Success seems to elude many people, like fog when you grasp at it with your fingers. You come away empty-handed.

I sat down with the celebrity entrepreneur known as the "President of the Internet", Frank Kern. We talked about how he progressed from a "How to Train Your Parrot" ebook, to being the highest paid internet marketing consultant, and working with Tony Robbins in very short period of time.

Early in his life, Frank Kern was like most of us. He couldn't seem to get a handle on becoming successful, earning a good living and, most importantly, loving what he did.

Sure, he worked hard - at times, harder than most. As a young salesman, he hated what he was selling and didn't enjoy the prospect of cold calling and going door-to-door to face rejection. Of course, who would?

One thing, however, that makes Frank Kern stand head and shoulders above the rest of us is that he took the time to notice when someone else was being successful - and he learned from them.

I'm not saying he immediately stopped struggling. Most importantly, and this is a common trait of successful people, he had the perseverance to doggedly keep going when all was lost. And you'll find that not everyone will do that.

To say that Frank Kern has figured out the secret to success is an understatement. He's living proof that the great Zig Ziglar was right. According to Ziglar, "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want."

According to Kern, "There's a misconception among business people that it's about the 'thing' they're selling or it's about the marketing they're doing to sell that 'thing.' It's never about the thing you're selling (which, of course, should be excellent). The most important thing is the market, the people that the thing is going to be sold to."

Further, he goes on to say, "There must be an existing market of people who are intensely interested in getting the result that the thing promises and that the thing must deliver. Without the focus on that first, all is lost."

He believes that all marketing should be about that customer. It should be about providing the solution to a problem or need they have. In other words, it should be about helping those people.

One of the downfalls many business people have is that they have a great idea they're passionate about. The problem becomes when they fail to determine if others feel the same way about their idea. If there is no demand for your product or service, you're going to have a very difficult uphill battle which is likely going to end in defeat.

The guiding focus that has made Kern successful in recent years is his deep-seated belief that the amount of income you're going to generate in any market is directly proportional to the amount of goodwill that you have in that marketplace.

Kern further believes that you create goodwill by providing value to others from the very beginning of your relationship with them. In other words, he provides results in advance.

He has found that when you provide value to others without the expectation of anything in return - when you provide results first - eventually, others will be happy to provide value back to you in terms of income. You find a market, create an appetite for what you offer and they will buy it.

He shares, "Metaphorically, if you have someone who's hungry and you give them a little bit of food, you've only whetted their appetite and they're going to be hungrier. So the methodology I like to use is pull, instead of push. You make your marketing itself valuable to the end user and when you do that, they come to you. You don't have to chase them. You don't have to use the hype. You don't have to bash them over the head or any of that. Just demonstrate you can help them by actually helping them. It's a novel concept."

Kern has a lot of fun engaging with others and helping them as much as he can. From the stage, with video and the written word, he has a history of regaling others with entertaining stories and a fun approach to doing business.

As a result, he has built a loyal audience of raving fans who listen to him with rapt attention, end up buying the programs he creates and ravenously beg for more.

Help others and become successful? Yes, it truly is as simple as that.