David Snyder - Internet and Startup Enthusiast
On my most recent travels I happened to be lucky enough to grab time on a plane to watch Inception.
The movie was great.
However, one element of the movie really struck a chord in me more than any other. In the film, the concept of a totem plays a key role. The main character, Dom Cobb, utilizes a spinning top that used to belong to his deceased wife Mal.
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Greg Boser and I manage the search business unit at BlueGlass. It’s a dynamic partnership that seems like it came together via fate.
We both have interesting stories about how we got into this business, and are cut from a similar cloth of self made entrepreneurs.
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Clarification : Before reading this understand I have at NO point asked Verizon for a reduction on price, I was offered a reduction. I accept the fact that I knew the TOS and I am legally bound to a contract. What I am trying to accomplish with this post is an education of other consumers that might be trying to understand Verizon’s data roaming. If you feel this is not a topic that consumers need to be informed about, perhaps you can explain why in the comments. Did I make a foolish mistake by not exploring the data roaming more in-depth, YES! Did Verizon have tools to keep this all from happening, YES! Will other people make this mistake, lets hope not after this post.
For the last 6 months I have been a relatively big Verizon fan boy. The switch from T-Mobile meant I had increased data connectivity and my two favorite gadgets- my Droid and Mifi. I felt as though I had found a mobile carrier I could finally be comfortable with long term…
Then, on March 25th, I got a call from a Verizon rep letting me know I had a payment due of $256 …. and a current balance of over $7400. They couldn’t possibly be talking about my account could they? Did they mix me up with somebody else?
At the end of February I went on a business trip to visit some clients in Tel Aviv. I had forgotten that T-Mobile had been my carrier during my last trip overseas, so on the way to the airport I decided to call customer support to check on the functionality of my two fav gadgets during my week long trip to the Middle East.
First off, the customer service rep informed me my Droid would not get service in Tel Aviv. (This turned out to be untrue. I was able to use my phone for local and international calls with reasonable roaming charges)
Secondly, the person informed me that my Mifi would work overseas- I was hyped. He informed me as I got ready to go that the data would come in at 2 cents a kilobyte.
I was thinking to myself: Wait… What the hell does that mean?!
At this point in the story it is probably important to explain that while I am pretty savvy when it comes to most things, however, concepts such as data size and usage are both areas where I’m on par with the average mobile phone consumer. I love how they explain the most simplistic things, but nothing that could really affect how much you’re being charged:
I asked the customer service rep what my normal data usage costs are so I could compare it. He stated that because I was on an unlimited plan, I was not charged by kilobyte. Okay… that wasn’t much help at all, nor did it answer my question. I explained to him that I just didn’t want to come back to some huge bill and wanted to be aware of any charges I might incur. The conversation ended with him trying to send me a global phone despite the fact that I was leaving for the airport. While he might have intended on being helpful, it certainly didn’t turn out that way.
When I was in Israel, the internet connection in my hotel and at my clients’ office was pretty much worthless. I used my Mifi without a second thought.
During my time in Israel I used over 350,000 KB of data. Most of this data was most likely me having to reload the horrible connection everywhere I went. This was not even heavy usage for me… I have killed my 5GB maximum several times.
Let’s say the average webpage, including images, flash etc., is 300kb. At the rates I was charged, I could view 9 webpages before I met my average cost of monthly data service.
To put everything into perspective, a 15 minute Skype call would cost $875.
Watching one music video on Youtube would cost you about $200.
I can connect up to 5 of my employees to my Mifi; if I had traveled with a team to Tel Aviv and used my full 5 GB of a lotted monthly usage I would have come to a $100,000 bill- something that usually costs me $50. The thought of that even “accidentally” being allowed to happen makes my head spin.
Obviously when I received my call on the 25th I was a tiny bit upset. I couldn’t even process how this happened.
The gentlemen on the other end explained my data usage. When I explained that I had no understanding of what the kb usage meant, he stated, “Well sir you knew the terms of service.” From that moment on, this became a theme for my interaction with Verizon. Note that they use the word “knew” and not “understood.” It’s as if they are implying that one should be able to comprehend the words written on the TOS, but it wasn’t so important that they actually understand it.
I explained that I was distressed; I had not been alerted during my use of the cost rising, and also that the unusual use and cost did not trip some sort of alert. These are concepts that almost every business service I have, including Amex, use to protect their consumers and themselves.
He stuck to the line that I knew the TOS- even though if they look back into the recorded conversations, the TOS was the 2 cents a kb I questioned before I left and never received a clear answer for. I explained I would likely be leaving Verizon due to this issue, and would do everything to tell people what was being done to people that used data overseas. Neither of these concepts seemed to matter to the customer service rep. Perhaps it was because the $7400 bill represented my contracted us with Verizon for the next three years. Why did they even need me as a customer anymore? Or did they only want my money?
The ugly truth is that upon investigating the issue, I found a number of things could have been done by Verizon to protect me as a consumer. They may not mention them outright, but they are there. The fact that these things were not done can only lead me to assume that Verizon would rather their consumers “understand” as little as possible about their TOS.
Verizon should have noticed erratic usage, tripping off a red alert.
1. Verizon has a detailed history of my usage information. They could have easily told me on the phone, when I asked, what my average use would have meant in terms of dollars.
2. I found out when I got back that the VZ Manager software in the Mifi can track KB usage when tethered. I never tether my device so I did not know this. The customer service rep could have educated me on how to use the device to track data use and thus keep my costs low. This was something that I was told I could have had explained to me by an executive customer service rep, which led me to ask “How come you are telling me this now, if this is common knowledge for customer support?”
The real issue is: how does Verizon allow use of a device, such as a Mifi hotspot, in areas where they cannot get their customer’s quality data costs? This is pretty easy to control, and yet Verizon does nothing. No consumer wants to pay $6 per website- clearly it can’t be to serve their customers.
I spent a few days venting on Twitter about the issue. This put me in contact with every Verizon account, who would then pass me on to the next Verizon account. This was a super annoying way to beat around the bush.
Then one of the Twitter accounts told me this:
I was beyond pissed. I’d had it. How could they treat customers like this? How could they fail so badly in terms of customer service? I tried to equate it to my business to put it into perspective- Say we ran an Adwords account for a client, based specifically on what the client asked, but did not monitor the account and let it run to 30x the normal spend. We would be responsible for this. Not contractually, but ethically.
At the beginning of April, I got a call from an executive customer representative. This was the biggest customer service fail of the entire experience. She was condescending and didn’t want to hear my concerns.
She asked, “Mr.Snyder how much of this bill can you pay?”
Being honest I said “All of it”
She wanted me to come up with an amount so they wouldn’t have to claim any wrong doing, essentially trying to shut me up. But I can pay it, I am not about to lie. This entire issue for me was not about money; it was about how a company, that I was extremely loyal to, could treat me so terribly. The conversation ended, but she called me the next day.
I told her, “You asked me yesterday what I could pay, and I said all of it.”
“Yes sir. Then I told you we would reduce the bill to half if you are willing to accept that. You did know the terms of service.”
Since I had acknowledged that I should have done a better job looking into what the TOS meant to me, I was willing to accept this. It meant I was being honest, and that I could continue to seek out answers with a clear conscious.
I want the point to be clear.
I am not bitching about my bill. I messed up by trusting my mobile carrier in hopes that they would care enough about me to prevent this from happening. I am pretty embarrassed by how stupid I was by assuming this.
What I am upset about is the data roaming policies of Verizon in reference to their products that are ‘data only’. Their customer service policy could easily be augmented to protect their customers better. T cherry on top of the nightmare- the insanely horrible customer service- has me really thinking about leaving Verizon. But where do I go? The customer service rep let me know that any carrier would charge me for data roaming. Since she felt the need to enlighten me about that, I am looking for the carrier that will help me understand the terms of service that they offer me- rather than hoping I exceed the bounds of their contract in some way.
Since Verizon obviously doesn’t care about its customers concerns, I was hoping to open up my comments section as a place for you to voice your frustration with the company. Please refrain from becoming too emotional, profane or vulgar.
Update: Based on the commenter below “Nope” I thought I would break down why I am upset in terms that might make it easier to understand
You are on a road trip to and pull into a gas station, it is only full service.
The sign says – 2 cents per minim
You ask the gentleman that comes to you window, “Excuse me, what is a minim?”
He responds, “It’s a unit of measure smaller than a gallon”
“Well how much will it take to fill my tank, I usually pay $45 for 15 gallons?” you ask.
He responds, “Well I can’t tell you because we charge in minims.”
“Can’t you convert this for me, I just don’t want to spend a ton on gas?”
“No”
“Well I have to fill up so I agree to your 2 cents per minim,” you finally relent.
The gentleman fills you up and brings back a bill for $18,432. He explains “You knew the rate of the gas and agreed, I will need my $18,432.”
It’s true, you agreed to the gas rate, but did you know what you were agreeing too? As you drive away you wonder if the system the gas station put in place wasn’t done in order to confuse their customers into agreeing to the purchase.
Now I will concede that kilobytes are easier to figure out in terms of their relation to megabytes and gigabytes, then minims to gallons, however their usage is anything but an easily figured metric. Every email, webpage, IM, and file on the internet is a different size. It’s almost impossible to know before you use data how much you are going to use, and tracking it is impossible without software specifically for the task.
In January, I watched the annual group of “top lists” roll buy with disgust.
What utter bullshit.
If anyone’s top list of anything is as vertically driven as those then that person should just lock themselves in their closet. The reality is that as humans everything inspires, influences, and shapes us. For me this is definitely true. I come from a non-marketing background, and have been influenced by people ranging in levels of success, and walks of life. Most people that influence me I have never, and likely will never meet. I pull my inspiration from a much larger pool.
I am most impressed by people who hustle against the odds to achieve success, regardless of the level of success.
Thinking about it more I realized that almost daily I think about certain influencers, some I know personally, some I obviously don’t, and decided it would be awesome to share such as list.
And so here they are, in no particular order (because this grouping of people is as random as it gets).
My Mom and Dad instilled the relentless drive for success and work ethic I have now. A bit of a gift and a curse. What really inspires me about them is that they always provided for me and my sister regardless of external influences. They created their own paths, and careers out of nothing more than hard work.
Work harder than hard
When I first met Neil he was a dick to me (I probably deserved it). The second time I met Neil he really showed me how brilliant he is (and he wasn’t a dick). Neil is someone I look at on a constant basis to exemplify the hustle it takes to make it online. He has also been willing to share the lessons he has learned on QuickSprout.com. He has followed a diversified path to success and that is what I admire most about him.
Try new and different paths to success
Pete Cashmore has turned Mashable, and his own brand into one of the most valuable brands in Social Media. He jumped on social media before Youtube or Facebook were popular, or before Twitter even existed. He was truly a pioneer in the social media content space, and has continued to create a quality product over the last 5 years.
See the possibilities in something new
From AffiliateSummit.com
I don’t know if someone’s story in the business and overall perspective has effected me more than Rae. She is not only an amazing online marketer, but she got to where she is through struggle, which is something I associated with right away. And now that she has success? Like any one who is truly motivate, she only wants more, which can be seen by the success of her consulting company Outspoken Media. (which she is partners with Lisa Barone and Rhea Dysdale)
Never settle
I group up completely immersed in hip hop culture, and there are very few business and cultural entities that I have more respect for than Russell Simmons. If you look at the history of Hip Hop/Rap’s emergence as a mainstream form of music, almost everything flows back to Simmons. He was also the industries first mogul, and major trendsetter. Mix all of that with the longevity of his success, and it is easy to see why I have so much respect for Russell Simmons.
Be brave enough to create something entirely new
So this week was more of a roller coaster than usual, and like all things interesting in my life I figured I would share it.
A bit of chest thumping, but whatever.
This was probably the most cliche statement in 2009, so I am sure your eyes are rolling. BUT, what do you do when it is YOUR company that needs to be transparent. Not a hypothetical company, not a Fortune 500 , not a client … your company, the one paying your bills.
This week we had two issues arise with work we were contracted to do for clients. Both of them were honest mistakes, and the kind of issues that can happen to anyone, but we were at a cross roads with both clients. The issues were severe enough to warrant us being taken of the accounts. In reality, both issues were caused by circumstances that are not part of our everyday business, or that we even knew were going on (this lesson feeds more lessons to come). But that is the reality of doing business.
As a business owner do we cover our tracks, and do whatever it takes to keep the client?
No. Instead we chose to man up, take blame for our mistakes, offer swift actionable changes to benefit the client in the situation. Now by doing this we knew we were likely going to lose the account, however something interesting happened, the fact that we were transparent, willing to fix the situation, and provided excellent customer service in both cases caused the client to realize how safe there business actually was with us. We were not the company that was going to mess up, and leave them in the lurch, instead we were the company willing to protect them at all costs, despite our benefit or loss.
When your company is humming along and being profitable, it is sometimes hard to stop the machine to make repairs you know are necessary. With the above issues however, this month, we halted several of our process, and made massive overhauls in the middle of work. Very few companies would do this, but what we realized was that our mission has always been driven by Quality, in services and customer service, and if we have processes that aren’t giving our clients that one basic principles they must be scrapped and redesigned, from the ground up.
As you can imagine the reinvention of process in our company was a huge undertaking for our staff, so I decided to sit out in the main work area yesterday to help them along. I was surprised, and delighted to see the aggressiveness and enthusiasm they had about tackling the challenge. It made me realize that the ingenuity if our staff is something we should harness via processes and not suppress. By creating challenging assignments, not only will it make the staff rise to new levels, but it will also produce the best quality services for the client.
Seriously! This never came up in testing?
Lately I have grown exhausted.
Search & Social has grown to be a pretty important player in the search marketing space, although we normally remain pretty quiet about it. Our second venture, Second Step Search, hasn’t even been officially launched into Beta and is already cash flow positive for the entire year of 2010; no small feat for a software based endeavor. And all of this has led to my energy consistently draining.
I stay up at night thinking about things like profit margins, growth projections, and how to stay ahead of the insane learning curve that the internet poses to marketing companies and entrepreneurs alike.
None of this is natural.
Man is supposed to worry about finding shelter, food, and keeping their family unit secure. Most of our modern concerns are not bound to reality. They are concerns that revolve around money, the future, and other things we have little to no control over.
Then in the middle of concerns over nothing, sometimes reality comes creeping in, and the force between the two opposing ideas can literally cause a person to crack.
Case in point:
Today I had to go read story time at my son Dante’s school. He is 4 and attends a Montessori day school here in Tampa. Each week they have a parent come in, and this week I volunteered. Early this morning I dreaded it because I was in a horrible mood, worrying about all of the things that I become focused on during the course of a work week.
I showed up early to Dante’s school, and got to hangout with him and his friends on the playground.
I felt a swelling in my throat. Weird enough, but I moved on.
Story time was set to begin. I brought two books from home, Pog and Dr. Seuss’s ABCs, and we all headed in to hear them.
We sat down, and first up was Pog, which is a cool story that flips the concept of monsters upside down. I started to read, and again felt this swelling in my throat as I looked over to Dante’s glowing face. He was so excited to have his daddy at school, and sharing “our story time” with his friends.
I finished the first story, and we moved on to the next. It was our ritual that Dante helps me read Dr. Seuss’s ABCs since it is one of the only books he can help me read. He scooted over to me when I was ready, and began to read the first page with me.
Here I was with my 4 year old son, who was reading openly to his class. I quickly realized how impressive he was, and important to me. How Dante, his brother, and mother, our family, is the MOST important thing I have accomplished in my 29 years.
Reality crashed into my unnatural concerns and I cracked.
One page into the story I had to excuse myself. I walked outside of the classroom and began to openly weep. Now imagine that sight! You are a teacher and in your hallway there is a 6’2. 275 pound, tattooed man crying. I know some people will think this is ridiculous behavior for a grown man, but I really don’t have much respect for those people.
I was crying tears of joy. I had realized what my reality was. It was not what car I drive, how much money I make, or any number of other things I dwell on daily. It was my family. Before you say thats because I don’t have to worry about money, remember where I came from.
I regrouped and returned to story time. Dante and I reading OUR story to the delight of his class. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, and I am still reeling from it as I write this post.
It’s strange how the universe chooses to bring us back down from the great heights we create for ourself. Hopefully I can hold onto this grounded feeling for a while.
To start, this post is more of a therapeutic exercise for me than anything.
In the last 12 months I have:
1. Seen our company grow from 2 dudes (Jordan Kasteler and I) to 12 full time employees, with a bunch of awesome clients
2. Worked with some awesome people to create another company that is launching called Second Step Search
3. Traveled all over the country and world speaking (over 90 days of travel booked in 2009)
In that process I lost myself.
It’s funny that when you begin to have success in some areas of life, no matter how minimal, you lose focus on others. The culprit was an ego that began to develop. It clouded my judgment, it changed my focus, and almost cost me my family.
The difficulty is that our society, and especially the Internet world, puts success on the same plane as ego. It is as though the two concepts are not to be separated, and penance is allowed for one because of the other.
This has become exceedingly clear to me in my travels this year, as I saw people even putting ego before success, figuring perhaps that a sheer projection of their own value is all that is need to accomplish goals. The concept to me seems to be nothing more then “fake it till you make it.”
But still, in July, I stood completely lost, thinking the world, and everyone in it revolved around my greatness. My breaking point is something that is private, and not really fodder for this blog, but it was life changing for me. Several realizations occurred based on this event:
1. In the grand scheme of this universe, time, and space, my small business accomplishments mean nothing. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but as people our legacies are not often formed from our career based actions. Actions themselves can form a legacy, but often these are not self serving. In the end, we will all be gone, and what we will be remembered for is what we gave to this world, not what we took from it. For me personally, I see my family as my legacy, and the reason I started down this path was to improve life for them, and enrich the possibilities for my sons.
2. If you feel you are already the best at whatever it is you do, you will be hard pressed to learn anything that will help you grow. This is a firm reality. If you are the smartest person in a room, who do you have to learn from? The answer is, everyone else in the room. This is a concept I really began to understand when I was teaching. I learned more in my time as a teacher than I have at any other singular time period in my life. Those kids taught me about life, relationships, how to create community, and a myriad of other lessons I still hold dear. Ego, stops this entire process. You have nothing left to learn because you are the best. Everyone’s opinions and ideas are inferior, so why even take them into account?
3. I had, since my time as a teacher, prided myself on my kindness towards other people. I had completely lost this. I no longer cared about anyone but myself. Who should I care about? I was the most important person I knew. The funny thing is that much of the success Search & Social has, has been based on the reputation Jordan, Loren, and myself have for being kind, stand up guys, that people wanted to establish working relationships with.
4. I had always been fiercely individual, and now was allowing myself to be put into a role everyone expected of me.
In the months following these realizations, I have done a ton of soul searching. In the end I realized, ego almost destroyed me. It was not the reason for my minimal success, it was an ugly bi-product. This realization is hard to swallow, but it saved me, and it is something I stay conscious of now as I navigate through my personal and professional life.
This is not to say people shouldn’t be proud. Pride in ones accomplishments is natural, and deserved, but there is a clear difference.
Pride is defined as -
1. A sense of one’s own proper dignity or value; self-respect.
2. Pleasure or satisfaction taken in an achievement, possession, or association
Ego is defined as –
1. The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves.
2. In psychoanalysis, the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior, and is most in touch with external reality.
3. An exaggerated sense of self-importance; conceit.
Ego, by definition, is not reality, based on external factors, and self involved.
One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give to young entrepreneurs is to set aside time everyday to reflect on who you really are, and how that person has led to your successes or failures. By grounding yourself in that firm reality, you will find more success than you ever would falling into the trap of ego.
The title “Most Dangerous Man on the Internet” is a tongue-in-cheek poke at people that believe people like myself are the most evil people on the planet. It’s insane hyperbole on their part. Sure some of what I have done can be characterized as “spam”, but in the end I am a realist and do not see any purity in the marketing game.
It is at its purest form:
the commercial processes involved in promoting and selling and distributing a product or service
Not exactly feeding the hungry.
However, I have not always been the spammer and wretched master of Internet manipulation I am now. In fact, I used to have a truly noble profession, I was a teacher.
In 2005, at the age of 23 I decided I was not going to be a famous musician and needed to get a real job. Armed with a degree in the always sought after craft of Creative Writing, pickins were slim. So I decided to try my hand at teaching. I was hired by Westglades Middle School to teach 7th grade English.
Imagine the terror of being 12 years old and walking into your classroom the first day of school and seeing me at the dry erase board.
Recently speaking at Bend WebCAM
I spent the next three years teaching. There is no profession more noble than that of an educator. That is a fact. The patience, understanding, and sacrifice of the educator is something that is overlooked in society. This becomes profoundly clear when you are in the trenches, working with kids and scraping by on very little pay.
During my first year of teaching I had one of the most emotional periods of my life. I got married, my best friend died, and had my first son, Dante. I had a family to support on a teachers salary, and living in South Florida was expensive so I moved my family into my parents house to save money and basically make ends meet. It was insane, and demoralizing, but not as demoralizing as what came next.
Homelessness.
For my family, our situation was not as serious as the epidemic that faces nearly 500,000 people in this country. However, we did lack a safe, permanent place to live, and nothing has ever scared me more. A series of events led to my family being without a place to live shortly after Hurricane Wilma. Basically here were the events (Update: I was the direct cause of my housing issues. No one was to blame but me. I thought I made this clear when I first wrote the post, but wanted to clarify. My parents are awesome, and although they loved this post, I don’t want anyone thinking negatively of them. I don’t and never will blame others for my mistakes):
1) Hurricane hits
2) Parents + My three person family loses power for an extended period of time
3) Tempers flare
4) Two large men get into confrontation
5) 1 family has no place to live
We were not on the streets, so put away the tissues. We were quickly taken in by a generous friend, and I found a way to get my family into a home. The only way I could make this happen was getting a roommate; again I was demoralized.
Here I was, a productive member of society, and I coudn’t support my family. I couldn’t even get us our own place to live. I was shaping young minds and trying to figure out how I was going to make my student loan payments to pay off my own education.
This was not the place for me. So I began to tutor on the side, and work 16 hour days to get us out of the funk. Nothing worked out for me. There were times we couldn’t pay rent. There were times we had to borrow cash for groceries.
12 months past. Wounds healed with my family, and I wanted to save up to buy a house, so in my infinite wisdom I decided to move my three person family back in with my parents. I think you know what happened next.
Homelessness.
So after a few months a series of events led to us not having a place to live again and being taken in by another charitable friend. The series of events:
1) Parents + My three person family get on each others nerves
3) Tempers flare
4) Two large men get into confrontation
5) 1 family has no place to live
Within a few weeks I was able to scrounge up enough money to put my three person family into a 700 square foot one bedroom apartment. I broke. My third year of teaching I decided my life had to change. I could not raise my son like this, and my wife had been promised more than this when we married.
But what the hell did I have to offer the world? What could I do to change my fate? I was good at writing, teaching, and playing bass guitar, none of which were lucrative professions on average.
I began to scour the web for paid writing opportunities, and began working for a number of fantasy sports publications and scouting minor league players for some baseball sites. It was pretty cool, but tiring. I would work all day, tutor for a few hours, then travel to Jupiter to watch the minor league teams play, and finally end up in front of a computer writing updates on fantasy sites for a few bucks an update.
I wondered what would happen if I took what I was doing for other sites and did it for my own. I started a blog, BigDaveonSports.com (I let it lapse long ago). I didn’t know what a CMS was, so I just hand coded HTML web pages.
Sidenote: If you want to understand HTML and on page SEO, you should really be able to code a full HTML webpage in notepad.
I began to learn about SEO, analytics, how to monetize a website, the importance of unique content, and how to run an editorial calendar. I devoured everything I could read about websites and how to market them. I made a decision.
Job change.
I took a gamble, one that was fought fiercely by everyone I knew. I was going to leave teaching and find a job in the web world. At first I thought I would just find a gig as a content manager at a web design firm, but soon I began getting calls on my resume about SEO and online marketing. I didn’t know a ton about the topics, so I devoured more and more information on the concepts.
I got a new job.
I learned more, became better, worked in a competitive niche, and learned how to control the SERPs. I learned how to handle large PPC accounts. I studied even more. I began messing with social media for branding and link building.
Some people in life are lucky enough to find the career that is a perfect fit for them. Internet marketing was tailor made for me. I could create concepts to drive traffic and leverage search with ease within less than a year of my career change. Insane amounts of study and a knack for creativity were a perfect mixture to create a successful Internet marketer. When I talk to SEOs now who throw around how long they have been in the business I happily tell them I have only been professionally doing this for a portion of their lengthy career, because in the end talent and drive are what this game is all about, not the number of years someone has been mediocre.
Within six months of changing my career I was helping a large company achieve 30% growth in the travel space through organic search, a 700% ROI on average from PPC, and had a successful branding campaign running for them via social media.
Within 1 year I was writing for my friend Andy Beal at MarketingPilgrim.com.
Within two years I was speaking at my first SES.
Speaking in Denver on a Black Hat/White Hat Panel with Frank Watson and Scott Polk
Now I co-own one of the most respected search publications on the web, and an industry respected search agency. I work alongside some of the best minds in search, and most innovative companies online.
Me with two “bad men”, Dave Naylor and Todd Friesen
This isn’t the full story, and there were plenty more hardships, but I want people to take something away from the portions I have shared. Everyone has talents that if given the proper opportunity can equal success. Hard work + an understanding of your talents + luck = success. You control the first two components.
So when people attack me, and call me a spammer, or tell me I am a bad person because I market online to make money, I shrug it off. I wonder if they have ever wondered where there 1 year old son is going to sleep at night, or had to scrounge for rent. I wonder if they have ever been afraid of the future, and the life they can give their family. The reality is that the only people whose opinions matter to me live in my house, the one I can now pay for every month without a worry.
So yeah I am a bad man, the most dangerous man on the Internet, but more importantly I am a husband and father that worked his ass off to give his family the life they deserved, and in the end those are probably the only titles I actually care about.