy, when everyone else in the States is worried about the economy and are losing their jobs and are going broke, here are these guys who, by all means, should be broke as well. Like I said, they’re pretty damn unemployable.

Michael: [laughs]

Chris: But here these guys are frickin’ killing it, mostly with their information products, but some of it is because of their blog or whatever.

And some of these personalities are just incredible. When we interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, that guy’s something else. How do you define Gary Vaynerchuk? Andy Jenkins. We’re interviewing Andy Jenkins today. That guy’s nuts, man! But he’s awesome personality.

And to showcase this, we’re just showing this whole subculture of these frickin’ renegades and outlaws who are making all this money online while the majority of society, at least here in the West, is bitching and moaning about the economy.

Here are these guys who have a positive attitude and are kicking ass and they’re doing it their own way.

We think that’s a story that needs to be told. So that’s the story we’re telling. It’s called “Add to Cart.” We’re looking to get it out in early 210.

Michael: Super. All right, everyone. I hope you all look out to that, because it’s going to be something else. It’s going to be something you haven’t seen before, so that’ll be great.

OK. Chris, you’ve mentioned your Internet lifestyle. Do you want to tell us what the best thing about being an Internet entrepreneur and living the Internet lifestyle is?

Chris: The best thing is the freedom. Right now, I’m not making the multi-multi-millions of dollars. That’s not super-important for me. What I do have is the freedom of being able to wake up, and if I don’t want to work today, I don’t have to work today. Let’s say I have an interview with a guy like you.

Typically, once or twice a week, I have some coaching clients, an interview, some kind of appointment I have to stick to. But typically, on most days, if I want to take the day off, I can. I usually don’t, but I can.

I’m at home, at my home office. My assistant is out there in the other room doing work for me. My wife’s out there – she does a lot of work for me. My two little daughters are out there.

So I get to see my wife and my daughters all day, which is incredible. Any time I want, I can jump on my Harley and go for a ride. Any time we want, we can say “Hey, screw it. Let’s go to Vegas in the next week,” or “Let’s go on a little vacation.”

Michael: [laughs]

Chris: So basically, it’s having that freedom to do what I want when I want. I’m not into the bling. I’m not into the mansions. I don’t have to have a $300, 000 car, as long as I’m not stuck to a day job and don’t have to show up to the construction site or the cubicle.

And I can work where and when I want, doing what I want, helping a lot of people, having a lot of fun, and networking with people like you, Internet marketers, who are the coolest guys in the world.

It’s all about that for me. It’s about the freedom and the fun and the passion of helping other people and doing something where you’re done. If you have a blog or an info product, you’re selling you. You’re selling your brand.

To me, that is so exciting, because you can create and mold your brand and become a rock-star version of yourself while still being authentic to who you are. You know what I mean? You create this person you put out there, and you become more and more of that person you put out there. It’s incredible. If I had to break it down, I’d break it down to the word freedom.

Michael: Brilliant. I couldn’t agree more. I always describe it as the word “freedom.” If you could jump in a time machine and go back to when you first started, what would you do differently?

Chris: If I could jump in a time machine?

Michael: [laughs] I know it’s not very realistic.

Chris: You know what? I don’t know what, because I think every mistake I made along the way is a mistake that had to be made, and it’s a mistake that made me who I am today. I don’t think I would change a thing.

I’m not trying to sound like I’ve made all good choices, because four out of five things I’ve done are probably done wrong. But I learn from those, or I massage those into better choices. And the 20% that I’m doing right has been enough to create one hell of a business.

I guess one thing is that I would have stayed in shape. I let myself get out of shape when I stopped personal training and started working home and sitting around. When I got married, I packed on about 70 pounds. I used to be ripped! I was shredded.

So now, in the last three months, because I’ve been out of shape for three years, I’m eating well again, working out hard again, doing the cardio, lifting the weights. I have a trainer, actually. Even though I own a training business, I went and hired a trainer.

So I guess it would have been not letting myself get out of shape. But I don’t regret the fact that I did it. That’ll never get you anywhere. That’s living in the past, and I think that every single mistake I’ve made, I’ve had to make and there’s a reason for it. I think somehow, some way, everything is exactly perfect the way it is.

Michael: All right, brilliant. What a great way to end this interview, Chris! Thanks very much. Are there any last words of advice or anything you want to tell my readers?

Chris: You know what, Michael? I want to thank you for interviewing me today. You’re living proof of this lifestyle. Here you are. You’re a young guy and you have an extremely popular Web site. You have a huge following of people. You’re tapped into some of the coolest and best entrepreneurs on the planet.

So I want to tip my hat to you, man and say that I commend you for what you’re doing. You’re a great example, and I want to thank you for being who you are and I want to thank you for having me on this call today!

Michael: All right. Thanks very much, Chris. You’re a great guy. Cheers!

More about Chris:
Outlaw Fitness Marketing

Note: This site is raw, controversial and NOT for everyone… ENJOY

Blogging has been great platform for so many people to become a huge success. Take me for example, because of my Retireat21 blog I was offered to host a hit new MTV show in LA just because they liked how I came across on my blog. Blogging isn’t just about making money online, for some people it could be because they want to be a best selling author but can’t get a foot in the door right now and for others it started just so they could pay there grocery bills. Today I have created a really cool list of 20 people who started blogging and now are so much more then just bloggers. Looking down at the list I have created today, I should really rename it the 20 best bloggers ever as these guys have set such high standards for all of us. Please note that the list isn’t really in any particular order, just the 20 best although I have to say Tucker Max’s story was one of the most entertaining.

If you would like to take the first steps to follow these bloggers and make it big then check out my FREE eCourse teaching you exactly how to build your first blog, drive traffic and make money!

20 Entrepreneurs Who Started With Blogging

#1 Tucker Max
		Tucker’s Blog TuckermaxWhy He Started Blogging: Tucker Max was blogging about his drunken, womanizing exploits before the phrase “blogging” even existed. Tuckers blog attracts 100,000s of visitors weekly who like to read about his ‘interesting’ exploits and enjoy his amazing writing style. Where He Is Now: Because of Tuckers blog, he was able to get a book published which The New York Times called “…highly entertaining and thoroughly reprehensible…” no wonder it was in The New York Times best sellers list for 100 weeks. He is filming a movie based on his book/stories/life by the title “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” coming soon!
#2 Gary Vaynerchuk
		Garys’s Blog GaryvaynerchukWhy He Started Blogging: Gary Vaynerchuk’s story started as the co-owner of a wine store in New Jersey. He gained fame as the host of Wine Library TV, a video blog on the subject of wine, built his wine store into a multi-million dollar business and established his personal brand with TV appearances and speaking engagements around the world. Where He Is Now: He has now signed a seven-figure book deal about the things that made him as successful as he is in creating opportunities for himself via his video blog. He also is among one of the most sort after speakers for any marketing events.
#3 Collis Ta’eed
		Collis’s Blog Tutsplus.comWhy He Started Blogging: Began his first blog, FreelanceSwitch, in 2006 with his wife Cyan in her parents garage when their first site wasn’t earning as fast as they expected. Where He Is Now: Collis is now one of the top earning bloggers in the world with over a dozen high traffic blogs, collis has been able to quickly launch new blogs because of such a rapid and loyal readership. Collis is able to work from anywhere in the world while he travels with his wife on new and exciting web projects because of the success of his blogging career.
#4 Mario Lavandeira
		Mario’s Blog Perez HiltonWhy He Started Blogging: Mario has always loved intrigue and who better to showcase this than celebrities so his blogs started all about celebrity gossip. After graduation from New York University in 2000, Mario attempted to be an actor, but he end up working as a very well earned blogger because he thinks setting up a website like this “seems easy” unlike being an actor. He found his talent in riling up gossip and controversies about Hollywood figures and is one of the most infamous bloggers in the United States. There are actually two sides to it since he is hated by many Hollywood stars but is loved by millions of web patrons. Where He Is Now: Mario rides on both fame and infamy. In 2007, Mario announced that he would be starring in his own reality television show on VH1, titled “What Perez Sez”. He is also a regular on TRL, Much Music and Extra where he reports about Hollywood gossip from his own closet studio. In May 2008, he also launched his own radio show called “Radio Perez”.
#5 Michael Arrington
		Michael’s Blog TechcrunchWhy He Started Blogging: He is a corporate attorney who left law to become a Web entrepreneur. When he took a year off, and returned to the work world, he started blogging as a way to understand the new Web start-ups that had arisen in his absence. TechCrunch took off, and he soon found himself an accidental power broker. Where He Is Now: Michael now spends his time scouting the internet and investing in some promising internet start-ups.
#6 Pete Cashmore
		Peter’s Blog MashableWhy He Started Blogging: Due to his inquisitive mind and great interest with web-related matters, Pete Cashmore focused solely on writing about MySpace and other social networks. One of Cashmore’s first articles that became instantly popular was, “If You Don’t Have A MySpace, You’re a Lametard.“ It was a unique approach to blogging, but it worked. Where He Is Now: Peter still does writes about everything happening on the Internet although he has slightly deviated from his focus on just social network news. Given the fame of Mashable, Peter has weaned himself from writing and has begun to concentrate on the entrepreneurial side of his web-business. To further strengthen his enterprise, Peter moved to California and focuses on West Coast operations. His success has brought him to celebrity status and he has been featured on many shows in the US and the UK. Peter also travels between the two countries as a consultant and speaker.
#7 Josh Marshall
		Josh’s Blog TPMWhy He Started Blogging: Marshall started a blog called “Talking Points Memo” during the 2000 Florida election recount. He was inspired by political bloggers such as Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan. Where He Is Now: Josh Marshall played an important part in exposing a scandal which involved the politically motivated dismissal of US Attorneys by the administration of George W. Bush. For that he was nominated by Arianna Huffington to the Time 100. After declining numerous offers to buy his company, Josh still operates it in Manhattan with a staff of seven reporters. Aside from managing, Josh also has established himself as a columnist for Washington DC newspaper, The Hill.
#8 Alborz Fallah
		Alborz’s Blog Car AdviceWhy He Started Blogging: Alborz has always had a great passion for cars. Curiously, he started out just like a few bloggers who wasn’t sure what topic to write about, so he created three blogs at once to see which one would stick. Sticking to his passion, he noticed that the car blog got the traffic so he dropped the other two and slowly built up his site off the back of his own content. Where He Is Now: Alborz sold some of his blog to investors and his blog became a real serious business that he finally left his job to focus 100% on his project. Capitalizing on his success, Alborz has shifted his focus from the web to other forms of media. He has now moved into DVD sales of his videos and doing podcasts. Of course, nothing will ever pull him away from his life’s greatest passion; cars!
#9 Robert Scoble
		Robert’s Blog ScobelizerWhy He Started Blogging: Robert Scoble started blogging four years ago, when he worked for NEC, a Japanese technology company. His blog is all about a place where he could converse with NEC’s customers, give tech support and listen to feedback. He was always honest about the products, and his readership grew. Where He Is Now: Scoble and Shel Israel are currently writing a business bloggers book, called The Red Couch.
#10 Darren Rowse
		Darren’s Blog ProbloggerWhy He Started Blogging: He started blogging just about 5 years ago, and it was just a hobby. After a year he began to experiment a little with advertising and affiliate programs on my blogs and discovered that they could actually make money! He began to record the things he was learning on the topic of making money from blogging on his personal blog. Where He Is Now: Darren’s success has earned him great fame and he was awarded the Best Web Development Weblog blog award in 2006 for ProBlogger. In 2007, he was also named in the Forbes Celebrity List. In the following year, Darren co-authored the book ‘ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income (Wiley) and founded TwiTip – a blog dedicated to Twitter Tips. Preferring to live a simple life, Darren lives in Melbourne, Australia but does frequent traveling for numerous speaking engagements.
#11 Jeremy Schoemaker
		Jeremy’s Blog ShoemoneyWhy He Started Blogging: Starting with absolutely no capital, he educated himself and began building ecommerce sites to earn revenue. During this time, he started blogging his experiences at Shoemoney.com and then used the blog to springboard new companies like AuctionAds, which had one of the most impressive launches of any online advertising company ever. Through his blog, Jeremy provides advice on all areas of Internet Marketing, including SEO, affiliate management, blogging, and revenue strategies. Where He Is Now: Jeremy continues to launch new start-ups and also chronicles his adventures on his own blog site. Given his fame and expertise, Jeremy is a frequent speaker at search engine marketing and affiliate conferences, and co-founded the Elite Retreat conference.
#12 Tim Ferriss
		Tim’s Blog 4 Hour Work Week Why He Started Blogging: Tim being a productive guru had a message to convey and blogging was the means he deemed fit for his purposes. Being a neuroscience graduate, Tim has many innovative ways of looking at life and gives valuable advice on how to approach situations differently. His blogs are well-written and very thought provoking. It is a favorite among CEOs around the world. Where He Is Now: In 2007, Tim launched his book, The 4-Hour Workweek under Random House and marketed the book mostly among bloggers. The book launched him to stardom and he is now a guest lecturer at Princeton University and has spoken in hundreds of seminars and conventions.
#14 Timothy Sykes
		Timothy’s Blog Timothy SykesWhy He Started Blogging: After incurring great losses in his previous businesses, Timothy Sykes decided to write a book detailing his journey into managing the hedge fund and the lessons he learned from losing so much money. Capitalizing on the potential of the web, he then started a blog, with the goal of documenting the step by step process of turning another $12,000 into millions. Where He Is Now: Tim is now a writer for AOL Finance and has been featured on ABC, CNN, CBS, CNBC, FOX News, FOX Business Network, Reuters, Business Week to name a few. He also starred in the TV show, “Wall Street Warriors” on MOJO. His monthly blog income is in the 6 figures and this is definitely one young man who should be checked out!
#15 Steve Pavlina
		Steve’s Blog Steve PavlinaWhy He Started Blogging: Steve is someone who started blogging about his take on LIFE and other personal development stuff, and now has one of the leading sites in that niche. Where He Is Now: On twitter, he says he is a human alarm clock. He awakens people who are sleeping through life. Steve Pavlina has been doing some research into the art of video, and playing around with making and editing sample videos. Eventually there will be videos on the Steve Pavlina site, and we would love to see a Steve Pavlina personal growth DVD product in the future as well.
#16 Lisa Stone
		Lisa’s Blog BlogHerWhy she Started Blogging: Founded in February 2005 as a labor of love by three bloggers, BlogHer’s mission was to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. Where she Is Now: BlogHer reaches more than 14 million women monthly through its conferences, Internet site and publishing networks.
#17 Heather B. Armstrong
		Heather’s Blog DooceWhy She Started Blogging: She started her website in February 2001. A year later she was fired from her job for her website because she had written stories that included people in my workplace. When most people would fear the worse when hearing “your fired”, Heather just saw it as a challenge and took on blogging as a carerr. Where She Is Now: In October 2005 she began running enough ads on her website that her husband was able to quit his job and become a Stay at Home Father. Since running her blog she has found that she has a loyal readership and was able to publish two books so far.
#18 Jake and Amir
		Jake and Amir’s Blog CollegeHumorWhy They Started Blogging: CollegeHumor started to posts blogs and articles through ideas form its staff and users, including humorous essays, comics, interviews and weekly columns on sports, video games, college life, and dating. Where They Are Now: Jake and Amir are now both making a lot of money from advertising on their site. In December 2008, College Humor.com proudly announced the premiere of the MTV Show “The College Humor Show”. Jake and Amir along with everyone else in their team wrote on the show and play fictionalized versions of themselves.
#19 Michelle Malkin
		Michelle’s Blog Michelle MalkinWhy She Started Blogging: She started and still is focusing on creating blogs which are always form a conservative viewpoint. Where She Is Now: Malkin was a frequent commentator for FOX News Channel and a regular guest host of The O’Reilly Factor. She then quit, and concentrated on her writing, blogging and public speaking, although she still appears on television on occasion.
#20 Harvey Levin
		Harvey’s Blog TMZWhy He Started Blogging: He is an American television producer, lawyer, legal analyst and a celebrity reporter. His blogs started all about celebrity gossip since this is one of his passions. Where He Is Now: He still produces and hosts TMZ on TV. He is also a frequent guest of The Kevin and Bean Morning show, in addition to CNN’s Larry King Live, and recently the Fox News Channel and Local FOX Affiliates regarding Michael Jackson’s death.
#20 Yaro Starak
		Yaro’s Blog Entrepreneurs-JourneyWhy He Started Blogging: Started his first blog because he thought it would be good for SEO and a chance to talk about his business journey. Where He Is Now: Yaro found himself being one of the most respected bloggers and launched two blogging membership websites teaching people exactly how he has done it. Earlier in 2009 he launched a new membership site teaching how he makes money from membership websites. This guy is one entrepreneurial blogger you should all be following!

To Our Success,

Michael Dunlop

PS. Who’s background in blogging appeals most to you?