Antone is the creator of White Hat Crew, and the owner of Gecko Tribe, LLC. He's an internet marketer, blogger, and programmer.
Unlike some people who know what they want to do by the time they’re out of diapers, my path to internet marketing has taken a few twists and turns.
I don’t recall what I might have wanted to do early on, but by the time I graduated from high school, my interests were mostly in writing and music. I entered college as an English major.
After a year of college, I took two years off, which I spent in Japan. By the time I returned to school, I was thinking more practically (which may or may not be a good thing!), and registered as a math major.
Math is one of my strengths, but it didn’t take long to realize that math majors spend 99% of their time studying mathematical abstractions rather than the interesting real-world math I’d studied up till that point (hey, it was interesting to me!) And they take very few classes that deal with history, philosophy, the arts, etc.
Next, I considered majoring in business. I soon decided that marketing was the only area of business that wouldn’t bore me to tears. But before I could switch majors, I switched schools and ended up as a Japanese major instead.
I considered double majoring in Japanese and marketing, but eventually decided it would be better to graduate in whatever major I could complete most quickly. Japanese beat out marketing by one semester.
After graduation, I worked for a few years in the Japanese department of Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, first as a software test engineer, and then as a programmer.
The 3 1/2 years I spent there were good, but then in 1998, it was time for a change. Aside from a few short stints as a contractor, I’ve been working independently ever since.
Today, I’d describe myself professionally as a programmer, internet marketer, and blogger.
Personally, I’m a husband, married since 2002, and father of three.
Yesterday, I pointed out that affiliates, as well as vendors, can sell more by letting customers get to know, like and trust them (and the people who's products they promote). Today, let's talk about how to do that.
I'm reminded of of something else I wrote recently in my post about why you need to...
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You've heard it before: "customers buy from people they know, like and trust. So let your personality shine."
That's fine if you've got a product to sell, but what if you make your living as an affiliate? Does the advice still apply?
In short, yes. But not only in the way you're thinking.
The obvious...
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by Antone Roundy | Deals, Podcast, Premium Content, Special Reports
I'm a little late posting today, because I've been putting the finishing touches on something new: the White Hat Crew Inner Circle. I'd been thinking of doing something like this for a while, and my interview with Terry Dean last month (which I published a few days ago) pushed me over the edge.
The Inner...
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My wife and I had been thinking for a while of getting Amazon Kindles, so when dad asked what we wanted for Christmas, we decided it was time. Let me share the good and bad of my experience so far.
Since wireless internet is available at home and church, and we don't anticipate needing urgent...
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by Antone Roundy | Coaching, Entrepreneurship, Interviews, Mailing Lists, Marketing, Podcast
Last month, I interviewed marketing coach Terry Dean. I went in with 6 questions, expecting to come out with a nice little blog post. What I got was amazing. Terry gave the kind of in-depth answers that a lot of gurus would package up and sell you as MP3s with an upsell to get the...
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by Antone Roundy | Marketing, Podcast
To write persuasive sales copy, you need to know your target market. Obviously, you need to know how your product can help them. And it clearly helps to understand their deeper reasons for wanting the solutions your product offers.
But to maximize sales, you also need to know things about them that have nothing to...
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by Antone Roundy | Podcast, SEO, Traffic Building
Once upon a time, there was a chicken. This chicken loved to win. As luck would have it, the pigs on the farm where he lived sponsored competitions of all sorts every week. He competed fiercely, and often won.
After a while, the chicken got cocky. :-) One day, a cow dropped by to tell...
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My post yesterday riffed on one by Daniel Levis about how to probe deep and find product benefits connected to your customer's identity.
Today, Terry Dean posted an article about selling solutions to desperate problems:
The mistake my clients made was in never interviewing and asking questions of the buyer to find out what their...
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Copywriters will tell you that to sell a product, you need to talk about its benefits rather than features. Nobody cares about a feature unless it's tied to a benefit. In fact, some products are so bloated with features that they just get in the way of benefits.
Copywriters will also tell you that you...
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I wasn't planning on blogging on New Years Day (particularly since it's Saturday), but SEO Content Factory tempted me with an idea, and I couldn't resist.
I was glancing over a list of upcoming product launches from JV Notify Pro. I've seen these lists many times before, but it got me thinking about my "more...
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Split Test Content, Exit Intent Popups, Hover Stripes, Seasonal Ad Rotation, and much more.
TriggerNote is an Interaction Engine for your website. Use pre-configured "Recipes" to create exit hover ads, exit interstitial ads, etc. Or mix and match your own combinations of over 20 Triggers and Actions to make your website respond to visitor actions, grabbing attention, and customizing on the fly to speak to each unique visitor.
Hi.
I'm Antone Roundy.
I'm a strong believer in ethics, and have always tried to practice and promote ethical behavior in an industry where many slip over to the dark side.
At White Hat Crew, I'll share insights into internet marketing, with extra emphasis on ethical issues.
Read my Internet Marketing Ethics Manifesto
Join a Blogging Team
Blog & Tweet Easier
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New to this blog? Start Here
Riffs on a Purple Cow is a Kindle eBook containing collection of articles I wrote, inspired by Seth Godin. Download your copy from Amazon.com.
It's also a demonstration of the blogging and business method outlined in my eBook, "How to Build and Operate an SEO Content Factory", which you can download for free in either of these formats:
PDF | Mobipocket (Kindle, etc.)
