It was December, 1999. I was a "web designer" trying to help my clients to actually *have* Internet profit centers. But they wouldn't do anything I said had to be done to start having an income from their website. It was irking me, but I knew there had to be a way to get through to my clients. There just had to be a way.

I mean, the little things that have to be done once the site is online: url on their business cards, having a communication device like a newsletter to capture names and emails to communicate helpful stuff to the prospects and customers/clients. Providing value, educating prospects to appreciate what you do for them. You know, Abraham 101. Autoresponders were just starting to catch on and were usually not used very well, ppc was was being a dismal failure except for goto.com (became Overture, later bought by Yahoo!).

Corey Rudl, Mark Joyner, Marlon Sanders were the big guys. Yanik was hardcore into copywriting, Stephen Peirce was already moderately successful, having sold some chicken-something site I can't recall the name of, and some other stuff he was doing, and Jim Daniels was on the verge of greatness, too. This was infancy for Internet Marketing. Pre-Filsaime-ian, Pre-Schefrenian.

So to teach my clients what should be done, and to "duplicate my time" more efficiently, I wrote a stinkin' eBook: The Ass-Kickin', Name-Takin', Money-Makin' Internet Success Home Study Course. What a terrible name. The url was even worse: buttkickincourse.com. Ick. I said from the start that it goes off the market once 2000 copies were sold (or distributed to my clients). The highest profitability profit price was $79. There were no bonuses really. There were no testimonials to speak of (and I never added any, either), but the conversion ratio was 8-12%, which was disgusting to me. I just couldn't get it any higher than 12.5% on the best day. Why wouldn't the other 7-11 people buy? It was totally beyond me! (Later I found out from that copywriter Mark Joyner was promoting as "the best copywriting teacher" that 2% was very good, and 4% was just amazing. He said it must have been how I was promoting the site and the types of people attracted to those ads. Whatever. I've duplicated those conversion rates in systems I wrote copy for, for a LOT more expensive services.)

Anyway, the "selling out" phase took 2 years. Not much of a "product launch", huh? The funny thing is that Yanik and I traded emails for a short bit. I emailed him the course and he emailed me an awesome "swipe file" sort of thing, but much better. Stephen Pierce bought my course, and short time before it sold out emailed me to see if he could sell it. I was working on an update because things had changed a LOT over the previous 23 months, I was to be including re-sell rights and free upgrades to all my customers, and I'd learned more. I changed the name and all that, but before I could finish it, the damn thing sold out, actually two over. (No, I didn't return the payment to the last two folks, but I did take the site down.) I was mad because I thought it would make me liar to release another version, even updated, after I said only 2000 copies were available before the revision was done. THEN everything changed for me.

The same day that I sold out, my best friend, Dave, brought a business idea to me and we went forward with that and the revision process stopped. We went on to another field entirely, and I took my knowledge with me. That was January, 2002. We kicked in our businesses into 2006, when my brother-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia. Everything changed. I couldn't trade anymore because there was a great hacker who kept hacking in and tried to steal my money (and the money I gave my sister to start trading a couple years earlier).

See, we moved to Florida and did everything we possibly could to help out. All 6 of us, our four kids, Sheilah (pregnant with our 5th) and I just moved. It ended up a total disaster, and I had to bring out what I "knew" about Internet Marketing since I was actually not able to trade there. But SO MUCH had changed online. Google had become the dominant force, there were highly successful IMers I had never heard of. It was just too much. I got caught up in the details rather than the concepts (big duh, right?). I studied the heck out of SEO and SEM stuff - even got certified. But I was all over the place.

Yanik became a multi-millionaire. So did Stephen Pierce. (Funny story there. Quick: I went into trading and teaching people trading. I found Stephen with his Fibonacci Secrets course and bought it, then bought a lot more from him, and a LOT of others, too. Neat turn around that Stephen found me through IM and my course, and then I found him again doing stuff I was doing. What's with that?)

When Joel released the Secret Classroom and my wife bought it for me for Christmas, I was on the verge of "getting a job". I hadn't had a job of any kind for a LONG time and really didn't want one, either. Anyway, the info in there is unbelievable. I got stuff from The Secret Classroom that I had forgotten, stuff I'd never heard of, stuff I never really understood, and regained the motivation and drive to keep going online.

I'm now focused, and except for being "social" and being here trying to help whoever asks for it, I'm starting to really kick some more butt online. I don't have any interest in getting back into selling IM info, but I still love learning new, workable stuff. Now I look for the concept behind WHY things work rather than just That they work. You know?

So the whole point here is that I've been through the ringer, just like almost everyone here. I've been successful online. I've been a jackass. I've been a total failure. I've been lost. I've seen people I taught something to become very successful. And I want to help people here on the TopOneNetwork because I am very grateful for Joel having the courage and vision to co-produce the Next Internet Millionaire.

I'm totally willing to help anyone here. Just ask. And leave a comment, too, if you would. Please? Have a truly remarkable day!