Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

Recently, I interviewed TuckerMax and it was hell! I actually learned a lot from Mr. Tucker and you will too if you read this interview. He’s not about products or services, but about being his transparent self. The result is that he is a bestselling author, movie producer, blogger, and business owner. Not too many people can get away with what he’s done, so kudos to him. Throughout the interview, I was trying to figure out what role branding played a role in his life and it doesn’t look at it that way (we know it’s all about branding). Enjoy the interview!

Why brand yourself as an asshole? How does this positioning support your attempts at seducing women, but at the same time, create a barrier between you and people who look down on that behavior?

It’s funny you call it “branding.” I call it “just being me.” I never set out to brand anything or create an image. Everything started with my stories, which started as emails to my friends. You can’t bullshit your friends, so I was just completely, absolutely honest. What resulted is just who I am, both the good and the bad. That’s makes branding easy for me, I just have to be honest. As to women, I don’t really try to seduce women. The word “seduce” implies something nefarious or dishonest, which is not what I’m about at all. I just go out and do things that I enjoy. What other people think doesn’t really even register on my radar.

Many other people have similar encounters with women, yet you decide to share them. What makes you write about your stories on the internet and even have a book dedicated to them? From your readers perspective, how are they drawn to them?

Like I said, the stories started as emails to my friends. The first set of stories were literally ripped verbatim from emails. I would never have thought to post them or do anything with them, except that my friends urged me to. I was just trying to make my friends laugh, it was really them that first saw it could be something more. What makes me write them? Why does any artist create anything? I’m not different–because I enjoy doing it.

To be honest, I have no idea why my fans like my writing; there are probably as many different reasons as there are people. Some people just like the poop jokes; some people like the second layer of more intellectual jokes. Some people like my brash, arrogant attitude. Some people like my philosophy towards life. I don’t know man, even though I love my fans, I didn’t start writing for the fans and I don’t write for them now. If I have something to say, I say it, and people respond. If I deconstruct it too much then it becomes about something other than just being me.

Who is your target audience? Do you find some adults reading your material?

Again, your assumptions are wrong. I don’t have a target audience because I am not building a product to sell to a niche nor do I go after any audience. People either respond or they don’t. And I don’t know why you would ask if adults read my book. If your assumption is that only young people like my stuff, that is far off the mark.

Do you think more people are going to follow in your footsteps after reading your book? Why will some succeed, while others fail?

Succeed at what? Writing? I hope so, the world can always use more great writers. If someone who wants to be a writer takes any lesson from my book, it should be that true key to success in writing comes from authenticity and hard work. If you have something to say, say it in a simple and emotionally authentic way that you can, and show up every day and put in the work to make it as good as possible. The recipe is simple, it’s the application that’s hard.

On your webpage you list all the girls you hooked up with. What is the purpose of this and has there been any retaliation?

Uh, no–I don’t list all the girls I have hooked up with. I think I have like eight girls listed, and they are some of the girls I have had serious relationships with. If I’d only hooked up with 8 girls, I shouldn’t be writing stories about partying.

I think you have a large following based on your transparency, story telling ability and because you are passionate and proud. What type of feedback do you get from your fans and enemies?

I get all kinds of feed back. Here are some examples:
http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/tucker_helps_people_no_really.phtml#1333

I get all kinds of feedback–just go look at my MySpace comments, you can see everything there:
http://comment.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewComments&friendID=15374081

What do females want? What makes them attracted to certain men over others? How have you capitalized?

There are a few things that most women want like intelligence, money, power, social status or sense of humor, but ultimately, it depends on the woman. I can write 10,000 words about this, but that’s pretty much what it all boils down to.

What is the Tucker Max grand vision? How do you want to be remembered.

I am way to early in my career to think about this. I’ll worry about my legacy when I am retired. For now, I am just going to keep doing what I enjoy and being who I am.

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Tucker Max received his BA from the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1998. He attended Duke Law School on an academic scholarship, where he graduated with a JD in 2001 (despite the fact that he neglected to buy any of his textbooks for his final two years and spent part of one semester–while still enrolled in classes–living in Cancun). Tucker is purportedly the reason Duke dropped from 7 to 11 in the USN&WR rankings during his tenure. He currently lives in New York City, and when he isn’t drinking or fornicating, he writes for his website, TuckerMax.com. He is the author of the NY Times Bestseller I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and is filming a movie based on his stories with the same name.