About Me

Hi everyone.  What’s up?  My name is Randy. Welcome to my blog.  On this particular post I wanted to tell you some more detailed personal stuff about how I got where I am today.  Hopefully, this story will inspire you so you know that I’m a real person just like you, and making money online is possible even if you are just starting or you’ve been at it for a while and are still failing.

Like most people, I’ve never been quite comfortable talking or writing about myself. It just feels weird and sometimes it feels like I’m bragging or being narcissistic. When I talk about the success I’ve had in affiliate marketing and list building it also reminds me of failures. Let me tell you a secret…

I used to get suckered into get-rich-quick schemes. You know the ones I’m talking about. The “guru’s” that stand in front of their Lamborghini’s holding 6 figure checks, promising they will tell you their “secret” or “system” that of course, anyone can do with very little effort? Yeah, those guys. I’m sad to say, I got suckered into more than a couple of those.
So don’t you think for a second that you are alone…
Even as a successful affiliate marketer, I still got sucked in. Most of them are selling snake oil (send me $5 and I’ll show you how to be rich!), but that doesn’t mean they are bad marketers. Many of them are fantastic marketers. They show you legitimate and real 6-figure checks, show you their fancy cars, show themselves hanging out with celebrities; all the stuff that ‘proves’ this online marketing thing can work.
I’m not that way. The life I have built before I achieved success online is the foundation of everything I do in my business no matter how much wealth I achieve. I don’t want to be the person that shows off bank accounts and fancy cars to entice you. (First off…it’s nobody’s business how much money I have). But besides that…it’s the foundation of the system you follow that will build wealth not how you spend your earnings.
Of course, this site you are reading from is designed to make me money, but on this post, I’m not going to sell you anything. This is just my honest story. No bling, no secret systems, and no bullshit. I’m not telling you my affiliate marketing success story to sell anything, this is just to show you that it really is possible for anyone to make money online with email marketing if you build and nurture your list.
I hope you feel free to give me some feedback on my story because it helps to know that when I tell it, I am helping other people to get to the same level of success.
My REAL Life..Before Online Marketing
 
I grew up in Michigan and I lived a pretty “normal” life. After high school I started college and that is when I first started to realize that maybe the “regular” path that most of my friends were taking wasn’t for me. After a few years of college I just dropped out and joined the Navy. I decided that I wanted to do something more exciting. And once there I loved it. So I made an entire career out of it and stayed in the Navy for 25 years.
Along the way I met and married my beautiful wife, Sharon and had two children. It was a good life with ups and downs just like everyone. But as I approached time for retirement from the Navy, I was still looking for something else. Another source of income and something that I could build for myself and my family to give us more freedom since I spent so much time away during my military career.

So I started actively looking for ways to make money online. This was around 2005 and the internet was still pretty new I guess. There was no social media, no YouTube to look up how to do stuff, it was basically almost ALL done through email. So you would sign up for a newsletter to learn how to do stuff. They would send you info and then links to products that would teach you how to set up your own website and affiliate marketing was king back then. (Hint: it still is.)

That’s how I got into affiliate marketing. I would get traffic from making article posts and blogging. SEO was soooo easy back then because there was much less competition and the search engines were brand new and didn’t have all these “algorithms” built in. You could get traffic and make money quickly (little amounts of course). But there was always still this separation between the big money guys and everyone else. Why were some people making cash hand over fist and becoming wealthy quickly no matter what they were promoting? Why wasn’t I having the same success?
There were times when I would literally want to throw my computer across the room. I would spend all this time and money on the next “easy system” only to be disappointed again. I just didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. Well…let me revise that. In the back of my mind, I did know something that I had heard a mentor of mine tell me, but I had been ignoring it. I was sure that I could circumvent and get to the end goal quicker. What am I talking about?…
I’m talking about building your own email list. You see, like most new online marketers, especially the ones who get started in affiliate marketing, somewhere along the line you get told that the “money is in the list”. The problem with that is that it takes time and effort. Why would I waste time getting people on a mailing list, paying for the autoresponder system, nurturing them before anything else? All I want to do is find people who are looking for a particular solution and sending them to a website where they buy something so I can get paid. I mean…that’s what affiliate marketing is in a nutshell right? Making money off selling other people’s products.
That’s why so many newbies start there. It’s low cost because you don’t have to create your own product. Most times you don’t even need your own website, unless it’s a blog, and you can do that for free. All you need is traffic (website visitors). You find them and direct them to the sales page.
But like my mentor had told me in the past and it made sense to me…if you send people to the sales page and they don’t buy…then what? This make money fast mentality is what KILLS more dreams than anything else. You want to shortcut things and just get to the endpoint faster. Here’s why that’s incredibly dumb.

First off, like I just pointed out, what happens to that person you sent to the sales page of whatever you are promoting doesn’t buy or sign up? Well they click away and you never see them again (probably). So all that time, effort, and money that you spent getting them to click a link and they don’t buy is wasted right? Even worse, let’s say they just wanted to think about it and later they remember, “hey, let me check out that guide again about weight loss”…so they google it and find the link. But the only thing is the link they click on this time is someone else’s and they buy the product but not from you. Granted, you’ll never know this as it happens but in reality you’re losing tons of money like this if affiliate marketing is your thing and you are not building your list.

Another problem with not building your own list is when YOU change your mind about what you’re promoting. Companies and opportunities come and go every day. This is especially true in the online world or with network marketing companies. How do you think that the same people get on leaderboards and make money no matter what they are promoting? It’s because they have their own email list of loyal subscribers and they spent the time and money necessary to build that list. So they can always go back to that group of customers and show them the latest products and opportunities.
If you just decide that you’re going to build your own list of followers around whatever your niche is and you offer them value for free, then you can get them to follow you anywhere. Then as you show them different products or opportunities they are going to take a look because YOU recommended it. And they know, like and trust you to give them solid advice.
Once I decided to do this once and for all… my results online SKYROCKETED! I literally saw a 500% increase in my sales once I got a list big enough. Was it difficult at first? Yes. Did I have to be patient? Yes. But it was worth it. Because I have built an actual relationship with my subscribers and many of them have become personal friends and business partners. Some of them are much more successful and experienced than me. Some of them are brand new to online marketing and list building. But the bottom line is…they are my tribe. They know me, they like me, and they trust me. So that’s how I have a source of customers at the ready for anything.
The BIG Point
 
I guess the main point I want to drive home with this post is that ANYONE can do this. I know that sounds like a cliche but it’s so true. The reason that most people fail online is because they don’t do the fundamentals and they want quick results. So if you’re willing to slow down and do things with the right foundation. If you’re willing to invest some money as well as time to get started on the right foot. Then you too can become wealthy online. When I first started this thing I just wanted to make a little extra money on the side. I got so freaking excited when I made my first commission of $9. It was awesome. I spent (and wasted in some cases) so much more time and money trying to duplicate those results with little to no success before I decided to build my own list. Once I did that…it was like night and day.
Today, we make over 6 figures online annually… and we are expanding on that. We have built a huge subscriber list and a growing source of new lead so that we can also provide email traffic to our customers. Our email solo-ad traffic from business opportunity seekers is one of our main sources of income now. My next goal is to retire completely from my offline job and do this full-time and travel the world. I know now that it is possible because we follow the simple goal of always building our list.

If you are reading this and want to learn the basic list building principles that we follow and you are not already a member of our growing community, then join our list here:

CLICK HERE TO GET ON OUR LIST
You’ll get a free guide on affiliate marketing just for signing up. Then you’ll get to know me FIRST, as a real person who cares about you and your goals, before I make you a customer and protoge. That’s how I do business. Even though it’s online and I may never meet you in person, I consider you a friend and hope you have the same success we have.
Thanks for reading this short story and follow us on social media too.

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