How do you assess if you are successful with your personal branding? I’ll give you some examples.
When you think of computers, you know it’s Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Philip Kotler will come to your mind if you think of marketing.
But when you think of money making, it’s Enstine Muki!
Yes, today’s guest at the Aha!NOW chat is none other than the popular money blogger, Enstine Muki.
He is known for his innovative and intelligent money making ideas and strategies.
He is also a popular blogger, who blogs at EnstineMuki.com.
Enstine is no stranger to Aha!NOW and its community.
His Aha!NOW guest post on the killer way to make money blogging early this year was very popular.
Since then, he has scaled heights and scored success as a money blogger.
Apart from that, he has been a regular visitor to Aha!NOW and has always contributed his wise views on life matters that are discussed here.
Not only does he share his money making tips, he also makes plugins for bloggers.
Many of us use his MyCommentAuthors plugin at the beginning of each month. He also created a BroadedNet plugin to help bloggers get traffic without search engines and social media.
So, here I welcome, Enstine Muki – as the special guest of this month’s interview. And, without any further delay, let’s proceed with the interview.
Interview With Enstine Muki
Q1: Enstine, you were the first guest blogger of Aha!NOW at the beginning of this year, and now you’re an interviewee at the end of this year. How does it feel?
Enstine: An amazing experience. I’m sort of the Beginning and the End. 😉
Seriously, I feel really honored you know. Aha!NOW is a super community and to be given the first and the last places in a year raises the level of my excitement.
Q2: You are now recognized as a smart, brilliant, and genius Internet marketer. How and when did you learn the skills of moneymaking? How has your education contributed to it?
Enstine: This just fuels and propels me to the next level of responsibility. You know when your community looks up to you for one or more things; you have to be up to the task.
My initial attempt at making money online was early 2009 but I failed so bad that I abandoned and only returned in 2011 with the creation of EasyRetweet.
In the past few years of blogging, I have worked like an ass. I have read a lot and my brain is always at work. I try to see how I can use anything to help the next blogger.
While a few of these are succeeding, I must mention here that I have failed in many.
Q3: You were not a blogger initially but you worked on various aspects related to computers and the Internet since 2004. Tell us briefly about what all you did before you created EasyReTweet.
Enstine: I have been a PC technician since 2001. I remember those early days on Windows 95, 98 and Millennium.
I however got into Web design in 2004, working on Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0. I remember my first free site hosted by geocities in those early days.
Later on that year, I got into PHP and have worked on a couple of applications for local consumption. In my entire life as a web designer/developer, I have created over 200 websites. I co-founded NjangiHost with a friend for local web hosting.
I created my Content Management System called NoStress CMS which I used on most of the sites I created. Drawing my inspiration from Joomla, this was going to be the first open source CMS from Africa. Well, I abandoned this because of lack of support from the community.
EasyRetweet was my first most successful online project.
Q4: Okay, getting a bit personal here. You got married before your big projects came on the scene. So, probably you are a successful man with a great woman behind you. 🙂
Tell us something about your family and you as a family person. How do you maintain the right balance between your personal and professional life?
Enstine: First, I’m the last child of my mom. We are 7 so I grew up being loved by my brothers and sisters. Some of them still think I’m that mom’s baby. 😉
Life is good with a pretty and caring wife and 2 kids. I make life so sweet for my kids when I’m around. They also know daddy is the strongest man on earth. 😉
I have time for my family and work cannot cheat me on that. My wife sometimes used to be annoyed because my kids and I often turn the bed room into a serious play ground.
While there is much work to be done, I make sure I create time for the family for which I work. My Wednesdays are set aside for my family. While I do work online on this day, a greater portion of is for my family.
Q5: Talking more about your professional life, EasyReTweet was what brought you closer to bloggers and the blogging world, isn’t it? Later, you also created many other plugins. Which of your application or plugin has been most successful and why?
Enstine: Yeah you are right! EasyReTweet brought me closer to bloggers. 😉
While CashDonator has been in the market before MyCommentAuthors and BroadedNet, I think these last 2 are doing well.
I love the feedback I get from both BroadedNet and MyCommentAuthors users. They both are striving to provide solutions to the main problems faced by any online business – traffic. Given that they are free to use, they are really getting more attention from the industry.
Q6: What tips would you give to bloggers and Internet marketers, who wish to be popular and successful? What are your basic money making secrets?
Enstine: If you want to be popular and successful, go out and network with bloggers in your niche.
The simplest way to do this is to engage on their blogs (comment and share their posts on social media), talk about them on your blog, link out to them, tell others how they are awesome, etc.
Of course, you must be able to provide content that will attract them. Kick out mediocrity and be professional. There is no way people will associate with you if you are not up to their taste.
The most exceptional thing I have even done as a blogger is feature great bloggers like you on my blog, Harleena.
I can’t think of any other post that gives me such excitement. The point is, this has turned to be the blog posts that pull the highest referral traffic to my blog.
NB: Here is a blog post I wrote on how to create a popular blog in 90 days.
My most basic money making secret is that I try to monetize my efforts. Do you know I make money from the free MyCommentAuthors plugin? That plugin has generated close to a 1000 dollars.
The best and most basic thing you should do is learn to monetize your works. I don’t mean annoying your audience with money making objects. There must be a way to do it without raising dust.
Affiliate marketing, selling your own products, Adsense, etc are all ways to make money but there is no guarantee. Having 5k visitors a day does not translate to money.
The only secret is in being able to monetize your works. You need to know the right spots to touch. In this free report, I shared something that is exceptional.
After working closely with some advertisers, I came to understand that high traffic is not enough to make money online. There is more to it and I touched the various point in the report.
A friend shared his Google Analytics stats with me. I was so shocked when this guy told me with over 5k daily readers; he was unable to break above $500/month from his blog.
After looking closely, I understood where his obstacle was. 2 weeks after I gave him some hidden tips, he made his first $200 from a single deal.
So if you don’t know how to monetize what you do, you may be doing the right thing but not knowing how to turn it to money.
Q7: You’re a great networker and marketer. You’re skilled at relationship building too and have a good outreach. How do you make it possible and what are you quick relationship building tips for all bloggers and Internet markers?
Enstine: The first thing to do if you want to build relationships is to make yourself likable. No matter what you do to attract people, if you are surrounded with mediocrity, you won’t be able to build good relationships.
Invest in premium and good looking blog theme. While this will not guarantee success, poor themes can easily throw off your visitors.
The second thing is to do things that will attract others on your blog. Use your blog and social media to get them around. I know moving to their blogs to drop comments and share their articles work quite great.
But what I have experienced that work quite better is when you give people exposure on your blog. Don’t be selfish.
Promote people and they will like you. Feature them and their articles. Link out to their articles. Tell your readers how awesome those other bloggers are.
Don’t just link out. Do a descriptive linking. See this article how this is done.
Q8: In today’s world, people are mostly focused on making money without caring much about the ethics and morals that go with it. What are your views on it?
We all know that beyond a certain limit, money doesn’t contribute much to a person’s happiness in life. What is your concept of happiness and what do you do to be happy?
Enstine: Money is not everything. That’s why I have rejected some very juicy advertising proposals for my blog. Money has to be clean. That means the way in which we make it has to be with respect for others.
I see happiness as a state of mind that influences your behavior. There are lots of things that can affect ones state of mind but if you develop yourself, you will be able to guard your mind diligently against any negative external infiltration.
Generally, people are happy when they have money. When they are earning from their efforts, they are happy. When there is peace, folks are happy. When everyone is in good health, there is always happiness.
Now, the absence of these good things can mean the absence of happiness. Sadness can cripple your effort and even bring your family down. But you can manage sadness to produce happiness.
My way forward is that I refuse to see anything that will cause my happiness to evaporate. In other words, I live expecting the better. I’m optimistic in everything in life.
When I don’t have money today, I know I will tomorrow.
Q9: What is your source of inspiration and motivation to be successful in life? How do you keep yourself going – what’s your potion or magic formula to keep striving for success in life?
Enstine: I have a library with 66 books. I read them and they inspire me a lot. It’s the Bible. It’s the book of books. It has all I need.
The best part is, it gives me the hope, the motivation and the energy to move ahead. I know something ahead is better and I keep pressing to it.
I’m someone who believes everything and every event has a message to pass through. Sometimes I get bombarded with post ideas because I try to interpret almost everything I see.
Q10: Finally, what do you prefer calling yourself – a programmer, an entrepreneur, or a blogger? Any new plans for the next year and would we see you in a new avatar? 🙂
Enstine: I love blogging, sincerely so I get excited to be called one. I also create business and move on. That makes me a serial entrepreneur. I don’t really call myself a programmer.
My coming into PHP is out of excitement and that’s all I know. I don’t know what other languages look like. 😉
I have a new platform to be launched late January or early Feb 2015. I keep it for the moment. 😉
New avatar? Probably yes. 😉
Bonus Question: Ah.. here’s one bonus question for beautifully answering all these questions!
As I mentioned at the start that you were my guest in January 2014 and now in December 2014. What positive changes and difference in experience do you observe? What do you think about the Aha!NOW Blog Community (ABC)?
Enstine: Positive changes? The community, Harleena. It’s an important addition that makes the platform a warm place. It has grown from readers talking with you to readers talking among themselves and you.
You know this new community feature was launched just at the time my new platform BroadedNet was made public too. This kept me quite busy with little time to blog-hop.
However, the charm of Aha!NOW is such that I can’t completely keep away from it. First, the quality of the contents, then the friendliness and support I personally get from you and Vinay. It’s just so amazing to belong to such a community where you are given an important seat.
I think in 2015, I’ll be one of the most active on that community as it’s proving to be an unfailing networking tool. Where else will I be if not on a platform that will help me network with other bloggers?
Thank you!
You may connect with Enstine at Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Winding it up
How did you all like the tête-à-tête with the MMM – the Money Maker Muki? 🙂
The Aha!NOW chats are always a bit different, but I guess you loved it and got worthwhile take aways from this interview.
My takeaway is that hard work, smartness, and determination pays. Always treat your failures as stepping stones, and keep thinking or planning ahead.
But no matter how much time you devote to your business and passion to be successful, never neglect your family, because money is not everything.
If you want to develop relationships, make friends, discuss topics, seek help, get traffic, promote your blog, and more – then join the ABC.
Share Your Thoughts –
After reading this interview with Enstine Muki, are you inspired to monetize your blog? What are your takeaways? Share in the comments below.
Photo Credit: Enstine Muki