In 1998 Jack Humphrey started getting serious about breaking away from bosses of any kind. He dabbled and made mistakes trying to find the illusive “easy way out” and didn’t start full time until 2002 when he launched his first ebook “Power Linking” which became the seminal guide to link-building on the web.
Today, his company is on the leading edge of what’s new and what’s hot online in connecting directly to your online audience. They deliver membership services and consulting for marketing, branding, social marketing, search engine optimization and link building.
Take it away Jack…
Tell us about your business?
Humphrey: Our main project now is Social Power Linking which is a membership that contains all of our social marketing training.
Authority Site Center is a 3 year-old membership site where we train people to build “authority” sites with social media, blogs, and professional marketing and content development tactics along with exclusive software.
NetSmartMedia.com is our PR firm which handles full-service social marketing, branding, and publicity for clients who are too busy for the do-it-yourself option.
Did you go straight from corporate employee to full-time entrepreneur or did you transition from part-time to full-time entrepreneur?
Humphrey: It was a transition. I was never a corporate player. I was a professional in the environmental movement as an executive director and activist for 11 years right out of college.
Humphrey: It took 4 years to become serious enough to transition by realizing I needed to do something remarkable to get noticed and start gaining momentum as a player in my niche. Once I figured out my angle (no one was talking about link building the way I was and I saw my “in” by writing Power Linking) I quickly went full time “overnight.” It just took 4 years for that overnight success to be realized. I don’t recommend anyone take that long and today no one has to if they follow the right people and have a good work ethic.
Tell us about your first years as a corporate employee turned entrepreneur .What did you learn from those early years that helped you to move your business forward?
Humphrey: It is definitely about who you know. Once you have something to offer in a market niche, the way to explode on the scene is to diligently network among the players in that niche to get them to give you a leg up via a joint venture or publicity in front of their people.
What do you know now, that you wish you would have known then?
Humphrey: That there is no such thing as a “cookie-cutter” way to make money online. I kept thinking I could sign up for a network marketing program or other money-making scheme and get by with the tools they gave me to market their products. Problem is, all 10000 of the other people in the company are doing the exact same thing and to really win, you have to be remarkable. Stand out. Blaze your own trail and be different.
Approximately how much money did you have to invest before your business became profitable?
Humphrey: I worked for non profits for 11 years. I had nothing to invest and no savings, 401 k, nada. I literally started with an internet connection and an idea and followed it through by leveraging joint ventures and getting any kind of publicity I could get for free.
What is the single most important piece of advice you would give to a current corporate employee who wants to become a “weekend entrepreneur” first, then grow a business?
Humphrey: To never doubt whether you are cut out for it. At one point in history the corporate gig was what everyone did until they retired with a gold watch and a pat on the back. These days all the rules are completely obliterated and the only thing I can imagine that holds people in the cororate world is the regular paycheck and lack of entrepreneurial spirit.
If you aren’t comfortable with forcing yourself to take a risk now and then, you can’t get very far working for yourself. Practice by starting on weekends and days off and see how you like what you can produce in profits and go from there.
I find it funny that people will leave their cubicles for the weekends and sky dive, bungie jump, or hike in bear country, but when asked if they’d risk the “security” of corporate life to venture out on their own, they don’t like the prospect of that risk.
My feeling is you either have it in you or you don’t, but even the people who don’t have the gumption to go full time can make extra money on the weekends.
Many of those people eventually find that they like it so much, or their ideas, products, or services are so good, they have to go full time.
Who should read your “Authority Black Book 2008” eBook?
Humphrey: Anyone who wants traffic. The alternatives to social marketing are heavy search engine optimization (big learning curve) and other traditional, less effective marketing tactics. Social marketing is more effective than any other form of marketing and especially for beginners who don’t want to spend a year or two mastering harder tactics.
What’s next?
Humphrey: For me, it is growing both our memberships into the thousands and doing far more offline publicity for the businesses. I continue to hang off the edge of the web looking for nuggets from the future to bring back to my members and clients. The real power of the web is being out front and being first.
For your readers? Getting started. Do it gently and take your time on weekends and evenings to see all the possibilities the web offers for all kinds of businesses you could get into. If you don’t explore and allow yourself the time to get familiar with how others have “made it” you will become discouraged very quickly.
Read the Black Book and immerse yourself in the social scene. Have fun learning. And know that at some point you are going to come up with an idea that is going to be worth pursuing and just might be the idea that launches you into total independence. I can tell you that, for me, there is absolutely nothing in the world I would rather do to make a living.
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And so dear readers, there you have it. You can start out with no capital investment except your time, and you can do it in your spare time, and on weekends. And from the looks of what Jack is up to, there is no better time than now to just get started.
“100% of the shots you never take, don’t go in”
–Wayne Gretzky
Michelle Price
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Online Business, Starting a Business, Growing a Business, Boot It Up, Information Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.3 Responses to “How One Regular Guy Left His Day Job”
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[…] How One Regular Guy Left His Day Job - Humphrey: Our main project now is Social Power Linking which is a membership that contains all of our social marketing training. Authority Site Center is a 3 year-old membership site where we train people to build “authority” sites with … […]