Joseph Archibald

You wanna know about me huh? Long story, so I’ll try to keep it short-ish – all my posts are short, aren’t they? Haha!

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With regards to internet marketing, my career actually began in the year of 2003 with a brief foray when I purchased one of Corey Rudl’s products (he has since died in a car crash at Nascar, in June 2005, God rest his young soul!) .

Back then, products were sent in the mail – this one was a 300 page tome about how to set yourself up on the internet, which included building up html websites (I’m not good at html!) and search engine optimization. Mind you, search engine optimization even 7 years ago is nothing like what it is now. Its much, much tougher now to rank for pretty much anything as the competition to do so is far greater than ever before.

Having said that though, there are new markets and opportunities opening up all the time, so if you are one to keep abreast of such activities, you could very well be ahead of the game!

I seem to remember that most of it – the Cory Rudl product – went right over my head, and that kind-of ended my IM career for the time being. Total costs: around $350.00 US.

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I then picked it up again – the career I mean, in 2007 when I purchased one of Jim Robert’s products – again, it was posted via the mail and consisted of a series of DVD’s showing how to set up a website (before the days of WordPress.org).

This one cost $399.00 if memory serves me well enough. I managed to get a couple of basic sites up but had no idea about SEO. And, I was blatanly aware at this time of my lack of traffic. Yes, I was one of those who believed that if you build it they will come! Nope – wrong!

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However, I did manage to get these html sites up and that was the main thing – the fire was now kindled and smouldering.

Oh, and don’t please ask me what that first site was. Its kinda personal actually – long story, long story… Along the lines of one of Richard Gere’s earlier movies… LOL!

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But it was not until January 2008 that I really got into this whole SEO and IM game big time. I made up my mind to really focus and try and crack this thing called internet marketing, and make some money from it. If I knew now how much time, effort and money would be involved in that journey I wonder if I ever would have begun! But I merely wanted to make what for me would be a decent full time income, which would have been around 2000 UK pounds per month – approximately $3000 US, give or take…

Little did I know the true power of internet marketing, and now my sites are set so much higher than they were back then – not merely on the income, but the lifestyle that can be gained from working online, having no boss as such, and freedom to choose where you work (any country you choose pretty much) and when you work.

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At that time when I first began full time IM, my life was on the verge of total disaster – not that I want to go into it, but trust me, I know of many folks who have given up on life with less troubles than I had back then.

It was thus a fantastic thing to happen that my focus turned so much to the internet – it helped to pull me through those times of real sadness and depression. Regardless of the fact I was spending a small fortune and making zip in return!

To be honest, I’m the sort of guy that will try out things for a few months and then pack up, grumbling that the system is “not workable”. Sound at all familiar??

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I tried a number of other pursuits to financial success – Telecom Plus - selling telecoms stuff door to door. Ouch! I still get commissions even to this day from that though. Totally passive income! That was back in 2004.

Then a few years later, I tried out Kleeneze (early 2007) – selling door to door again but this time via product catalogues. I remember trudging the streets with 50 cataglogues in a bag slung around my shoulder in the freezing cold weather on that very first day, wondering if I’d actually make any sales at all. Within 7 months I’d got my income up from zero to £1400 a month (about $2,200 US) and the accolades were high for such an achievement.

I regularly had people come to me in the monthly meetings asking me what my secret was. I was often asked on-stage to be presented with a plaque or whatever, to commemorate my achievements. At the very first of those monthly meetings I attended in Nottingham, in central England, I was treated like a small king by the guys who were head of my upline.

All that part was real nice! And the promise of a bonus car (Mini Cooper convertible right on up to BMW M5 Series) and a few holidays each year - once certain further levels of achievement were gained, was always going to be a great motivator to keep on going. But the daily trudge of working the business was taking a real toll on me – mentally. And due to massive debts I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

What more motivation do you need to really try hard to work a business than to pay off huge debt??

On the other side of that though – almost every penny you make goes to pay off your debts, so you seem to be working for nothing in return. So on the one side, you have the motivation to make huge money by working yourself to the bone, and on the other – you have the problem that no matter how many hours you work, you never make enough to make a solid change to your current lifestyle.

But the mental side of things eventually got the better of me, and I got back to my old line of landscaping and set up a business in that instead. I initially approached my Klenezee customers to inform them that I would no longer be delivering catalogues, but instead would be doing gardening/landscaping. And that went well for a while. It was fairly cheap to set up – I had some basic equipment already from previous years, and then ventured online to eBay to purchase some other items – hedge trimmer, strimmer, chain saws, rotary mower etc.

I landed a couple of fairly large hedge trimming jobs early on and so all was well with the world!

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Anyhow, when I did begin my internet marketing journey (call it what you will) I simply believed that one day it would all come together, all this learning and doing, doing and learning.

Some day, it would fit just like a jigsaw and I would indeed reap the just rewards!

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Additionally, this internet thing really suited my own character – finally, at the age of 40, I felt comfortable doing something every day of my life, and did not even tire of it once! Damn, what a feeling! I finally felt I had found my inner self – something clicked with me and working online. I never had sensed this before.

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As it happens, I suspect the journey since then to now – some 8 years later (if you wanna count the initial forays), has been more of a roller coaster ride than I would dared to have imagined.

The highs – ranking a site in top 30 in Google was a high for me back then! The lows, watching my 2 sites drift away from sight (not that they were ever truly in sight) and I was helpless to do anything about it. Helpless!

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But I kept on plodding along, spending too much money on shiny new glossy products – one after the other, and making no money with any of them. Oh dear, does this sound familiar? You did this too, huh?

But do I view this as wasted money? Has it been a waste of my time (I often would work a 60 – 70 hour week in addition to a part time job (my landscaping business, which by then had gone part time for various un-toward reasons), which paid my relatively meagre weekly bills (including a rather heavy drinking habit) and also paid for my online pursuits too (thinking back, my monthly internet bills would be around an average of $400 US, and sometimes quite a bit more, and I was making nothing in return).

No, its not been a waste of time nor money. At the time it seemed that way, but in hindsight I’ve learned so much by making so many mistakes myself, so I have first hand knowledge. And to be honest, without first hand knowledge you have to rely on what others tell you is right.

In the line of SEO and internet marketing, what others tell you is right, is very often wrong. So the only way to know for sure is either you follow along with folks you fully trust, or you do it yourself. I had to do it myself because at that time, even though I had purchased so many high-priced glossies, I still did not know anyone I could trust enough to tell me how things really are. But you do learn through your own experience who you can trust to say it how it is, and ultimately you become one of those folks yourself, and then other folks start coming to you for advice.

 

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Update

So, where am I now, some 3.5 years after I went full time and struggled massively to gain success at a “job” that felt so right for me? Well, if you have read any of my more recent posts on the blog here, you will probably have a good idea.

I now live in a tropical country – in Kuching, Sarawak – Malaysia, which is a long-time dream come true! I live in a house that is larger than any house I’ve ever lived in whilst in the UK – albeit it is rented accommodation (I now have plans to buy my own appartment – very possibly one that over-looks the river here in Kuching – the views are gorgeous! I drive a nice car, I take holidays when I want to, which is not often because I am so dedicated to my business and don’t like to leave it for long. I earn more money now than at any time in my 20-odd years of working life, and I actually enjoy my work, and often take great delight in it!

Now, I know my father would say that internet marketing is all hocus pocus nonsense, but it most surely is nothing of that kind! I’ve proven to myself, and to my family and to many friends who doubted that it would ever be possible to achieve success working in this type of online business, that success can be more than just a dream and a great income – it can bring about a whole lifestyle change, and yes – the grass is far greener on this side of the line!

There is a saying that I’ve heard recently – “internet marketers work 16 hours a day so they can make money while they sleep“. LOL! Oh so true! But that is only at the start. There comes a time, once you progress to a certain level, whereby you simply leverage other peoples’ abilities and thus you can then choose to spend your time how you wish.

Make no mistake, getting involved in this business has been the best choice I have ever made in my whole life! And I bet it can be for you too!!