About Me
About Me
I have a problem with writing about myself. I guess mainly due to I don’t want to
sound conceded, or lame for that matter. So what you are about to read, is a little
about my past, and what has lead me into becoming an Internet marketer. Perhaps
after you read this story, you will understand my decision to enter marketing on the
Internet. Anyone can do this, as you will read, and it is actually easier than even
when I started, back in year 2006.
I have been successful in Internet Marketing, as well as my regular ‘day job’ of
being a web pressman for Franklin Data Empowered Direct Mail, in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. My main objective here is to explain what I am doing with this website,
how it all came about, and why it is important for you to know.
I have been a printer/pressman for the majority of my life. It is an occupation that
pays all my bills, allows me to be a craftsman, but does has its ups and downs, as
most jobs do. I am an artist, have an eye for color, attention to detail, and a
perfectionist by trade. I can work very well with my hands, I am an extremely good
carpenter, as well as a good guitar player. In my heritage, most of my family were,
artists, mechanics, or musicians, or a combination of the three.
I was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, what I refer to as the arm-pit of Texas.
It is up in the panhandle of Texas, where tornadoes and drought are common
circumstances. The last of the Baby Boomers, I have had small experiences
throughout my life that has led me to this ‘new frontier’ of what is now known as
the Internet.
I have done a lot in my short life. I have also had a lot of hard lessons. Some of
these will be mentioned here. I grew up in the ’60′s, loved horse-back riding, I
climbed mountains, para-sailed on flat land, avid guitar player, was a cross-country
marathon runner, and lived an exciting, sometimes extreme way of life.
I was a whiz in math and in drafting. I wanted to become an architect back in high
school. After getting married when I was 18, making a living for a wife was more
important than staying in school. I dropped out of college, and due to necessity, I
landed a job in printing. The older pressman there told me if I still wanted to
become an architect, to get out of printing; because once it is in your blood, you’ll
be a printer for the rest of your life…I didn’t believe them then.
So fast-forward to 2006, they were right. I am a printer, proud of my occupation,
but a little short of retirement money. I make a decent amount of yearly income,
but the wear and tear of the physical duties of my job, I can see it will be difficult,
if not impossible, to maintain this high level of activity into my 70′s. So…
In 2006 I was married to Susan, the love of my life. She was a chef, Cajun chef,
the best I have ever known. Her Pralines were positively the best that could be
found anywhere in Louisiana. I wanted to start a business online so as my wife
could stay home and remain the Cajun chef she was, but still produce an income.
That is when I first ventured into E-commerce and the Internet.
My first experiences with online E-commerce was not good. I was scammed into
sinking money into a company that promised riches and easy money. I had to buy
this credit card machine and manually enter all sales information, customer card
number, amount, etc, etc, from a website that they furnished for me. I was
introduced to eBay and Overstock.com. Life was suppose to be good. But it wasn’t.
I had to buy this credit card machine through a lease program, a four year deal,
costing over 4K. My wife was OK with this at first. But then used it as a reminder to
me for being so gullible. I look back over this experience as a learning tool. One of
many I have had to endure and learn from… We have an old saying in
Texas…”Never believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.”
Since those not so glorious days of my first ventures into E-commerce, I have
learned a lot. I have spent a lot of money, bought all the tricks, the E-books, the
secrets, the Get-rich-quick schemes. I was making money using eBay, but nothing
close to being a ‘power-seller.’
I read the book from author Robert Allen about having “Multiple Streams of
Income”. This book inspired me into seeing it was possible to start a business on
the Internet and make money. After learning that having a website through
someone else was not the way to go, I began looking into how to get my own
website.
I needed extra income. My eBay business was not enough. I needed to be able to
save money from the start. I was operating on a shoe-string budget. I began
looking into building my own website. At the time, all websites were being built
with HTML coding only. But I was not a computer programmer. YIKES! It was easier
said than done.
I had a plan…in order to convince my wife, because she was already fuming on
the amounts of money I had invested into that stupid credit card machine (that had
never been used). I would build her a website, so she could sell her expertise in
Cajun cuisine.
She liked the idea of selling gift baskets. What? I thought what a crazy idea. I played
it off at first as just a silly idea. She, however, was not so amused. But this lady had
the forethought that I never knew existed. She was intelligent, more than I was aware
of, at the time. But we still had to work to pay the bills. We were a two-income family.
She told me that she was not going to work all day, then come home and work a
second job on the computer. So I convinced her that I would do all the work at home,
if she would just give me her permission.
So I began searching for a website builder program, that I could do myself. I
contacted WWW.guru.com looking for someone to build me a website. I contracted
through them a man that suggested I needed a logo. Wow, it never occurred to me I
needed a logo! I took his initial sample of a logo to someone I worked with, and
wala, our logo was made! The cost of the services to build this website were going
to be astronomical. I could not afford this. I had to find a better, more economical
way to create this website.
I actually stumbled onto our first website host. It was through SiteBuildIt.com.
These people really had it all going on! I wrote all the content for my wife’s
website, at http://www.cajun-country-foods.com. Since she was a chef, she had
hundreds of cookbooks at her disposal. Those recipes were our first attempt to write
content for her main objective, which was monetizing her site into making and
selling gift baskets. I wrote and wrote and wrote content, uploaded by just copy and
paste from my Microsoft Word program. If you would like to see exactly how easy it is to own your own
website, have it ALL done for you, and get more help and suggestions than you ever
dreamed, visit SiteBuildIt, just “click here” to see for yourself!
After downloading the action guide explaining exactly what to do, where to start, and how to do it, I
believed I finally found the answer to all my questions. My wife Susan, however was not so sure. I then
downloaded the E-book, WAHM (work-at-home-moms) and let her read for herself. That was all it took! She
was convinced that our Internet success could be accomplished! If you would like your copy “FREE of
Charge” of this intriguing and life changing true story, just “click here”.
SiteBuildIt did all the work for me…They coded it, they submitted our website to all the search engines, they
ran the SEO optimization, everything that a professional webmaster does, and then some. We began to get
free traffic to our little website, small at first, 20 hits a day. I followed their blueprint to the letter. Soon it
began to grow and grow. After six months, we had enough traffic to begin monetizing the website.
I just put links at first to some Cajun cookbooks selling at amazon.com. We began
to get money from Google ad-sense and from Amazon.com. This was building into a
successful website. My wife was ecstatic! I was ready now to begin the next stage
of development of monetizing, when we were devastated by some unforeseen
horrific bad news! Just as we were beginning to break even from all the money we
had invested into this website, my wife was diagnosed with Cancer!
My world came crashing down quickly. I had to abandon the website to take care of
Susan. It was up for renewal when we both decided it would be best to not renew
the website. I didn’t have the time nor the ambition to continue. Hindsight tells me
that was not the wisest decision I made, back then, in 2009.
Susan died on valentines day of 2010. My world was forever changed on that day.
No longer would I come home to a wonderfully prepared home-cooked meal. No
longer would her family, my in-laws, consider me a part of their family. I was all
alone.
The bills still had to be paid. I no longer had a crutch to depend on, losing her
income that helped support us. What was I going to do now? After all the expenses
of the funeral, I was left with nothing in the bank. I no longer had a cushion of
funds to ride out on month to month.
My entry back into the Internet marketing was more out of necessity, than just for
fun. This time though, I had to start from scratch. I had much less money to start
with in capital. Could this be done? Had the online markets changed any from my
brief past experience? I knew from experience that to make money, you have to
spend money first. That is not what I had an abundance of, money.
So what , where, and how do I start over, again, and get moving forward again?
Internet Marketing, of course.
I had accumulated a lot of ‘guru advise’, mainly in E-books, from the past, still
sitting idle, on the computer. So I began reading, and reading, and reading. I was
devising a plan. How could I use all this valuable information, and make money with
it? It was useless just sitting there on my computer.
The Internet, which is evolving everyday, had changed a lot since my “copy and
paste days.” CSS programming, which was just beginning to rise when I left the
scene, was now a necessary item to use in your coding. But wait, now their is this
new, PHP code. What the hell? OH NO! The learning curve now seems so much more
than my previous experience had ever known!
Now it is 2011, and the world of Internet users, as well as websites are exploding!
Over one-thousand websites are created daily. There are so many markets to cater
to, niches, micro-niches, services, referrals, on and on. With the advent of
Word-press, you don’t have to be a webmaster to build your own website anymore. It is done
for you automatically! But to be a step ahead of the crowd, I would suggest
Socrates. It is a Word-press Theme that will give you the power that all other
Word-press themes do not: the control of the look and feel of your site. It is what I
am using here. “Click here” for more information on Socrates and how to use it.
So in summary the reason I told you all of this is not to receive your pity, but to
explain there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is not a “get rich quick” scheme. It
is a business for the long-term. I am now making money using the Internet. You can
too. You have to have a plan. You have to work your plan constantly and
consistently. You have to study it, revise it, and work it some more. There is no
short-cuts. Even Google will tell you, content is king.
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