Understand Why Trey Lewellen Is Passionate About Finding The Right Product! [Video]

AWE 2017 Interview Series: Trey Lewellen

When it comes to Online Business, there are a whole lotta folks out there who claim to be masters of their craft.

However, most of them fail to give you what you need and leave you feeling like they weren’t born to succeed in the online marketing realm.

Wait up!

Have you met Trey Lewellen, the guy behind LumiTact tactical flashlights and a super famous Masterclass that takes you from online marketing zero to hero?

Then you’re in for a treat because we were able to chat with Trey at Affiliate World Europe!

Ready to watch the video of our rendezvous?

Go for it!

Don’t wanna watch it?

Prefer reading the content?

Check it out, then!

Trey Lewellen Interview at AWE 2017

1. Tell us About Yourself

I’ve been in Internet Marketing for about four and a half years.

Really going on to 5 years now.

I started off like everybody else…failing.

Not knowing what the hell I was doing.

And you just kind of start to feel your groove.

You start to get in it, right?

I started off with loan office leads, with CPA Facebook leads and then – from there – I built up a fan page, a fan base of raving fans…people who enjoyed what we enjoyed , which was shooting guns, buying ammo, being a survivalist.

And my brother was gonna be a police officer and I was in insurance.

I went to him and I said:

“You know, I don’t wanna see you come home in a casket, I really don’t.”

It gets me emotionally upset just to think about that because that totally could be the reality for him in his profession.

“Sounds like there’s something bigger. There’s something bigger that you and I can do.”

So we did that.

We started a fan page around his niche, around what he loved, around his passion.

I love marketing.

My passion is in marketing.

I love it.

I absolutely live it.

I dream it.

I have dreams – to this day – about marketing.

About what the headline is gonna be, what the photo is gonna look like, what the product is gonna be offering, how it’s set up.

So we started there and we built a big fan base of raving fans who then started buying t-shirts.

We started selling t-shirts until we launched this t-shirt, a really good t-shirt and a guy in the comments was like:

“You know, you guys sell really good t-shirts but my wife says I can’t buy anymore.”

And I was like:

“Wow! That’s pretty big.”

So we listened to that.

He’s saying:

“I can’t buy more t-shirts. I want something else. Give me something else to buy.”

And so we moved into the physical products.

We started with a tin sign.

It said:

“WARNING: Due to price of ammo, there’ll only be one shot. No warning shots.”

We started selling that, selling little trinkets.

Somewhere in there the flashlight kind of came about and we did everything right.

It was like the perfect storm of the g700.

We had the offer right, the pitch right, the sales page right, the marketing right.

And then it just grew.

It is what it is today.

Here’s the thing:

That flashlight was in my closet for six months.

100 of them.

Did I know a multi-million dollar product was in that closet?

No, I had no idea.

The only reason that it ever hit the market was because I literally tripped over it.

And I said:

“I need to sell these damned things because I keep tripping on them.”

They had cobwebs.

They literally had cobwebs on them.

We built a little page, put them online and they started to sell.

The rest is history.

It’s crazy.

2. Verticals and Strategies to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing

In our mentoring…so we mentor people…they come to us with the same question:

“Where do I start?”

And here’s what I point out to them:

“I don’t have a vertical that’s gonna work for everybody. The best vertical for you to work in is the one that you are passionate about; the one that you believe the most in; the one that you have an idea of how it works, that you’re a part of.”

Because I tell you that when we go and get offers of other people and look at the copy, the copy is good.

Related: How to Write Banner Ad Copy in Different Languages

But we have to change it a little bit to talk to our audience, because we understand our audience so well and that’s what gives us that pop in conversions.

If we just copy and paste it, it doesn’t speak to them just right.

It’s almost like we have an accent when we just copy and paste.

But to not have the accent – to speak to them one on one, knee to knee – we give it our little taste; our own kind of creativity and that’s because we’re in the niche, we understand it, we know it, we live that.

So, if there’s a vertical they wanna choose, choose something that they understand and that they can talk to.

3. Biggest Achievement in Affiliate Marketing

As an affiliate marketer?

Keeping everything sane.

Keeping everybody sane.

Because when you have an offer that does what the g700 does, you need to make sure everybody dots their i’s and crosses their t’s, because it becomes very chaotic very quickly.

People wanting ads, people wanting pixels placed, people wanting banners and emails and templates and videos and all that stuff.

When you have a four-man crew it’s hard because then there’s the back stuff.

When you push out your own offer as an affiliate, you’re not dealing with the customer complaints, you’re not dealing with the refunds, you’re not dealing with:

“I didn’t get my product! Where is it at?”

So, there’s a lot of that on the back end, like the customer support issues that you have to make sure are in place or that you can build quickly to make sure that your boats keep sailing.

Without talking to people, you will sink.

This ship will sink.

Without customer support, this ship will sink.

Without listening to your customers, the ship will sink.

Affiliates don’t have to do that.

They just roll-out, right?

They have their own things too, of course, but – in the offer world – that’s what we’re doing.

We’re keeping everything mixed together and keeping it all held so that they can push the money towards the offer to make it keep singing the way that it does.

4. Favorite Thing About Affiliate Marketing

What I love about affiliates is that they’re as passionate about affiliate marketing as I am about building the best offers.

I think that’s just so amazing because you can be passionate about so many things and I’m extremely passionate about finding the right product – I call them the “perfect products” – and building the right offer and then giving it to affiliates who know and understand and live and breathe traffic.

I’m like:

“Absolutely. I will run that.”

I understand it, I get it, I’m doing it and boom!

It’s like the best marriage ever because on one side you have the offer, on the other side you have the traffic and when those things combine it’s perfect.

I just give them a big thanks and a big appreciation because I’m thankful.

Because – if they didn’t exist – our company wouldn’t be where it is.

And the same thing vice versa.

If we didn’t exist, they would not have made money with our offer.

It’d have been a different offer.

So there’s that tie.

5. What’s Your Definition of Success?

That’s a good question.

What is success?

I guess that, on a 30.000-foot view of success, success is meeting your goals.

If you have a 30.000 dollar goal and you meet that, it’s great.

You did it.

That’s success.

But I think that’s where a lot of people make their first mistake:

They only look at the big goal which is for instance – let’s say – making 30.000 dollars, making 100.000 dollars, making the first million.

They always have their eyes set on that big goal which means they never celebrate the small successes leading up to it, which tells the brain not to be thankful when it’s achieved.

It’s like:

“Oh, it’s another goal.”

So what does that mean?

A small success can be going out for ice cream and saying:

“The reason we’re having ice cream tonight, is because we made our first dollar online. We spent our first dollar online. We made our first funnel and launched it.”

Those are all successes.

They’re huge.

And when you celebrate those small successes, the big success is a huge win, because your brain understands all the successes that took to get to that big win.

Versus the burnout that happens when all you’re looking at is that big goal.

That big audacious goal.

6. Affiliate Marketing Trends

I think that – if I was gonna see that there’s a trend in affiliate marketing – is that a lot of them are loving the recurring.

They want more money.

Who doesn’t?

So they’re wanting the recurring pieces.

But the other thing is that affiliates are very smart people.

They’re not dumb.

And they understand now that it’s becoming easier to build the funnel, to sell the product than it is to run an offer, because the biggest negative about being an affiliate is that they’re not growing a company.

They’re growing someone else’s company.

They’re not growing their own database, they’re growing someone else’s database.

And as soon as that offer dies, they’re unemployed until they find the next offer that works.

We had that same thing happen to us.

That was a big lesson early on.

We were selling shirts.

As soon as the shirt hit went, we were unemployed, until we found the next one.

So with affiliates the biggest trend is them understanding that it’s time they build their own database.

“I think it’s time that we build a company for us instead of for someone else.”

And because they know how to run the traffic, they start building their own offers…and that’s where they’re headed.

7. What Do You Think of Mobidea’s New Affiliate Tracker Software Capabilities?

We were an open book.

We always have been.

And I’ll be the first to say that the affiliate world is a dark world.

And what I mean by that is – affiliates care about themselves and that’s okay.

They take themselves first.

If they don’t trust you, they’ll move to somebody else.

If the other guy has another dollar that they can get, they’re gonna go to them.

Saying that, with the data that you can give affiliates…by giving them more information, I think trust is gonna become a big part in the affiliate world because this guy is an open book.

He’s not gonna screw me.

He’s gonna make sure the pitch is always placed, the conversions always show the same versus the guy saying:

“I don’t know. I’m not secure about this offer. The trust isn’t there. I’m gonna move my traffic because it doesn’t seem like I’m making conversions like I was yesterday.

But when you have more data, trust follows.

And when you have that, I feel that – as an organization, as a community, and as just all of us being together as a congregation – it’s all stronger.

Because – with that – we can have that trust which leads to more success on both parties’ ends:

The affiliate’s end and the offer’s end.

Because now it’s like:

“You are showing me the right data. You’re right. That does work. Holy smokes.”

Less data, less trust.

8. Greatest Qualities of an Affiliate Marketer

Those dudes know pennies.

Those dudes track pennies.

That’s amazing because – growing up – I was always told that if you watch your pennies, the dollars will watch themselves.

Affiliates know that.

They understand that because they’re okay spending four cents to make five cents.

They’re like:

“I made a penny.”

They’re ecstatic about that.

“We can scale!”

And I’m like:

“I want dollars man. I want dollars.”

And affiliates are like:

“I want pennies.”

That was an eye-opening event, right?

They’re okay scaling at a penny level because they know that – at a scalable penny level – they’re gonna make the dollars turn into millions.

And it’s just like…that was huge.

To know that and to understand that.

I was like:

“Wow, that’s cool.”

9. Future Plans

So right now we currently have something new coming up.

It’s out.

It’s running.

Affiliates are loving it.

But here’s the thing:

A lot of people were late to the g700 push, and they missed it.

Don’t miss this one.

Don’t miss it.

Because we have something big.

It’s gonna be hitting the market.

It’s huge.

Thanks, Trey!

What a cool interview that our affiliates are gonna enjoy for sure!

Keep on reading some awesome Mobidea Academy content and stay tuned for more cool interviews with inspiring industry experts!