OK, I guess I'll start by telling you some of things that I have done with businesses as well adventures in Internet marketing. First of all, I am just your normal average guy that does Internet marketing and a couple of businesses on the side.
The first business I started was an embroidery business that I operated over the Internet called Ellistrations. I did just about every facet of that business while working a full-time teaching job. Since the Internet was kind of new to me I thought that I could operate an embroidery business over the Internet. I started to collect books and courses on Internet marketing as well as regular books from the store on marketing. One of the first books I purchased was a book called guerrilla marketing by guy by the name of J. Conrad Levinson.
I have to tell you, I am a bookaholic. I am constantly buying books about business. I have probably spent more money on books than I have actually made from my business ventures. (Just kidding, of course.) Anyway, if you go to my Ellistrations web site at www.ellistrations.com you will see my web site there that I have been running for the last seven years. To be honest with you, I am in the process of shutting down and selling my embroidery business. The reason is pretty simple, I am burned-out. I get orders in all the time for hats and shirts and I have to sew them out all the time and that requires a lot of time.
I designed the web site, and all of the shirt and hat designs that are on the web site. My niche market was musical hats and musical shirts. As a matter of fact, I think I was one of the first people to start doing musical hats and musical shirts on the Internet. The reason I say that, is because I used to sell hats and shirts on eBay! and when I started, people were going crazy over those things! I remember one day there were two women fighting over one my hats. I had created a hat for oboe players and they had never seen one before, so, they kept bidding in bidding on the oboe hat. They literally drove the price of the hat of two almost $80! Now, that hat cost me five dollars to make and I charged them another five dollars for shipping, so, you can see that I was pretty excited about the business I started.
I designed trombone hats, trombone shirts, trumpet hats, trumpet shirts, etc. If there was a musical instrument I made a hat or shirt for it. My bestseller was a trombone hat and shirt that had a picture of a trombone on it and underneath the trombone it said " Bad to the Bone". To this day, it is my number one seller.
Anyway, I dabbled in Internet marketing for a while and bought a course about Internet marketing from a guy named Corey Rudl ( a sad story, he was a young man that suddenly died in a race car accident the few years ago.) and tried to learn as much as I could about Internet marketing.
One day, for some reason, I had gone to a web site I wasn't familiar with called Clickbank. Clickbank was a web site that you could sell other people's stuff from. To cut a long story short, all you had to do was basically copy and paste a code from Clickbank and paste it into your web page. Just like magic, by pasting the code into your web page, a whole entire sales page would magically materialize for your web site. If a person went to your web site and saw that page and decided to buy what was there, then you would get a commission on the sale, when they clicked on it and bought it. So, I copied it tasted the code from Clickbank into my web site and forgot all about it.
I would say this is about two years ago. Anyway, it was right after Christmas and I went down to my mailbox to get the mail and I noticed that there was an envelope from Clickbank in my mailbox. While I was opening the envelope, I was thinking that it was probably going to be just a small check for about $.30 or something stupid like that. I was absolutely shocked when I saw that it was a check for $130! I was blown away! I didn't do a thing to get that check, I swear to you, other than posting that stupid code in my web page. I told my wife," Now, this is the way to go! I didn't have to sew any hats or shirts, I didn't have to take them down to the post office and stand in line like I always do, I didn't have to do a thing other then go to the mailbox and get my check!" So, ever since that day, I have been on a quest to learn affiliate marketing. Well, I still do embroidery locally as well as on the Internet with my web site.
Since I got my first affiliate check I decided to build an entire web site that was nothing but affiliate based. The web site I have built is called Electric Bikes -n-Scooters (www.electricbikesnscooters.com) and I make money off of that site every single day.
However, for those of you reading this thinking, "Hey, that sounds easy!" Let me just forewarn you by telling you that I have put the a lot of blood, sweat, in tears into that web site. I think on that site, I have somewhere around 60 to 70 articles written, mostly by myself. I have Adobe Acrobat electronic books on that site I have written, I have a forum, I have a Blog that I update almost every single day with loads of great information for electric bike and Scooter enthusiasts. I have also cultivated all sorts of relationships and set out loads of e-mail to potential customers. So, believe me when I tell you that if you want success in a business or in Internet business that you are going to really have to work for it.
But I will tell you this, if you want it bad enough you will do it no matter what. I will tell you, that I have written blog posts almost every single day. I have written loads and loads of articles for that web site while I am still running my embroidery business, I am a full-time teacher and I am also pursuing a master's degree in technology education.
The big difference I made my life was when I finally turned off the stupid television! I watch one half of an hour of television a day. The show I watch is called Jeopardy, I'm sure you've heard of it ( now, I bet that you really think I am a dork). I taught myself how to build web sites by purchasing books from the "for dummies" series. My wife will tell you, that I am no genius. As a matter-of-fact when I was a child I had a learning disability, so there's no reason why you or anyone else can't start a business. As a matter-of-fact, because I learned of the web sites I've started my own web site business I got my first client the other day.
This Blog will be for everyone who ever wanted to start a business no matter if it is an online business or an off-line business. You will not be alone anymore in your quest or desire to try to be an entrepreneur. I will give you my e-mail address, and if at any time you have a questions or would like some advice or even a kick in the pants, please e-mail me at: elmo033057@gmail.com
Keep an eye on this Blog for all sorts of great entrepreneur information and ideas.
Let's start stuffing our pockets! ELMO
Elmo,
aka Mark Ellis, has been a member since
February 6 2007,
has rated 4 lenses,
favorited 3, and has
created 27 lenses from scratch.
This member's top-ranked page is "Electric Scooters and Electric Bicycles".
