Don Hill

Born and raised in rural Northwestern California, my parents owned and operated a small grocery store. I learned the philosophy of customer service at a very young age - it was impressed upon me by my parents, who would often remind me that "Every single person who walks through that front door pays our bills. We always need to recognize that or they'll go to another store if they feel they haven't been treated the very best we can."

Little did I realize how valuable that lesson would be later in my life, when I became a business equipment technician, repairing photocopiers, typewriters, dictation equipment, calculators - and ultimately, personal computers, printers, document scanners, and other such "high-tech" equipment. I made it a point to give each and every client my best effort, and to be forthright with them at all times. I learned in the equipment service industry that if you can "fix" the customer's anxiety and mental attitude about the equipment, the actual job of repairing the equipment was a lot less stressful for all concerned.

Having risen to the position of service manager for the company I worked with for nearly 13 years, I unofficially "retired" in November 2006. I had been studying the internet quite closely - especially internet marketing. The entrepreneurial spirit of my parents tugged at my mind, and at last I finally made a commitment that I would find a way to provide for my family through my own internet business.

There are far too many "adventures" to go into here. Suffice it to say that it didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen without some very stressful times and heated conversations in the Hill household, but I finally found a combination that worked after meeting some very generous people - my mentors - who saw my determination and took me under their wings so to speak. Mind you, most of these mentors were half my age - but I already knew that wisdom doesn't come from age, it comes from a combination of knowledge and experience through actions.

October 29, 2006 was the last day I ever worked as an employee.

While my primary pursuits are affiliate sales, I'm also a proud member of DirectMatches - a paid (subscription) social networking community - having joined back in 2005. As I write this, there are close to 12,000 people in my DirectMatches downline team, and the number of new people joining our organization are in the hundreds per week. Out of those thousands of people, I've only sponsored a relatively small handful of them myself. I'm the moderator of the "Networking - No Ads Please" forum, which is one of the few moderated forums in the entire community (if Carl is into "moonlighting," I might have a gig for him).

Of course I have to say that one of the people who had the most influnce on me was - and still is - Mike Dillard. I bought Magnetic Sponsoring back in 2005, and it was a pivotal point for me. Mike reawakened all of those lessons I had learned when I was young, working in that family grocery store, and showed me how to apply those lessons to the internet. I've been an ardent student of marketing ever since.

Finally, I also co-host an internet talk radio program with my good friends and associates Jim Cobb and Diana Kerekes called Google Me Talk Radio, which is hosted on BlogTalkRadio.com. On the program we share with our listeners what we've learned in our collective experience, but more importantly we talk with independent entrepreneurs who call in that are involved in all types of  legitimate online businesses. Our listenership is rapidly approaching 25,000 so we must be doing something right!

If you're reading this because you're still in the process of trying to figure out how to make things work for you online, I'd be more than happy to lend you a hand. I'm a firm believer in the "pay it forward" principle, and knew deep down that the Law of Attraction existed before anyone else told me about it - the revelation was simply an affirmation of what I already knew to be true. I've had the assistance of many wonderful people, and now my principles dictate that it's time to pay it forward even more.

It's my own personal belief that we're on the brink of a new economy - an internet-based economy. Those of us who are already here and working are still "ahead of the curve" and opportunities abound. All you have to do is look, and to follow your own passion.

That's not really just about me - that's about you. But then again, I'm about you too - so it actually fits!