My Online Marketing Journey.
It is a long story…Maybe even a little humorous of how stupid I was..
I have been involved in my own business ventures and marketing activities almost my entire adult life.
It all started with Amway in my early twenties, I always knew I wanted to be in business for myself, and my personal story located here, will explain more of that.
How I got started marketing online and why?
In 2002 I went completely bankrupt, basically lost everything.
Eventually I decided to take some classes online and in person to learn even more about business and marketing.
While logging into one of my online classes one day, I saw an ad online showcasing a business opportunity, it was called Referralware, the company does not exist anymore.
I got curious and checked it out, it sucked me in like flies to you know what..lol
The one thing I believed at that time, was the internet was the future and someday everyone would be using it, now back then the internet was only a fledgling child..
So I decided to join Referralware, got on a phone call with one of the owners, sold my soul to pay the start up fee, which if I can remember right, was like $2000.00. But hey, I just knew…
I knew it was going to make me rich, rich, rich! ha ha!
I honestly can not remember exactly how I came up with the funds, I think I might have used some of my student loans..
All I know is I quit attending classes and start marketing online instead. 🙂 My ex-wife was not happy 🙁
It was a little confusing at first, because of course I did not have a clue of how to market anything online, all I knew was I was going to be rich, rich, rich!!
This is about the time I found auto surf traffic exchanges, meaning that you click an autosurf now button and you start surfing. The idea is for every site you visit, they will send a visitor to your site. Problem was you could just let this run on your computer even if you were in bed or at the store.
Eventually I figured out that this did not work what so ever and the only thing that happened is I picked up tons of viruses, trojans, and malware from these autosurfs.
Then I found manual traffic exchanges, this is where you had to be present and manually click the next button to get credit for visiting someone else site. (Meaning someone actually sees your site)
I thought aha, I am surely going to get rich, rich now!
This is easy, just sit here and click the next button over and over again all day, and it would print me sign ups, sales, and money..lol
NOT!
So I joined even more affiliate programs (make money opportunities), thought there must be something wrong with Referralware, because nobody joined it through all my traffic exchange clicking.
I basically repeated this process for about two and a half years..I made nothing.
Money out, no money in, hours in front of my computer clicking. I would work at my job during the day, and be on my computer all night. I was obsessed because I just knew I was going to be rich!
Finally, someone sent me an email that made sense to me..
It was a big light bulb “Aha moment”
In the email, it explained you must be building your email marketing list to make money online. You must have a follow up process. People will want more information before they will buy from you.
Now this should have been second hand nature to me, as the years I spent in Amway in my early twenties, it was ingrained in me that the money is made in the follow up. We use to have a little black book with the steps for success we carried around with us. One of those steps preached the follow up. Actually it was follow up and follow through.
I just never thought about transferring what I learned in Amway with belly to belly marketing, to online marketing. It never even crossed my mind.
However, that light bulb moment I had from reading that email changed my life forever, and I will never forget it!
My life would be so different today, had I never figured this stuff out.
I am forever grateful to Scott Douglas, the man who sent me that email.
This started me on the right path of building my email list. I followed a email marketing system, that showed me how to get started very quickly with email marketing.
I made more money in the next 30 days than I did the prior two and a half years combined.
What I learned with that email marketing system, was that people are 1000 times more likely to put in their email address to learn more, then they are to buy something or sign up the first time they see your marketing page.
I have people that have been on my email list now for 15 years, and are still buying from me. Email marketing is how you build customers for life, you are building a list of repeat buyers, 1 lead at a time.
In 2010 I created my first WordPress based website/blog (Real Traffic Exchange Profits)
The one you are on right now reading this, in fact this website/blog was created at exactly…2010-02-10 18:32:17 GMT. I still have the email I got once the installation was complete. In 2010 is when I also started doing videos and putting them up on Youtube as another marketing venue.
I created my first YouTube video on •Apr 29, 2010.
It has had 930 views since its creation. I was extremely nervous and you can tell, the audio was a little sketchy as well. I am posting it here so you can see where I started with video, and to show you not to be afraid of doing something, just do it anyway and you will get over it. Just realize in watching it, that the video is 11 years old. (Don’t laugh too hard)
As a side note – Never name your website/blog a name like realtrafficexchangeprofits.com because you can not pivot from that domain name, meaning it still implies a certain context even though if that context is not true now..
See the domain itself realtrafficexchangeprofits.com implies that this site is all about using traffic exchanges, and that is not true anymore. That is only part of what my marketing journey was about, and how I got started. I was just starting blogging then when I bought that domain name and did not know any better. See it is okay to make mistakes, it is how we learn.
One of my newer website/blogs RichardWeberg.com I can write about what ever I want, the branding of my name allows me to pivot, because it implies only that is a person.
“It is better to move a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction—than standing still”
~Tom Bilyeu
Okay now that we got that out of the way..At this point in my marketing I was blogging, doing YouTube videos and using mostly manual traffic exchanges and safelist to advertise my offer page that built my email list.
People would put in their email address to get more information, then I would convert them into sales through emailing them from my autoresponder that was connected through my code in my pages. When they put in their email address, it would automatically get stored in my autoresponder, where I could follow up with them by email at the push of a button.
All successful entrepreneurs, affiliate marketers, businesses and companies online use email marketing.
I never made any real money until I did.
Eventually I learned how to create my own basic html marketing pages, I created my own email marketing system (pages) to teach others how to do what I was doing. It was an 8 page website, with instructions on how to do exactly what I was doing.
This got me tons of paid sign ups in all of the marketing programs I was using at the time. It was working so well, I wanted to make it easier for people to duplicate what I was doing, so I created a membership site with a partner who knew programming called “Your Eight Steps“. It was launched in January 2012.
The reason I did this, was because my original 8 pages took time for people to create them on their own, and the process was difficult, it took me weeks to create those pages and the instructions. People who had less experience than me had a difficult time. So my partner and I made it even easier with the membership site, they could just fill in some blanks, we would create all of the pages for them, and they would follow us into all of the marketing programs.
Basically it was a giant downline builder program, with done for you email marketing, meaning we created all of their lead capture pages, and paid them a commission when they referred someone, and they could get referrals in all of the marketing programs as well.
It was a win win situation..
I have owned and helped create many membership sites since then, all of which centered around teaching people how to do online marketing the right way. I have always made every effort to try and help people avoid the pitfalls I went through. Ive tried to make peoples learning curve shorter, because it is in this learning curve where most people give up.
By this time in my marketing journey I was getting over 10,000 visitors a day to my lead capture pages and offers, effortlessly. I had built a residual traffic wheel that pumped traffic to my offers from multiple traffic sources pretty much on autopilot. It was good times!
Then came the big PayPal Slap.
Several years ago now, PayPal went on a rampage and literally permanently limited tens of thousands of online marketers accounts. PayPal literally single hand-idly destroyed the traffic exchange and safelist niche, because they pretty much banned everyone of the thousands of traffic exchanges and safelist from using PayPal.
Now this was not the only niche that got hammered, there were many. Without rhyme nor reason PayPal was sending marketers and companies the deadly permanently limited email notification. Including me.
My income I had work so hard to build over the years was destroyed overnight. Almost all of the marketing programs & opportunities I was part of paid out using PayPal. All of my recurring payments vanished.
I decided at this point to get rid of all of the membership sites I owned, and to just go back to being a straight up affiliate marketer. Meaning keep building my email list, promote and sell other peoples, companies products and services, let them deal with the headaches of finding new payment processors, and with the support issues that arrive through owning your own membership sites and affiliate programs.
I freed myself!
Freeing myself from these headaches allowed me to recover quickly financially, and allowed me to pivot immediately.
It was very freeing let me tell you, a huge stress re-leaser to let go of my membership sites. Owning membership sites and affiliate programs you feel responsible in a way for other peoples failures or successes, well at least I did.
Every time an issue arrives it is all out scrambles as well to get them fixed, otherwise you get inundated with support tickets from your members. I felt like I had created a more than full-time job, and that is not why I got into online marketing. I got into this stuff to build residual income, a passive income and live the dotcom lifestyle..
So I recovered and freed myself at the same time. I would never go back to owning membership sites, courses is a different thing. I do create and sell courses still.
My youngest son John Weberg and me became partners.
In the beginning of 2017 me and my youngest son John Weberg, decided to become partners..My son had been following in my footsteps (online marketing) since he was about 10 years old, that is about the time he created his first one page website, and what inspired me to create my own membership sites. I thought if my 10 year old son can create his own website, so can I! lol
John has never had to work for anyone else, except for 6 months in high school, he worked at Walmart to create his own extra funds to help create and launch his own marketing site (Marketing Mastery Elite). Other than that he has had freedom, he lives on his own, has his own house and lives an incredible life. He is now 23 years old and has already had two books published that he wrote.
The partnership my son and me created involves us building our email list, and courses together, and promoting the same affiliate offers. We then split all expenses and profits 50/50.
Our Success Together.
We have gone on to make 6+ figures from multiple affiliate programs online. We have won many affiliate contest and awards. Everything from pins, plaques, watches, records, fridges, TVs, stereos and cash prizes.
This partnership has allowed me and my son to do things together I would have never imagined. We have traveled the world together, and hung out with some of the best online marketers in the world. We have spoke on many stages together teaching others online marketing, something I never dreamed we would be doing side by side. I am so great full and proud of us for everything we have accomplished together!
It has been one heck of an amazing journey filled full of some truly awe inspiring people!
Much, much more to come..We are just getting started.
Our main focus, which it has been for a long time now, is in helping other people achieve their dreams and goals. We are on a mission to help others get free and experience the dotcom lifestyle as we have.
Helping and nurturing other peoples growth and success is so incredibly powerful, There is truly nothing like it.
I hope that in reading my marketing journey it will have helped inspire you to reach that next level, and to never give up!
Much love
Sincerely,
Richard Weberg
