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My friend Kevin Wilke is on the show today and what a treat it’s going to be for you! First, Let me tell you a little story about how I met Kevin.

Sometime around 2005-2007, I went to a Peak Potentials course called Warrior Camp. It was somewhere around upstate New York and I had the time of my life and learned a lot about life and myself. Since the event was so huge, we were put into 4 teams or tribes and in my tribe, I had Kevin.

Today, I’ve known Kevin for a long time and Kevin has come a long way. Since the time that I’ve met him,he has generated well over 30 million dollars from his Nitro Marketing business. Kevin became so successful — not just financially but mentally, spiritually and physically that I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to interview him so that you can learn something from someone who has been through it all and has come out on top. Below is the transcript from the podcast. Enjoy!

Kevin Wilke’ Nitro Marketing Bio:

  • Kevin’s online background began while in college in 1996. He saw the potential of this “fad” called the Internet and started his first online business… and failed not once but 3 times.
  • After a series of small successes, Kevin made over $100,000 in as little as 6 weeks.
  • Today, Kevin has made over $30 million in online sales and has pioneered numerous breakthrough online marketing techniques for himself and for his clients.
  • As an example – his success enabled him to help others avoid the pitfalls and years of trial and error he went through.
  • Today, Kevin Wilke is known as the #1 trainer in his space making him a captain of his industry. As a result, his company, Nitro Marketing brings in somewhere around 4-5 million annually.
  • Besides that, Kevin works closely with others in developing online marketing for local business owners.

How do you feel about failure?

The biggest and most life transformational failure he’s ever had was when he maxed out his last credit card. After maxing out his credit cards, Kevin took a drive and thought to himself how terrible his life is because he felt like a failure. At that very moment, he got into a car accident, which made things even worse.

Later on, he turned things around by going from a couple a hundred dollars per month on his business to a thousand month, then ten thousand per month and in a short 6-month period, one hundred thousand dollars per month! Talk about a recovery!

What is your #1 contributor to success?

Kevin is a very methodical person. He is constantly getting feedback. He doesn’t really have an explosive start or believes one exists, except that everything is gradual despite the twists and turns it sends him. He was always persistent.

Do you believe that your network is your net worth?

A while back ago, Kevin learned from Randy Gage that talks about prosperity. If you sit down and make a list of all the people you spend time with, next to each one, write down if they support you, if they are neutral or if they are a negative influence in your life (such as holding you back or show up in a negative way).

What he found is that there are a shocking amount of negative people. If these people are not positive or successful in life, they will hold you back. He then sought out to spend time with more positive people and as a result, his success catapulted.

How do you find your friends? Do you actively go out there looking for them or do they find you?

For Kevin, it was a two-part thing. First, he had to become the person he needed to become through personal development and growth. Up until 2006, he was a quiet, shy, low-self esteem person but he had to do the work and remove all that baggage in his life and live life in an authentic way. When he was in his early phase, he had to go out there and look for it. Now, he attracts people into his life as a result of the kind of person he as grown to be.

Have you worked with mentors and has that contributed to your success?

Kevin believes that a mentor is absolutely necessary if you want to get to the next level.

Kevin has had mentors early on and if it was not for them, he would not be where he is today. There are two ways to finding mentors.

One is to bring extreme value into that person’s life. When Kevin ws doing marketing in 99’, every month he would help his mentor but his mentor would say he has no time. Finally, after 3 months, his mentor told him that he wants him to take over his marketing and he will give him a percentage of the sale. This lead to a great relationship which was great for his pockets as well.

His next mentor was David. Kevin thinks there are two ways to get your foot in the door with your mentor and the first is to provide extreme value and the second is to buy your way into it. With David, Kevin paid to be mentored and as a result, his life dramatically changed and he found a lifelong friend.

Kevin mentions that once you start working with your mentor, respect their time. Because they are willing to give back to you and their time is infinitely valuable. If you start wasting their time and if you get there unfocused and unprepared, this wastes their time and it does not last very long. Second, when they give you advice, begin implementing it and and report back to your mentor. Their reward is seeing you grow and that’s worth more than the money. Apply what they tell you to do and report back with your progress and that is how you will reward them. Don’t apply their advice and you’re disrespecting them and their time.

The two most important things Kevin has done is getting mentors and coaches on a weekly basis and consciously surrounding himself with the right people who lift him up and not down. The problem he sees is that there are a lot of people surrounded by negative people and not enough people who lift them up.

Advice from a billionaire: Divide your time into three different chunks.

  1. 1/3 of your time should be spent with people that are at least 5-10 years ahead of me right now.
  2. 1/3 of your time should be spent with people with similar to where you’re currently and where you want to go in life.
  3. 1/3 should be spent with people on a lower level who are lower than you and you want to give back such as your friends and family.

The scary thing is, most people are not spending time with people 5-10 times above their own level.

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