Bryan Eisenberg - Barking Cat Man

This is a Series of Silliness, wherein a small selection of the tremendous folks in the web analytics industry answer my inane questions with sparkling wit and aplomb.  I wonder if I would get inane answers to sparkling and witty questions…

Today, it’s Mister Bryan Eisenberg in the hot seat.

Who is Bryan Eisenberg?

Brooklyn, NY born and raised.  Married with 3 wonderful children – Hannah, Sammy and Matthew (they all have their own domains and blogs).  A former teacher and social worker turned online marketer; I’ve been focused on helping people on how to apply expert persuasion techniques, and understanding how people behave online to online marketing since the mid 1990s.

In 1998, my brother Jeffrey and I started the first consultancy focused on improving conversion rates (back then no one even cared what a conversion rate was) and we left that company about a year and a half ago.  Since then I’ve lost over 100 pounds – this is true optimization!  In 2000 we published our first ebook “The Marketer’s Common Sense Guide to eMetrics”, that became widely distributed by WebTrends when they printed up copies and gave them away at their educational series.  The following year we published our first book “Persuasive Online Copywriting.”  This book became kind of a cult classic, with used copies selling for over $1500.  I am still in shock!  Then came the books most people know me for Call to Action, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? and Always Be Testing. Today I do a bit of strategic consulting and spend a lot of time as a marketing keynote speaker around the globe.

What is your most effective cure for writer’s block?

Read!  You are what you eat and you write like you read.  So read something good today.

Should anyone really care if web analytics crawls under a rock and dies?

I’ve had this discussion with Avinash.  I could live without analytics but couldn’t live with a testing platform.  No one makes money from having web analytics, you make money from taking action and continuously improving the customer experience.

On Twitter, you are known as TheGrok.  What is a Grok and who would provide the ideal voice-over for one in a Disney movie?

Author Robert A. Heinlein coined the term, Grok, in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein’s view, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that necessarily affects both the observer and the observed. The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.”

If you have read my books you know how much I stress the importance of empathizing with your customers. It also means to understand something down to the instinctual or cellular level and that is why I was given that nickname.

I think Jerry Seinfeld would do me justice!

Has a client ever made you cry?

Cry no! Want to commit murder?  I’m from Brooklyn and I’ll never tell!

Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community and why?

For me a superhero is one we would never know what their true identity is.  They don’t walk around and strut their stuff.  However, my hat tip goes off to those silent analysts who sit in their office and produce oodles of revenue for their companies.

What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?

No more snow! 56 inches+ in New York this year (we normally only get about 20 inches and sometimes almost none).  More good health, more time with friends and family, more wisdom and the same for my friends and their families.

You’re in a bar and you hear someone say “Gosh, that Eisenberg chap is devlishly handsome!”.  Are they referring to you, or to your brother Jeffrey?

Jeffrey is the smarter one but I guess I’ll have to step up to be the handsome one.

What is your next book about?  May I have a signed copy for my Mum?

You can have a signed copy of any book you like.  I am not sure our next book will have a place to sign it on.

What did you buy with your very first paycheck?

I started working in a video store when I was 13 years old. My money went to computer accessories like my 10 megabyte hard drive for my Atari 800.

Check out the full list of interviews in the Silly Series here!