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The first thing you may want to know about me is that while I'm a successful Internet entrepreneur, I'm also dyslexic, so you're bound to find misspellings and bad grammar in anything I write on this site. I proof things the best that I can, but understand I have to work 5 times as hard as the average person to get things in writing. So if you're one of those English teachers who is irritated by little things like this, I apologize. However, if you want to learn from an Internet expert who knows how the Web works, then stick around! 
This is a pilot site that it is used for experimentation of various technologies and to communicate what I learn with good people like you. After all, that's the way the world should be, right? 
So, who am I?
I'm a little bit of everything. But let me talk a little about my background so that you can better understand how and why I got into the Internet marketing business. Even though I started with no Internet marketing background, it is working very well for me today.
My professional history spans over 20 years. I started fresh out of high school with a complete start-up in retail with a business I created ... Gary D’s Car Stereo. After a divorce and a shakeup in my life, I searched for something laid back for a while. So I spent some time going to college and working for the city of Plant City in engineering.
I then married my current and lovely wife, Liz!! Soon after, we had a new baby girl to complement the two other girls Liz already had. Happily, the entire family became my own.
By then, I realized that the challenges with Plant City and my current salary were not going to fill my hopes and dreams for my family or myself. So, I moved to the corporate world to conquer new challenges and earn more money.
I had a huge interest and investment in computers and had even done a lot work on them for Plant City. Most of my college education was focused on computers and engineering. I then became a Certified Microsoft Systems Engineer and landed a job with a new start-up company. That company is known today as the largest wireless company in the United States – Verizon Wireless (formerly PCS Primeco).
I quickly worked my way up the ranks from systems engineer to manager of Information Technology and then to regional information technology manager. Because of my entrepreneural spirit and interpersonal skills I learned back in the car stereo days, dealing with customers and then missed technology skills I was hit in the corporate world.
Eventually, I moved to another start-up company related to wireless communication, UNIsite. It was then purchased by American Tower, where I became the director of Information Technology. I relocated my family to Boston. At the time, American Tower was a fast-growing public traded company that bought every competitive company it could get.
My career was great, but there were some problems:
- I was performing like an entrepreneur but getting paid like an employee. No matter how much I did for the company I got paid the same.
- The people I worked for were over-educated degreed figureheads with majors in a_s kissing, Wall Street polishing, and fuzzy math. I never knew before this that a company could have an Earning Per Share in the negative, yet top executives could walk away with stock options and salaries in the millions. This was amazingly wrong to me and another reason I will never put one cent in the stock market again. I will only invest in myself as I know I will not lie to me, steal from me, or cheat me. If ever do, you can have me committed.
- I did not want to be told where I had to live (meaning Boston instead of Florida). I refer to this as being a puppet.
- Unbalanced family time. (This was the big one for me)
- No matter how much I tried to communicate, more help was needed. They did not care until they burned me and others out. Their only interests were themselves.
By now, you can see that I became very aggravated with the corporate world. Yet I felt like I could not leave it completely. I felt trapped. It was because they were my only source of income at the time. Back in the day when I worked for myself, I never, ever felt this way. I felt controlled. Coming from an entrepreneur background and long family of entrepreneurs, I knew this was not the way it should be.
Life is too short to put up with things you are not happy with.
I wanted to start my own business, but I could not figure a way to leave the corporate world without having a way to make an income for my family.
The first thing I did was relocate to Florida and line up a new job with IBM. I figured maybe I would work for this giant, learn some new things and then move into something for myself down the road. As I was in the process of relocating back to Florida, IBM decided to contract the offer due to company cut backs. This was going to going leave me and my family high and dry during this transition.
Shortly after 911, the economy and IT jobs fell to an all-time low. I was facing what seemed to be an endless job hunt. Could things be any worse? I went almost overnight from having just about anyone hire me to nobody giving me the time of day. Now the lack of control that I experienced in the corporate world seemed to be minor compared to this.
I tried starting an IT consulting business in the middle of all this. I spent tons of time going on pre-sales calls and making proposals for companies that would do nothing more than use me for strategic ideas and then incorporate these ideas. I would get absolutely nothing, no cash, no pat on the back, no nothing.
After a year and my cash flow dwindling living in a rental home with my family, I was at the point of a complete, nervous break down. I couldn’t find another job even the lower level jobs would not hire me as they would say I was over qualified, I could not make the consulting business steady enough to make an income and I knew I had about 1 year of survival money left. My marriage was on the decline, I had resorted to practically begging everyone I knew to help me with a job, hired career coaches, you name it.
The bottom line is, I fell into a deep depression. The companies I once worked for and thought the world of me acted as they could care less. I had been replaced already and who was I now. Things were going well for all them so why should they care.
Wow life hit me at full force and was it ever cruel. I had no idea what I was going to do. I had no hope as to what I was going to do. It was the first time in my life where I did not even have a plan. I stayed locked away in my house for months wondering if somehow I could eventually walk outside and the rain would just stop.
I spent a lot of time researching jobs online Monster.com, Yahoo Jobs, and so many other online job boards. I even thought about trying to start another car stereo business again. Then after doing the research I found that that business appeared to be way down do to the recession. So I knew that was a bad idea.
I came to the realization that I had to start my own business and I had to build it in such a way that it would provide a solid foundation so I would never be in this mess again. The challenge was that I could not figure out what to do where I could truly be committed to it and work whatever odd jobs I had to pay the bills and keep my cash flow up.
My wife during most of our marriage had always been a domestic engineer i.e. stay at home mom. She landed a five and dime job for $9:50 hr but hardly the kind of money it would take for supporting a family of five. Now my situation was even going to be harder because now what about talking care of the kids. Who was going to do that while she was gone? How was I going to take care of the kids, find temporary work, start-up my own business?
Then after spending so much time online I thought to myself. Maybe I should start something online. This would give me the flexibility of working it on my hours. I could juggle the family and random consulting things I landed. So that is what I did. I started from the living room of my house my first internet business online April 24th 2002 and about a year and half after being out of full time work.
A lot of time and money went into it as I had no idea about online marketing. I had to learn most things the hard way spending thousands of hours and what was left of my savings. At the end of the year we had a loss, I had made no profits. I even reinvested every dime I had and was still in the hole. I was living off of odd jobs and savings. But I kept pushing as I knew there were no other options.
By the end of 2003 I did better than in 2002 and now about 17 months into the business I finally broke even. I was not committed 100% full time yet as I was working anything and everything I could find as a consultant. And those gigs came and went. Some quick some long. But it was money. Very little compared to what I had made before.
By now although I was not making a profit I seen the light and the possibilities that money could be made this way. My entrepreneur side of me said "this can be done." Based on working the odd jobs and reduced spending, I had managed to make that years worth of money last even longer so at this point I now had 6 months of reserves left. I just completed a 6 month consulting gig and went out on a limb and bought a house for my family. Don’t ask me how I pulled this off. But I seen that real estate was starting to soar we had been renting now for a couple of years and I knew if I did not buy now the chances of owning a home again were going to be slim in the future. So I found a bank repo fixer upper.
Now, you may recall I said I just finished a consulting project. Now I am back to being out of work. Have a new house with a bunch of repairs needed that repaired myself to save money. But I had a fresh outlook. Finally I had a home that I could call my families again. Although I still owed the bank it was ours to keep providing we could keep paying for it.
I then made a huge decision that would affect my life forever. I decided that over the last 1 ½ years I had begun to learn a new way of making money on the web and that I know I had the foundation that it would take to scale that if I only spent more time dedicated to it. So I decided to commit 100% of my time, no looking for jobs, no consulting, no nothing.
By the end of 2004 I had totally changed our life back in the right direction. We became very profitable. I made more that year then I ever did working in the corporate world and I was free to do what I want to when I want without a ball and chain attached to my leg. Make what decisions I want and reap the profits for my hard work.
Now in 2005 I got comfortable as well as some things that changed in the market I was tapping occrued and made profits harder to obtain. So a made a little less than in 2004. But during this time I spent time learning about other possible revenue streams and how I could diversify my business by creating multiple vertical revenue streams.
I personally believe that 2005 while a good profitable year was a year that I needed a rest without the worry of how I was going to make the next dollar. It was also a year to strategize for the future and set all the dots in a line so that over the next couple years propel us into a new independent beginning.
I still work from the living room of my home to keep my expense down and my profits up. This also allows me to be home with my kids. I get to see them go to school and come home from school and from time to time even have lunch with my youngest at school. At the present time I have while I have desire to grow my profits I have no desire to grow outside of my house. I enjoy not fighting with rush hour traffic and corporate derelicts that only know how to make a living by a_ss kissing or doing what they are told. This is the way life should be. Now I am not saying that all corporate folks are that way but I will tell you the further up the ladder you go you will be hard pressed not to find what I found. And I also realize that self employment is not for everyone. But this is my story so I am telling it the way I want to.
Now here I am today creating Gary’s Notebook so that I can better keep marketing notes organized and be able to share with friends like you.
I am fully aware that there will be additional challenges both ups and downs that lay ahead. But sheer Desire, Determination, and Dedication I will preserve and the lucky thing for all of you that are reading this is that I will post information and eventually build this into a community for others to post that will help anyone and everyone willing to put forth effort.
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