About Me
Born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, immediately after graduating from high school in 1978, I joined the United States Air Force with one long range goal — to see as much of the world as I could.
In addition to visiting and living throughout the mainland United States, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to live in the Philippines, Japan and Australia along with “extended stays” in Malaysia, Okinawa, Thailand, Panama, Columbia, Canada, Italy and Kuwait.
I first became interested in computers during the summer of 1986 and bought my first one later that same year. Everything I know about computers has been self-taught through trial and error.
By 1989, I had learned to write programs using BASIC, Turbo PASCAL, Dbase, and Clipper. In 1990, before the internet became a household necessity, I operated a successful local bulletin board service (BBS) for 2 years. It was voted the 3rd most popular board in Monterey, California!
After moving to Australia in 1992, living in the “outback” didn’t afford me the opportunity to continue a BBS so instead I pursued and obtained an associate degree in Logistics before returning to the United States. in 1994.
After putting up a strong resistance, in 1995 I decided to see what this internet had to offer. I played around with surfing for a couple year discovered internet marketing for the first time in 1997. Back then, multilevel marketing (MLM) was the “in thing” to do and I signed up with a new company practically every other week.
Promises of making thousands weekly with little on no effort sounded too good to pass up. Get a link, promote it and wait for the checks to start coming in. The fact that these opportunities were free sealed the deal for me.
Being the skeptic that I am, I was determined not to pay anything above the monthly fees for internet access. Some companies required a minimum purchase of their product to be an active partner and others asked outrageous up front prices to *prove you were serious* about their offer.
After several futile attempts, I finally decided you have to spend money to make money and signed up. You can only use so much of a product in a month and their minimum requirements usually exceeded that.
Still totally ignorant of how MLM really worked, I promoted everything from long distance telephone services to home appliances and automobiles with zero success. Very few sales and very few downline sign-ups. Only those who were just as naive as I was.
I was so focused on finding FREE ways to promote my opportunity that I didn’t even take time to welcome the people I did sign up. No problem, I thought. They would figure it out the same way I did. I was destined for failure from the start.
In October 1998, while looking to renew a magazine subscription, I stumbled across a subscription service that operated similar to MLM. Instead of recruiting people into a downline, you actually purchased magazine titles wholesale and resold at retail prices. Looking back, I realize now, this was the beginning of the next wave of internet marketing — affiliate marketing.
There was another company doing something similar, but they only paid small commissions on sales of their books. No way was I was going to waste my time with a no-name company called AMAZON.COM! Magazines would be easier to sale since I controlled the pricing. My, how things turn out!
Using everything I learned up to that point about internet marketing, by March 1999, I had established my own magazine subscription service with over 700 titles available. My profits were well over $400 monthly. Keep in mind, I was still doing this part-time. It was a lot of work and I spent nearly all my free time processing orders. Unfortunately, a series of untimely events bought a closure to this service a few months later.
I abandoned the internet and focused my efforts on writing small programs to enhance my job. In June, 2000, I started surfing the internet again and after several months, I began thinking that affiliate programs were a viable way of earning an income.
I’m sure we all remember the events of September 11, 2001, so again, I put my internet ventures on hold. Just over a year later (November 2002), I finally retired from the Air Force (after 24 long but good years) but didn’t immediately return to the internet. Instead, I focused on my new civilian life and new career for a few years.
The internet marketing “bug” bite me again early 2005 and I decided to go back online and start over once again. And just that fast, things were much different.
Based on what I learned previously, this time I came prepared to invest in building my business. I purchased marketing books and completed a couple online courses! I found and began promoting (the right way) a couple of solid affiliate programs. I started receiving checks, although small, but coming in much sooner than my early *newbie* days.
A significant lesson I learned from my MLM days is that if you recruit people to join a program, you MUST help them by sharing your knowledge and helping them become successful as well. To this date, I have never had an active sponsor that offered to help me succeed in any of the programs that I have tried or currently involved with. That’s why I developed this site. I never found a site that offered a simple “how to” for beginners.
There are some excellent resources out there and you can easily spend all your free time locating them. This is one way I can help. As I find them, I share them. You spend less time searching for the services and more time developing your business.
Although I don’t consider myself an expert, I am more than capable (and willing) to assist the beginning marketer build his/her business the right way and in as short a time as possible. It’s my sincerest hope that this site accomplishes that.
Success to all,
