It is hard to believe it has already been more than a year online…time flies when you’re having fun!
In fact, I took my first, very tentative steps online in August of 2008!
In August of 2008, almost a year and a half ago now…(wow, time flies!)…I knew 2 things:
1) The Internet was the place to be if I wanted to build my own business.
2) I needed a lot of help and/or a heap of education, and I needed it fast!
Little did I know, as I started on my journey into Internet marketing and e-commerce, my “quest” if you will, how all consuming, demanding, and completely exhilarating a ride, and an education, I was in for!
Had I known then what I know now?
Yup!
Wild horses couldn’t hold me back!
Picture this:
1) A 53 year old Caucasian male, 10 shades beyond pale!
2) 50 pounds overweight and not carrying it well at all!
3) Still recovering from, and as it turned out still fighting, two life threatening conditions!
4) Highly educated, including a doctoral fellowship to one of the most prestigious consortiums in the country…after graduating summa and bypassing the masters requirement entirely!
5) More than 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, including advertising, founding a successful health and fitness center, and an extensive and impressive managerial resume!
6) A CV and a resume that would make most recruiters beg for a chance to place me, and some did. Beg…not place me!
7) Trained successful athletes at the amateur and professional level. At one time considered taking a strength coaching position with Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals of the USFL! Trained members of the Cleveland Browns who were given permission by Sam Rutigliano to train with me instead of with their strength coach, Dave Redding!
8) Did I say sick as a dog?
9) I could go on for weeks, my resume was impressive but I had some issues…and did I say I was sick?
The end result of all of the above, and much more? I couldn’t get a job delivering pizzas!
You see, part of the problem was I was “overqualified,” how exactly one can be overqualified to deliver a pizza no one really explained to me…but I was.
I was also very sick, I did say that, right?
And, because of the illness and all the complications I had a huge gaping hole in my resume, ten years to be precise.
So, I had to go into this story about almost losing my life, a missed diagnosis by the Cleveland Clinic (yes, they do screw up!), and repairing the wreckage of my life.
Yah…dee…yah…dee…yah…dee…yah!
I would get that look, you know the one, and usually from someone roughly half my age and with one-tenth of the experience.
They would say something like:
“We are taking applications all week, once we have reviewed all the applicants qualifications, we will contact you if we are interested.”
Or something like that.
Translation:
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you!”
That was the most humiliating experience of my life, I hated coming home and telling Connie and the girls that I had struck out again. I used to get calls from firms begging me to come to work for them!
But during that period…I couldn’t get a job delivering pizzas!
Then, one day I got a call!
Hooray!
The BP gas station and convenience store down on the corner called me and asked me to come in for an interview. I had filled out an application online, I figured I could work nights and perhaps go back to school or something.
It still amazes me, that combination, gas and convenience store…when did all this happen?
Anyway, I went through the interview process. The manager was a nice “kid.” To me, anyone under about 35 seems like a kid. My son is 34, my oldest, so it just feels like I am looking at and talking to my son when I am talking to a 35 year old man.
Wow!
Am I getting old or what?!
So, I passed all the interviews, the background check, etc. and was offered a job.
Yes!
Finally!
A job!
But something funny happened on my way to the gas station…I woke up. Not only did I wake up, I realized if I took that job I would probably be lost forever. Accepting that job would be like signaling to the whole world, but most importantly to myself, my self, that I had quit, thrown in the towel, accepted a minimum wage job because it was the best I could do!
No way!
I stopped dead in my tracks, did a complete 180, and asked my youngest to help me build a website.
The rest is history!
I am looking back a year and a half later. I built that first website by myself, by the way; and, it still generates business every single month! Terrible looking Yahoo, cookie-cutter website but it was my first.
And, you know what they say about your first!
But looking back, knowing I had been so right, about it all…but most of all about being lost forever if I had accepted that job.
Thank goodness I still had a sliver of self-esteem, just a sliver mind you…but it was enough.
I am now making a decent living in a number of ways online. The whole multiple streams thing, I learned my lessons well! I have explored the Internet marketing niche, and am beginning to strangle enough of an income out of that very stingy niche to pay for the top level of the best implementation programs online today, TrafficGeyser and Infusionsoft.
That, in and of itself, is quite an accomplishment! When I started I couldn’t scrape up enough money for the gold membership in Tellman’s Listbuilding Club!
How sad is that?
I had to settle for the $67 per month level of The Listbuilding Club, the $97 per month gold level was just out of my reach!
Now?
I pay more than that for my hosting account(s) for my various blogs and websites!
Times do change and perseverance, persistence, and determination pay off…big time!
Now?
I have to decide what direction I want to take most of my efforts…because I am about building something meaningful, something unique, something that is mine and reflects my personality.
I am not interested in the cookie-cutter, plug-n-go nonsense so many seem to be attracted to and so many more seem bent on selling.
I have discovered that true success online comes at a price, and it is much higher than many would have us believe, but it is worth it!
So, what can you take away from this?
1) Find something you love, something that will get you out of bed in the morning after the novelty of building your own business wears off…and it will! You will experience dips…count on it!
2) Make sure you have a starving crowd, a target market that wants what you are passionate about offering them. If not, find something else. Don’t fall in love with an idea! All you will succeed in doing is going broke trying to force the market, and you can’t force the market!
3) Opinions are the cheapest commodity online, everyone has one…like something else (to be crude…sorry)…and most are selling them in ebook format for $17!
Amazing but true!
Who in the world thinks they can learn a business by spending $17 for anything?
Anyone who thinks that…go to the back of the class and sit in the corner, you need a timeout.
At least!
4) Invest in education and implementation, preferably both. TrafficGeyser and Infusionsoft are perfect examples! The learning curve is steep and there will be times you will want to throw the computer, the desk, the cat, the dog, the goldfish, the hamster (cat’s gotta eat, right?) and anything else within reach out the window.
Wow, I did!
Wanted to, that is.
5) Find a mentor and LISTEN to him or her!
If someone is willing to give you their time, buy the things they recommend and use them.
EXAMPLE: If you decide to go to Cleveland State University to play soccer, you do so with the understanding that the coach is dedicated to making you, and the team, winners. So, don’t join the team and then refuse to do what the coach advises. If you do that, you might as well have gone to the community college and played intramural soccer. The results will be about the same with your online business.
So, if you use a mentor or a mastermind, and you should use both, USE them! And I mean use them up…be a sponge!
6) Learn the business, become a student of the business.
There is so much information available online in the form of whitepapers and because of the whole moving the free-line thing (my thoughts on this are fodder for another blog post) that you cannot fail if you simply search, research, and apply.
SEARCH…RESEARCH…APPLY!
Make sure you become an expert of the business. A student of marketing and, yes, sales! Bob Oros has a wonderful program if you are squeamish about sales. He is a gifted sales trainer!
Yes, online business is enjoyable, Internet marketing can be exhilarating! But it is not kid’s stuff, it is a business!
Learn it!
“And when you can take the pebble out of my hand…you will be ready, Grasshopper!”
I could go on and on, as I could have with the description above.
Oh yeah, forgot about that guy, huh?
Me too, sort of!
That is, until I drive by a BP station and think about how close I came to resigning my life, to signing off, giving in and up!
Now?
I am making money and helping others do the same, it is wonderful! I live Pay it Forward every day and it comes back to me ten-fold!
I am in the process of working on a second doctorate…this one in Internet marketing, with an emphasis in inbound marketing.
I love it!
And, after a year and a half, I still skip sleep, run for days on 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and can’t get enough of it!
If you have that sort of passion, combined with a burning desire, you too can earn your Internet marketing doctorate and experience real success online. It’s an amazing ride!
Best wishes…contact me anytime!
John
Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
216-539-7412 (office)
Skype; johnzajaros1
johnz@thequestrevealed.com
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com
