My Journey Into Online Marketing

Hello Fellow Online Marketers

My journey began about 20 years ago when I lost my job as a Tool and Die Maker. It was a totally unexpected and devastating blow. I swore I would never hold another traditional job, that Corporate America was not going to be in charge of my fate. That is where my search began.

I come from a large family and one of my brothers challenged me to find something we could all do as a family and get out of the corporate rat race.

My first stop on this long journey was a MLM company called Pre-Paid Legal Services.
PPL is a great company with a great product and I still have and use my membership to this day, although I did not succeed as an affiliate.

I tried several other MLM companies including the Grand Daddy of them all, Amway. One thing I want to make clear is that, in my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with MLM! Most of them have great products and compensation plans. My failure was my own, I just don’t have the personality for this type of business. It really does take a special person to succeed in this type of business model.

That is when I started looking for something I could do online.

I was seeing all these ads where you could make money for free! So, at the beginning I was totally against spending any money. I was convinced I could make money without spending any. Plus, I didn’t have much to spend in the first place.

Probably about 15 years ago I discovered Traffic Exchanges! When I first saw one I thought “This is really cool! Every time I click the button I see a new website. What a great way to find an online opportunity.”

I had heard once from a marketing guru that if you want to make money don’t be the gold miner sell the shovels. So I began my quest into the online advertising business. I attempted and failed at several websites. Some I just quit and others went out of business.

Somewhere along the line I found and joined Click Track Profit and began to learn more about online marketing.

I also found an advertising site called “My Profit Links”. These advertising sites are commonly referred to as Ad Boards. I really liked it. It had so many different ways to advertise. So I started to search for one I could start and manage.

I found a company that hosted and either leased or sold ready made sites that you could plug into and start using right away. I ended up with 3 of these sites and things seemed to be moving along quite well. I was building my member list and making a little bit of money.

Then one morning I went to check on my sites and they were gone! The company had gone out of business with out any warning! I check several other sites that I was a member of and had relations with the owners and they were gone too. That was a hard blow.

I owned the domain names so I kept one of them and used it to start my traffic exchange, Tornado Traffic, which will be 4 years old in a few months and currently has 1500 members. I also am a member of some great affiliate sites.

I am no longer opposed to spending money in order to make money and probably went too far the other way. I am retired but I have a part time job to support my online efforts until I get to the point that it will sustain itself and bring me some profit.