The business model that I have followed has been pretty simple. I created a business out of my hobby. But with all the possible online business options out there, why do this?
I mean, you could go after the most popular or biggest ticket items and promote them instead. Wouldn’t that make more sense?
I guess it all depends on the quality of life that you are looking for. Let’s take a look at things from that perspective first.
One of my primary goals was to get out of the daily grind. We have to be realistic and understand that there isn’t some lightning in a bottle magic bullet that is going to make us rich overnight.
Work at Something You Love
Any thing we do whether it be an online business or an offline franchise is going to require work. I’m not going to blow smoke at you and tell you that the Internet is the key to never having to work again.
However, if you would like to work a lot LESS in the long run, then the Internet is the place to be. Now that we have established that whatever we do is going to require work, why not work at something you love.
My parents always instilled three basic principles in me when it came to owning my own business.
1) Work hard
2) Do something you love
3) Make as much money as you can doing it
Every day, I get up and am involved in the world of video games. Some days it might be playing Madden to test a new strategy. Other days it will be looking at different games to see what other potential revenue streams are out there.
A bad day playing video games beats a good day at work any day of the week. Surrounding yourself with things you love to me is the only way to fly.
Yes, with my knowledge of marketing on the Internet I could make a lot of money doing other things. But they wouldn’t be fun things. They wouldn’t give me a rush of excitement when I got up. It would just be working, without a big part of the reward.
Now that we have the touchy feely part of why doing your hobby as a business is cool, let’s look at some practical reasons.
Hobbies Are Niches
Hobbies make great niches. Now, I argue all the time with my friends up in Canada about how to pronounce the word niche. I say it so that it rhymes with witch. They pronounce it so that is rhymes with quiche (the breakfast food).
Either way that you choose to say it, it is the MOST important word in your Internet Marketing life. It will becomes a regular part of your vocabulary and a critical part of your life as well.
So practice saying it now: niche….niche….niche…..NICHE!
Webster’s Dictionary defines a niche as: A special area of demand for a product or service.
I like to define a niche as: a group of people that I am going to be able to target for the sale of a specific product or products that solves their problems.
If you have a hobby, then you are a part of this particular niche. Hobbies like woodworking, scrapbooking, video gaming and golfing are all niches.
People Spend Money on Their Hobbies
People that are involved in a hobby have several things typically in common:
1) It is their way of escape from the mundane tasks of day to day life
2) They are constantly seeking more information about their hobby
3) They are willing to invest money in their hobby
From a marketing standpoint, you can see how producing a quality product can quickly result in sales for you. Hobbyists want to know more, and they are willing to pay for that knowledge.
Think about your hobbies for a moment.
How have you invested in your hobby? Do you buy any magazines or books that relate to your hobby? Do you spend money on travel as part of your hobby? Does you hobby require any kind of special equipment or tools to take part in it?
If you have a hobby, then you have spent money to support it in one way or another.
We now have take a look at some of the intangible benefits of working in an area that you love. We have established that people are willing to spend their hard earned cash on their hobbies. But what other advantages does working within your hobby bring?
Passion for Your Niche
Well, for one thing you are most likely passionate about your hobby. This will come out in everything that you do with your business.
Internet Marketing is all about taking action. Testing new techniques, writing a new autoresponder…doing something. If what you are doing revolves around a hobby you are passionate about, then you are 100% more likely to follow through.
Your product will have your own passion for the niche breathed into it. Your sales copy, email promotions, blogs and more will also echo your passion.
This passion sells! It excites other people. It motivates them to take action and do something (buy your product, sign up for your newsletter).
It is much easier to convey passion about a subject that you yourself love. You don’t have to work it up, it just flows naturally.
I love video games and Madden especially. I don’t have to try to get excited about it. I’m naturally excited about it. Like it or not, when you enter the Internet World, you become a sales professional.
The best sales people are the ones that love their product. It just comes out of them in a way that isn’t even measurable. These are the people that make a killing in their markets.
Let’s do a very simple exercise. Take 5 minutes right now and make a list of all the things that you are interested in. What do you like to do with your spare time? What do people come and ask you for help with? What are you good at?
Once you make this list, you can move on to the next step….researching your niche.
Monday, September 17, 2007
My Internet Success Story - Part 4
Finding My Niche
In the very beginning of the course, it talked about taking what you know and developing a business about this. Well, part of my obsession with sports led to a love for sports video games. I had been playing John Madden Football since it was released in 1989 on the Apple II+ computer system.
One of the big sticky points in my young marriage was my desire to play. My wife worked part time on Saturdays and I remember rushing her out of the door so that I could get my gaming fix for the week in.
I knew that if I was going to keep her from killing me, I needed to find a way to make money doing what I loved…playing video games.
I recall sitting on my couch thinking that once I got a business going, I would figure out a way to create some revenue from gaming.
Duh! I had found my niche at last. Rather than wait to get something “adult and professional” going, I decided to go after the dream instead.
Research and Writing
I began to troll the Madden forums and search for problems that people were having. I began to see some basic trends that were creating difficulties all across the board. In addition, I wanted to bring real world strategy into the game so I approached it just like a football coach.
After about 4 months of hard work, I had developed an information product that I was ready to sell. I had an ebook of about 100 pages that was ready to take the Madden world by storm.
Now, I must make a quick note here. Our current product comes in each year at over 1000 pages. It is filled with thousands of color pictures and tons of strategy. My first guide had none of that.
I had a recent customer ask me if they could buy my original 2002 guide so that they could have a “Vintage” VG Sports Guide. I said that I was afraid if they saw how bad the original was, they would never buy from me again.
But, at the time it was revolutionary. It was something people had never seen before, and it addresses their needs and problems.
Now it was time to market it. This had always been the real problem part of my business endeavors. I could build great looking websites…I just couldn’t sell anything!
Heading to Market
I plowed through the course, soaking up every word possible. I registered my domain name maddentips.com and went to work on the site.
One of the things I read in this course was about long format sales copy. This blew my 10 second rule right out of the water. What I discovered is that you have 10 seconds to capture the visitor’s attention, but if you were interesting they would stick around.
I wasn’t so sure that I really believed this, but I decided to step out on faith. It’s not like I was taking the ‘net by storm by myself anyway. The course said it wasn’t a matter of how pretty the site was, but whether the copy was good.
I decided in my stubbornness that I was going to prove them wrong. I built a butt-ugly website and filled it with pages of sales copy. I was convinced it was going to land with a thud.
I contacted a football gaming website and asked them to put up a banner about our new product. He agreed and a stuck the banner up late one night.
I set at my computer. Five minutes went by. Then ten. Then fifteen minutes after launching, I got my very first sale. This was a banner moment for the Ingley household.
Finally, after 3 years of crashed and burned Internet ventures I was a success. Okay, one sale does not a success make, but I was just so happy that SOMEBODY wanted something I was selling!!
I’d like to say that things just took of from there and I became an instant zillionaire, but not quite. We did sell over $18,000 worth of product the first year. Anybody out there mind an extra $18k added to his or her bottom line each year? I thought so.
I know went about the task of growing the business and implementing more and more strategies. I also picked up my very first staff writer. There was a guy out there named Paul who was running a site called maddenguides.com. He was giving out free strategies for guys in his Madden league.
I took a look and realized he knew a heck of a lot more about Madden than I would ever dream of knowing. We talked on the phone. He didn’t know anything about marketing or websites. He wasn’t the best grammatical writer, but he sure could break down Madden.
In the very beginning of the course, it talked about taking what you know and developing a business about this. Well, part of my obsession with sports led to a love for sports video games. I had been playing John Madden Football since it was released in 1989 on the Apple II+ computer system.
One of the big sticky points in my young marriage was my desire to play. My wife worked part time on Saturdays and I remember rushing her out of the door so that I could get my gaming fix for the week in.
I knew that if I was going to keep her from killing me, I needed to find a way to make money doing what I loved…playing video games.
I recall sitting on my couch thinking that once I got a business going, I would figure out a way to create some revenue from gaming.
Duh! I had found my niche at last. Rather than wait to get something “adult and professional” going, I decided to go after the dream instead.
Research and Writing
I began to troll the Madden forums and search for problems that people were having. I began to see some basic trends that were creating difficulties all across the board. In addition, I wanted to bring real world strategy into the game so I approached it just like a football coach.
After about 4 months of hard work, I had developed an information product that I was ready to sell. I had an ebook of about 100 pages that was ready to take the Madden world by storm.
Now, I must make a quick note here. Our current product comes in each year at over 1000 pages. It is filled with thousands of color pictures and tons of strategy. My first guide had none of that.
I had a recent customer ask me if they could buy my original 2002 guide so that they could have a “Vintage” VG Sports Guide. I said that I was afraid if they saw how bad the original was, they would never buy from me again.
But, at the time it was revolutionary. It was something people had never seen before, and it addresses their needs and problems.
Now it was time to market it. This had always been the real problem part of my business endeavors. I could build great looking websites…I just couldn’t sell anything!
Heading to Market
I plowed through the course, soaking up every word possible. I registered my domain name maddentips.com and went to work on the site.
One of the things I read in this course was about long format sales copy. This blew my 10 second rule right out of the water. What I discovered is that you have 10 seconds to capture the visitor’s attention, but if you were interesting they would stick around.
I wasn’t so sure that I really believed this, but I decided to step out on faith. It’s not like I was taking the ‘net by storm by myself anyway. The course said it wasn’t a matter of how pretty the site was, but whether the copy was good.
I decided in my stubbornness that I was going to prove them wrong. I built a butt-ugly website and filled it with pages of sales copy. I was convinced it was going to land with a thud.
I contacted a football gaming website and asked them to put up a banner about our new product. He agreed and a stuck the banner up late one night.
I set at my computer. Five minutes went by. Then ten. Then fifteen minutes after launching, I got my very first sale. This was a banner moment for the Ingley household.
Finally, after 3 years of crashed and burned Internet ventures I was a success. Okay, one sale does not a success make, but I was just so happy that SOMEBODY wanted something I was selling!!
I’d like to say that things just took of from there and I became an instant zillionaire, but not quite. We did sell over $18,000 worth of product the first year. Anybody out there mind an extra $18k added to his or her bottom line each year? I thought so.
I know went about the task of growing the business and implementing more and more strategies. I also picked up my very first staff writer. There was a guy out there named Paul who was running a site called maddenguides.com. He was giving out free strategies for guys in his Madden league.
I took a look and realized he knew a heck of a lot more about Madden than I would ever dream of knowing. We talked on the phone. He didn’t know anything about marketing or websites. He wasn’t the best grammatical writer, but he sure could break down Madden.
My Internet Success Story - Part 3
Launching Out on My Own
I partnered up with a buddy of mine who was a graphic designer. From the very first we went after projects that gave us ownership and the possibility to make money beyond just fees for services.
Next to working the hourly grind, I hate nothing more than working service fee businesses. After battling for a couple of years to make it work, we decided to shut it down.
We had been building some amazing looking web sites for our customers. The only problem was that though they were E-Commerce related, we weren’t doing any actual transactions.
Something in the process was missing. Our wonderful sites revolved around these incredible ideas that we were sure would catch on and catch the Internet by storm.
But NOBODY wanted anything that we were selling…neither from us nor from our clients. We were crashing and burning at every turn!!
I just couldn’t understand what was going on. As a web designer I was always taught to create classy websites with quick and to the point text on them. Wisdom was that the average Internet viewer would only hang around for 10 seconds or so.
Well, our visitors were jetting out in 5 seconds or less. Bert Ingley, web design professional, was drowning in my own misconceptions.
Laying Out the Fleece
My wife and I were living in a house that we could not afford with our two children. Things were rough! We were fighting every week just to find money for groceries. We were so close to quitting and flushing the whole idea of business ownership down the toilet.
This is where the awesome support of my wife, Teresa, came into play. She knew me better than I did. She knew that I would be miserable in a 9-5 and as much as she wanted the security she honestly believed that she shouldn’t press this on me.
We were convinced that I was destined to be a business owner so we stuck our own fleece out there. We made a deal that unless I received $2000 that week, we were going to pack it in and I was going to go out and get a job.
Tuesday came. Wednesday came. Thursday came. Friday morning came. The mail was late on Friday. Finally at 5PM Friday an unexpected tax return check for just over $2000 showed up at our door.
We were so mad!! I was so ready to pack it in and go back to the 9-5 world, but the good Lord had other plans for me it seemed.
I dusted myself off and went back to work.
My Quest for Something That Worked
I fired up my computer and began the search for an Internet program that worked. A colleague of mine had the belief that you had to have at least $100,000 to launch a successful web business.
Well, I didn’t have $1000, much less 10 times that amount to get going. I knew that there had to be a way out there to get things done without going into the poor house or giving most of my business to an investment banker.
For the longest time I was incredibly disappointed by what I saw available on the ‘net. There was scam after scam with snake oil salesmen promising instant Internet millions.
I was smart enough to know that this was a total crock. The problem was that everybody was teaching you how to make money teaching people how to make money on the Internet.
Think about this for a moment. There really wasn’t a product that had any teeth in it. Everything was based around getting other people to buy the dream of Internet riches, but nobody was really doing anything.
Then another course caught my eye. The writer of the course had developed an incredibly successful business online from his passion for cars. He was a car buff and had developed an everything you need to know about buying or leasing a new car guide.
He had sold over $1,000,000 online and now was teaching these same strategies to others who wanted to make money online.
I was immediately struck by this novel concept. Here was a guy teaching people how to make money on the Internet selling what they wanted to sell, not just a how-to course on how to make money selling his how-to make money products.
I immediately ordered the course and stuck it up on the shelf to gather dust. Sound familiar? I’ve met scores of people that buy courses for this or that subject and they just end up on the shelf, unused and unopened.
I went back to doing things my way for a little while, then finally gave up and pulled the course down from the shelf.
I partnered up with a buddy of mine who was a graphic designer. From the very first we went after projects that gave us ownership and the possibility to make money beyond just fees for services.
Next to working the hourly grind, I hate nothing more than working service fee businesses. After battling for a couple of years to make it work, we decided to shut it down.
We had been building some amazing looking web sites for our customers. The only problem was that though they were E-Commerce related, we weren’t doing any actual transactions.
Something in the process was missing. Our wonderful sites revolved around these incredible ideas that we were sure would catch on and catch the Internet by storm.
But NOBODY wanted anything that we were selling…neither from us nor from our clients. We were crashing and burning at every turn!!
I just couldn’t understand what was going on. As a web designer I was always taught to create classy websites with quick and to the point text on them. Wisdom was that the average Internet viewer would only hang around for 10 seconds or so.
Well, our visitors were jetting out in 5 seconds or less. Bert Ingley, web design professional, was drowning in my own misconceptions.
Laying Out the Fleece
My wife and I were living in a house that we could not afford with our two children. Things were rough! We were fighting every week just to find money for groceries. We were so close to quitting and flushing the whole idea of business ownership down the toilet.
This is where the awesome support of my wife, Teresa, came into play. She knew me better than I did. She knew that I would be miserable in a 9-5 and as much as she wanted the security she honestly believed that she shouldn’t press this on me.
We were convinced that I was destined to be a business owner so we stuck our own fleece out there. We made a deal that unless I received $2000 that week, we were going to pack it in and I was going to go out and get a job.
Tuesday came. Wednesday came. Thursday came. Friday morning came. The mail was late on Friday. Finally at 5PM Friday an unexpected tax return check for just over $2000 showed up at our door.
We were so mad!! I was so ready to pack it in and go back to the 9-5 world, but the good Lord had other plans for me it seemed.
I dusted myself off and went back to work.
My Quest for Something That Worked
I fired up my computer and began the search for an Internet program that worked. A colleague of mine had the belief that you had to have at least $100,000 to launch a successful web business.
Well, I didn’t have $1000, much less 10 times that amount to get going. I knew that there had to be a way out there to get things done without going into the poor house or giving most of my business to an investment banker.
For the longest time I was incredibly disappointed by what I saw available on the ‘net. There was scam after scam with snake oil salesmen promising instant Internet millions.
I was smart enough to know that this was a total crock. The problem was that everybody was teaching you how to make money teaching people how to make money on the Internet.
Think about this for a moment. There really wasn’t a product that had any teeth in it. Everything was based around getting other people to buy the dream of Internet riches, but nobody was really doing anything.
Then another course caught my eye. The writer of the course had developed an incredibly successful business online from his passion for cars. He was a car buff and had developed an everything you need to know about buying or leasing a new car guide.
He had sold over $1,000,000 online and now was teaching these same strategies to others who wanted to make money online.
I was immediately struck by this novel concept. Here was a guy teaching people how to make money on the Internet selling what they wanted to sell, not just a how-to course on how to make money selling his how-to make money products.
I immediately ordered the course and stuck it up on the shelf to gather dust. Sound familiar? I’ve met scores of people that buy courses for this or that subject and they just end up on the shelf, unused and unopened.
I went back to doing things my way for a little while, then finally gave up and pulled the course down from the shelf.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
My Internet Success Story - Part 5
The Road Less Traveled
This is where I took a path in my business that I have never regretted. Many Internet Marketers hire people to write information products for them. There is nothing wrong with that, but I wanted crazy passionate guys working on my products, not just a hired gun.
In order to expand my product line beyond just a single guide, I needed people that had time to play year round. Paul was one of those guys. He came on staff as a commissioned writer. Basically, he received a cut of each book sold.
Having this feeling of ownership in the process gave me two things from my writers. One, they are committed to developing the absolute best product possible. If it is no good, then we won’t sell. If we don’t sell they don’t make money.
Secondly, they are always looking for ways to sell more products. They constantly bring me new ideas about potential ways to market products.
As my business has grown, I have added more guys as needed to expand our product base. I currently have 1 full time writer and 3 other part timers churning out guides and beating on the game around the clock.
Taking the Next Step
My business began to pick up some real inertia and was growing like crazy going up to $87,000 in year two. I was doing most things pretty well, but little did I know how much I was missing.
In September of 2004 I was invited to attend a multiple day seminar put on by the writer of the Internet course that helped me set up my business. At this event I learn just how little I was doing in the scope of my Internet marketing.
There were email lists to be created, upsell products to be unleashed, autoresponders to be written and so much more. I was going crazy with the information overload that I was experiencing.
I came back from this event with a real fire in my belly. I went to work building in all of the different systems that I need to create to have a well rounded Internet business.
Well, to make a long story short, those changes that I made in my business resulted in over $320,000 in product sales for the year 2005. I never in my wildest dreams thought that would ever happen when I first launched Maddentips.com in February 2002.
I am living the dream!! I get to do what I love and make a living at it. Now it is time for me to take the next step. It’s time to reproduce myself. In the next posts for this blog, I’m going to lay out the method behind the madness.
I’m going to show you the exact tools, training materials, software and techniques that I have used to generate a ¾ of a million dollars from my hobby.
Not only will I teach you what I use, but also I am going to tell you how I implement them in my business on a daily basis.
You will never have to worry again about buying a crappy Internet course or crummy software. I’m going to show you what works and better yet, how to work it.
Buckle up your seatbelt and get ready for the ride!!
This is where I took a path in my business that I have never regretted. Many Internet Marketers hire people to write information products for them. There is nothing wrong with that, but I wanted crazy passionate guys working on my products, not just a hired gun.
In order to expand my product line beyond just a single guide, I needed people that had time to play year round. Paul was one of those guys. He came on staff as a commissioned writer. Basically, he received a cut of each book sold.
Having this feeling of ownership in the process gave me two things from my writers. One, they are committed to developing the absolute best product possible. If it is no good, then we won’t sell. If we don’t sell they don’t make money.
Secondly, they are always looking for ways to sell more products. They constantly bring me new ideas about potential ways to market products.
As my business has grown, I have added more guys as needed to expand our product base. I currently have 1 full time writer and 3 other part timers churning out guides and beating on the game around the clock.
Taking the Next Step
My business began to pick up some real inertia and was growing like crazy going up to $87,000 in year two. I was doing most things pretty well, but little did I know how much I was missing.
In September of 2004 I was invited to attend a multiple day seminar put on by the writer of the Internet course that helped me set up my business. At this event I learn just how little I was doing in the scope of my Internet marketing.
There were email lists to be created, upsell products to be unleashed, autoresponders to be written and so much more. I was going crazy with the information overload that I was experiencing.
I came back from this event with a real fire in my belly. I went to work building in all of the different systems that I need to create to have a well rounded Internet business.
Well, to make a long story short, those changes that I made in my business resulted in over $320,000 in product sales for the year 2005. I never in my wildest dreams thought that would ever happen when I first launched Maddentips.com in February 2002.
I am living the dream!! I get to do what I love and make a living at it. Now it is time for me to take the next step. It’s time to reproduce myself. In the next posts for this blog, I’m going to lay out the method behind the madness.
I’m going to show you the exact tools, training materials, software and techniques that I have used to generate a ¾ of a million dollars from my hobby.
Not only will I teach you what I use, but also I am going to tell you how I implement them in my business on a daily basis.
You will never have to worry again about buying a crappy Internet course or crummy software. I’m going to show you what works and better yet, how to work it.
Buckle up your seatbelt and get ready for the ride!!
Monday, September 3, 2007
My Internet Success Story - Part 2
Taking My First Ride on the Information Highway
This was a painfully slow process as we were ticking along at 14.4 kbps. Most of us now live in the age of broadband access. If you’ve never downloaded at 14.4, consider yourself very lucky indeed.
At night I started playing around with the Internet a bit. Pretty soon I discovered ESPN.com…the Holy Grail of Sports for a young man with this addiction. Now, back in the day on my 14.4 it took a good 5 minutes to download the home page.
Start the download; go grab a cup of coffee. Click on your first article; go make a sandwich, etc. It was a slow process, but now I could have any sports information that I wanted any time of day or night.
I spend hours surfing the Internet reading about all my favorite sports. I was fascinated by the instant information potential of the ‘net. You could find just about anything and have it right on your computer from anywhere in the world.
Thus began my love affair with the Internet. A powerful tool for finding any kind of information was now at my fingertips.
Miserable in the Daily Grind
About this time I moved into a position as IT Director/CAD Manager for the firm. This gave me a bit of a reprieve from the day-to-day monotony of just churning out engineering blueprints. I got to learn server technology, TCP/IP and how to manage an office full of computers.
As long as I was learning new things, I was fairly content. By nature I am not a grinder. By grinder I mean somebody that can just go into a traditional 9-5 environment and grind away at the job.
I’ve met plenty of people that thrive in this scenario. They don’t mind just sitting at a desk for hour after hour knocking out their work and completing tasks. Personally, I go just a bit crazy in this type of situation.
I like to have a lot of movement. I get bored of the same thing after about 10 minutes or so. My work preference is to work in spurts.
I’m a natural sprinter when it comes to work, not a marathon runner. I come out of the gate fast, blow it all out over a short distance and then shut it down to rest.
This kind of work technique was not going to work for me in my Dad’s firm. These guys were grinders to the core. It was a whole office of people capable of piloting a desk for hours on end without coming up for air.
It didn’t take me too long to figure out that I needed an out, and quickly.
Influencing Factors
My Dad must have seen this part of my personality as well. He is an incredible man, a hard worker, and a fabulous communicator. He was certainly the glue that held the office together. They called him the Man with the Silver Tongue. He could go into a hostile meeting with clients and come out with everybody eating out of his hands.
On the other side, he was very cautious in business and finances. Eventually he sold him business and went back to his other love…teaching. He is now a PhD professor of Engineering at the University of Florida. I definitely received my liking for electronics and all things technical from him.
My Mom on the other hand was an Interior Designer and incredible writer. From her I received the creative side of my personality. She loves to make things beautiful and surround herself with environments that foster creative thoughts. She is also very intelligent and analytical in her own right.
One other figure deserves mention here and that is my step-dad Doug. He is an entrepreneur and has incredible street smarts for business. He is a risk taker and is willing to go all out after and idea that he thinks will work. He helped me to fire out without fear.
All of these influences came crashing together in my own life. My Dad seeing that I was fairly miserable at the office made possible the starting of my first company, a web design corporation.
This was a painfully slow process as we were ticking along at 14.4 kbps. Most of us now live in the age of broadband access. If you’ve never downloaded at 14.4, consider yourself very lucky indeed.
At night I started playing around with the Internet a bit. Pretty soon I discovered ESPN.com…the Holy Grail of Sports for a young man with this addiction. Now, back in the day on my 14.4 it took a good 5 minutes to download the home page.
Start the download; go grab a cup of coffee. Click on your first article; go make a sandwich, etc. It was a slow process, but now I could have any sports information that I wanted any time of day or night.
I spend hours surfing the Internet reading about all my favorite sports. I was fascinated by the instant information potential of the ‘net. You could find just about anything and have it right on your computer from anywhere in the world.
Thus began my love affair with the Internet. A powerful tool for finding any kind of information was now at my fingertips.
Miserable in the Daily Grind
About this time I moved into a position as IT Director/CAD Manager for the firm. This gave me a bit of a reprieve from the day-to-day monotony of just churning out engineering blueprints. I got to learn server technology, TCP/IP and how to manage an office full of computers.
As long as I was learning new things, I was fairly content. By nature I am not a grinder. By grinder I mean somebody that can just go into a traditional 9-5 environment and grind away at the job.
I’ve met plenty of people that thrive in this scenario. They don’t mind just sitting at a desk for hour after hour knocking out their work and completing tasks. Personally, I go just a bit crazy in this type of situation.
I like to have a lot of movement. I get bored of the same thing after about 10 minutes or so. My work preference is to work in spurts.
I’m a natural sprinter when it comes to work, not a marathon runner. I come out of the gate fast, blow it all out over a short distance and then shut it down to rest.
This kind of work technique was not going to work for me in my Dad’s firm. These guys were grinders to the core. It was a whole office of people capable of piloting a desk for hours on end without coming up for air.
It didn’t take me too long to figure out that I needed an out, and quickly.
Influencing Factors
My Dad must have seen this part of my personality as well. He is an incredible man, a hard worker, and a fabulous communicator. He was certainly the glue that held the office together. They called him the Man with the Silver Tongue. He could go into a hostile meeting with clients and come out with everybody eating out of his hands.
On the other side, he was very cautious in business and finances. Eventually he sold him business and went back to his other love…teaching. He is now a PhD professor of Engineering at the University of Florida. I definitely received my liking for electronics and all things technical from him.
My Mom on the other hand was an Interior Designer and incredible writer. From her I received the creative side of my personality. She loves to make things beautiful and surround herself with environments that foster creative thoughts. She is also very intelligent and analytical in her own right.
One other figure deserves mention here and that is my step-dad Doug. He is an entrepreneur and has incredible street smarts for business. He is a risk taker and is willing to go all out after and idea that he thinks will work. He helped me to fire out without fear.
All of these influences came crashing together in my own life. My Dad seeing that I was fairly miserable at the office made possible the starting of my first company, a web design corporation.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
My Internet Success Story - Part 1
As I have traveled around the world to Internet Marketing seminars, the number of people who come up and tell me what an inspiration I have been to them constantly amazes me.
I guess when you do something long enough, it becomes a part of you and doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal. It is really easy to forget the magnitude of what you can accomplish on the Internet.
I’d like to begin this book by telling my story. I do this for several reasons. One, I hope that it will be an inspiration to you to get going and make something happen on the ‘net. Secondly, I hope that you can learn from some of my mistakes and triumphs as you begin your Internet journey.
Computer Nut from Birth
I’ve been a computer junkie since I was a small child. It seems like we always had computers hanging around the house. My Dad is an electronics buff just like me and always made sure we had the latest hardware to play with.
When I was young, I received a Tandy Color computer for Christmas. It had a built in keyboard and you used a cassette tape to save data. I never could get that to work worth a darn, but it was mine. I spent hour and hours just messing around with it before the keyboard got so gummed up with Orange Juice and pizza crumbs that it finally died.
I remember well our first portable computer, the Osborne. It weighed about 50 pounds, had two floppy drives and a keyboard that attached to the front like a lid. When you opened it up, you had this tiny 6-inch screen to work on. Orange text on a black background…ugly!!
It wasn’t the most amazing piece of hardware that I’ve ever seen, but it got the job done. I remember playing around with BASIC programs and using WordStar to write papers. This really introduced me to the usefulness of computers.
During high school I began to get involved with my Dad’s Engineering Firm and there began to work as a computer drafter. Little did I know that this was going to be my launching point into the Internet.
I am a Sports Junkie!
Let me digress a bit and talk about what a sports fan I am. I grew up in Gainesville, Florida, which is the home of the University of Florida Gators. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been watching Gator football religiously. I played sports in high school and played sports video games every other minute that I had free.
Besides computers, sports were my passion. Whether it be playing, watching or just keeping stats, I lived and breathed sports.
Every morning I raced down to the street to pick up the morning paper. For in the morning paper was the thing I most desired…the scores from the previous night. I was a big Lakers fan and unfortunately most west coast games did not make it into the morning edition.
This was where my love for sports and computers started to collide. My Dad’s firm was moving into the digital age. We began to receive drawing files from other architects via email. To go get them, I had to login to our one office dial-up Internet connection.
I guess when you do something long enough, it becomes a part of you and doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal. It is really easy to forget the magnitude of what you can accomplish on the Internet.
I’d like to begin this book by telling my story. I do this for several reasons. One, I hope that it will be an inspiration to you to get going and make something happen on the ‘net. Secondly, I hope that you can learn from some of my mistakes and triumphs as you begin your Internet journey.
Computer Nut from Birth
I’ve been a computer junkie since I was a small child. It seems like we always had computers hanging around the house. My Dad is an electronics buff just like me and always made sure we had the latest hardware to play with.
When I was young, I received a Tandy Color computer for Christmas. It had a built in keyboard and you used a cassette tape to save data. I never could get that to work worth a darn, but it was mine. I spent hour and hours just messing around with it before the keyboard got so gummed up with Orange Juice and pizza crumbs that it finally died.
I remember well our first portable computer, the Osborne. It weighed about 50 pounds, had two floppy drives and a keyboard that attached to the front like a lid. When you opened it up, you had this tiny 6-inch screen to work on. Orange text on a black background…ugly!!
It wasn’t the most amazing piece of hardware that I’ve ever seen, but it got the job done. I remember playing around with BASIC programs and using WordStar to write papers. This really introduced me to the usefulness of computers.
During high school I began to get involved with my Dad’s Engineering Firm and there began to work as a computer drafter. Little did I know that this was going to be my launching point into the Internet.
I am a Sports Junkie!
Let me digress a bit and talk about what a sports fan I am. I grew up in Gainesville, Florida, which is the home of the University of Florida Gators. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been watching Gator football religiously. I played sports in high school and played sports video games every other minute that I had free.
Besides computers, sports were my passion. Whether it be playing, watching or just keeping stats, I lived and breathed sports.
Every morning I raced down to the street to pick up the morning paper. For in the morning paper was the thing I most desired…the scores from the previous night. I was a big Lakers fan and unfortunately most west coast games did not make it into the morning edition.
This was where my love for sports and computers started to collide. My Dad’s firm was moving into the digital age. We began to receive drawing files from other architects via email. To go get them, I had to login to our one office dial-up Internet connection.
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