I have an array of different sales experiences.
Ever since I could remember Ive been selling something. When I was young my mother and I traveled and we worked fairs and carnivals. Yes I was a carnie... I sold everything... balloons in the day, light ropes at night. Food stands... I even helped people with knew with their booths. I would work the game booths and entice people to come play. Knowing what would get who to come to you. tough guys, chicks, kids, moms... whatever. No circus freaks or nothing ;) just lots of traveling and selling. I only did that during the summer while I wasnt in school.
A couple summers of that and the mother decided to buy a store to run. So we bought this old convenience store with a gas station. with it came a bookkeeping office that we owned, but did not operate. While we owned it for some 9 years i guess we built a cafe/restaurant adjacent to it. Ground up. I was young yes... But I dealt with a lot of the business that no 10 year old should be expected to deal with. I did everything from maintain the register for hours to dealing with merchants on the phone. If there was every anything dire or important about it, I knew and helped decide. At 10 i may not have decided too much but at 13 and up I most certainly did.
So we ended up selling that whole place and moving on. we just lived for awhile. Then we invested in another restaurant. It was a take over so we didnt start from scratch or nothing. But that alone has a lot to deal with. I helped order goods and chose what dispensor or whatever to go with. I helped with ads that were put out. I promoted us at city functions such as chowder(coastal town) cooks and what not. Getting people in those seats!!!
That actually didnt last too long, Nealry a year... Our partner that we teamed up with turned out to be crooked as fuck. So we split.
I finished school. Lived for a year doing nothing... Well, now that I think, I did help out some ravers and advertise them online and across town. Got people in the door. but nothing really worthy of this.
So thats restaurant and store experience. Mostly justw ork, but I did deal with merchant accounts and ordering product. Some advertisement.
Now for Adult...
I first got into the adult business with my own phone sex company. I was in charge of everything online and a small portion of the bookkeeping. We aquired and have maintained our own merchant account ever since. When involved in high risk adult, that alone, dealing with visa and mastercard is an ordeal in its own. I went through the ups and downs with paypal. I am also looking into aquiring my right to use paypal for adult transactions again. Thats where I started in adult.
When I first broke into the adult world I met 2houseplague and he taught me a lot. He introduced me to Mikie Mike, He got me into submitting. I did that for awhile, learning the ins and outs of a ground floor affiliate. While working with Mikie Mike he introduced me slowly to Niko Bimini, but that comes in later. To Date, one of my best friends!
So I started peddling galleries... mid 2005 area? While doing this I used what design basics I learned in high scool, Photoshop and some premiere. After doing my own thing I started offering my services to others as far as galleries or any other design prohect I was given.
Soon after I started making money with my ground level work I was approached by Mark from E4A. He needed someone to take care of his affiliate management. So I did that for awhile. I helped affiliates get content, place ads, help make their ads more clickthrough worthy or intriguing... I learned a lot and gained quite a few affiliates for them. We brainstormed over icq and the phone a lot to come up with new things to help both the surfer and more so the affiliate. Lots of laughs and good ideas came from our ear sweating phone calls, all dealing with making sales in the end. A few motnhs later I parted ways and continued on down the road with my own things. Mark and I are still great friends and we still trade knowledge back n forth as far as SEO and design n shit...
So for a while I just kept doing my own thing. I think I might even had an offline job for awhile then. But still doing shit online every day.
Then I became closer friends with Niko. It came about because I was promoting his sites a lot then. I made a good sum of money then from him, mayors money and raven riley was booming! I started helping Niko affiliate side. Same stuff I did for E4A. I even built some sites from ground up.
I did that up until Bimini Bucks merged with NSCash. From there The NSCash crew handled pretty much everything fromt here. Once in awhile I come into play to deal with hosting or something. But I havent had to for nearly a year now.
I teamed up with guys at HawtMoney for nearly a year to help in their growing empire. I guess I wouldnt say I was sales involved as the other places, but I would say I did my fair share of brainstorming layouts and enough to do with sales for it to count.
I help out numerous comapanies currently with their every day needs. Peter Romero from POVCash for one. Im sure he would attest to me helping him with every day stuff. Anything from customer service to watermarking photos. Again, long phone calls discussing marketing tactics.
I still receive raven riley checks, ccbill checks, tcg and a couple others check sources that I havent actively promoted for a few months now. Mostly due to dedicating my time to design and other progressing skills, just less traffic pushing. Id say thats a good sales quotation. They are trickling down, but shit be growing elsewhere
So thats pretty current. All through there I helped out whoever has approached me. No I wasnt on phones with customers. Nor was I selling directly, well besides my affiliate checks. But networking, knowing how to sell and setting up others to sell well is all sales. One way or another I was making money on my sales or being paid to help others with their sales.
Magnifying clickthrough ratios and methodically placing psychologically color schemed layouts according to specific niches is a good know how as well.
Also, again, as I have many times in the past... I am not just a designer. Thats just what I offer to the majority of the people here. Im an inside guy. I can help in most every area. If I can't, I know who can.
Still Learning and Churning Every Day...
Jesus, can someone get me some mother fucking cliff notes?