I was recently asked to write an introduction about myself. I’ve never done it in this “No Holds Barred” way.
Life has been a ride so far. Not much has been planned. In fact, most of it has been reactionary and circumstantial.
Life has been been fun, miserable, and brutal at times. But I’m still here.
So let’s go. Many stories will be glossed over – countless people as well. But here are some highlights.
I’m not sure how I’m still alive. Based on everything I’ve done I should be wealthy, I’m not. While I’ve created a ton of success and made a lot of people a lot of money, I’m pretty average in the money category. I have had money and enjoyed it, but I’ve also given a lot away. More than I want to mention. I have combined loans out totaling mid-7-figures. I doubt I’ll see a penny. Don’t do loans – do gifts, it’s easier.
So I’m John, I used to be a hacker. My handle was Cookie Monster and I was in a group called Rowdy American Distributors.
I was fortunate to avoid prosecution on a couple of occasions. Operation Sundevil was the last time my parents and I had visitors to their house because of me.
I also avoided an early death more than once. The last time, a good friend of mine was killed. That was around 1992. I could have been with him that night. I’m glad I wasn’t. Look up “Honor Roll Murder”. This single event kind of scared me straight.
At around this time, I was finding something else… Something legitimate. Something that would turn my life around. It was marketing…and it also turned me back into a lifelong student.
You see, at around the time of Stu’s death I was working for a professional speaker and sales trainer. We helped Realtors do more business.
That’s where I met Robert Stover.
He was the marketing guy and sales trainer. He’s still one of my best friends today. And like me, he’s also a student and practitioner of marketing. He continues to be a huge influence on me.
Anyhow, Robert was a fan of Jay Abraham and Robert brought Jay in to do some marketing.
I watched them transform a boiler room operation into an order-taking call center – all with the power of direct mail – right as the mail hit.
A year or so later I went to work for Jay. I sold events while managing, tracking, and measuring the success of the endorsed mailings.
I wanted to be like Jay. Or, I at least wanted an operation like that.
So I left to go out on my own.
Not so long after, Jay’s old partner, Bill, gave me an early beta version of Mosiac (later Mozilla and now Firefox). I immediately started building websites, aka online marketing systems.
Robert and I had always stayed in touch. We went on to co-create a direct mail marketing system that used postcards to drive traffic to websites. It was his idea and I hacked the code and then expanded the functionality.
There were no email lists at the time so how else were we going to drive traffic? There was no Google…
What we created was quite unique for the time.
We put a spin on it by assigning each recipient a unique code. They’d enter that code when they visited the website.
Upon entry, the owner of the site or their sales team was immediately notified. They were able to see in real-time where that person was on the website via a backend interface.
The website provided each visitor with a dynamic and personalized experience. It both greeted them by name and morphed, in real-time, giving them semi-custom copy based on what we knew about them and their needs.
One of the applications for the system was the mortgage industry. We offered the application as a SAAS to banks, brokers, and loan officers for lead generation. I ended up selling that off.
We also used the system to promote America’s largest pest control company. We estimate that this single campaign generated over a half-billion dollars in revenue over a little under a decade. They continued to use it but I no longer had access to any data.
My agency touched over 100 then Fortune 500 companies. But I’ll chalk that up to hard work, luck and timing. I’m pretty sure I did about everything I could to screw it up. Had I been a few years older, more mature, and wiser, it could have been many times more successful than it was.
I was part of launching PetInsurance.com with my good friend Damian Raffele. He’s got quite a story as well.
We, with a lot of other talented people, grew that from $107,000 in annual revenue to over $50,000,000 in new annual policy generation within three years. This didn’t include the ongoing recurring policy renewals. And it kept growing.
Damian went on to work for Nestle/Purina and then VCA launching their pet insurance networks. Both are now multi-billion dollar networks.
Damian and I are back to working together on some things and Robert pitches in here and there.
Anyhow, I sold that agency in 2001. I tried retiring while playing pretends rock star. I played no instruments and couldn’t sing so it didn’t work out. I also did the startup investor thing and was CRUSHED in 2007/2008.
Then I “got to” start working again advising companies and creating software.
Oh, in between all of that I found time to sue the Catholic Church. I was an altar boy. That was an entirely different experience. And I get triggered every time I see the ToeCracker dress up as a priest. Just kidding.
So here I am. Still studying. Still learning. And I’m doing my damndest to help best-of-breed companies get their wares into the hands of the right consumers. This makes client selection EVERYTHING.
So that’s me…
Damn… I just wrote a book.
And this is why my wife gets really nervous anytime anyone asks me what I do. In reality I should answer this question by saying, “Whatever it takes.”
Have a nice day!
PS. Robert was connected to Nightengale Conant. He’s the guy that bridged the Jay and Tony Robbins deal.
PPS. Why’d I join the group? Figured I’d learn a little something.
PPPS. Just because I was a hacker and have done things, it doesn’t make me smart. I don’t see myself as being smart. I don’t see myself as being particularly good at much. But I’m never satisfied. I see most things as a problem, even when they are working. And I’ll never stop trying to make things better.
