Barry Dunlop: Hi there, folks. This is Barry Dunlop at . Today I have a very special and unique individual on the call with me, possibly one of the most interesting Internet marketers I’ve ever come across in my life. The name of the gentleman is Matthew Wadsworth.

Matthew, is an internationally acclaimed lute player. You’d better Google “lute” like I had to in order to know what a lute is. But he’s at the top of the game. But not only that, he is at the top of that Internet Marketing game. In fact, Yanik Silver has got Matthew as one of his Underground people that’s going to be presenting at this year’s Underground Online Seminar in Washington, DC.

In addition Matthew also happens to be blind. So I have got a blind, internationally acclaimed lute player who’s at the top of the Internet marketing industry. A remarkable individual who it’s been my pleasure to get to know, especially over the last 12 months.

And I believe you’re on the line there, Matthew. Are you there, Matthew?

Matthew Wadsworth:  I am, indeed. Hey, Barry. How are you?

Barry: I’m very well, Matthew. Listen, I know you’re a busy guy, and I really appreciate you taking the time out to have a little chat with us. I know that people ask all the usual questions first, about your professional career and obviously about the fact that you’re blind. I understand you were blind from birth, is that correct?

Matthew: Yeah, that’s right. I’m 35, and I was born blind. So, in a way, I’ve never had to get used to anything else. I suppose one could see these things as an obstacle in life, but I would really attribute being blind to a lot of my success, both as a musician and in Internet marketing. And I guess we’ll come on to some of the reasons why, but I do think, if you have to make more of an effort and you have to struggle a bit more, and you’re prepared to go through those struggles, then that’s really one of the things that takes you far, in whatever you might put that to.

Barry: Spot on, Matthew. Absolutely. In fact, actually, I think it was Yanik Silver who said to me something like, “Well, I’m working on the basis, if Matthew gets up on the stage and says:

Look, this is me. I’m blind, and I’m making money online. Why aren’t you?

And I know from having spoken to you that the blind, that’s not really a big issue to you. It’s to us, the people who can see, that it’s a big issue, but to you, it was normal for you from day one. And because of that, you’ve obviously had to do things other people haven’t had to do. But in actual fact, you see that as a benefit, or as a plus. [laughs] Every time I speak to you, I used to think I was a positive guy till I met you,
Matthew. You’re a very positive individual.

Matthew: Oh. That’s very kind of you. I don’t see obstacles as a problem. I see them as challenges. And we all have challenges that we’ve got to, first of all, face, and then overcome.

And I think one of the amazing things about the world, bringing it back to the Internet marketing space, is that there are many, many ways to do things. I think people, they make things too complicated sometimes, and they won’t do something until they’ve got the perfect way, or what they think is the perfect way. And the fact is that there is no perfect way. It’s a question of just having the courage to get out there and do things.

I did a similar thing. We were chatting about this before we started recording, but I’ve been doing some skiing lately, and doing some downhill skiing. And I was rubbish. I mean, I’m falling over, going the wrong way, couldn’t turn. But I just kept doing it, kept trying and trying different ways. And I had someone skiing with me, and we tried different things: having someone ski behind me, someone ski beside me.

So I’ve never waited for someone to give me a solution because, as I was growing up, people were just always saying, “Oh, well, you’re blind. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” I suppose I’ve always been strong minded, but I was like, “Hold on a minute. I will call the shots. I’ll tell you what I can and can’t do. Don’t impose that on me.” And I’ve sort of taken that with me all the way through life.
So, basically, I never listen to anybody unless they’re telling me I can do something which I didn’t think I could do. But if it’s the other way around, it’s like, “Well, sorry, but leave me alone.”

Barry: Matthew, well, you haven’t stolen, but this is one of the things I was going to talk about, the fact that when I heard that you were learning to ski, I thought, “This is a joke. Somebody’s trying to take advantage of Barry here.” But in actual fact, I know it’s a fact that you are learning to ski, and it’s really just a sign of my own ignorance that I didn’t think that that was something you could do.

But when I spoke to you, I love that, when you say you never wait for anyone else to give you a solution. So you’ve been experimenting with somebody beside you, somebody behind you, somebody in front. [laughs] I just think that’s so remarkable.

I will ask one question which I do know people will ask. You’re blind. You’re on the Internet. Just briefly explain, how can you read the page? Because I know how you do it. This is how technology’s moved on and how software works these days. But just briefly tell us how you’re able to make sense of what’s on a web page.

Matthew: I use a normal PC computer. And I have one particular piece of software. It’s known as a screen reader. Basically, it takes the information, which goes to the video card, which then sends the information to your screen. It takes that information and it turns it into speech, into an audio representation.

And so I don’t use the mouse. I move around with the tab and the arrow keys and keyboard shortcuts. And it’s an incredible thing. Probably, if I’m reading a document or an ebook or something, I can read about 200 pages an hour. And no one can understand what this thing says. It just says [makes garbled sounds]. But I get the information.

And in a way, the Internet has leveled the playing field. It’s opened so many doors and given me access to so many possibilities, and that’s what really kind of got me into doing business and using the Internet as the medium of delivery, if you like. I mean, business is business, and it’s been that way for hundreds of years. So the Internet is just a medium which we use.

I think what I see as an advantage, and I perhaps wouldn’t have seen this a couple of years ago when I started, it is that there are many things that I can’t do. There’s software programs I can’t access. There are websites I can’t access for doing research.

So, basically, what I do is I research processes and I understand that process and I get it very clear in my head, and then I’ve built up a team of people around me who can implement it for me. So I say, “Right, this is what we’re going to do. This is the aim. This is the end result. Here’s where we’re starting a problem. Here are all the pieces.” And then we put it together.

So, in a sense, that is outsourcing, but that’s a much?misunderstood term, because people say, “Oh yeah, I’ve got to outsource everything.” But you’ve really got to know what you want people to do. You can’t expect someone to build a business for you. You’ve got to have that inner vision and drive to see it through. And in order to have that, you’ve got to understand the process. It forced me to look at what I was good at. And I think everyone needs to do this. You mustn’t be trying to do everything.

So, basically, I can strike off things like graphic design. I mean, no chance. I can’t see it. So someone else is doing that. Someone building websites, I don’t want to do that. I outsource all the things that I either can’t do or I’m bad at or I don’t want to do, and then I concentrate on being creative, coming up with ideas, and forging joint venture relationships and all that stuff that I can do.

And this is what I do. I’ve got a few people who I coach now. And straight away, I sit down with them and say, “Right, what are you good at?” And if you’re good at something, and most people are, I say, “Well, how did you get good at thing? What did you do? If you were teaching someone how to do it, what would you teach them?” And then you kind of reverse engineer that process and just apply it to something different, like building a business.

Barry: Absolutely. That’s very impressive, Matthew. Actually, I think it’s something everybody should be doing. You were forced into doing it, in some respects, this outsourcing, as you described it, because you were blind. But of course, it’s a fact for everybody. You do what you’re good at, and you outsource the rest. Something which I happen to know, actually, Matthew, is that you’re a relatively newcomer, actually, to Internet marketing. Did you tell me it was something like late 2007 you first started online? Or maybe I think it was even 2008 before you got serious. So why don’t you sort of take us through the time line there and tell us, actually? Because I think this is something else that’s going to be interesting to people, the marketplace you went into, because I know it’s a very competitive marketplace you went into, and what kind of money you’ve been able to make and so on and so forth. That would be great.

Matthew: Sure. The reason I went into that market is because I’d reached a sort of point in my music career and I can’t remember how many CDs I had out at that time. It was definitely about four or five. Played all over the world and yet was still making 20,000, 25,000 UK Pounds a year, which is about what you can make as a musician, really.

And I saw it becoming more difficult to sell CD’s, and budgets were being cut with concert venues and, you know, I really predicted that well because now it’s quite a mess, really, the music industry. And I still do what I love, which is going around playing the lute and doing all sorts of other things. So my motivation was, “OK, I want to find a way of earning money, which I can manage from anywhere in the world, ” so as long as I’ve got a laptop, you know, I can keep on top of things. And you know, I saw that people were making money online and I never thought, really… I never thought of myself as running a business, but I just started looking at things and it kind of made sense.

And so it was in November of 2007, so just over two years ago, I went to the World Internet Summit in London. I’d already, prior to that, just a month before, I’d bought this course, it’s called the 20/20 Challenge, and I’m really happy to credit that course for getting me started. And I just followed it through, just get some PLR (Private label rights), then write material and put a website together. Find some JV partners and research a market. And I did it, just followed it, and I didn’t care if I made any money or not, I just wanted to see what I could do, what I was good at, how difficult it was. Didn’t care if I failed or not. And then I went to the World Internet Summit and I just thought, “This is so possible, it’s unbelievable, ” and again it really cemented it in my head that I was going to do whatever it took to make this happen. I could feel it.

And I’m fortunate that I’ve got an amazing girlfriend who’s very trusting and supportive and she was like, “Well, yeah, go for it. Nothing to lose.” And so that was then, that was sort of November 2007. And I invented a system for horse racing, and I will pre-qualify that by saying that I have no interest in horse racing itself. But I do have an interest in numbers. I’m pretty good with numbers and I was actually primarily wanting to go into the FOREX market, but it’s a pretty visual environment with the charts and panel sticks and all that kind of thing. So again, I just thought, right, “What am I good at? How can I use what I’ve got?”

And there were a couple of websites that were very accessible, full of statistics, and I’d already seen people kind of losing the horse racing and I looked at why that was and coming back to this thing of not waiting for someone to give you a solution, I just thought, “Well, I’ll try and invent my own system.” And so I did and then I got some people, six or seven beta testers, to try it out. And this is a strategy now that I’ve used over and over again in totally different markets. But firstly I approached the top authority site in the UK horse racing niche and I wrote an article for them and just built up the relationship
.
And then I said, “Look, you know, I’ve got this system. Can we get some people testing this?” So we got some of their members testing it out.
And then they interviewed me so we already kind of had a buzz going. This was in February 2008. And I launched the system, I brought it to the market in May 2008 and I gave them an exclusive, this authority site, for three weeks. And so I had nothing, I had no list. Yeah, I had my product that I’d created. And I just gave them this interview….I did an interview, gave them the exclusive and you know, did over $10, 000 in that first month. And then because I’d given them an exclusive, all the JV people, all the other system sellers heard about it, so they were kind of knocking on my door, saying, “Hey, can we promote your system? We’ve heard really good things about it.” So I don’t know how many clients I’ve got now. It’s probably over 150.

Barry Dunlop:  Wow.

Matthew: And a few months ago, I launched another system and that’s going amazingly.
And I automate these things, so I haven’t got someone… Or rather, my customers asked me if it could be automated, so I found someone who writes what are called ‘bots’, like robots, like a computer program that does everything for you.

And it’s… You know, I’ve just surveyed my list over and over again, asking them what they want, what they struggle with, and then I solve those problems, because it’s something I love to do. I mean, I’ve solved my own problems all my life and it’s really nice to do that for other people, and make some money out of it.

Barry Dunlop:  Yes. I think the angle there is you say never wait for anybody to give you a solution, but you go out and provide a solution to the marketplace.

Matthew:  Yeah, and I love doing that and the money doesn’t come first. It’s like, right, what problems can I solve? If I keep bringing value to the marketplace then, I mean, you have to try quite hard not to make money, if you’re really bringing something that people need or want. So then I’ve done that in other markets and it’s spread my risk and portfolio. And you asked how much money I’ve made and I’ve done OK. I’m kind of up to the seven figure a year mark now.

Barry Dunlop: Wow. Wow, wow.

Matthew: That’s dollars. That’s dollars.

Barry Dunlop: I’d take it, Matthew. I’d take it. When you say seven figures, that is amazing. Well done. I mean, I was going to suggest it was six figures, because I already knew last year you were heading high six figures, so that’s a remarkable achievement.

Matthew: Yeah, it’s… I mean, I’ve really learnt where the leverage points are and you know, obviously, trying to earn more money for certain things and learning that it’s OK to do that. And yeah, I’m quite shocked at how fast it’s gone. But I think of it, not just from a financial point of view, but it’s… I don’t know, just trying to do something good and I like helping other people out, providing that they want to help themselves.

Barry Dunlop: OK, well, well done. Well done. I want to… I know your time is precious, Matthew, so I just wanted to ask, because I know what a lot of people would be asking is, well, you know, probably like me, they’re a bit dumbstruck at the moment. They’re thinking, “Wow, this guy, he speaks such a lot of sense.” But imagine that there’s a first?timer, an absolute newbie, or a new person starting online for the first time. And it isn’t that long ago that you started. I mean, is there any particular strategies that you’d advise, or indeed, is there anything in particular you’d advise them not to do you know, that they could take away today maybe would help them on their journey?

Because one of the things I’ve discovered is that there’s a tremendous amount of frustration. In other words, people, they buy this course or they try this or they do the other thing, and somehow it doesn’t work out, so any rock solid things you can hang your sort of hat on there, Matthew?

Matthew: Well, I think a huge thing is mindset, and it’s something that people are starting to talk about a little bit in the IM game, and you’ve got to remember the Internet, and Internet marketing is a very young business.

And you know, it’s such a huge thing, just the way you think. And I’d attribute that to…I don’t know what percentage of where I’ve got in my journey. It’s always started with having this idea of believing that I can do it. And so I think a really big thing. I mean, if you can take this and understand it and apply it, then this is going to be really huge. It’s that you have to put the responsibility for what you want to do and what you want to achieve, you’ve got to put that responsibility on your own shoulders. So you have say to yourself, “Right, this what I want to do. I am going to make it happen. I am going to do whatever it takes to make this happen and it’s my responsibility. It’s not the responsibility of the course that I just paid $500 for.”

I mean, yes, you buy a course, it should deliver what it’s promised, but it’s up to you to make it happen and if you don’t know how it works, find someone, ask them. Never be afraid to ask, and ask good questions. And the other thing I would say is, I mean, I just do this all the time, you know, if you want to learn something, find someone who’s doing it and see if they’ll teach you or see if you can pay them or whatever. You know, if you wanted to learn skiing, you’d go and find a teacher, probably, and you might try it, and then, you think, well, I’ll go and learn some lessons. And why should that be different in a business?

And I mean, you know, people don’t often say this, but I will say it because I think it’s better to say the truth: you know, you read sales pages, and it’s, anyone can do this, and blah, blah, blah. Well, I don’t think anyone can do it. And I think, you know, in the western world and in the society we live, I think we have the opportunity to do it, you know, we’re free to do what we want and forge our own path, but can anyone do it, well, I’m not sure because it is hard. It takes a huge amount of determination and, you know, you’ve got to not give up. So I’m not saying, it’s nothing to do with education or having a kind of rocket science degree or anything like that, I mean, there’s so many different kinds of people making money online, but it’s definitely, you know, a certain type of person. It’s a bit like saying can anyone be an athlete or a musician? I mean, probably not. So yeah, I’m not trying to be negative in that, but you know, if you’re determined and you won’t give up and you’ve got a vision, then great, then that’s that, that’s what it takes.

Barry: OK. I think that is the key to it, actually. If you’ve got a vision and you won’t give up, it’s like a recipe, really. It’s really almost impossible to fail. The challenges, of course, are most people give up, which is why, of course, as you say, not everybody can, because if you’re somebody who’s going to give up, it’s like you’re learning to ski and you fall down and keep falling down, and you might eventually give up, but you’re never going to learn to ski without falling down. And you’re never going to learn to have any kind of business that’s successful without making some mistakes along the way as well.

Matthew: Yeah. I think, you know, at school we’re sort of taught that it’s wrong and very bad to fail. And, I mean, basically if you allow yourself to fail, then you can’t fail, because you’ve allowed yourself to do it. And, you know, you just keep going, do something, learn from it, carry on, and eventually you get there.

You know, it’s a bit like learning to cook. I mean, you might read the recipe and then try and it’s all burnt and horrible, but then you try again and then it’s a bit better, and eventually, you get there. I think people over complicate this whole thing, and it doesn’t need to be that way. Just focus a bit. Here’s my great advice, is focus on one thing.

Decide what you’re going to do and then forget whether it works or not, just do it, see it through. And, you know, that’s going to get you further than waiting to buy the right course and the right tools and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Barry: This is very, very impressive, Matthew. I am, and I know the people listening to this or reading the transcript will be equally impressed, because you’re living proof that if you focus and you really do do that, then, you know, just look what’s possible, you know, it’s a seven?figure income after 12 months or, sorry, just after two years. It’s an amazing achievement, and you’ve obviously, you know, you richly deserve it. I’m going to have to ask the question, because I’m a big fan of Mindset and I recognized how important that has been in my own life. I suspect with you, you’ve probably, you’ve just evolved into this mindset, but did you have any teachers? Did you have any mentors along the way, or anybody in particular that influenced you, a schoolteacher or a book you read or anything like that? Not that you, you know…

Matthew: Yeah, interesting.

Barry: Anything in particular you want to give credit to?

Matthew:  Yeah, probably lots of people. I mean, I think a lot of it has come, I hesitate to use the word naturally, you know. A lot of people follow Tony Robbins, that kind of stuff, and he is amazing, I haven’t read his stuff, to be honest, but I… Let’s see, I mean, my father definitely had a huge influence on me as I was growing up. And you know, like I said, the big people saying, well, he can’t do this, and he can’t do that, and before I could fight my own battles, he was like, well, yes he can, and you’re going to watch him do it. I learned that from a very young age, that people project their fears onto you. So if you’re trying to start a business and your partner says oh, don’t do that, you know, it’s dangerous, and someone will rip you off, and I’ve heard bad things about it. And I mean, it’s usually because people care about us, and they’re scared, and they don’t want any harm to come to us, you know. So yeah, definitely my dad, and then another great person is the headmaster of my secondary school who’s called Mike Evans. And you know, just these are all things you learn afterwards. He was such a brilliant leader and I, you know, remember so much of how he ran that school. It’s a multiracial school with every religion and race under the sun in Moss Side in Manchester. And it was just such an impressive operation. And I really learned at that school to communicate with people and to get the best out of people and realized that, you know, everyone’s different and everyone’s got qualities.

And then probably in the Internet marketing space, there’s been all sorts of people that I really have had the privilege to get to know, but I got to know them because I took action. And I didn’t ask them to give me anything, I kind of brought value to the table. And so, you know, definitely yeah, Matt Bacak, definitely Yanik Silver, Ryan Deiss, I mean, yeah, loads of people, really, just have been an inspiration.

Barry:  Wonderful. Indeed. I mean, well, I think you’re the inspiration today, Matthew, and I think it’s a tremendous lesson here. I mean, I’ve just been looking at the timer and we’ve actually done 25 minutes, which I think we allocated around 20 minutes. I mean, I would like to ask you a couple more quick questions, with your permission. First – do you have any predictions for the future of the Internet? How do you, you know, you’ve obviously benefited tremendously from technology yourself, if… A lot of people say to me, well, Barry, that’s already been done, you know, like somebody said to you, well, UK horse racing has already been done, but you found a different way to do UK horse racing and make money out of it. Do you have any predictions for the future or anything like that you’d want to make? I mean, Mindset is everything, so I imagine as long as Mindset’s fine, the future’s always fine.

Matthew: Yeah.

Barry: But do you have anything to add to that?

Matthew: Well, I think it will just become more and more mature, you know, formal. People will buy things online. And I just see the Internet as a medium. You know, before we had this, I mean, people still did business, you know, it’s not suddenly started in the last 10 years. So it’s just knowing how to use this fantastic tool that we’ve got and this thing that gets better and better all the time.
I mean, the markets I go into, it’s really very simple, I go into evergreen markets. So that’s the ones that are not going to go anywhere, you know, that I think will be around for a long time.

Barry: That’s a good tip, that’s a good tip.

Matthew: They kind of, you know, there is more effort to get into those markets, but I go for longevity, so I don’t mind if I have to work like a dog for 12 months to be in there for 10 years. So I go for evergreen markets, I go for things that can be automated and systemized, and I usually go for things that have an element of continuity to them, you know, like monthly memberships or software that I can charge monthly stuff for. So because I’m in the business to, you know, I don’t want to be working 15 hours a day, I wanted freedom, I wanted to be able to go around and still play the loops and do skiing and have a nice life, and now I’ve got that, yeah, I’m trying to kind of teach a lot of people how to do it and just, you know, bring some value to the marketplace.

I go for evergreen markets, I go for things that can be automated and systemized

I don’t actually have an IM product of my own, I mean, there are hands outstretched from, you know, all sorts of people saying that we’ll promote for you that I first want to find out what people want, and I’ll see if I’ve got something useful to bring to the table. I don’t just want to come in and crank something out and make money, I’d rather, you know, bring some value to the market.

Barry:  My prediction, I will make one, Matt, is when you bring something to the market, it will answer a lot of questions for a lot of people and it will be the must have product, because I know just in my… your brain things so differently to so many of us, you know, that it’s about, you know, evergreen, I love that, can be automated, I love that, has an element of continuity to it. These are just sound business practices, and there’s a tremendous amount to be learned there.

Thank you Matt — we really appreciate your time and your wisdom.

Matt’s Websites:
The Phenomenon Horse Race Betting System
Matt Wadsworth Marketing Blog
Matthew Wadsworth – Lutenist