Introductions Thread

Still dont know how I made it through that Sensual, but the skill I learnt I use till this very day.

Sensual said:

Everyone in marketing should have to do this. If you can door to door, you can sell ice to an Eskimo!

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Sorry about not finding the sub-thread for introductions. I am still sort of poking my way around in here. Although the xenoforo style I am familiar with, everyone has their own proprietary names for sections and areas.

As for selling the sites, I prefer to dump them while they’re doing well, instead of mismanaging them after I get bored. They tend to sell better when on a steady climb, versus showing signs of them losing quality of service from being suddenly put on the back burner.

One of my biggest influences was a company I worked for after i sold that audio website. I took the job, because I wanted to learn as much about hardware as possible. I was going to be the next newegg! Although my job title was elegantly called an Account Executive, it was essentially 98% cold calling into businesses, fighting through gatekeepers, and finally trying to convince people extremely well qualified in their job, that they needed new and better hardware than what they had. For a lack of better words, it fucking sucked really bad for the first few months.

But then I got the hang of it, and began building nice funnel of clientele that I could squeeze monthly in order to meet the dumb monthly quotas, while I worked on the long term whale clients. It was these years that I learned all about sales and conversions and persuasion.

One thing that I noted, all the IT guys that I sold to regularly, were also rabid car fanatics, with brand loyalty that was unbreakable! What was funny, is that none of us agreed on the right sports car, but I was one of the only guys that would call them up and argue with them!

Whoops. Rambling. I guess I can do it this time, since it's my thread.

As for what I'm doing now, is gearing up to begin an adventure masquerading as an Account Executive for a shell Agency, (just a llc) and sell the living shit out of some B2B services! I cant reveal what it is, but I'll discuss the progress as it happens. (Hopefully I find the right thread to post in...)

Hello Buso,

I love this society of builders. And I want to be one of them.

First of all, my shout out goes to Ryuzaki, Ccarter, Built, Metadata, Saturn, emp...and the Engineer himself.

As you can see, I've I've been around here for a while but I'm at a stage of my life where I need to take massive action.

Whenever I read the traffic leak case studies here, I always feel motivated and pressed to take action. But I've always pushed it aside...thinking "Oh! I'm not ripe for these things, yet". Anyway, I've up my mind this is where I belong and I'm going to start working and hopefully get massive feedback that will help me improve.

I want to start my own foray into the world of traffic leaking and ULTIMATELY BECOME A BETTER MARKETER. Although I missed the CC9, I'm going to read all the threads, take some initiatives from them and start from there.

I wanted to start a journal right away in the Laboratory section but obviously can't since this account is new. I'll wait a bit till I have the privilege. Or maybe even start it here and maybe the mod can move it to the appropriate section.

I'm hoping I'll be able to learn a lot from the feedback I get here.

Let's go build it...cheers...

Creator said:

But I've always pushed it aside...thinking "Oh! I'm not ripe for these things, yet".

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You have to bust through this immediately. I know too many capable people who never even take the very first step, which is starting. Most of the time it's a fear of failing. "If you don't start, you can't fail!"

If you don't start, you also can't win.

The reality is that it only gets easier and easier as you accumulate knowledge about what to do and what not to do. Most people can't accept knowledge until they test it and get experience with it. I've been guilty of that. I knew not to spam links a decade ago and did it anyways. Now I REALLY know not to spam links. Don't waste time like that. The Crash Course on here has enough info to move you into supreme success, and you'll fill in any gaps as you go. The Traffic Leaks camp will teach you how to not wait for traffic, but to actively go get it.

The biggest enemy to success and attaining the life you want for yourself and your loved ones is "waiting." No more waiting.

One of my favorite mental notes comes from Rugrats, which I used to watch way back when in the 90s. There's an episode--the one where Tommy's got a fever--and Angelica, his bratty cousin, tells him, after he questions her about why she's doing this or that...

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."

It's nonsensical, but I like to interpret it in different ways, depending on the day. In the context of entrepreneuring, one could take it to mean that if you want the path to success, you've got to find it on your own. It's never going to come to you by waiting. You want results? Take action. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Welcome to the forums.

Thank you Ryuzaki, I love the way you always welcome the newbies here and give them the necessary boost to get started. As I said in my first OP, there is no going back. I'm already working on my schedule and my next post will be a journal in the Laboratory section. I really love the way everyone supports noobs like me here, it's the greatest motivation I've ever received in my foray into online marketing.

@Sutra, yes, I'm going for it and there is no going back. Looking forward to trailing the success of builders like you.

@Sisu, thank you for the welcoming message. Not disappointment....I think that's a promise

Hey Everyone,

I found my way here a while ago while looking for the old NicheChopper 30 day Challenge and finding the site dead. A bummer, but it looks like the Crash Course accomplishes the same thing.

My name is Joe. I've been involved in the field since around 2010, mostly through freelance writing. I had a cringeworthy phase from 2011-2012 as an article marketing psychophant on WaFo. Pretty much backed out of the game once called out on that with some weak writing on mills in the intervening time.

Life has been up and down since then, and is currently on a pretty severe down swing. I'm homeless, and in some pretty significant debt. That's my own shit though, not looking for pity. I created the situation, and I'll get out of it.

The goal here is to follow some people who actually got something done online, instead of following (and being) a pretender. In my current situation I'm looking to learn, and to build something useful.

jrb said:

2011-2012 as an article marketing psychophant on WaFo.

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Someone else brought this up today on the forum. It brought back memories of everyone getting their article marketing empires destroyed because it was all on parasite hosts like Squidoo and Hubpages. And how the main "chick" pushing "Bum Marketing" (Alexa or whatever her name was) turned out to be a 50 year old man. So absurd, that entire forum was nothing but people willingly scamming and submitting to being scammed by each other, for about $7.99 a pop. WSO's, Gotta collect them all! Now it's just a wasteland of broken English.

jrb said:

The goal here is to follow some people who actually got something done online, instead of following (and being) a pretender. In my current situation I'm looking to learn, and to build something useful.

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You've found the right place. Stick around and you'll quickly find that everyone is helpful and having some varying degree of success. There's others you'll notice who are extra helpful in their replies too, always dropping insane amounts of knowledge. When you see those guys, you can dig back through their post history and find countless nuggets of gold tucked away in all of these threads.

Good luck with everything.

Good morning.

For the last six month, I've managed to fumble my way through this whole SEO thing. I have a site up with 30 articles and 10 money pages live and she's earning. Not a lot, $14 for the last couple of months now.

My goal here is to learn how to diversify my traffic as I don't like the idea of 100% of visitors to my website coming from just one or two places.

Anyway, intro post over. Time to start learning.

Nice. You're earning money so you're already ahead of the game.

Diversifying is good. But when you find the most profitable source, think about doubling down on it rather than continuing to diversify. Then use the money to reinvest, growing bigger, faster. Then go back to testing more sources for diversification. Find the next biggest source and rinse/repeat the process.

Thanks for your reply @Sutra. Totally agree with doubling down on what's working but my question for this would be this - if you only have one traffic source, is it beneficial to test others before deciding which to focus on?

If you have a source that's proven to make you money do more of it. Put most effort into that. But do spend a bit of time testing others. Basically 80/20.

Ryuzaki said:

You've found the right place. Stick around and you'll quickly find that everyone is helpful and having some varying degree of success. There's others you'll notice who are extra helpful in their replies too, always dropping insane amounts of knowledge. When you see those guys, you can dig back through their post history and find countless nuggets of gold tucked away in all of these threads.

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On it. The lab in particular has been interesting to read through, especially the guy doing political stuff on Reddit.

Hello my name is Aaron,

I have joined this forum as my support and motivation group as my current circle doesn't have the skillset or similar drives as I do. I have been a poser in IM for the last few years just "dabbling" but after a few CBT sessions and some deep thought after watching a sports motivation video (of all things) I am legitimately ready to start my journey.

I do have base knowledge in the industry to the point where I could bs someone, but not enough to fully get the ball going. That is where I have stalled the most, thinking that I was ready just because I knew a few things. I will work towards getting the ability to posting in other forums so I can start my accountability journal and hope to make some good friends here and learn tough but valuable lessons.

P.S Something that deeply resonated with me that may find value for others was the definition of Self-Motivation.

Competence -> Autonomy -> Relatedness

Competence - You will only continue what you feel you know how to do (truthfully). You dont have to be a master at the subject, but competent enough to figure out the path.

Autonomy - You have to be able to go on your own and do the task yourself and not follow step by step. You can rely initially in learning but ultimately to sustain you have to be able to do it yourself.

Relatedness - Everyone likes to be a lone wolf in their endeavours but biology and history proves we are social creatures. We either need a support group, mastermind, or something to remind us why we are doing what we are doing.

All these are crucial to being able to continue onward.. it could be a simple thought, but for me this has been eye opening.

Cheers everyone!

Welcome. You're as ready as anyone can be. Nobody needs the summed knowledge of the entire industry before they get started. That's a trap. I'd look at it more like riding a bike. You get on it and crash, and crash, and crash, and next thing you know you're off to the races.

There's no better way to learn than through application. You'll remember what you apply, encounter new problems and solve them, and you'll know they're important problems because you encountered them in the field doing actual work. Most problems you read about on blogs are theoretical and aren't practical to solve. It's just people coughing up made up scenarios or going really granular just to have something to post about.

You only need to know exactly what you need to know, and the only way to know what that is is to get started. I'm not sure if you saw it, but we collected nearly everything you could need in the Digital Strategy Crash Course.

I recommend solving problems when you run into them and not sooner. Looking forward to your journal!

I work as a marketing assistant for a manufacturing company, it's a job I've done for a few years now and if I'm honest, is very comfortable. Not to knock anybody's situation but this isn't an "I hate my job, I need to get out" post.

Our CEO decided that he wanted us to be more visible online and as part of this campaign, we worked with a company to redesign our website. With a new product (the website) ready, we then started speaking to digital marketing agencies to help us promote it and boost the number of search terms that we're found for on Google.

What got me thinking was the amount that these companies charged and just how bad their service was. While admittedly, we probably weren't the biggest clients that either of these companies (both big industry names) have on their books, I couldn't help but feel that we were a complete inconvenience to them.

If my Marketing Manager wanted to know anything about a report or presentation, I felt that I was being a nuisance asking for some data. Even things like asking how many people had visited the site would seem to be a headache. It didn't matter who I spoke to, I was made to feel that what I was asking for was a massive pain for them and I really resented being talked to like I knew jack shit.

So I'm here, pencil sharpened and ready to learn more about digital marketing.

Firstly, I want to understand more about the concepts, strategy and tactics and secondly, I want to be able to do some of the work myself as I do feel that we're overcharged and underserved.

Anyway, no doubt I'll have plenty of questions for you all.

It sounds like a good start would be getting access to and understanding the metrics you find in your site’s analytics. That’d save you a lot of back and forth with the agency.

Thanks, I've actually just bought a UDemy course on Analytics for a quick overview and will start working my way through that first.

Hello all. I'm Rick.
As an intro to the forum I find this quote sums it all up as to where I'm at with digital marketing - "I am just smart enough to be really dangerous" on the digital marketing front.
I have a background in design and development in the corporate world having worked at Procter & Gamble for 12 years. I broke free and started working for myself as a commercial photography career ( ricklohre.com ) along side my wife who also works for herself as a women's fitness consultant and writer ( JulieLohre.com )
In my wife's realm, both of us have served as cheif, cook and bottle washer for the whole shebang. Doing everything from website building, to logo design. Photography to e-book creation. E-Commerce website launch to online supplement and fitness store.
In doing all of this, I have truly learned the meaning of "smart enough to be dangerous". While we live a very blessed life and have done well for ourselves, I can't help but think I'm leaving something on the table at every turn and also feel like I am not leveraging my wife's potential following and appeal to a broad audience.
So, I am here to learn, absorb and apply. We will both be reading the Digital Strategy Course and try and make our way through the site as intelligently as possible.
We're open to suggestions and would love to hear from you.
Thanks,
Rick & Julie Lohre

Both of your sites look great. The branding in your wife's entire operation is impeccable. Fantastic work. You both have a fantastic foundation (more than a foundation, really) and obviously have the courage to really go for it and make it happen.

You'll find the broad information you need in the Crash Course and we're all more than happy to talk about any specifics in detail with you around the forum. Thanks for joining and don't be shy. We love talking about this stuff, especially with anyone who's not at the beginner stages.

Keep crushing it! Catch you around the forums.

Without removing merit from your website, your wife's website seems to me a real wonder and one that undoubtedly has enormous potential.

A pleasure to have you here and I hope to continue seeing your contributions in the forum.

Sold my first site for 36x monthly profit! I bought it 2 years ago and got about 700% ROI just for the sale.

I figured it was time to let go as I couldn't see it thriving anymore in couple of years. Too narrow niche and competition has increased a lot during these few years. New owner probably has better ideas / more time to dedicate to future proof it.

But I learned A LOT and now know what I'm looking on my next site. Number one being room to grow.

Journey continues!

Very cool. Welcome.

Down the line I want to get into PPC (rather than just Organic) for my own products, so will definitely be looking forward to reading your posts/threads.

Good evening everyone.

I'm not entirely sure how I first stumbled upon this website a few days ago, pretty sure it was from /r/juststart.

A bit of my history

• Joined the Marine Corps after high school, discharged in January '14
• Started publishing ebooks in March '14
• October '14 my first 4 figure month publishing
• January '15 peaked in sales and thought I "made it" so I started collecting royalties and chilled
• I started posting a lot on a personal blog, thinking I could become a "guru"
• That was stupid
• February '16 started first niche/authority site. Got experience making digital products, affiliate marketing, email marketing, a lot
• October '16 sold that site after I got burned by a few aff programs. I made other websites, but they never took off, so they were abandoned
• June '17 started my current website and main project

I have a few small projects and side hustles that pull in enough that my current project has three content writers that I've been able to train to create content on autopilot. Still not profitable, and that's ok because I'm in it for the long haul.

Looking forward to joining and being a part of this community.

Fantastic. Are your ebooks still pulling in any passive income? I know a lot of people chased Kindle sales like they were old school micro-niche sites. YouTube is similar still, but rapidly changing.

What's the angle on your new site? Is it strictly an SEO play? Are you going to sell your own products again?

Glad you joined, looking forward to learning from and sharing with you.