Michael: Hey, is this Dwight?

Dwight: Yes, it is.

Michael: Hey, Dwight, Mike Senoff here.

Dwight: Hey, I just got Dan Kennedy customer appreciation mega-conference, and in there, one of his students – he’s a martial arts instructor just like I am.

Michael: Mike Storm?

Dwight: Who now has three businesses – video production, and then the management where he’s a consultant and what have you. The consultant thing is the direction I’m headed in. I’ve actually started doing that on my own already, but my big thing that I want to launch is – do you see how you have the website with all those interviews archived? I want to build that kind of-

Michael: Related to?

Dwight: Martial arts, and within that martial arts, two areas. One is specific to what I do which is Bruce Lee Tae Kan Do because we have a number of celebrity figures in there, but then also to go outside of that to people who are recognized in the martial art industry as those who – for example, Brian Tracey is recognized in the marketing industry as a personal development guru. So, they are guys within the martial art industry who are recognized as the equivalent. So, I want to have them on interview also.

Then, have an Internet based business that on a regular basis we have the teleconferences which are available there after for sale either download or transcript or the CD version or what have you.

Michael: You want to follow the same model I’m doing?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: Kick ass content will cater to your niche, all online, give a ton of it away for free, capture names, capture email addresses, and then market like hell.

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: That is the key, and it’s one model, and it’s the model I’m doing. People can’t believe I give away so much free stuff, but the old saying, “Free stuff isn’t valuable” is not true. I give away a lot of free stuff, but people come back to me time and time again and say, “This is some of the most valuable stuff that I’ve paid thousands of dollars for.”

Dwight: I’m amazed that you do that. I’m actually amazed and impressed that you know Mike Storm by name.

Michael: I listen to all that stuff, and I listen to Dan Kennedy and I hear the same tapes you hear, and Dan Kennedy has a group of gurus who are under him or who have studied under him who are members of his Platinum Circle, and I know Mike Storm’s the karate guy. I have seen his stuff. I have never met him personally, but this is what I do and I know the names.

Dwight: In terms of your website, if I also want to build a business as a martial arts consultant – now this is not for the general martial arts people, this is within our Tai Kan Do family, within the Bruce Lee family, because we have been battled with a mentality that we’re not supposed to make money teaching Tai Kan Do.

So, I am one of maybe less than 15 people in the world who has been somewhat a commercial success, not anywhere near a commercial success of somebody like Mike Storm who is in the traditional karate Tai Kwan Do world.

Michael: Is your discipline exclusively Jeet Kune Do?

Dwight: So, that’s the other little niche market that I want to dominate.

Michael: Your niche is you know Bruce Lee’s discipline and you know it better than anybody, just about. Are you the only one teaching his discipline?

Dwight: I’m the only one in Miami teaching his discipline.

Michael: In Miami, okay.

Dwight: Because there’s not that many of us in the world compared to the traditional karate. But, what I want to do, I want all of my Jeet Kune Do counterparts to come to me to find out how to make it more saleable to the general public.

Now, a guy at the karate school will sign somebody up, and within three months will put him on a four year membership. Whereas in the Jeet Kune Do school you’re happy if they stick around for four months.

Michael: Why do you think that is?

Dwight: It’s because of the nature of the way that Jeet Kune Do is transmitted in the early days which is backyard, garage, move the furniture out of the livingroom. All this stuff is documented if you read Bruce Lee’s biography.

Michael: You’re saying the way it’s transmitted. The way it’s taught?

Dwight: Yes, that is the history of it. So, for a lot of us psychologically – well not me anymore – but, that’s where a lot of them are coming from.

Michael: A lot of who is coming from?

Dwight: A lot of my counterparts. Counterparts are other people certified to teach Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do.

Michael: Trained through you or other means as well.

Dwight: No, most of us come from Bruce Lee’s number on disciples.

Michael: So, you all were trained by this guy.

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: Tell me the mindset of your counterparts.

Dwight: If you make money, if you organize your business, you’re a sell out.

Michael: Didn’t Bruce Lee do that though? Wasn’t that his whole goal is to open up karate schools?

Dwight: Well, no. Actually, this is the thing. Bruce Lee turned down a million dollar opportunity to open up a bunch of franchises. He said, that is not the way to promote the art. So, that’s an idea of the mentality. That was 1966.

Michael: I’m just thinking from the movie. He did open up a studio for himself and started teaching.

Dwight: Yes, at various times in his life, he did have a place. But, Michael, here’s the thing. The school that I have, 2,400 square foot full of training equipment and what have you. Bruce Lee never had it so good. Bruce Lee’s most successful school was in Los Angeles, Chinatown. I looked at it, and it was a whole in the wall. It really was.

Michael: What’s your business like right now?

Dwight: We gross between twenty and twenty-five thousand a month which is way past anything that we ever dreamt, and I have counterparts who probably are grossing five thousand a month.

Michael: You’re doing better than these other guys.

Dwight: A lot better.

Michael: How many of them are there? How many people were trained by Bruce Lee’s number one guy?

Dwight: Well, we have three levels. We have apprentice, associate, and full. Full instructors like me, there’s probably about twenty, twenty-five of us. Associate instructors, there’s probably about 60, and then apprentice instructor there’s probably over 100 maybe as many as 200.

Michael: So, on the consulting side, you want to be able to teach these associates how to build your business like you have?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: Is that a big enough market for you on the consulting side?

Dwight: It’s a start, and I prefer to start with them, and then move outside to the main stream karate people.

Michael: So, bring a new product that the mainstream karate studios can offer and sell. Let’s say you can show your associates, who know the discipline, who are trained by the same guy, you can show them how to build their businesses to something you’ve done. After you’ve gone through that, you can approach different disciplines, different studios, and show them how to offer a new type of karate.

Dwight: Well, yeah, or I could just show them how to run a good karate school also. You’re on the right track.

Michael: I mean, running a business, do you really think it makes a difference what discipline you’re teaching?

Dwight: Mainstream karate, no. Jeet Kune Do, yes. That’s the problem.

Michael: So, you’re saying the challenge you’re having is the mindset of your associates aren’t open to profiting to this discipline.

Dwight: They want to, but just don’t know how, and there’s no-

Michael: Because they feel like they’re selling out to their master Bruce Lee in a way?

Dwight: Yes, but I have done enough observation – Bruce Lee in 1965 or ’66 was charging $275 an hour for private consultation. He was charging $1,000 a week if he had to travel or whatever, and he was working the Hollywood crowd. So, Bruce Lee was not an idiot when it came to the marketing and the self-promotion side of this, but then he just made a decision that he would go and do the movie thing.

He went back to Hong Kong and discovered that the Green Hornet was called in Hong Kong, the Kaido Show. He was a superstar and didn’t know, but that as they say is history.

But, there are concrete examples, for example, I can tell from reading about Bruce Lee, he read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. My definite chief aim, the note on which he wrote that sold for thousands of dollars at some kind of Bruce Lee auction years ago.

Michael: What was this, a note he wrote?

Dwight: Yes, it was titled, “My definite chief aim”.

Michael: Is that a quote from Napoleon Hill’s book?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: So, he wrote a whole note. What did it say his chief aim was?

Dwight: It was to earn a million dollars with movies, and in return he said something like, “I will give the public the best martial arts performances of which I’m capable of.”

Michael: You’re probably right. He probably did read it.

Dwight: Oh, yeah, I can tell. So, that’s one of the weapons that I would want to use in getting these guys to come on board with me.

Michael: You see this resistance. Give me an example of how you’ve experienced this, and how large of a wall is up between these people.

Dwight: I don’t think that there is that large of a wall, to tell you the truth because having been on their side of the fence, I know that secretly you envy the successful karate people. Based on what they tech compared to what we teach, we have infinitely more knowledge about different types of martial arts and more innovative training methods and that kind of thing.

What they have is organization. They have the structure and vehicles for promoting people, for example, through the belt system. They goal that they give you when you walk in the door is to become a black belt. The give when you walk into the average Jeet Kune Do school is yeah, okay you’re here.

Michael: Can you take what’s working with the belt system, and could you apply it to what you’re doing?

Dwight: That’s what I’ve done.

Michael: Are you using belts or something?

Dwight: No.

Michael: What are you using?

Dwight: We use a ranking system, and again, this is another weapon. Bruce Lee did have a colored ranking system.

Michael: How is that displayed? Did they wear something?

Dwight: It was never put to use. He never really physically demonstrated it, but I know that it existed and I have copies of it.

Michael: Bring it back. Are you doing it?

Dwight: Yes, we use it at my school, and that’s one of the reasons why we have grown, and that’s one of the reasons why we have kept people because we’re just following the model of the karate school.

Michael: That sounds great. What do you think I can help you with?

Dwight: Organizing the access to martial arts leaders.

Michael: Are we talking about building your site of audio interviews?

Dwight: That’s the concept that who will be available for interview.

Michael: It’s really as simple as picking up the phone and calling them and asking them if they’d like to do an interview over the phone. What do you want to interview them about? Just more on the marketing side, or more on the discipline?

Dwight: The Jeet Kune Do guys will all be about their story. Everybody wants to listen to that. Everybody wants to know how you started out, and how did you get to the point that you’ve gotten to and what advice would you have for somebody’s who’s coming up.

Michael: That’s great.

Dwight: Just from listening to you, listening to John Carleton and Gary Halbert talking together, listening to Joe Polish interviewing a whole bunch of people, getting Bill Glazer Dan Kennedy’s Inner Circle stuff – I pretty much taught myself how to conduct one of these interviews. Then, I have listened to Alex Mandozian talk to different people. I can’t think of anybody that I haven’t listened to.

Michael: Well, you know, you’ve got to start with the first one. It’s just like that first step, and write down five people you want to talk to and call them and invite them. Ask them if they’d be willing to do an interview for your Internet radio show that you’re starting.

There’s several reasons why someone would want to do that – what’s in it for them? Do they all have schools?

Dwight: Most of them have schools. Some of them have products.

Michael: Here’s what you want to think about. Since you’re starting, you really want to think about – some people do the interview just because they’re nice and they want to talk about their discipline something that they love so much, but they might not have an opportunity to talk to people about, and if you can get them to do that without giving them anything, and they’re willing to do that freely, than do it.

which will be free promotion for you.”

So, there’s another business side of reason that they would want to do it. Third, when you approach them you can say, “We’re setting up an Internet radio show, i.e., website – potential visitors, worldwide audience – to learn about you and your story and we will position you as an expert in Jeet Kune Do. There’s lots of people out there who want to learn about Bruce Lee and his discipline, and you’d be doing a great service for the discipline.”

But, if they have an information product, you want to set up a joint venture deal. So, you say, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll do an interview with you, but here are the guidelines. I conduct and edit, create, publish and own the rights to the audio content. You’re welcome to review it before we do anything with it, and we’ll put a place for the listeners to contact you, but we’ll control the flow of the leads.” So, it will be up on your site, but you’ll say, “If you want to talk to” – what does a student call you?

Dwight: Si Fu.

Michael: So, “If you want to talk to Si Fu Darryl, there’ll be an email address, contact Si Fu Darryl”. You’ll control the emails.

Now, if you decide you want to set up a deal with them and they have a set of video products that they control, you negotiate a 50/50 joint venture or a 60/40 or a 70/30, whatever you can get. Set up a deal because if you’re going to do the audio and you’re going to promote it, it’s going to be free video sales that they have done no work for except an audio interview, and you want a piece of that action.

Your control is controlling the leads, meaning they will not be able to leave a phone number in there. You’ll edit it out. The only way that someone can get in touch with that Si Fu is by emailing or calling, but they call you first. So, you have the control of the lead, and you can forward it over to the Si Fu as a way to keep them honest. Do you know what I’m saying?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: So, I would advise now as I’ve done this for years, and I wish I had done this before, now, when I do an interview, there’s got to be a back-end or some kind of profit center in it for me. Not in all cases, but it’s nice to do that because your time is limited.

So, when you set these things up, that should be your ultimate goal. If they have video products or information products, say, “Look, I’ll promote it. I’ll do the interview. I’ll edit it. I’ll get it out on the World Wide Web. I’ll position you as an expert. You can pitch your discipline.”

Now, if they give their name, there’s always a possibility that they can go around you if they want information products, but in most cases they won’t. They’ll go through you if they’ve listened to your interview.

And, then each little interview becomes a little infomercial for you that you can profit from, but they’ll profit from as well.

So, those are the things that I would advise. If they don’t have a product or nothing to sell and maybe they’re just getting started, but you want their expertise, their story to build some stories for the website, tell them they can mention their studio or whatever. Give them a reason.

But, you’ll be very surprised. Most people love to talk about stuff they love, and feel honored to be interviewed. Then, they’ll give you their all. They really well.

So, it’s not hard. It’s just you’ve got to make the invitation. Pick up the phone, call them, tell them who you are. Tell them you respect the discipline and would you be willing to do an interview for my students. You can say that you’re doing an interview for your existing students at your studio. You’re trying to teach them as much as they can to get different perspectives from different masters of the art. “Would you be willing to do an interview for my students? And, would it be okay if I put it on the website?” You don’t have to go into the details about the website. Just get their permission.

Don’t get their permission in writing. Get it when you’re on the phone. You can call them up and say, “Would you be willing to do the interview?” And, you set up time. Then, when the time for the interview comes, you do what I did. I said, “I’m going to record this, and you understand that I have the rights to use this. As I told you I’ll let you preview it before I do anything with it.”

So, you make them feel comfortable, but if you start asking for agreements and contracts and releases and all that stuff, it will never happen. You just do it on the phone while you’re recording.

Dwight: I know there’s one of your recordings where you talk about-

Michael: The recording device?

Dwight: Yeah, I think it’s Jason.

Michael: Yeah, Jason, thank god for Jason because he told me what he uses and that’s exactly what I use. It’s a simple Sony ICD recorder. These digital recorders, you can get them everywhere now. Any of them will work fine. I just happen to use the one he told me about, and I still use it. It’s called an ICD-ST25 stereo. It’s a little digital recorder. It comes with software, and then you need the recording device that you can get at Radio Shack that plugs into the back of your phone.

When you go to Radio Shack, I use the cheapest one. It’s the little black box with an on and off switch. Get the best one there is. They have three or four different ones now. Spend the money for the best one.

Also, there’s this guy named Mike Stuart, InternetAudioGuy.com . He’s out of Atlanta. He can set you up. He’s got some packages. They’re a little more expensive, but if you want to do it right from the beginning. I didn’t do it right from the beginning. I used that Modem Spy but that’s all I knew.

If I were you, and you were really going to do this, do it right from the beginning. Go to Mike Stuart, and tell him what you want to do. You don’t have to get the most expensive thing, but he’s got all that stuff. What you find on Mike Stuart’s site, you may want to search on eBay and find it cheaper. Just look on eBay. Find out what you want and search it on eBay.

So, definitely do it right, but the ICD Recorder is a hundred bucks. Mine only takes batteries. There’s one that you can charge. I would recommend that you get that because you blow through a lot of triple A batteries, but the one I use it works fine. I’m very pleased with it.

So, you do the recording, and you save it in a Sony format. Then, you take that file and you save it as a .wav file, and then you need editing software to edit the audio. I’m going to tell you right now, this audio stuff, if you’re going to edit it like I edit my recordings it’s very time consuming if you want to do it right. If you want to really do the rest product, you’ve got to think. Your recording will be listened to thousands and thousands and thousands of times, if you perceive your site growing.

Each one of those recordings is an infomercial. You can be lazy at the beginning and not edit it and have all the ums, and ahs and hold on and the stupid chit chat, the nervous talk, and it’s going to cost you money. Invest the money and edit this thing.

On my recordings, I remove every um, every ah, everything I could get out of there. I clean it up the best possible. You’ve heard some of my stuff. Some of the stuff isn’t edited. I’m reediting a lot of my recordings that are designed to sell something. It may take a good editor five hours to edit one hour of audio.

Dwight: So, you don’t do it yourself?

Michael: I do some of it myself. Now, I have two people who do my editing for me. They’ll run through it the first time to clean it up, but I do all the final editing. I’ll always go through everything, but it just saves me time.

Dwight: You don’t have to be actually trained in it or anything like that.

Michael: Yeah, it’s real easy to learn. The thing I learned on was Goldwave, Goldwave.com . There’s some software you can download. They have a new version. Do not get the new version. It’s a 5.something. It’s a free download, and you can test it out and play around with it.

The older version which is still available, 4.something, get that. That is the easiest one to edit on. But, there’s some glitches with that software. It sometimes freezes up your computer, and it’s a little bit of a pain, but it’s worth it because you can edit much faster. I haven’t found any editing software that’s quicker than that one.

So, you can do your editing in that. Once you’ve got it down, it’s nothing but copy, paste, delete. It’s just like a Word file. You put words in. You take them out. It’s the same thing. I trained my babysitter how to do it, and I trained another person how to do it. You just show them how to do it.

If you want some consulting on that, maybe in another interview we can get into that what’s important about that, but basically what I’m telling you is if you have two recordings side by side, conversation where you’re saying, “You know” and “ums” and the phone beeping. You say, “Hold on”, and you have that in your audio recording, and then you have one that has all that stuff out. It’s tightly edited and there’s no ums and ahs – when you’re interviewing an expert and you’re positioning them as an expert, if the guys like, “Um, well, you know”, he’s not going to come across credible.

Just look, think about your discipline, hesitation creates opportunity for your opponent, right?

Dwight: Exactly.

Michael: The same thing – hesitation in your voice reduces the credibility in the perception of the confidence of your expert. You want your expert coming across bad ass – no ums, no ahs. This guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s smooth. He’s not hesitating. Do you see what I’m saying? Just like in a fight. Look at the recording as a fight, a match, and who’s going to come out on top?

If you’ve got something to sell in the background, you’re going to get more sales out of it just like an edited, copywritten letter.

Dwight: And, then the last thing would be that the transcript.

Michael: Once you do your editing, you find someone to do the transcripts for you. You could go on to Elance.com . Elance, Scriptlance, go find all those “lance” companies where they outsource transcription services, and find yourself a good transcriber. You put the job up. You shouldn’t pay anymore than $30 or $40 for an hour’s worth of transcripts.

People will bid against you. Just find out if their qualified. There’s tons of people who can do transcripts. And, you upload the edited audio file. They have transcription software that allows them with a pedal, where they can do. They know what they’re doing. You’ve just got to get them the digital file whether you send it to them a CD, or upload it and let them download it. I have the same girl who has been doing my transcripts for years. I found her on Elance. She’s great.

Dwight: Okay, I listened to Storm’s yesterday and he says that he no longer spends as much time at his school as he did except he goes in and teaches black belt classes. I thought to myself, for a little while now, for about 15 months or so, I’ve felt like that. There’s something else that I’m supposed to be doing rather than coming into the studio everyday, and just teaching classes.

Michael: And, what do you love about this whole business – teaching the discipline, teaching students, maybe that’s how it started?

Dwight: That’s how it started, and I still get quite a kick out of discussing the philosophies behind it and passing that stuff on, but now what I want to do is reach a broader market with that.

Michael: Well, that’s what you can do in consulting. When you’re teaching in your own studio, you can only reach so many people. But, think if you’re consulting and showing businesses how to grow their businesses, the real benefit is the student gets to learn a great discipline. And, because of you and your marketing and your consulting, you can spread the teaching of Bruce Lee to much more people. That’s the end result is the benefit for the student.

Dwight: Yes, definitely.

Michael: What else can you think of? Once you get your transcripts transcribed you want to get them up on your website in PDF format. Also, because you have a natural flow of conversation between two people about a subject, search engines will love that.

You want to get each one of those transcripts up as an HTML page on your site. So, you can give your visitor to the site – this is something I’m doing right now. Each one of my transcripts you can download in PDF, but search engines can’t find all the words in a PDF. They can find the headline or the title in a PDF, but you want to take each one of your transcripts and put them into an HTML page, even if it’s 20 pages long, and then have all your links on the top or on the side. I’m working on it right now, working on it real hard.

So, you’ll be able to go to my site. You’ll print the transcript or you can go right to the page and read it online, but it’s a tactic great for search engines because you have natural conversation related to a topic. That’s a great way, and once you’re up there for a while you want the traffic. You want every person who types in “Bruce Lee” to come to your site.

Dwight: I actually did do where you go and you type in the words to see what-

Michael: What did you come up with?

Dwight: I wish I had written it down, but when I first heard about doing that, I went in. I put in the name “Bruce Lee”. There’s still a lot of stuff for Bruce Lee. I put in Jeet Kune Do, and was pleasantly surprised to find that there’s still a lot. I saw that and I thought, “Okay, then there’s definitely something to be done here.”

I mean, starting out, it might not sound like there are that many members of this niche market, but I know there are guys who make a lot of money off just three hundred people.

Michael: Oh, absolutely.

Dwight: But, the thing is that each of these guys that I can get in touch with, like if I get in touch with somebody in Scotland, he has people on his list. He’s being interviewed or what have you, and I tell him to let his people know to call in.

Michael: That’s right. You can do an interview with an expert, but the rules are he doesn’t get the interview. It’s on your site. He’ll naturally want to invite his people to listen to how great he is at your site. You capture their names and you start siphoning off his customers. That’s how to do it.

Anything else on your mind? I’ve got time if you’ve got questions.

Dwight: Yeah, the way that you have yourself interviewed also. Some point in doing that?

Michael: Setting up the joint ventures with the people that you interview, that’s just icing on the cake. You do really want your own products that you control. You should get in there and teach some classes in videotape. Do you have videos of you doing instructions?

Dwight: I just finished a three part series for the National Association of Professional Martial Artists, which is what the name says. It’s a national organization. So, NAPMA has about 2,000 member schools. So, I just did a Philippino Martial Art thing for them.

Michael: What was it, instructions on the discipline?

Dwight: Yes. The Jeet Kune Do guys, the Karate guys, the Kempo Karate guys who are members of NAPMA, it will be featured in their instructive product catalogue. So, I’ll make some money off of that.

Michael: Who owns it? You own it or they do?

Dwight: No, they own it. The whole reason for doing that was to get my name as a featured instructor with an endorsement of America’s largest martial arts organization. From there on, anytime that my name is mentioned is something, they’ll go, “Oh, that’s the guy from whatever.”

Michael: You ought to do one for yourself. A good salesletter can sell it. You can build your credibility with your experience and your business, and you’ve been trained by Bruce Lee’s number one guy. If you have these videos, I know you’re comfortable with selling within your market, but there’s some real money outside of your market.

People want to be like Bruce Lee. Do the younger kids know who he is now?

Dwight: A lot of them do, but again, that’s also something that I’ve thought of. I thought about reengineering something so that it’s something that’s old, but now what we turn around and do is represent is as this brand new thing.

I saw an ad on TV the other day and it’s for the Ziploc people now have instead of the bag it’s the two fasteners that connect together. They know have Ziploc containers that you screw on, and I looked at it and thought, “Wow a new product from Ziploc.” And, I thought, “Whoa, it’s just a jar.” It’s a normal plastic container that you screw on which is what people have been using forever.

Michael: Oh, I see. What you’re selling to the public maybe, whether it’s the ultimate fighters or that niche, you’re selling learn how to be like Bruce Lee.

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: And, you’ve got all his credibility to play off of. You’ve got to prove to them that you can teach them what he knew, if they’re willing to learn. Then, it’s just a great sales letter. You’ve got millions and millions of people who want to be like Bruce Lee, and if they don’t know who Bruce Lee is, it’s not going to be hard to sell them on the idea.

He is considered still today as one of the greatest?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: He is?

Dwight: Still considered the greatest.

Michael: The greatest.

Dwight: Jackie Chan and all those guys-

Michael: Do they not even come close?

Dwight: No, not at all simply because he was the one in the million.

Michael: And audio interview on Bruce Lee is how you start selling this stuff. If you know this guy backwards and forwards, you’re studying his discipline, I bet we could do an audio interview on Bruce Lee that would just be kick ass. So, you’ve got to sell people on Bruce Lee, and then you sell people on how to be like Bruce Lee, and that’s your product. Do you know what I’m saying?

Dwight: When, I’m at conventions with karate people, it’s amazing how many of them got into Jeet Kune Do or whatever because of Bruce Lee. Now, they never got into Jeet Kune Do because again we were off in the backyard somewhere where nobody could find us, but Bruce Lee is still the reason why they started practicing martial arts, and now there’s a guy running a Jeet Kune Do school but Bruce Lee was his hero.

Michael: Tell me why Bruce Lee is so kick ass. Just starting rattling off some things that really stick out why is so good and so far superior than everyone else out there.

Dwight: Well, at his prime, he was 132 pounds and could hit like a heavyweight.

Michael: Was it measured?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: Who measured it?

Dwight: They conducted tests. Bruce Lee was used in all kind of electronic measuring equipment in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s.

Michael: To measure the power of his hitting?

Dwight: To measure the power, to measure the speed, reflexes, that kind of thing. There are numerous stories, and then there is the infamous 1964 demonstration that was captured on film that was later given to some Hollywood producer, and that’s how he ended up getting the role as Kato.

Michael: Tell me about this demonstration, but before you do that, tell me about these measuring devices. Did you read about them?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: So, he had in his studio devices that would measure – tell me what it would specifically measure, the power of his kick, the speed, reflexes, and he was always measuring his performance?

Dwight: I don’t have the intimate details of it because I wasn’t there.

Michael: But, you knew this guy measured his-

Dwight: Yes, and again there were stories of the power that he could generate for example in a sidekick for somebody his size. So, he’s the quintessential little guy who could pull off the big guy stuff. That’s one of the reasons.

When Bruce Lee got on screen, his way of moving, his way of doing things was nothing like what Hong Kong had been producing for a few years prior to his arrival on the scene.

Michael: Hong Kong karate movies?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: Okay, nothing like it?

Dwight: No, so, when Bruce Lee came it was like, “Wow, who the heck is this guy and where does these kinds of moves come from?”

Michael: He developed them all through his study?

Dwight: Yes, it was just his unique approach to martial arts training. His unique approach combined with a fanatical discipline, just stuff like that.

Michael: So, his power for his size was unmatched.

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: What else?

Dwight: Since, it’s been over 30 years since he passed away, a lot of this is chronicled, but there’s still Hollywood stories for example about somebody like Ryan O’Neill being on the receiving end of a Bruce Lee sidekick and being thrown twenty feet back and landing in a pool and still having a back injury because of that.

Michael: Is that true stuff do you think?

Dwight: Yes, it’s true.

Michael: Were they just playing around?

Dwight: It was something along the lines, of “Well, I doubt that such and such could work on me.” The thing is it’s not so much my having to invent stuff to sell. It’s just really reminding people this stuff is out there.

Michael: That’s right. You’ve seen my Claude Hopkins stuff, right?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: I’ve got the collection of Claude Hopkins ads. He has been dead for a long time, but I’m going off all his credibility. This guy was known as the father of advertising, and now you can see his work. It’s no different than that.

Dwight: Yes, now there is one area that could, I don’t even know how it would effect it, but it’s the legal thing with Bruce Lee’s estate.

Michael: What is that?

Dwight: Well, to the best of my knowledge, they have not been able to register his name. So, nobody has to pay to use the name Bruce Lee.

Michael: No, you don’t have to pay to use his name. Did you hear they’re trying to do that?

Dwight: Yes, there is a particular logo that has been used as the Jeet Kune Do logo. Everybody has used it. It’s actually the logo that’s on my website.

Michael: You’re saying that’s trademark.

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: That’s different from using his name. So, the trademark maybe the way it looks. If they get a ruling that no one can use it, then yes, you’d be infringing on the trademark, but that’s just the design of the way it looks.

Dwight: Okay.

Michael: You can use his name Bruce Lee. He was a living person. He was a public figure. They can’t stop you from using his name.

Dwight: What about Jeet Kune Do, the name of his method?

Michael: His method? I think it’s out in the public. There’s nothing they can do. He taught it publicly, unless he trademarked that name a long time ago.

Dwight: No.

Michael: There’s nothing they can do.

Dwight: Okay.

Michael: You’re teaching a history course. You’re teaching the history of Bruce Lee. That’s all. They can’t stop you from teaching that.

Dwight: Right, because there has been some kind of rumbling.

Michael: You said there’s other instructors teaching Bruce Lee. Is the Bruce Lee estate marketing Bruce Lee products? Who’s selling Bruce Lee products? Are there are a lot of videos of Bruce Lee out there?

Dwight: Because of some of their legal shenanigans, one of the top martial art publishers pulled everything about Jeet Kune Do out of their catalogue.

Michael: Which marketer was it?

Dwight: A group called Unique Publications in California.

Michael: So, they took all the stuff out.

Dwight: Yes, for example, some of the more senior Jeet Kune Do people had books, and then the Bruce Lee estate starting talking about this and they go, “You know what? We’re going to have to hassle with you about this, and they shut down everything.”

Michael: They just stopped selling the products.

Dwight: They just stopped selling them, yes. The books are no longer available. You’ve got to try to find them on eBay.

Michael: Can you find them?

Dwight: Oh yeah, some of them you can.

Michael: What do they sell for?

Dwight: Well, people are bidding $85 for my instructor’s book.

Michael: Bruce Lee’s instruction book?

Dwight: No, Dan DeSano’s books.

Michael: Oh, Dan DeSano’s books.

Dwight: There were four books that he brought out in the early ‘80s, but then they went out of print long before there was any trouble with the Bruce Lee estate. It’s the stuff that came out mid to late ‘80s, that’s the stuff that Unique Publications has discontinued.

Michael: Now, Dan and Sano’s, does Bruce Lee’s estate have a problem with them?

Dwight: Yes, I believe he had the copyright on the Jeet Kune Do logo.

Michael: So, what’s he doing now?

Dwight: Well, they attacked him personally, and he doesn’t have the money to fight a legal battle.

Michael: So, they won legally?

Dwight: Yes. They won, or he just gave up.

Michael: So, he’s not doing any marketing or anything.

Dwight: No.

Michael: Did he have products that he was selling?

Dwight: He has videotapes and that kind of thing, yes.

Michael: Is it of Bruce Lee or of him?

Dwight: It’s of him.

Michael: And, they said he couldn’t sell it.

Dwight: What they wanted was control of the Jeet Kune Do symbol.

Michael: Just the logo.

Dwight: Yes, and he owned the copyright on that. So, they stepped in to block him from being able to renew ownership of that.

Michael: Okay, I see, but why would that stop him from still promoting it? Why did he have to use that particular logo?

Dwight: Simply because that’s what we’ve all used for almost 35 years.

Michael: The logo?

Dwight: Yes, people in the martial art world see that logo and they go, “Ah, that’s Jeet Kune Do.”

Michael: But, all your new converts wouldn’t know what it is.

Dwight: They might because it’s been around for so long, but that’s kind of the legal problems that have come up. But, I don’t see them foresee them trying to stop me from talking about Bruce Lee or talking about Jeet Kune Do. I don’t see that.

Michael: No, that’s ridiculous.

Dwight: I just wondered what your thoughts on that might be.

Michael: Let’s say you start this whole venture up. I would form a corporation, a separate entity, and do all your website up under a different corporate name on the outside of your existing business – are you incorporated right now?

Dwight: No, we’re a sole proprietorship.

Michael: It’s always smart to separate your personal assets from your business especially with liability. So, you’ve got to do it. I would incorporate your business. You’re making enough money to do it. Get incorporated and then set your publishing business, your website business under a totally different corporation, and worse comes to worse, you can keep that corporation broke.

Incorporate your existing business, and you incorporate your website and all the audio recordings and the products and stuff. You have two different entities, and you keep them separate.

When someone sues you, if it’s trademark or patent or whatever, it’s civil. It’s about money, and you can’t get blood from a stone. You can keep your business active, but if there’s no money to sue you for, what’s the point? So, you can keep that corporation broke, and if you start another project, have another corporation. Keep your assets separate. If you know they’re going to be a potential problem, you’ve got nothing to lose especially if you build it up.

You want it as a machine to capture names and email addresses, and then your broke corporation can give those names to your studio and then you can market your products under that. All you want is a name. Isn’t that the whole point to sell them something?

Dwight: Yes.

Michael: So, you should do that, but you should definitely incorporate. I have a recording on my site on Nevada corporations. Yeah, get a Nevada corporation.

Dwight: Okay.

Michael: There’s a recording on my site on Nevada corporations. I can give you a referral to my person.

Dwight: To be honest with you, Mike, even if I can spend an hour a day, it’s still going to take like six months to get through your material.

Michael: Oh yeah. Well, it’s not going to take that long. You’ve just got to listen to the ones that apply to you.

Dwight: Right.

Michael: The audio recording is very time consuming. I did it all myself at the beginning. I’m just starting to farm it out, but it costs money to product. It costs money to edit. It does cost money, and it’s worth it. Once it’s up there it’s a little machine.

Dwight: I’m fully committed to this because I see it as helping me to expand the study itself. This is definitely something that I want to do. But, to be honest with you, sometimes the thing that stops me from starting stuff is the obsession with having to be perfect.

Michael: You’ve got to get over that. You’re never going to be perfect. You’ve just go to get started, but you’re going to screw up at the beginning. You’ve just got to get moving. That is the hardest thing.

You’ve got to just pick up the phone and say, “Would you like to do an interview?” And, just do it. The editing will make that thing perfect. Even if you talk for an hour and twenty minutes of it is good. You could edit that thing down to twenty minutes of great content.

Watch what I do with the editing of this. We’ve talked for right around an hour. It may take a couple of weeks like I said to get it all edited. It may not take that long, but by the time I send you to review you’ll hear that we talked about a lot of different stuff. All right?

Dwight: Okay.

Michael: This week, I would make some calls. Just get your Sony recorder device. Get that hooked up. Go to Radio Shack, get that thing ready where you can record a call and get on the phone and say, “Hey, I’m looking for some interviews to train my students.” Just invite them to do an interview. You guys are all in the same fraternity.

Dwight: Okay.

Michael: Has this been helpful?

Dwight: Michael, thanks so much.

Michael: Okay, great. Keep in touch.

Dwight: I will, bye.