Hi Eric Tan of www.amk-129-12-1521.ws
I am Yanik Silver here.
This is probably one of the hardest emails I've ever had to
write. Now after returning from Corey's funeral and with a
deeply saddened heart I'm finally ready to send this out.
* *
My wife, Missy, woke me up Friday morning (June 4th) with
an email from a subscriber giving his condolences to me
about Corey.
What????!!...
I had been playing video games until 3 in the morning and I
was planning on sleeping in - but I suddenly sprang out of
bed. Surely, this must be some kind of weird mistake or
something else....
I logged onto to a couple message boards since they are the
central outlets for info and right there on Tony Blake's
board was a memorial banner for Corey Rudl. It was surreal.
Corey was the passenger in a Porsche Carrerra GT that lost
control and crashed during a track event. (I've included
the AP post on the accident at the bottom of this note).
Many of you reading this will know immediately who Corey
is.
In Internet marketing circles Corey is a legend. Corey was
one of the true pioneers. I believe he was the very first
(even before Amazon) to build an affiliate program. He was
one of the first to sell downloable ebooks with his 'Car
Secrets' book. He was responsible directly and indirectly
for thousands (probably tens of thousands) of significant
successes online. His site says Corey has personally sold
over $40M and I wouldn't be surprised if that figure
expands by 100x when you count his students. That's just a
small indication of the impact he's had.
Just reading the message boards and tribute sites you can
see how deeply this has impacted people. Most people never
knew Corey personally like I did and they still feel a
tremendous loss. I hope seeing this outpouring from people
all over the world will give Corey's wife, Tracy, and his
family a small amount of comfort in these trying times.
Now I wouldn't say Corey and I were 'best buds' but in the
last few years we had definitely developed a much closer,
personal friendship. I have about 8-9 good friends from the
Internet world and I would consider Corey in that group.
Corey and I really became much closer friends because we
were both in Dan Kennedy's Platinum group so we met at
least 4x/year. Kennedy would always give us grief about
having the "Internet guys" in the Platinum group especially
because many of the existing members wanted to pick our
brains for online info. We couldn't present right after
another - Kennedy wanted us spaced out to handle the
Internet guys in small doses. It was certainly in good fun
and the bond between us grew from there.
I was probably one of his closer "Internet" friends. Though
it actually wasn't business - we never did promote anything
together - it was more personal. (Though we did consider
doing a joint seminar.)
We'd hang out after meetings sometimes and go to dinner or
a bar together. One meeting was in Los Angeles - we all
went out together on the town to a cool LA club staying out
until 4 am.
Then January of last year for my "30th Birthday Bash" I
managed to get Corey out of 'semi-retirement' from
speaking. I'm not certain but I think my Bday bash was the
first time he had spoken in a few years. I may be wrong. I
was extremely thankful and he did me a personal favor. It
was a pretty big coup and thanks to him and everyone else
part of my incredible line-up we had over 520 people there.
I have no idea if he already decided he wanted to speak
more but after that Corey began appearing again on stage. I
was glad because he able to have an impact on even more
people. I'd only seen Corey speak a couple of times and it
was really him out there. It was exhausting to watch him
because he spoke so fast but it wasn't just an act. That
was him. He was full of enthusiasm and excitement about the
Internet business and he wanted to help compel people that
it really was possible.
Just a few months ago I stayed at his new home in La Jolla,
CA with his wife Tracy and their cute chocolate lab, Wally.
I was invited to their wedding but couldn't make it. So
this was the first time I'd seen their place. Pretty
amazing and very cool. I was impressed and made some mental
notes for myself when I build a house.
I loved this 'moat-like' feature of stepping blocks
surrounded by water leading up to the front door. Another
standout for me was the "Infinity" pool that looked like it
dropped off right into the Pacific. Their place was
completely wired inside and out and definitely my style.
But I think one of Corey's favorite feature was his garage.
It was a 4/5 car garage with carpet. Nice. He had a Ferrari
360 Spyder in there and his brand new baby, a Lamborghini
Murcielago.
One of the funniest things he'd seen in awhile was me
trying to get into the Lamborghini. It was the scissor
doors which are very cool but not exactly the easiest to
jump in and out of. I landed very gracefully with a
resounding plunk as we got into the car. ;)
The car was a rocket and boy did that thing get stares.
When he dropped me off at the Airport - there were 2 people
who actually came up and got pictures of him in his car.
Pretty funny.
We shared a lot of similarities which makes this even
harder to grapple with. We had the same sense of adventure
and both were blessed with the opportunity to pursue it. We
talked about going off to Russia to fly MIG jets together
next summer and going backwoods skiing.
I actually came out to his place so we could go Baja racing
in Mexico. It was one of my favorite trips. I've got a fun
slide show that shows Corey having a ball in Baja -
www.surefiremarketing.com/baja (I put this together awhile
ago so you can just disregard the last page about my
copywriting course - I have no intention of making this
email a commercial for anything.)
Funny side note - he was in DC at my Underground seminar
just a month ago and he couldn't understand why people kept
asking him if he was still sore (you'll get it if you watch
the video). He never knew I put the photos up of him from
the Baja racing trip we did together. He was a bit ticked
off at me - but had a laugh about it. Unlike me, Corey
didn't want all his "adventures" to be public.
Corey wasn't that close of friends with too many people in
the Internet marketing circle. I actually felt privileged
to be friends with him.
He didn't keep up on the gossip, the rumors, the
"kindergarten' stuff. He simply worked hard building up his
business. And he really built it and ran it like a "real
business". I know some people have expressed their
uncertainty about the Internet Marketing Center continuing
without Corey but I have absolutely no doubt it will. Corey
built a great team around him and they were running the
place already without him for the most part.
As so many others have already said - Corey has left a lot
of people better off. He's inspired and taught many.
A couple of the personal lessons (some small and some big
ones) I learned from Corey:
1. Live life. Sounds cliche, doesn't it? But Corey really
did. Corey died doing something he loved and I think it
would be a big mistake to simply take away the lesson that
you've got to play it safe after this. Yes, racing might be
a bit dangerous but he really lived. And my philosophy is
"You can't worry about you're going to die - you can only
worry about how you're going to live."
2. Build up a team. In Baja Corey yelled at me for still
having many of my emails routed to me. He really tried to
hammer home to me that I needed a team and systems in
place. I don't know if I ever want as many employees Corey
had - but having a team in place is paramount if you want
to grow beyond a certain point.
3. Pay for the best. One of my favorite sayings I heard
comes from Tom Phillips of Phillips Publishing. He said,
"Pay for the best and you'll only cry once". Corey would
tell me about how much he paid for top accounting, legal
and consulting. Trust me it was a lot but to him worth
every penny because he was building a real organization.
I'm sure more will come to me as my mind clears up.
One of the things I remember being most grateful to Corey
for was for increasing not just my expectations for my
personal life but my business as well. He was inspiring to
me with what he had accomplished and also how he coaxed me
a bit to step up my 'game'.
Of course, business will go on as usual. Orders haven't
stopped coming in over here and I'm sure orders haven't
stopped for Corey's products during this time (which is a
great thing about an Internet business). Things go on
however I know Corey's spirit and influence won't be
forgotten in our Internet community and beyond.
Usually I sign off by saying "All the best" - but I think a
better sign-off is "Be the best". Corey really was the best
at what he did and if we strive to be the best - we might
just wake up one day to find we are.
You'll be missed my friend.
Be the best,
Yanik Silver
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This message is brought to you by me, Eric, of Singapore.
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Eric
Singapore
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