About Me - Internet Marketer, Sales & Marketing Director
And Lessons Well-Learned
Hello Friend and Fellow Marketer! Thanks for wanting to know more about me, my goals and my direction.
I thought it would be a good idea to give you information about me so that you can know better who I am, where I've
been with Internet marketing and why I feel it is that I can help others achieve and succeed in their goals.
While talking with a really great fried of mine it occurred to me that - after all the
years I've spent and the lessons I've learned on my road to making it on the Internet (the school of hard knocks,
so to speak) - if I can do this, you can do this.
But it doesn't have to be as difficult, as tedious, as time-consuming for you as it was for me and many of the
marketers that got their roots way back in the day. Technology's evolved and so have the systems for making
money online: full-time or part-time.
I hope my biography can be an inspiration to you.
The Late 90's
I was a cable installer in the Charleston-metro area in South Carolina. One morning I was sent to hook up
someone's cable, except they weren't home. The man next door was home and outside in his yard. I asked him
when his neighbors would be home and we started talking. Mind you, this was the middle of the work week.
And this fella had a quaint but nice home.
He introduced himself as Cary. He invited me in for a cup of coffee, I accepted and we talked. He showed
me his office. Turns out he was a draftsman, owned a hosting and web design company and was also a gamer.
His garage-turned-office was filled with "toys" - technological gizmos of which some I knew and
some I didn't recognize, but they were all fascinating! I was enthralled!
Cary and I became fast friends and we'd spend hours in his garage/office. He'd work and I'd surf the
Internet. Everything was exciting! Everything caught my attention and my imagination went crazy.
"I'm going to make my living with these things," I'd tell him.
"Sure you will," he'd joke. He really thought I was kidding, I think.
I had it in my head that I was going to make serious money some day. I just had to learn how to use
these computers (without crashing or damaging them) and learn the techniques. It was all in the
techniques.
Remembering how, when I was a teenager I wanted to get involved with Amway and my parents said
"No! Absolutely not! Get a real job!", I figured this would be my next frontier - I'd market
wares on the Internet - the information highway!
Really Late 90's, Early 2000's
I met my then-girlfriend now-wife, Janet. She was a business consultant and knew some programming, mostly
database stuff. She was also really good at putting graphics and print literature together.
In early 2000 our daughter Miriam was born and Janet said she didn't want to work in corporate anymore but
wanted instead to have a hobby that would produce income (get this!) part-time! Her words were
"part-time!"
That was also during my taxi-cab driving era. I really love to drive and I got into cabbing full-time but it
was long hours and you always had to look over your shoulder. I didn't have the best neighborhood in town and
after several robberies of other drivers, Janet and I decided that it might be a good idea to change direction.
Part of what changed that direction for me was Specialty Merchandise Corporation, or SMC. I got home one morning
about 2:30 or so and Janet was watching their infomercial and waiting up for me. She greeted me with "I got
this really great idea!"
I finished watching the infomercial with her and the next day we decided to
take the plunge. This was to be our new "hobby," the fun thing to do and make money doing it (part-time). We talked
for hours about it. We decided we'd go to the flea market, rent a booth and sell our beautiful products to everyone.
While waiting for our package (that we'd already paid for) to arrive, we went to check out the flea market and you'll
never guess what we found! OK, maybe you will.
In every section of the flea market there were one or two vendors selling SMC too. Their booths were set up
differently, but those were definitely SMC products on the shelves. And there had to be bunches!
Lesson #1 - Know your market and do your homework!
Since we didn't do our homework - our market research - we now had to scramble. We'd invested several hundreds of
dollars in this kit that would be arriving any day.
"But Joe," you say, "it's only a few hundred dollars."
We'd just had a baby and we were so broke we couldn't pay attention, much less the bills. We had to do something.
We looked at this venture as we'd gone too far to turn back. And then, maybe we're both just stubborn. OK, we're
diehards and don't give up easily!
We got the bright idea to set up a website. Janet knew some programming - database stuff! - and we could just
sell online. After all, that was the latest thing. So we turned to Bigfoot. Bigfoot was probably one of the
first companies online to offer template websites. We got our free template website and Janet began working
on it right away and I worked shoveling horse manure for a local horse farm. Hey, it was a job and we
had to pay bills!
I came home one day to her pulling her hair out. "This 'template crap' isn't all it's cracked up to be!"
she not-so-nicely informed me.
So we went to visit Cary, got a domain and a hosting account from him and he taught her about FrontPage - a
WYSIWYG ("What You See is What You Get!") software program that builds websites with copy, paste and
a bit of drop-n-drag. It also came with a nice html editor. Janet used the WYSIWYG portion to line something
up, insert a image and so on, then quickly studied the code to learn how to hand-punch it.
And we were off to the task of building our website. Pretty soon she learned that a database can be included in
a website and within a few short months (for her - I was still shoveling horse...) we had a website and
we were selling online. Not much, but selling nonetheless.
And our company's name was "Uncle Shadow's Chest of Treasures". My nickname is Shadow and so we used
that to play on. I tried to show the site to my mom one day and she refused to look at it. "It sounds
like you're selling shady sex toys!" she gasped. "I'm not looking at it and I'm not sending my friends
there!"
Lesson #2 - Your business name matters! Choose it wisely and make sure it accurately reflects what it is
you do!
Now Janet and I love children and have always wanted to get ourselves into a position where we could make a
difference in their lives. We're the "kool-aid" house and have children ranging in age from 9 to 26. So
we spent hours trying to come up with a name that would allow us to conduct business and later allow that
business to fund our endeavors for children and do all of this under the same umbrella.
We went out riding around one night and listening to the radio. I turned it down and shot a few ideas at Janet
about possible names. She turned me down on each one saying that it had to be something that incorporated our
viewpoints, personalities and how we wanted to be able to "help the children." She came
up with "Me and You," shooting for the acronym "MAY."
I turned it around to "You And Me" but she said that acronym was a sweet potato. We didn't say
much after that and while driving around country backwoods roads and thinking, I turned up the radio and
that old 60's song by the Turtles was playing. "Imagine me and you and you and me..." it sang.
That was all we needed! Our company was renamed to "You And Me Enterprises" We created our
new look - logos, letterhead, website and business boomed from there.
Our Very Own Website Boom!
Remember we were selling products. And we were selling online and offline. In late 2000, I got the bright
idea to change my technique from "door-to-door" - which was getting me absolutely nowhere - to
"store-to-store" where I'd learned that store owners place larger orders. Less ground to cover, more money. In fact,
it wasn't long before I had 20+ stores I was selling to on a regular basis.
In the very late part of 2000, Janet and I moved from Charleston to a little town of Walterboro. Her dad had
become ill and her mom asked us to move to help care for him. Because we believe in helping those we love, we
moved and became caregivers.
Now Janet's dad was very tall and our women were small and I had to start staying more at our in-home office to
handle him in case he fell. And I started making fewer orders because I wasn't able to go out as much.
Remember the website? Well, Janet built the website where our customers could order online. She put it on a CD and I
delivered CDs to our many store-customers. "I love your products, but I really love your website," I had
one storeowner tell me. "Will you build me a website too?" another one asked.
I went home and told Janet and that was when we began selling websites and advertising media/tools. And our
business grew rather quickly!
Lesson #3 - Give your customers what they want - Not what YOU think they want!
So now, here we were, Janet was building graphics and websites from scratch - no templates! Everyone had to
be unique and have their own look. But that's Janet. She poured heart and soul into that and I figured then
was as good as time as any to really get into Internet marketing.
Our very first website client was from Australia originally and had moved to the USA. He was one who loved our
site and wanted one "just like it". So Janet sold him ours and she built a new one for our products.
The only problem was she didn't know what to charge. There was a program online then called "Project 21",
and for those of you who don't know about it, it was a chapter e-book that was sold chapter-by-chapter, month-by-month.
A real self-help book that could be life-changing if you took the time to read the content (which I did! I study
everything I promote), this book sold for $90.00 per chapter. You simply advertised it and it sold. WRONG!
You had to have the right email coupled with the right list. Except list-building wasn't as strategic then
as it is now.
So we invested in "Million Dollar Emails" by Yanik Silver. And we started blasting emails to safelists
and advertising on FFA pages. And I immediately got 8,000 or so emails in return.
I was so excited I stood in our bedroom-office and almost yelled at Janet that I had 8,000 people and "They
all want to talk to me!" She rolled her eyes.
That's when I quickly learned that safe-lists consist of everyone advertising to everyone. And the FFA pages weren't
that much better. I had to find another way!
I Became the BOSS - Literally!
I decided I needed a place to advertise. Email marketing, FFA pages and ad marketing just weren't cutting it for me.
Oh sure, there was interest, but not the kind of interest I wanted. After all, you can't build a community for
misplaced children let alone take care of 2 aging parents (Janet's mom had gotten sick and been diagnosed with
cancer), 3 children and pay bills on "interest." Our website development division was making money
but I wanted to make money on the Internet. I was bit with the Internet marketing bug.
I was telling Janet about branding. We were familiar with branding. We branded our clients "look" and
"feel" into their websites. I had purchased 2 domains: business-optimization-solutions.com and
business-optimization-services.com. And I was offering "Business Optimization Solutions & Services."
And I figured I could reach both our offline, website and print media clients, as well as achieve my online
marketing goals with this website. So I asked Janet to build it.
My wife loves me. I know it. And somehow she didn't brand the online business as "Business Optimization Solutions &
Services" - she branded me as "The BOSS". I was not expecting that! But it worked. I began getting
people signed up to my newsletter. I was beginning to sell products and I got into
Kiosk. In fact, I'm a founding
member!
I may have made it sound accidental that people were signing up to the newsletter. Sort of like I built it and they
just showed up. It wasn't that easy! I had to work at it.
I ran across this membership formed by Janet Legare: Contact List Builder. And I realized I'd been going at this all wrong.
People don't trust people online. There
isn't a way to shake someone's hand, get to know them, share stories and build rapport by blasting emails to
safelists. And placing the solo ad here and there didn't seem to work well either. It couldn't. It was just an
ad going out to whoever at whatever in wherever. I didn't have a list!
Lesson #4 - The Money's in the List. OK, the connections are in the list but if you cultivate the
list, you can help them reach buyer status!
I learned that no one wants to be sold. They want to meet you and network, but they don't want to be sold. They
want to first find out what you have in common. Then, after they find common ground with you, they become
interested in your background. And then they become interested in what you're selling. It doesn't work the
other way around!
Hence, the birth of my newsletter. Now I didn't keep the newsletter up because life happens. Big mistake!
Lesson #5 - Deliver what you say you'll deliver and then some!
I didn't deliver because I wasn't prepared. I didn't write my articles for my newsletter ahead of time. I didn't
realize it'd be so difficult and I started with a hugely packed newsletter - wanting to get everything out there
all at once.
And life happened to me!
Another Shift - Enter 2005!
Janet's mother and father passed away within four months of each other. This was in 2005. We'd just bought a home,
set up shop (we now had a real office) and got settled in when her mother passed away. Four months earlier, her
father passed away which forced us to get the new home.
I was working construction to help with the extra bills (medication wasn't cheap and the older you get the more
you have to take - or so it seemed) and Janet was managing the business and taking care of her mom. We didn't bring
on a bunch of new work because, with everything we had going on family-wise, we just couldn't handle it.
To add insult to injury, the preceding year, our older son was diagnosed with testicular cancer and he had 2 daughters and a wife. So we
were hit pretty hard. 12 surgeries in 12 months had left us drained and every penny went into medical bills - the
part insurance DIDN'T cover.
It wasn't long after Janet's mom passed that I lost my construction job. Hurricanes hit with unrelenting force in
the Gulf and gas hit $4.00 per gallon in our area. It was agonizing. Our credit was damaged as we had to let
bills go to pay for medicines. And now I didn't have my job.
Janet and I, as we always do, decided that we just had to keep going. We had too many clients to pull the plug and
leave them stranded.
So I went back to store-to-store sales, and we took on all the jobs we could get. We contracted with a highly
skilled programmer and things were moving along. We finally began to catch up on our bills but I had to let my
Internet marketing go for the most part. I did, however, continue studying and - instead of putting my marketing
skills to work for me, I put them to work for our clients.
We became the home of the website that gives a serious ROI. It didn't take us long and we were back on our
feet. Our clients were happy and growing in number. Their websites were making money for them and they were
succeeding. Life was getting to where we could call it "good" again.
And then the economy started turning!
Lesson #6 - Make sure you have multiple income streams!
The Birth of "JosephLWarren.com"
By now it's the beginning of 2007 and, because we live in a small town, we've almost saturated our local
market with our "C'mon! Upload Your Business to the Internet and Discover the Power of E-Advertising"
campaign. While it worked for awhile, there are only so many businesses and we had built such a reputation for
taking brick-n-mortar storefronts online that basically we ran out of market.
So we did several different tactics: We created our Customer Service packages, we built an online resource for
information for our website clients and we began offering videography services. Web 2.0 complete with video
was making a huge hit and networking online was also becoming huge with places like MySpace and YouTube taking
the Internet by storm!
In our Customer Service packages we included Advertising and Marketing Consulting. This was a backend sale to
our website promotional products and it also allowed me to continue using the techniques I was learning online
to help my clients. It was a great move on our part.
But towards the end of the 3rd quarter of 2007, we were really feeling the economic crunch. And that was the
birth of this website!
Janet and I decided that it was time to begin working more in the online arena where we didn't have to rely
on work that required gas, travel and other expenses that we save by working in cyberspace. We still service
our clients and take new ones on; I just don't market store-to-store as I did before.
I also knew that, to make it as an online marketer, I needed to be able to have a location where you - and others -
could get to know me and to learn how to work the Internet to compensate for the downturn of the economy.
And I knew that by branding my name - as my name, not necessarily as "The BOSS" - was crucial to my success!
So I purchased the domain name, set up hosting, and here we are!
So There You Have It!
Now you know about me, my history, my goals. My downfalls, mistakes and my uplifts. And you, too, can be successful doing whatever it is you want. You just have to start. You have to take that initial step. And if you're ready, I'm here for you!