My Story
What you are about to read is completely true, and sometimes accidentally interesting. I have not changed any names to protect the innocent. The purpose of this writing is to give you an idea of who I am, where I’ve been, and where I think I’m going and how you can get value from my experiences. If after reading the whole thing you still think you want to come along, then you are more than welcome to ride along side me as I try to make a full time income online. Who knows, you might actually make some cash yourself, at least I hope you do anyway.
Here we go….
Serving In The Military
While serving in the Marine Corps for 5 years, I learned that I didn’t like someone else controling my time. You see, most of the time I was told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. So I decided that as soon as my enlistment was up I would get out and go to college because, even as a child I had a sense that I should serve in the military, go to college, and own my own business. So that’s what I did.
Once I was out of the Marines I took night classes and worked lots of computer related jobs for almost four years. Taking night classes and working was a slow way to get a college degree and I was tired of making less than I thought I was worth. I wanted to make a large salary so I finally decided to quite my job and go to college full time. I took out student loans and used my GI Bill to pay for everything while I took classes.
After College
I graduated from college in 2000 after taking a bunch of classes that didn’t really apply to anything I wanted to do. Although going to college was one of my life goals, I found while I was there that I realy wasn’t learning anything new. The Internet, or world wide web, was getting all the attention in the news while I was taking what I considered outdated business mainframe classes. Fortunately, I spent a lot of my spare time teaching myself web development. It was much more interesting than creating business reports and the Internet was exploding with new cool stuff every day. Unfortunately, even I was short sighted about the potential of the web. I still thought a safe secure job with a good company and a high paying salary was what would make me happy. Well, it didn’t.
Working For Macromedia
While in college I became a Macromedia groupie. I would go to all of their product events and get free software and training. Then I would tell all my friends about it. I would drag them to the next event and eventually it landed me a job working at their Texas office. Macromedia was a very progressive company and I was allowed to work from my small college apartment on a part time basis until I graduated. After graduation I moved close to the office and became a full time Macromedia employee.
The benefits were awesome, the people were great, and there was free soda and snacks any time you wanted. I had a fantastic boss and unbelievably creative co-workers. We all got huge discounts on Macromedia software and lots of training. I absolutely loved the environment, but I still wasn’t happy working a 9 to 5 schedule where someone else dictated my time and activities.
In fact, I remember standing up from my desk one evening after a long day, walking to a window across the room, and watching the sun begin to set over the highway traffic. I remember saying, “Well, I have successfully reach the end of another day of my life”. That was a rude awaking for me that though I had my degree, a great job, fantastic co-workers, and a brilliant future, I still wasn’t enjoying the journey. I was working for someone else. I was filling someone else’s requirements and not living out my own dreams.
Shortly after this realization, emails started coming across the corporate intranet from the engineers out in California. The emails were essentially farewell emails that thanked key people for being good to work with. At first there was one email, then two, then ten, and it became blindingly obvious to me that the engineers out in California were beginning to leave the company due to changes that were going on inside the company.
Macromedia had purchased Allaire and the corporate office had decided to make some pretty bold changes to the direction of the company and it’s technology development. As a result, a lot of the engineers decided to leave. That was a clear signal to me that it was time to get out myself. I had already been through several corporate mergers and shake ups so I knew the signs all to well.
So, I decided to become an independent consultant. I always wanted to own my own business and that seemed to be an “easy” way to get things started. I had no idea how to be a consultant, but I had been taking on side projects while I was working at Macromedia so I decide I would lean into those projects and drum up a much work as I could.
Becoming A Consultant
What I learned as a consultant has served me well in many ways. The first thing that I learned was that if I didn’t work, I didn’t get paid.
Then I learned that even when I did work, it took a long time to get paid because businesses typically wait as long as they can to pay their bills.
Then I learned that instead of one boss, I had several bosses, and they all wanted their stuff done yesterday. You see, each new client became a new boss that wanted certain things done a certain way, and they all had their own schedules, timelines, and agendas.
Mainly, once again, I learned that someone else was indirectly controlling my time and I didn’t like it.
Back To Corporate America
So, though I was working in my own business, I was not working on my business and I was reaching the verge of consulting burn out. To bring a more stable source of income into the home, and to relieve some of my stress as a consultant I decided to go back to work in corporate America. I was fortunate enough to land a good paying job with great benefits working for a defense contractor. At first it was great because it was a change, but it slowly became more of the same.
Running A Vending Route
Even though I was burned out as a consultant, I still had the vivid memory of being downsized on other jobs so I was not completely comfortable relying entirely on my new job for income. So, while I worked for the defense contrator, I decided to run a vending route on the side.
I had a little extra money saved up from consulting and I was still supporting some old clients, so I took the money I had to invest and I bought a bulk candy vending route. The original route had 23 machines on location in total and it was already established and profitable.
So, during my lunch hour, after work, and on Saturday’s I would service the route. I quickly learned that vending was a great venture. I had fixed costs, I knew what my margins were, I didn’t have to be present for the machines to make money, and I didn’t have employees or overhead to contend with.
So, for roughly two years I ran the route and grew it to 36 machines. I even toyed with the idea of buying as many machines as I could handle. I day dreamed that I might one day grow the business into a full time operation that would replace my income, but I had already learned from consulting that the business would only make money if I was present. So, I was hesitant to make the commitment.
You see, the machines made money when I wasn’t there, but they still had to be serviced on a regular basis so that meant my physical presence. Oh sure, I could hire an employee to run the route, but since the machines operated on a cash basis, it would be difficult to ensure the honesty of the employee and that was something I wasn’t prepared to deal with at the time. Also, the up front cost of the machines would be something to consider.
What I needed was something that would allow me to make money without the constraints of my physical presence or material costs. So, I began to look around for other opportunities.
What About Network Marketing?
Initially I researched franchises because I had heard that they could be a good way to establish a busines on a proven business model. Unfortunately, franchises can be expensive and they often require up front money to get them going. There are franchise fees, equipment costs, builing costs, inventory costs, and employee costs that all come into play just to setup an established franchise. Even then you are bound to operate within the constraints of the franchise to make everything work. You are not really “doing your own thing”. You are doing someone elses thing by the numbers. That is the whole point of the franchise.
So, I needed something else. I needed something that had a low cost of entry, didn’t require an inventory, allowed me to work the business on my own schedule, and allowed me to leverage the efforts of others. I knew from consulting and vending that I couldn’t be the only one working on building the business.
Well, along came network marketing. You might have heard it called multi-level marketing. Basically the formula is I get six friends and they get six friends and we all leverage the efforts of others to build a business.
Network marketing seemed to offer everything. It was a business in a box, with the flexibility to let you manage your own time. It was a product without inventory, and a volunteer sales force without the hangups of having employees. It was the right mix of factors and it caught my eye. So after two and a half years of working for the defense contractor, I got involved in network marketing. A few months later I decided to quit my job and do network marketing full time.
For several months I struggled to get the hang of selling face to face. To be honest is was a great experience in personal growth for me. I was not a natural born salesman and network marketing is all about being able to sell your product and build a team.
While I worked to sharpen my skills as a network marketer I decided to go back to consulting so I started attending public functions to meet new people and potential prospects. I started going to Meetups that were listed on Meetup.com and I met a lot of great people. In fact, I started attending the Dallas Internet Entrepreneurs meeting and that is where I first became aware of Internet Marketing.
To be honest, before those meetings, I thought the only people who made money any real money online were big companies that already had the budget to spend on professional development teams. I knew a lot about web development and Internet technologies, but I didn’t know anything about doing business online from an Internet Marketing perspective.
Meanwhile, I worked the network marketing scene, picked up a few consulting gigs and ultimately realized that I didn’t like the physical selling of network marketing and I didn’t want to go back to being a full time consultant. And, the more I learned about Internet Marketing the more I realized that that was where I needed to be.
Back To Corporate America, Again
So, one last time, I swallowed my pride, updated my resume and went back to work for someone else. This time as a web developer in a less constrictive environment than at the defense contractor.
You see, I choose to go back to work for someone this time, not because I wanted a good salary or because I was tired of doing something. I went back to work for someone else because I knew that Internet Marketing was for me and I needed to spend the time necessary to learn how it all worked. I needed to invest my time and energy in doing it so that I could build a true business.
Doing Internet Marketing
Since that first Dallas Internet Entrepreneurs Meetup I have learned how to set up affiliate accounts, build squeeze pages, create sales letters, study copy writing, create information products, drive traffic using pay per click, generate traffic using web 2.0, write for article marketing, get the search engines to fall in love with content pages and on and on. The learning really continues every day still.
In fact, that is how OpenSourceMarketer.com was born. I started the blog to share what I learned with you so that we could both work our way out of the 9 to 5 together. You see, just studying Internet Marketing isn’t enough. Like you, I have to practice it and the only way I can do that is if I try things, make notes about the results and then repeat what works.
If I can explain those things to you, then I can truly own them. It isn’t enough to read something and have the head knowledge, you and I both need to be able to apply the information in real actionable ways and then be able to explain to someone what we did. That is what OpenSourceMarketer.com is all about and that is why I am maintaining the blog today.
Future vision
So what is the road ahead? Well, that part has yet to be written. At the moment, I am not a rock star million dollar Internet guru, but I am building a profitable online business. I have several projects in the works and several others on paper that have made and will make me money.
So if you are interested in learning all you can about Internet Marketing and you want to learn from someone just like yourself then subscribe to my RSS feed and ride along. I promise to teach you what I know about that works and what doesn’t work right from my own successes and failures.
So come along for the journey. Who knows where we will end up together.
Diggin’ the ride,
Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com
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