A question to Older Warriors..Are you Here?

Hi Gabby, I considered myself pretty old here (5 years) before I read this post.
I'd also love to know how many of the old warriors are still here.

Hey Gabby, I'm slightly old

But you can hit me up on Skype and I can spare you a few minutes of my time each week to help you with the tech stuff. You don't have to pay a dime, just for 'old time's' sake

Louis

P.S - My ID is Louisken20

I've been here for 6 years. I was still a high school student back then. lol Made lots of amazing connections here. I love this forum.

As for tech stuff like the one's you've mentioned it does sound hard but most of the time, it's not. You'll get better as you keep implementing. Autoresponders are just a one-time set up. You only tinker with it again when you do some testing. If you think things are a bit too tough, you can always hire an assistant. ;-)

As for challenges, consistent traffic and lead flow was my biggest challenge.

The reality is that most veteran members have left because of the degrading state of the forum. Just look around: half of the posts are written by semi-illiterate people.

It's such a shame this happened, but hey, everything has an end, right?

Oh!!!!

You joined this forum when i was in 6th standard

anyway, nice to see you here once again ^_^

I joined this community years ago, so, yes, I am here!

But first, a quick trip down memory lane. Down FidoNet. Archie, Veroncia and 9600 baud. And who could forget the revolutionary 3.5" floppy disc.

That would be circa 1985, and we were a leading seller of both Apple computers (IIe, IIc and the new MAC) and "clones"; those IBM licensed knock-offs.

Me and a fellow salesman were selling computer pieces and parts online, on green screens with text.

It was all geeks, and commerce of anything other than computer related was verboten. Then, in 1994, a local computer company set up one of the first "forums", a company also involved in one of the first "libel" lawsuits.

In 96-97 we got RoadRunner cable from Time Warner, and BOOM, off to the races.

I have recently recovered data from a couple of old hard drives. On these were archives from some of the forums from 1997 to 2001, including
the Tony Blake forum, Friends In Business, Dave Bancroft forum, Bill Myers web site and private members site, known as the Idea Bank and the early days of Allen's forum.

So, yea, there are a few of us 'oldtimers' left. (We prefer geezers).

Now about your situation.

Yes, there is new technology. And new IM, a great advance in TRACKING and monitoring sites, eye tracking technology, all the best practices...so there is or could be a lot to learn.

BUT,

Consider Jinny Beyer, whom I first wrote about in 1997, in the original version of Before You Buy Anything, who has a "low tech-high touch" business, quilts.

Patterns have been a mainstay of her business.

So, I would encourage you to look around and write down what you've been doing the last decade, the good and the bad...what interests have you maintained?

What do you enjoy?

Or, as I've been known to ask, What do you want?

Simple question often tough to answer. The well thought out and considered answer contains the seed of your NEXT.

We still eat today, we still need safe drinking water (think Flint, MI), businesses still need customers.

We need clothing, and social activity.

There is far more OPPORTUNITY for you today than there was when this forum began. The entry costs for IM are almost nonexistent.

DON'T LET THE SHINY NEW techno stuff and latest and greatest software be a deterrent to you.

I remember talking to a guy (Corey Rudl) about how much the Internet was ripe and ready for those with selling, Remote Direct Marketing or Mailorder or Direct Response experience. He bought a course I was offering on the subject.

Over the next few years, he got 5 times more money out of me for his products than what he paid for mine, and it was worth every penny, he was a true pioneer. But the principles of selling haven't changed much.

So, I'll end with a simple question,

gabbydeb, WHAT do you want?

gjabiz The Ancient One.

I first joined in the summer of 1997.

I joined in 2009 but had been lurking since the early 2000s.

Following WF since 2005. Wish PayPal service was available in my country at that moment, but had to wait years after.

Hey Gabby! Hope you're doing well.

You're a very senior and experienced in internet marketing. Since long time you've been doing it. I just wanna know what's the significant changes you're noticing current internet marketing procedure to 5 or 10 years back internet marketing.

created my first website in 1999 .. joined this place after a 1 month ban at bhw.

still here and finally making money (it took a long, long time)..

I don't know if I would consider my "old" LOL. I just turned 41. I started online back in 2005, so I guess in the whole scheme of things I haven't been doing it that long.

I remember how different it was back then, though. It seemed like it was SO much easier. You could still game Google rankings back then, or actually you didn't even have to because all you needed to do was publish a Squidoo lens and get some backlinks and it would shoot to the top of page 1.

You could still direct link from Adwords to Clickbank sales pages, one page websites, etc. Oh, the good old days... You could buy a domain, redirect it to a Clickbank sales page and publish a bunch of 300 word crappy articles in dozens of directories and make over $100 a day easily.

You could ad swap the crap out of your list, use misleading headlines, email your list 10 times a day and still never lose your autoresponder account. Oh, the good old days...

Well IMO, I'm kind of glad the "good old days" are over!

Just curious. You said you were around since 1998 and when warrior first started.. and more interesting is that you mentioned you were building your list. How big is your list currently? and how many sales do you generate from your list on a weekly bases?

Yep...started in 1997...in the middle of university. This account doesn't reflect that because i was very inconsistent back then; i forgot my account details and just set up a new one...anyway...

Here's how old: my first affiliate sale was for an ebook that Cory Rudl was selling through his company IMC. I saw him on television and jumped online right away.

I started affiliate marketing and really made good coin for a long time, but i never took it seriously as my job was, well...my job right?

I blew my money as i went because it was just a game to me then.

I suddenly became ill about 5 years ago and really had no internet no media...nothing.

It blows my mind how much i had to relearn but thankfully the fundamentals are evergreen.

Anyway I reinventing my business for my sole source of income but this time I have to REALLY bootstrap it.

It's gonna be fun.

~Hodge

Hi Gabby I haven't been around as long as some of the others. Since about 2005/06 from memory. The WF has changed in both positive and negative ways I think. I don't sell ebooks, coaching programs, MMO products or do any traditional type of affiliate marketing or anything like that and instead focus on content and new technology so the challenges I face are a bit different to others. When I work on traffic for my content sites the best method I have found is the simplest and that is to pay for it. Think about it like this your product is essentially your content and your traffic and your customer is your content consumer but also your advertiser. If you can create great content and pay for high levels of high quality traffic which you can turn into constantly reoccurring traffic then you have ticked both boxes and the advertisers will roll right in. Where you get that traffic from, how much you spend, what methods you use is another topic altogether.

If I can give you one tip it would be to look into things such as 3D printing which in my opinion is a huge new industry which we have barely scratched the surface of and there are a lot of opportunities there. And I'm also a fan of crypto and decentralising technologies because I think they offer a world of new opportunities for people all over the world and at all levels of startup costs and know how. There is a link in my sig for one emerging technology in this field that I personally think will have a very big disruptive effect and for the guy on the ground floor there are plenty of opportunities in the way of core development, app development, farming and general investment and trading opportunities.

I've been here for 11 years, mostly as a lurker but planning to rev things up soon. I'm probably one of the older Warriors here in terms of age (I'm 61) but have had a very successful 40 year marketing career winning numerous million dollar sales awards. I made a post on the old archived Sow Pub forum about a lot of things that I've dabbled in through the years. I remember the early internet days when bulletin boards were the hot moneymaking thing.

Here is a post I made here about three years ago in a response to someone mentioning Don Lapre...

Actually, Don's "Tiny Classified Ads" was a knock-off of M.O.R.E.'s "Dialing for Dollars" program by T. J. and Eileen Rohleder. And they copied it from a a guy in Toronto, Canada named George ???. He was the originator, I believe, of the program. His original idea was selling job info through newspaper classified ads and people calling his answering machine for more info... the "jobs" classification is the largest and most read in the classifieds. Some of his titles included how to get jobs on cruise ships, airlines, Federal Government, etc.George eventually graduated to running 30 second TV ads during Sunday afternoon movies.

And I remember when Mike Filsame was a green newbie. Here is a freebie I found with Mike telling his life story .... very interesting reading.... http://millionairemarketingbootcamp....e-Filsaime.pdf

And here is an oldie but goodie video interview with the mailorder king himself ... Joe Karbo ...
Enjoy,
Jerry

I started marketing online in 1994-1995 just after a portion of the Internet was sold to MCI (MCI.net) which finally made commerce online "legal" - before that it was illegal (technically - commercial services ran tsince about 1991- like email servers etc but largely because they were a service to the government and educators) but real ecommerce was forbidden because the most of the backbone for the Internet was owned by Arpanet (look it up) i.e the Darpa, DoD i.e. the government.

Anywaz...as soon as that was finalized I setup a website (sales letter online lol) - html hand coded in a single text file - and set myself up in bizness. Sold a book (30 page report I photocopied) on how to identify and make money sell 'used and rare books'. In order for people to order they had to call me on the phone because there was no PayPal then... Haha ... I then took their cc info over the phone and ran it through my "mail order' merchant account.

It was crazy that people actually called me to order this book. I think it was so new that people just were thrilled to "order something over the interwebs" at the time.

It's ALWAYS a challenge to keep up with the latest shinny object but that is NOT how money is made.

The way to really make money online is through great offers that entice buyers and great copywriting... technology is secondary and even last in the pursuit of riches.

Actually over the years I hardly ever visited the forum. Just happened to stop by tonight - forgot why lol - Used to love Sow Pub as someone else mentioned. Tony Blake used to call me on Fridays and Marlon Sanders and I still talk... but many of the old timers have gone on to do other things I guess, like me.

Keep the faith baby... but focus on great offers and copywriting... of course you have to have good products!... but forget trying to keep up with the latest tech.

Just my two cents...

Love and peace,

Webbie

I think old means being wise

Oh, this thread makes me go through my memories of the last 10 years. I've been a member of warriorforum since 2007 and started with internet marketing 2-3 years before that. What made me jump into online marketing? Well, somewhere in 2004 I read about Corey Rudl and his "Car Secrets Revealed". It was a story of a pioneer internet success back in the 90s. It made me realize the difference between marketing something offline and online. It was so inspiring to me that I really wanted to learn how to use tools on the net, I wanted to be able to use internet any way I wanted. I started to read anything I could about affiliate programs, about creating my own products. I was so enthusiastic. I participated in everything... Site Build It, Insiders Secrets To Marketing Your Business on the Internet, I applied for CJ, Sharesale, Linkshare, Amazon. I've used all CPA networks, I even joined Cafepress. Back in 2005 it was easy to make money with webhosting plans. I remeber putting a simple website with webhosting plans and doing AdWords - that was it! AdWords back then was nothing like today. You could use thousands of keywords to promote anything - no penalty. Quality guidelines of the landing page - nothing to worry about. Sending PPC visitors directly to Amazon allowed...Oh it was so fun. SEO? You could just create a domain with the right domain name, then create profiles with links and you're on the first page. Someone mentioned Squidoo...I created Squidoo lens back then named Travian Cheats. I was number 1 on Google 3 hours later, thousands of visitors pouring in and clicking on my affiliate offer for free movies. Promoting dating sites like Plenty of Fish was so easy...I better stop. It makes me cry thinking about how strict everything is today. It must be said though that today things are much better regulated and that makes it harder for manipulators to clutter internet with very bad stuff. Today internet is a better place when it comes to removing unfair practices. People used to put out thousands of pages of automatic robot made posts which were unreadable and of no use whatsoever, but were outranking really good content and making money just because they were there on the net in thousands. People used to be dragged on the page with nothing useful to read or see and almost forced to give money with endless popup windows. Was that something that makes sense in the long run?? No. Internet is different today, many things are much better today. Bad, manipulative practices are much better deterred and prevented. And don't ever think that those bad practices would always work for you, they would also work against you. Why? Because you build your income on something that is in constant danger and then one day you're left with nothing. Remember Google going after thin affiliate sites? Remember Facebook suddenly shutting down accounts with ads promoting get rich offers? Constant fear and danger of being shut down? There must be a better way! There still is lots of opportunities today. I'm making money today too. If you find a normal legit way of promoting stuff online that works - there's nothing better than that! It's a stable concept, it's not stressful, it's making money...Anyway thanks for this thread, it made me think about things I haven't thought about for a long time.

I've been here a while and I'm also old So I guess I meet both of your criteria.

I agree with you. My hardest challenge is the techie stuff.

Rose

1998? Oh how I wish I got in that early. You guys know a lot of things we don't.

Well, I am still here but mainly active in the OT forum

When I first joined in 2002, I was onto e-commerce and had a shop with 4 employees. In 2007, I shifted completely to selling links and decided to wind up the shop. Those were my best days as an IMer. I was one of the largest private link sellers around. Then Google hit me hard in 2008 but I still lingered on with link sales until late 2013. That was when many sites with fake high PRs appeared on the market and Google decided not to update PR anymore. That was when my link sales completely collapsed.

Since then, I am completely in affiliate marketing but it has been very volatile. My Adwords account got suspended for promoting Clickbank products and I have had a tough time in creating new Adwords accounts. Right now, I am quite fed up but I won't leave IM because I need money coming in.

Derek

Not sure what constitutes as old but
I've been here for roughly 7 years?

I was a young guy making all kinds
of money too immature to keep it or
do anything with it...so I spent it
on...sinful things.

My challenge is staying focused and
consistent on my work but, it's a
lot easier now that I've grown older
and been around the block a few times.

Also, a clean diet of fruits and
veggies gives me energy ad clarity
unlike ever before for peak performance.

Posting to see my join date

Still here.. still active.

Take heart! Yes... technology has changed significantly since
I bought my first info product from Jim Daniels way back when
but the basics of marketing haven't changed... and will never
change... because human nature will never change. People will
always respond to the same basic stimuli.

Spent almost 5 years here and learned a lot. Always ready to share whatever i learned.

wish we all could list some names those days that still make us remember WF for generation to come

I actually dabbled a bit with Internet Marketing around 1998-2000 while I was in high school to earn some extra cash without getting a job. I made some websites dedicated to my favorite video games back them (mainly strategy guides.) SEO was real easy back then.. I just stuffed all of my pages with my game name, linked out to 20+ related game sites, then emailed those sites asking for a link back. Once I got a few links back, my sites started to rank in the search engines. Then I put some banner ads on them and got people to click on them.. only made like $7-8 a month until the ad companies went bankrupt around the dot com bust. I pretty much lied about my age to get accepted to their advertising programs but didn't have any problems getting paid.

I then went to college and pretty much forgot about IM until late 2014.

Hi gabbydeb,

Well, I'm only 6 years old here so I guess that makes me a youngster here, but I will tell you my story anyway.

So yes, I'm still here, and around....

My journey started with stuff I bought from a person called Avril Harper, yep! She is alive and kicking at Business and Money Making Articles by Avril Harper

Then I went to SBI Site Sell where I made my first $ (or maybe before Avril Harper? I can't remember...). After monetizing my first site, I've sold it and then started new ventures.

It all started around 2007/8. Anyway, I'm here and in better shape than I ever was

you mean back when Paul M was the only moderator, and you had to wait for your posts to be checked by him before they went live.

hell yes, bring them days back hahahaha

Gabbydeb - Remember these? I was a member of IMW before this forum even existed.

There are so many Massachusetts residents in this post, scary lol.

I consider myself to be a WarriorForum newb.

(I've been trolling online since the early AOL days, and never really even knew about the WarriorForum until recently. I'm not sure why I joined in the first place... I forget)...

But here I am.

Wow!... Did this thread get lively or what?... I posted in the hope that perhaps a few of the Older Warriors that dropped would see it, and say hi and share maybe some older stuff from the "Olden" days and talk about how health might be a factor today, in their internet marketing efforts, or perhaps they are now retired from that, and out enjoying the good life. LOL I never expected the thread to just go wild!.. It was wonderful seeing all you guys.

So I was wondering if any of you would consider taking perhaps 15 minutes to talk and share your success, experiences, what lessons you learned along the way, and perhaps part with some gold nugget ideas that could get one excited, and their mind hopping, where they can hardly wait to finish reading, and get going! ... I know in this thread, there is wealth of information and ideas, so I thought you might like to have a little fun , and put your "Internet Marketing Warrior" Hats on again!

If so, how would you like to do this?... perhaps something where an affiliate product could result, of if you have a product, that you have an affiliate product program setup for, then maybe writing a page, that could be a chapter in an ebook, with your affiliate link? I have a couple of ideas that I was thinking of, but would rather speak privately with you who are interested. They may be good ideas, or maybe not. In fact, this whole suggestion might a good idea or maybe not. Anyway these were just some thoughts I had.. Sooo...

Regards,
Debbie

Yes I have been on the Warrior Forum now over 5 years But find what worked then is not working today. Even what worked last year is not working today So I take a couple of hours a week researching what people are doing to generate traffic It works very well Hope it helps Robert

lol.. what is your definition of old?

I've been on here a few years, and been a part of this industry for a few more.. not as long as you, but sometimes it feels like a life time

I built my first website in the mid-90s but it was for a job, not for myself. I built a linux box out of spare parts, connected it to the internet, installed a web server and hand coded every html page and cgi script using vi. It was for a university department where I was a student so they didn't exactly throw cash around.

I built my first personal website in 2004 but it wasn't for making money, just a vanity site. This time around I used Bluehost, installed Wordpress and customized a few themes and plugins by writing a little php code. It was a fun way to keep connected with family before Facebook took off.

I built my first internet marketing site in 2014 so I'm only in my second year. I wanted my site to have quite a bit more functionality than a typical blog so I coded it from scratch in php rather than using Wordpress. The success of the site has left me constantly amazed. I probably owe at least some of that success to advice I've read here on WF.

I keep reading that this forum used to be better before I joined so I sure hope the decline is not my fault. Here is what I consider my most valuable contribution to the community:

From $2 to $1,500 per Month, My First Year as an Amazon Affiliate

I'm happy to report my site earns $2,000 per month now and I hope to pass $3,000 by the end of the year. Here's to continued growth!

I was 6 years old in 1998, so no! However, I have been on the WaFo for a while considering my age ...

Hello Deb!

Ive been here from 9th March 2011 and so far i have got some good feed back from fellow warriors and have improved and earned alot by implementing those to my work

Happy forum posting

getting well aged in a few catagories :-)

Been here off and on since about 2001 or so. Took a long break and when I came back after a major forum update my old user ID was locked and mods then told me to just create a new ID instead. So had to start a new one.
I used to be a silent mod on FriendsInBusiness. I'm sure many have heard of that BBS. It had a bad reputation among marketers on forums like this as it was largely a scams site but mostly populated by no-doers. No offense toe MaaMaw, RIP, that that's really what it amounted to in large part. But it served it's purpose - to help people avoid IM scams.

You know its all mindset. You can have the best tools and products in what ever market your in but if you don't have the correct mindset you are not going to succeed. In anything.

Once I started to change my thinking and perspective then my results started to change and I started making more consistant money online.

Good points about how FB has changed the way we interact, people are always stating that the forum traffic has decreased and no doubt this is true but lots of things have changed online over the years.

Nice to see some "old" names in this thread.

Hey everyone, I am new here. I just wanted to thank you all for all the help you have given me - of course without you knowing it! (I just finally got a user name after reading all your posts for a while)

Thank you Warrior Forum Veterans!

Hello...
I have been scrolling and reading the posts in here and I forgot to quote the one I wanted to respond to..

I enjoyed reading the sharing of other warriors and the OP and I felt I a connection. I may look young but for experiences in online marketing, I can say I am old. I think I tried a lot of money making ventures online. I burned a lot of money testing a lot of things.

And now, what is left for me as source for making money is adsense, affiliate marketing mostly with clickbank products, info product selling, and marketing CPA offers.

I feel I am back to square 1 particularly on how I generate traffic to create sales and that is:
1. Forum marketing
2. Affiliate marketing and making sales from Organic traffic.

No more Adwords, Facebook Ads, Media Buys and other paid ads.

Great post :-)
I consider myself very young, and there are tons of new things to learn in these days (I do business on the internet since 15+ years)

I have been here over 5 years. I still love this site.

I originally started under a different user name in about 2005.

I was 50 years old trying to learn about IM.
I was in the construction industry and even though the economy went south in around 2008, it hit the construction industry way before then and I was out of a job at 50.

Let me tell you, near impossible to get a good job at that age and I was a regional manager responsible for the territory from Boston MA south to Charlotte NC and the east coast.

One day I couldn't sign in here anymore, forgot my password or something so I just lurked for a couple years spending more time on webmasters world and wealthy affiliate.

Than I signed up again in 2009 but no time to really to hang around and post.
So much time can be wasted here when there is work to do.

A lot has changed except the questions asked by noobs; you must learn how to research is all I can say.

Now I'm 65, one more piece of software to launch that should put the frosting on the cake and I'll be saying adios amigos.

Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet

lol