Online Marketing Intern bfield3 I’m sure many of you have been patiently waiting to see the outcome of my Online Marketing Internship applications. I received dozens and dozens of applications and last week I selected the two most qualified people for this project. I was going to select 4 people originally – but the quality just wasn’t there, I wanted people I was certain could commit to completing the work.

So – please meet Online Marketing Intern Bill Field:

Hello,
My name is Bill, I’m in my late 40s and I live in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. I’m married for 20+ years now and have a son and a daughter, both in college. My son is majoring in software engineering and my daughter is dual majoring in criminology and psychology. Some of the things I enjoy are wood working, digital photography and any type of outdoor activity. I’ve been teaching myself to play the guitar, which I really love even if I’m not that good yet. Next summer my wife and I plan to start doing some long distance touring on bicycles. I’m really looking forward to that, probably more than she is 🙂

For the past 18 years I’ve worked in the AIDC (Automatic Identification and Data Collection) industry. The past 6 years I’ve been an application engineer. For 16 of those 18 years I absolutely loved my job. We were a privately held company and I had great respect for the owners. However, nothing ever stays the same. Two years ago we were purchased by Honeywell. About the same time Honeywell also purchased one of our major competitors. Since both companies did roughly the same thing there was a lot of job overlap. Many people from both companies lost their job and many others left on their own to work elsewhere.

It was about that time I realized I probably will not be able to work at Honeywell until retirement. I also thought I should be able to have a business of my own and not have to work for “the man” the rest of my life. Even if it was just a part time business to make some extra money. There had to be something I could do to supplement my income and save some money for that inevitable day.

I’ve always been an internet junkie and have always realized that people are making money on the internet and thought I could do that – but I had no clue how. So I started researching. I spent countless hours, days and months trying to figure out what it was people were doing to make money. Eventually I found out about internet marketing. Wow – what a relief, haha! Because next I started researching internet marketing. I spent as much time trying to learn internet marketing as I’d spent trying to figure out what to do online. I subscribed to email lists for every single internet marketing guru I could find. The emails rolled in day after day, boy did they roll in. Fifty to a hundred emails a day I was getting from all these gurus. And I’m still getting them. By no means was it a waste of time. I learned a lot going through all those emails. However, I found myself chasing every single secret method, new hot opportunity, the next get rich quick business model. But, I never did pay anything for any of these systems. I simply took whatever free information they were willing to give and added it to my arsenal of knowledge.

Which brings me to today. For the most part I’m happy where I am and what I’ve learned in my journey. Until that fateful day two years ago I had never built a website, I couldn’t tell you how web hosting worked, had no clue what internet marketing was and didn’t know what an affiliate program was.

Although I’ve learned a lot, I have not learned the technique. I’ve got so many different thoughts that go through my head I don’t know where to begin. What’s the best way to do keyword research, what’s the advantage or disadvantage of long tail keywords, how do I pick a product or market to go after, who are my competitors, WordPress or custom built? The list of questions goes on and on. I’ve known for awhile now that what I need is the opportunity to work with someone that has been there and done that. Someone that could give me the skills I need to make the correct decisions. That’s why I’m very grateful for this chance with John. He’s been there and done that and knows the angles to go after and the pitfalls to stay away from. I’m looking at this internship just like a college class. I’m not worried about making a lot of money, but I’ll admit, anything I make is nice. What I am really hoping to get is an education in internet marketing. If I can get that then I can embark on the next leg of my journey with some direction.