Chris Winfield talks Hustle, Hard Work, Blue Glass, and the Internet Biz

Nick: Alright, well I’m here with Chris Winfield. Probably the hardest man to get hold off in New York right now. So what's going on with you man?

Chris: As I was saying, I’m probably seeing you in the last couple of months more than I’ve seen my wife and family so like, yeah... but a lot going on and like my whole place's keep moving at all times. But at the same time we just got to make something happen. The good thing is you're persistent. I’m a man of my words so actually got it together, make it happen.

Nick: Good. So what big things that are going on with you right now?

Chris: So we just completed basically one of the biggest deals that will happen in the internet marketing industry. I’m bringing together basically four pretty amazing companies into one where we can basically fulfil any internet marketing need that any company has. The direct new companies blue glass interactive, blueglass.com definitely a good place to check out and as people will watch us, we just completed a conference that completely kicked ass and where we announce it to the world. Between that and running the whole bunch of other things and trying to keep up with a 10 month old baby, I think that comes busy enough.

Nick: Do you sleep?

Chris: Not much. Now it's about two or three hours a night which is not good. I know that's going to have to change sometime but for right now, I can, like in my opinions, just got to keep moving forward. My favorite quote is "difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week" so if you go to my twitter page, that’s what I have. I don’t have any social network or anything like that. It’s just hey; listen to my thoughts and everything.

Nick: So how does it feel to be the go to guy pretty much?

Chris: It feels good. I mean it's but, it feels good because I know my personal reputation, my personal brand and everything like that, like how people, how much trust people, whether it's friends, clients, people that I just meet or whatever, the fact that they can put that much trust into me and always know so this is also I don’t sleep because it's more important to me in a lot of times than getting sleep to make sure that I can live up to that at all times. I never take light on something that I work hard every single day to make sure that I’m getting better and that I’m not letting somebody down. I really believe in your word and what you're saying. It’s just so super important.

Nick: That's huge, that's huge. So I would say you're one of the boldest people I know in this project's whole becoming bold and basically, it's exploring how and why people are bold. What do you think has been your secret sauce throughout your career or your life that you apply to everything that has made you successful in everything? To some people, it has been persistence. Other people it has been tenacity. For other people, it's just been staying for what they believe in. what was yours?

Chris: A lot of that for me is just taking rest. Being able to, for our original company 1020, like we change our business model probably 3 or 4 different times. We pretty much started as web development company and I quickly saw how important fcl was going to be. Before we started focusing more on fcl, I saw that was becoming a trend and very very good at that. One of the ways, probably 6 years ago, then we started seeing a special committee to help fcl. Then I started focusing on social media. each time, a lot of times web design became completely commoditized for a lot of times, for a lot of parts, except for now, except for a very few companies. Fcl became commoditized and I’m sure social media, you see how many gurus and experts are out and everything like that. but being able to say this to somebody, or to say to your company or to yourself wherein you completely switched this off and maybe it's the complete wrong move but just being able to have that, that confidence no matter what you're going to do, like you're going to be successful or not, I think that's one of the most important things to me and also being able to also, want you to know something. Want you to know that you can kill it being able to talk to anyone about that no matter who it is. At 1020 we were being pretty small company. We work with some of the biggest companies in the world. We would take business away from agencies that have 20,000 employees or something like that. I knew I had the confidence that we could do it, we could do better than they could do or anyone could do. I think that's probably so important. I guess that's how I describe one of the ways to end up being bold.

Nick: Yes, sounds like you don’t really have a fear of failure there at all. You know whatever you take on, you're going to pull by horns and do it.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. I mean like honestly, I saw exactly one job in my life other than growing up and stuff like that and jobs like that. But I have one job and that job was working for basically for web design start up that was started by 4 guys who knew nothing about internet. They just want to hatch in. one guy literally 6:52.2. I was fresh out of college, all these. My first job was 7:01.2 like they were like three other guys, you know, like come from like stockbroker type of background and type of thing like that. And there model was make a point 7:14.1. So that was my first job, calling people in Manhattan. This around 2000 I guess, 2000. Somewhere around there. Towards when the dark comes, they were still good. But we’re starting to ugly. My job was calling people around; getting appointments for people to go there and do was that about, web design. I didn’t care. I would do 300 calls a day. I was the one who made the point to all, everyone there. Then that girl at telemarketing. They all know this. But the interesting thing about it was that we saw how many mistakes that we made and how many things that we did wrong in terms of what just building up. At one time, we had in the office, like 500,000 dollars a month rent. The company, they weren’t doing the marketing for any of the clients or anything like that. I was like what the hell is this? This is not right. There are many employees in all these. I know how being basically no money and my wife then, we both laughed at the company and I started learning everything I could learn. Just started basically working with a family friend at recording studio and his recording studio, that's a little tiny. Hole in the wall, basement recording studio. I started learning everything I could about fcl. I had him get it, we built him a website and had him making one for every single recording studio with terms you can imagine at the point he came to, we got to take the phone number off the website. It’s to make calls. It’s annoying. It’s not very easy in the job. And so I just go, okay. Then came another time, he said hey we got to take the address off. And I was like, don’t you want to just be able to have tell people, ok here's, you go to the website to see how to get here. He said look people are stopping by like its abbey road or something like that. So it to a point where I can’t, there's so much going on. That’s when we basically decided that hey we can just, my wife got it going, all that. Like we can really provide something good and like I said, from there, we can continually grow there. We worked with them and still work with some of the best companies in the world. It’s just awesome to see how we can take something from either they're doing good or doing great. Or take something from nothing and just make it like amazing. It’s pretty cool.

Nick: You have a pretty big view of the industry. What opportunities you see for average Joes and people in the industry?

Chris: Yeah so.

Nick: See anything?

Chris: Yeah, there's opportunity for everyone ever always.

Nick: Right.

Chris: I think one of the most important things is like how hard it is to work. The people that you know as well as I do but be sure you're a hustler but for the people who think okay, really. There’s an article once last year. All these people making money off the ads, a major paper, I love the paper but I’m not going to mention the name but it was kind of misleading. I would stop to get like randomly calls from different people I know. oh my god, this guy is making , he's retiring 70,000 dollars off at a month... somebody who thinks like it would just kind of step in, forget it or anything like that. It’s not. You know what I mean? No matter what, who you are, you can look at anyone like yeah, you can get to a point where I couldn’t set it, become and forget it for some point but if you're a hustler and you really want to do something, you will be able to do it. The most important thing to other people is like if you're going to work hard and there's something that you're really passionate about. Like something you really know about. I don’t care how you're bring end this; a small person can be a brand. With our company, we have our media properties and everything like that. There’s time when we see a niche. Okay we're getting into that. Within just, with hard work and just being smart about things, we'll beat all those ranking, we'll beat how much they have or whatever or we'll beat up and we know that. That opportunity, that's obvious. That stuff that's common sense but with a lot of, if you really look at it like that. From the social media side, one of the most important things that I see is really people bringing stuff back to their own site. Building communities. There are sites I’ve seen that is being like a huge part of the next couple of years and especially now, so many people are doing on so much stuff on other sites. And I think that's important that you have to be because your customers will also want to build a lot of equity. A lot of that. You want people creating stuff for you, not just you creating stuff for other people. I think that's one of the two way street.

Nick: Exactly.

Chris: I think that's one really big opportunity for people to, there's a couple of scrappy starts out there that are doing stuff like that really, really well. I see a hug job opportunity in terms of conversion. Conversion range and stuff. I think that's going to be one of the things that's going to in the next, not in the, it's super important, I’m sorry, well that's really going to get in people's radar in the next couple of years.

Nick: So what traffic is more commoditized that's going to be the valuable thing?

Chris: Yeah exactly. It’s that logical progression from the first part was the website. That was obviously those companies charging 2 million dollars for a website and things like that, that we can now build for 500 bucks.

Nick: Great.

Chris: As you know, turn to fcl and pbc, and then social media and now I see, real important part of really building up those communities on your site now. That’s it I think. And then people starting to really become being bigger and better but we have this type of, we have all this traffic. What can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it convert better? That type of thing. That’s why there's an awesome product out that my friends have put together. But the kismatrix. Neil and him and mike, that's all basic. They’re just domineering things down for people in terms of looking at yourselves. Looking at your lead. How often things are actually doing. And then also just like the expertise of people who that's what we have, we have a couple; we have two full time people. That’s all they focus on. The emerging type. You know how important ab testing is. Everything like that. So those are some the things I see as being like real like good opportunities. being on just getting out there and cost like, as you said, before into, paying Photoshop and say, then start messing around with it or if you didn’t do, if you didn’t ignore word processor or something like that or you do something like this just to learn more. Learn about video; learn about the right place of things. But I mean, the opportunities, I don’t care. I don’t care how saturated somebody thinks something is or that's there's like there is something no matter how highly they are, it really just depends on what you're going to put into it. Then doing what you're passionate about it. That’s my whole thing. Like you're not passionate about something, about what you're doing, why the hell are you doing it? Stop. It doesn’t matter. You work way too much in your life to be able to just say okay. Settle for this or settle for that. I think that's something that's super important. You got to give up lots everyday or just lots of sleep.

Nick: You have more energy pretty much than anyone I know. That drops to that, that drops to that. I think you just have too much I don’t know about that. I think it's a good match so to take this out of the internet world to people may be watching us, there may be tons of people watching, are there any big tangible thing beside hustling or anything that, what would you say makes the company bold or person bold? What is your definition? I want to get your take on that.

Chris: Yeah sure. For me, my whole thing is just being able to just walk to anyone. You know what I mean? And being able to go up to somebody whether you know them or not, whatever. Not worrying about what they're trying to live, what they do, what they or how much they have or anything. that being able to talk to them and being able to whatever your reason is for talking to them, whether it's just getting to know them or if they want something, potential business object, that. Being able to have confidence to talk to anyone about anything. I think that's one of the most important things. That’s also a lot people who go to conferences, oh I didn’t get anything out of it and how? No matter what, any conference that I go to, I get a lot. I’ll just talk to, I mean you can’t talk to everyone but if you're talking to somebody, you can figure out. no matter, you can figure out how I’ll work this somebody or how you can help them or whatever it is and that's what also for me is the big part of my, helping people out especially mostly friends and things like that in terms of just being able to refer somebody to a journalist or somebody else and have that confidence to get up and this is the person that you need to work with and here's why or this is the person that is the exact right source for your company or for you story or whatever it's going to be. For a company in terms of being bold, it's different for each one. You have to look at what one thing that you can’t live. Where I’ve seen people fell, it is where you step outside of your comfort level. For example, you'll see people that I guess try to be bolder. They try to be how apple is. They try to be how Google. They try to be how you are and have complete confidence in yourself and in your company and in the people that work for you. I’ve had an amazing people that work with me. But I’ve also had really bad ones and that I have to get rid of them. If you have somebody that works for you or works with you or represent you and you don’t have that confidence in them then it's not just the right fit. That’s what lots of 19:45.9 in terms of keeping somebody around too long or something like that.

Nick: Great. I know your crunch for time. One last thing you want to leave the audience with as far as your big take away for the year so far? I mean 2010.

Chris: This year? Yeah, my big take so far is do most gym. I mean I felt I keep things in tight until February even though that's something to graze outside. Honestly, the interesting thing is that what I’m starting to see is obviously, as the economy recovers, we had the amazing thing was, this also tells you about being good. But we basically had our best year in 2009 and one of the worst recessions. Like three x's. What we've done in the past. We’re starting to see; you talk to people about opportunities and wanting to attack. There’s more and more opportunities jumping up all over especially for focusing on internet marketing and everything like that. There’s so much opportunity out there. If I had a dollar for every time somebody asks me for, to refer this job or this person, that, just being based around, I’ve done such a great job selling people and their product. And I’m not going to say anything again. almost no company understands it even though almost every, at least once a week, or twice a week I get somebody asking me like hey you know somebody good that you can refer for a scene or web analyst or something like that that can help them out. I mean yeah. Whatever it is, it might be internet marketing industry. There’s so much opportunities. It’s growing. It’s not going away. For all this people who, you remember, the internet's not going to affect me, also like I love my favorite thing in the world and somebody says it's not right for me. Or it feels not for me. You’re not that one magical person company versus all ever that it's not going to work for. The internet marketing as a whole, I’m a big believer in the whole, not just social media. Social media's one part of it but there's just so much.

Nick: Everywhere.

Chris: Yeah. You could walk that to somebody and have the opportunity to be around what we do. If you're good and if you're smart, if you're looking for, if you're constantly looking to be more, whatever that more is in your life. Whether that's to make more money, whether that's how you get more traffic because you like to see that. Whatever it is, you get more fulfilment, whatever. Get more freedom, whatever it is. Get more opportunities. That’s the thing that's constant thing you ask in 2010. Even just coming out, like I said one of the worse sides we've ever seen. The entire year also was opportunity. Websites that were, people that needed to sell. Whether they were doing it or you were actually helping people out. Whatever it is. Building your systems, building this. I just think that's just the thing I like to trust on them. Two things that's just on the people is don’t get caught up in shiny new objects and don’t just listen to what's working for something else. Know what's working for you. Put the mean things. Put the opportunity again and again.

Nick: Very cool. So if you have one more minute,

Chris: Of course.

Nick: Question was, I got to get asked a lot, how should people get started on the internet?

Chris: Loaded question. If you have to give, some people watching this have no experience on the internet. You have many resources because everything I used back in the days, for me it was like Danny’s, that was like my bible. Honestly places like Aaron wolves, like his training.sulbook.com, tempercommunity, or I even like the sulmozteccommunity and their different trainings and things like that. Also honestly, one of the best ways is to figure a good conference to go to but not for the panels or anything like that but just the network. Try to meet every single person. One of my, the best people that I ever hired, he, the way, I ended up hiring him was because he came up to me during a conference. He had no information about me. Like I could just tell he was smart as hell. He knew his stuff better almost than anyone figuring out whether that's for mats or the conferences that we do or whatever it is or like a local group. Put straight your pants together or whatever you need to do. And you got to one of those and you just try to meet everyone again. Who cares if people say hey, ignore you or whatever. Keep going up and can’t worry about those bookstores. Except to kick them down.

Nick: My big thing was to find a mentor. That’s what I always say. Just find a mentor. And you realize you can learn something from every single person you meet because no one knows everything about the internet.

Chris: Exactly.

Nick: It's like I learn stuff from you and hopefully it's me who shows, that's the biggest part that I enjoy about that in the internet world is that no one actually has all the information. Anyone can tell you they do.

Chris: Exactly. Speaks the other day, somebody asked the question. I know probably 25% about social media but I have smart people that work for me. if somebody asks me a question, I’ll tell them I don’t know but I have somebody who works with me that will know and who'll be much better. I don’t care if mine's the one you know. This person is building much smarter, that's one thing that I’ve learned. Always try to hire very very smart people. If they can, smarter than you. We have a new person we just hired, a new lady. She’s from Brazil. She speaks 5 languages. She speaks English better than I do, much better, and I’m from here. She was, I speak English. I was like, English is every class. And she knows stuff about certain social networks that I’m have no clue about. Finding that mentor or the most important thing, the good thing about conferences and things like that is you're able to find one of my big, good partners who you work with. Whether those partners that you actually going to partner up with. Like you have an excellent set up that way. You guys have that small nimble off your backs. Whether it's that type of thing or whether it's partners where you can balance stuff off each other. You can work together in certain projects or its partners like we were able to do in terms of, and everything that we're able to do with our company now. that was all from just being from knowing each other for a long time, knowing the expertise, knowing how much trust we have in each other and being able to form what I consider now one of the top internet marketing companies out there.

Nick: Awesome. Chris Winfield, I appreciate it.

Chris: My pleasure. Thank you.