Hi and welcome!
Some words about me. Born 1961, grown kids and love fishing. That was the short version. 🙂
I have been into IM for many years, I think it was 2004 I built my first affiliate site but it took me some years before I really made any money at all.
I have tried a lot and some things have worked quite well…for some time.
Amazon sites with auto blogs were good and I was early with Kindle PLR books and they were amazing….until I had to shut down everything. That hurt but I wanted to keep my Amazon account.
I have helped offline businesses with online marketing.
Something that I have been really interested in from the beginning is search engine optimization, SEO. I have a feeling that it is now more difficult than ever…
I build most of my sites in WordPress.
I have build several web shops, most of them with WooCommerce but also a couple with MyCashflow, a Finnish eCom system.
A year ago I jumped off probably the worst business adventure that I have been involved in so far in my life. And I have tried/done a lot on the internet as I started with my first affiliate site 2004.
4 years earlier we lived in Finland and I helped a man with his marketing of a new weight loss product that he wanted to import from Sweden to Finland.
One day he told me that he wanted to quit that project and start a new business based in Sweden. He asked me if I was interested to be a part of that.
The business was importing stuff from China and sell in web shops in Sweden. Several things sound great and unfortunately I didn’t check some of them.
He didn’t know anything about marketing or selling on internet but he would buy the crap…I mean the products from China (and also finance them). My part was to build the shops (yes we had 4 of them), market and sell the products and also the delivery to customers. This sound really crazy as I write it now….but in short: He bought the products and my job was to sell them.
His idea was to try to sell everything to everyone and after a while see what products were the best. I tried to convince him that it was not the right way to go. It would be better to start with a few products and buy related products after that.
We didn’t follow my advice…
We imported 5 full 40 feet containers during the 3 years meaning that there were thousands of products. Most of those products are still unsold….
After 3 years not been able to get any money from the adventure I felt that I had to leave. They were the worst years of my/our life and also meant that my economy was driven to the bottom.
I wanted to get off the internet so I took an offline job as a mechanic (I am still there).
But I am a Finn and I will never give up! I will make money from internet! We have something called sisu 🙂
There is a lesson in everything we do. Sometimes it is difficult to see or understand the lesson at first.
Those 3 years where full of practical experiences. I know a lot about eCommerce now and I also like the business idea. There are some major mistakes many web shops owners do (I did them myself) and I would like to help these entrepreneurs. More about that later…
I work a lot…I love to work…but….after the latest eCommerce business I realized something very important. I had worked too much. I had prioritized the wrong things.
I have always been good at telling others about how to live but apparently I didn’t get it myself.
So what is important in life? Certainly it vary from person to person but for me it is family and friends.
Maybe it was when my first grandson, Niel, was born that I understood this. I had worked really hard for 3 years and still it was a disaster. I realized that the only times when I smiled was when I met my sons, Niel or some good old friends.
There is a fantastic movie made by Wayne W. Dyer called The Shift. If you haven’t watched it I highly recommend doing so. One part in the movie is about giving without thoughts about what you get back.
Now 3 years later when I read Go-Giver by Bob Burg I found that Dyer talked about exactly the same thing in his movie. I really believe in that myself. The first time I understood this was when I lived in Norway. I rented a couple of rooms of an old lady. One day I saw when she was about to mow the lawn and I rushed out and asked if I could do instead.
The smile I got from here was something I never will forget. A smile from a person is often more worth than money.
When I talk about how important my family is, that part also contains the most sad thing in my life. I have two sons, Fredrik and Jimmy. Unfortunately Jimmy has a mental illness. He is diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia.
It is important that we discuss mental problems as they are so common and often hidden and people don’t talk about them.
As for many others, Jimmy’s problems are under control as long as he takes his medication. But, sometimes he don’t and it ends in hospital. There has been a lot of drama during these years. Right now things seem to be fine and lets hope they remain so.
Let me know if you need help with something. You have read about what I have done so far and probably there are some parts that I have missed. I didn’t mention that I have worked a lot with video production and also with Photoshop. I wouldn’t call me an expert but I get things done :-).
Just send me an email about your problem and I might have an idea about how to fix it.
Be well,
Erik
