How My Site Makes Money

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This happened to me a few years ago...10 short words:

Are you living your dream...or living in someone else's?

At that moment, something powerful awakened deep inside of me. Over the coming months, I reflected on those 10 words again and again.

I soon came to realize that I was at a turning point in my life.

Up until then, I always worked for someone else, and was subject to the Golden Rule:

He who has the gold...Rules!

I was conditioned from a young age to work hard, give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay...and be loyal to my employer for my daily bread. I assumed my career would unfold pretty much like my father's and grandfather's

...30+ years of service with one company...a gold watch, a nice pension mingled with social security, a small savings nest egg that somehow escaped the tax man...and at long last...the time and financial freedom to do pretty much whatever I wanted.

The first clue I had that this train was about to veer off the rails came in 1995, when I was fired from Damon Corp as their National Sales Manager.

It happened on a Friday.

Shortly after lunch, the Sales VP walked into my office, quietly closed my office door, and coldly informed me my services were no longer needed.

I was stunned and totally lost for words.

Prior to this fateful day, there had been no warnings from my superiors. No write ups. No displeasure expressed about my performance.

Nothing.

Now, after a 5 minute meeting, I was asked to leave the premises...and to be careful the door didn't hit me on my rear end on the way out.

I felt a deep sense of emptiness as I slowly made my way to the parking lot through my department of 20+ people.

No one knew what was happening.

Someone actually approached me in the hallway to help resolve a problem. "Sorry", I said, "but you'll have to see Ron. I've just been let go."

I felt numb during my 15 minute commute home. I drove in silence.

It was a bright, sunny August day. Kids were out riding their bikes and the golf course was full of people. The golfers sure looked successful, relaxed, and prosperous. I envied them.

As I approached my home, my wife, Beth, was just backing out of the driveway.

Great timing.

During my humbling drive home I had rehearsed in my mind how I was going to share the news with Beth. Telling her in the middle of the street with her car window rolled down was not one of those scenarios.

She had a look of total surprise on her face as she exclaimed, "What are you doing home?!" I tried to act calm, cool, and collected as I said, "Well...let's go inside, Honey. I have something to tell you."

The next morning when I awoke, I thought everything had just been a bad dream.

Ok--now what?

This may sound strange, but the very next day I actually felt a slight sense of relief. Working for my Neanderthal boss had been quite stressful; plus, I was burned out from my chaotic 60-65 hour work regiment.

I should be back on my feet in no time, I reasoned. Somehow everything will work out.

To my amazement, nothing much happened.

After my job loss when people asked me what I did for a living, I just wanted to crawl under the table and hide. I hated telling people I was unemployed. And after I did, they would usually respond to me by saying something like, Ohhh...sorry to hear that, Mike. [Pause] So, do you think the Cubs will make the playoffs this year?

I got into the habit of telling people I was laid off rather than fired. Being laid off seemed to convey that something had happened to me beyond my control.

The truth?

I was flat fired, canned, terminated...given the golden boot. My boss didn’t like me. So, You’re fired! ...as The Donald would say.

Fired…laid off…downsized. Call it what you like. I felt like a big jellyfish bobbing around on the open sea. Someone else was in control of my livelihood, and had just thrown me under the bus.

And I didn't appreciate it too much.

So, where did I go from here?

...7 months of job hunting with no success

After doing my due diligence and meeting with the franchise owners, I decided to take the plunge and purchase the South Bend FPC franchise.

Freedom from corporate America at last! So I thought.

To purchase the franchise, lease an office, purchase equipment and supplies, and hire a couple of people cost me $100,000 of my own money for the first year...and this was in 1996.

Despite excellent training and support from FPC franchise headquarters, we only generated about $75,000 in sales our first full year in the business.

Most of my start up money came from my retirement account.

Uncle Sam didn't smile too kindly on me for using my IRA as seed money. Despite the steep penalties for early IRA withdrawals, I reasoned it would be worth it in the long run.

And, it turned out to be a good career move for me.

For the next 14 years, my executive recruiting firm prospered in a demanding industry where 90% of all executive recruiters drop out before their 5th anniversary.

However... as 2008 dawned, I sensed something was very wrong with the US economy. Many of our client companies issued hiring freezes. Layoffs increased.

Job search assignments that were red hot 30 days ago were all of a sudden...put on hold. Hiring executives were slow to return my calls...or simply didn't return them.

As 2008 progressed, it became obvious we were sliding into a recession. How severe...nobody knew, but it was clear the party was over.

I was painfully aware that a deep recession would be a major setback for my recruiting business. It would require taking on substantial debt to ride out the storm despite already having invested my entire life savings into this business.

...retirement no longer an option for me?

How do I know this?

Because as an executive recruiter I was on the front lines of the hiring process. I witnessed age discrimination first hand. So, if my recruiting business bit the dust, how likely was it that a company would hire me this late in my career? Besides, I had a lot of financial ground to make up.

I now had one thing in common with my great-grandfather's career... the possibility of working until my dying breath!

After a long and rewarding career...including owning my own business...I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that if my fortunes didn't change for the better, I could end up living with one of my kids until my eventual demise.

...a glimmer of hope on a stormy sea

Since I was already in the employment business, his website topic was of interest to me...especially since the bottom was now literally falling out of the job market, and my recruiting income was in free fall.

I visited his website, and immediately felt a sense of trust because of the quality of his content and the useful information he provided. I also found his site to be warm, friendly, and realistic...unlike so many of the slick, over-hyped websites I was used to visiting.

I noticed a logo at the bottom of his website that mentioned his site was powered by Site Build It (SBI).

So, I decided to do a little digging into SBI.

Before this minister started his site, he barely knew how to surf the net or send an email. Site Built It provided him with all the training and tools to not only create an inviting website, but help his site rank high in the search engines.

Since I spent a lot of time coaching candidates for job interviews, I reasoned that a website about job interview tips and strategies would save me time, help people do well in their job interviews...and might even be another income stream for me as the recession rapidly tightened its grip.

In other words, I could either get a job, or create a job.

So, I spent several days researching SBI and discovered they were far more than a web hosting company. Right off the bat they told me if I was looking to get rich quick on the internet, they didn't want my business.

Wow...I never expected to hear that from a company on the Internet!

SBI's logo is actually a tortoise...symbolizing a slow, steady approach to building an ebusiness on the world wide web.

Although I was hoping to hear that I could get an ebusiness up and running in a couple of months, the tortoise approach rang true for me.

SBI stresses that building a web business is just like building any other business. You have to put in a lot of hours, work smart, and provide a quality product or service that people need and want.

The big difference between an on line business and a brick and mortar business is the reduced cost of entry.

As of this writing (November 2010), SBI only charges $300 a year (yes...you read that right...three HUNDRED, not thousand) to thoroughly train novices on how e-commerce works and show you step-by-step how to turn a hobby, special knowledge, business idea, or passion into a profitable e-business. Update September 2011: Still charging only $300 a year, but now offer monthly payments.

Compare this to my recruiting firm, which cost me $100,000 to start and survive my first year in the business.

...the turning point

Without any knowledge about creating an on-line presence, I followed SBI's comprehensive Action Guide (videos and print) and authored all of the articles. It has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

And, it's fun, too!

My site, Job-Interview-Wisdom, has been active for two years, and I am extremely happy with the support and training SBI provides. They way OVER-deliver on everything...and their honesty and business ethics are above reproach.

I consider myself very blessed to have found SBI among all the noise, hype, and scams out there on the Internet.

The first step on any ebusiness journey is creating lots of good content.

People come to the internet looking for quality information about something they're interested in, or seek solutions to their problems. I discovered that if you help someone solve a problem, they will revisit your site and spread the word to their friends and associates.

The snowball starts.

Over time, you will gain loyal followers who trust and respect you. Once you have decent traffic to your site, there are a variety of ways you can monetize. More on this in a minute.

As I added content to my site over the weeks and months, free traffic naturally increased. For the past year, my traffic has grown 20% a month, many of whom are repeat visitors.

The word is continually spreading as trust builds when visitors discover value on my site, and solutions to their employment problems.

...how I make money with my SBI site

At the moment, mostly through advertising and affiliate commissions.

Update: In May 2011, I published a 150 page book entitled, Why Don't They Call Me?-Job Search Wisdom to Get you Unstuck. I promote it on my website, and it is even available through Amazon. It's available in paperback, Kindle, or PDF e-book. Click on the above title to read the introductory chapter and table of contents.

SBI provided me with excellent advice and guidance on how to self-publish through their active forums and numerous articles. It not only saved me time, but protected me from getting burned by scammers and other ne'er-do-wells.

There are several other ways I plan on making money with my website: developing training programs to sell, conducting webinars, selling other people's products and services for a commission, getting paid for leads and referrals, writing (books, reports, articles, e-courses) and more.

I just started monetizing my site (October 2010), so I'm only earning income at the rate of a few hundred dollars a year. I'm not at all discouraged by this because even though my cash-flow is only a trickle today, the long term potential is excellent.

Update June 2011: My income is now pacing at $3,000 a year, and this does not include my book sales.

My goal is to nurture and grow my e-business until I am earning enough income to support me and my wife into our retirement years ($50-60,000 a year). This will likely take me another 2-3 years.

Sure...I'd like to earn more than that.

But when you add this income on top of my social security and other retirement savings...I should be in pretty good shape.

More importantly, I'll have a lot of control over my income instead of worrying about the screwy stock market or some nutty politician pulling the rug out from under my social security just when I need it most.

Based on the experience of other successful SBIers, this is very doable...if I follow SBI's Action Guide and put in the time and effort. Some SBIers make much more than this while others are satisfied to earn just enough to pay for a nice vacation once a year.

The nice thing about my e-business is it makes money for me 24/7...worldwide...even while I'm sleeping or on vacation. Many of my site visitors are from the UK, South Africa, India, Canada, Europe, and Japan. I'm even starting to get visitors from China.

Once I perfect my job-interview-wisdom site, my wife and I plan to build a website together about one of our favorite vacation destinations.

We talk about it all the time and it will be so much fun to work on this project together. Sure beats watching TV.

Update 6-29-2011: I recently purchased another SBI website (still only $300 a year, but now SBI accepts monthly payments of $29 a month.) My wife, Beth, is going to head up development of this new site while I continue to focus on my employment site; however, I'm going to coach her since I've been around the block once, and we figure we can get this site up and running in half the time it took me on the first one.

If I can do this...anyone can.

If your career has hit a brick wall or you're simply unfulfilled in your job, you should consider starting your own SBI e-business. The Internet is the most powerful business tool in the history of the world. It levels the playing field for the little guy.

It's still early in the game. If you compare the Internet to real estate, it's 1849 in California just prior to the Gold Rush.

SBI has an entire section in their training Action Guide devoted to brain-storming ways to make money on the web. You don't need any programming skills, web design knowledge, a current business or profession, or any products of your own to sell...although if you have these things you can leverage your success in exciting new ways.

...just bring your brain and motivation!

Check out SBI's Video Tour to get an idea of how it works (or the Quick Tour if you're on dial up).

And make sure you also check out: Video success stories of SBI owners... built by average people like you and me.

All of these sites rank in the top 1% of the most successful sites on the web. You can also see many of the topics people chose that became profitable SBI websites.

So...I ask you:

Are you living your dream...or living in someone else's?

Mike Petras

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