I Started Out As A Child…. Entrepreneur!
- Image by patersor via Flickr
I think many people in Network Marketing probably displayed some type of entrepreneurial signs as children.
It started out with a lemonade stand, of course, but not satisfied, I then progressed to a full scale carnival in my tiny back yard. I was about 7 or 8 years old.
I recruited the help of 3 neighborhood buddies and we put together quite a show including carnival games for cheap plastic prizes, a daredevil show featuring me jumping Evil Kenevil style, with my 5 speed black Schwinn Bike, over a pan filled with flaming charcoal! Luckily the jump was successful and I suffered only minor 2cd degree burns. ha-ha. But the girl next door was Very impressed 
We even put together a large haunted tent with blankets hung on my mother’s clothes lines and a Black Light and Strobe Light I swiped from my older hippie sister (summer of 1970). Lucky for me my mom was a restaurant manager and worked long hours or I would have been in big trouble! I think we grossed about 15 to 20 bucks. We split the proceeds and cleaned out the corner store’s candy shelf.
My Teenage years were just a blur of sports and raging hormones!
My entrepreneurial spirit again surfaced in my early 20′s after having been laid off from a good job as a computer room worker for an insurance company. Out of work for almost a year and getting to spend some quality time with my first son who was about one year old, I got into online gaming on the internet. Playing a game called air warrior, a very realistic online WWII flight simulation game, I decided to build a website for my squadron.
I signed up with this hosting company and discovered they had a reseller program. They ran contests monthly and awarded cash prizes for the 3 top resellers. One guy always came out on top. I connected with him and learned his tricks and before I knew it I was the # 2 reseller and my site was ranking in the top 10 in the search engines!
Turns out the owner was as crooked as they came and regularly cheated his resellers on the commissions and his servers were always going down! He had told us to offer a 90 day money back guarantee but he never made good when someone wanted out. So because of his crappy service and false advertising, I ended up personally giving people full refunds even though I had only made a small commission!
Enough was enough! I did my homework and leased my own servers and have run a successful and reputable hosting company of my own for the last 11 years after the 1 year of reselling. My mission was to provide honest, reliable service that people could depend on.
I also dabbled in some network marketing while running the hosting business and worked a night shift job. I did pretty good but the network marketing company I was with changed from a network marketing platform to direct sales. I had recruited probably 30 people and brought in one guy who also built a big team under me and I was earning a nice monthly income from that but now that was all gone.
I was upset but still had a good hosting business income and a regular job. I was actually able to retire from my regular job for all of about 2 years until the hosting business got crazy competitive and the economy got worse . Big companies were super low-balling on price and making crazy offers of unlimited this and that. I ended up losing almost half of the clients I had built up.
I could not compete with these super low prices and lies about servers that never ran out of space. To match their offers I’d have to lie to people for one thing and jam to many people onto each server in order to cover my overhead and still make a profit. Servers tend to go down a lot when you overload them. That’s just not my style. I like to look at myself in the mirror and have a clear conscience.
I still have a very solid very loyal client base, many of whom have been with me for 8 to 10 years or more and it is because I give them honest personal service they have come to count on.
I am again back in network marketing with an amazing company, in a great team and I am on my way up again. This time I’ll be careful not to quit my regular job to soon but it will happen and this time for good!
That 7 year old’s Carnie spirit has once again taken hold of me and now that I think about it, it has never really left!
I know many of you have childhood entrepreneurial beginnings and I ask that you please leave a comment and add your story! I think it will be great reading!
May The Driving Entrepreneurial Spirit Live In You All Forever!
To Your stress Free success!
Tim Langen
Phone:610-837-2955
Skype: timlangen47
t...@easybusinesstoday.com
#1 Home Based Business, Period: http://www.easybusinesstoday.com/1
Let me show you how to get 1st page search engine ranking Using the power of Empower Network
PS : If You Do Not Not Have a Step-By-Step Blueprint For Success, Check This Out (Unless You Already Have Too Many Leads) – Click Here For Instant Access
Incoming search terms:
Related Posts
Tagged with: • business • entrepreneur • entrepreneurial • entrepreneurial spirit • home business • Network Marketing • recruiting
Filed under: Goals • Internet Marketing • Share Your Experience
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
News
Hi Tim,
your story is another prove that being an employee doesn’t seem to be the natural order of things. Why would children be natural born entrepreneurs then ? And you took risks, didn’t you, regarding your Mom
Thanks for sharing your story, I could totally relate to it.
Take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend recently posted..Lessons From Robert Kiyosaki’s “Cashflow Quadrant” For My MLM Network Marketing Business
Haha. Yes Oliver. I took lot’s of risks regarding my Mom!
She was a force to be reckoned with and an exceptional entrepreneur in her own right. Thanks for the comment.
Hello Tim, What a great story, We are able to learn a lot about you in just a few words. It is great to be on a team with you. Thanks, Andrew Gallop
Andrew Gallop , Leadership skills recently posted..Leadership With Numis Network Coins
Thanks Andrew! I enjoy seeing your comments on the team Skype chat. We are lucky to be on a great team like this at this time!
Hey there Oliver,
I can truly say, I was the same way as a child. Whether it was a lemonade stand, a paper route (remember those), cutting grass and shoveling snow…. It all lead me to wanting to become self employed.
LOL… I also remember jumping my Schwinn orange crate bike over a ramp I built and dam near killing myself.
Great post man!
Later,
Anthony
Anthony McNeil recently posted..MLM Leads- A New MLM Lead Generation Tool
Thanks Anthony! It amazes me that most male children do actually make it to adulthood in spite of all the crazy things their parents do not know that they are doing!
Cool Story Tim!
For me, I came from a family that didn’t have much growing up but always willing to do whatever to make some extra money to get the things I wanted. It helped me appreciate things a lot more.
Robbie Johnson
Home Business Revolution Underground
Amen.
Tim you are the true definition of “unemployable”!!! I want to instill those same principles in my son at a young age just as they were for you. I don’t have a son yet, but you can bet I will share your childhood experiences with him and instill in him that he can create and accomplish any and everything he desires in life. That was an awesome read my friend!
Thank You Dionyos. That is very kind of you! It is really all just a matter of mindset. You CAN achieve anything you want as long as you are willing to do the work to get there no matter what. As I did in the Hosting Business, you must do the same in Network marketing and follow the example of those who are successful and do what they do and you can not fail to succeed.
Tim, Sounds like you have an inbred entrepreneurial spirit that has and will serve you well. I enjoyed your article and it reminded me of some of my earlier not so successful endeavors.
The one I remember most is the time I decided to sell used Christmas Trees. I figured that I could offer year old trees at a lower price so I gathered up all of the neighbors trees after Christmas, when they had been discarded and placed them in our basement.
When my father discovered the “used” trees in our basement, he was less than pleased, and told me to put them back where I got them. I believe he also explained that the trees would not be saleable the next year, but the main thing I remember is the end of my young enterprise.
Not sure how old I was then, but it was before I was old enough to realize that Christmass trees do not live long after being cut, and to be indoctinated into the “go to school, get a job working for others” theory.
Now yeaars later after years of working for others, and more years owning a “regular” business, I am in the network marketing business and trying once again to “build my own business”.
Thanks for the memories.
Intimately, the submit is definitely the freshest on this laudable topic. I slot in along with your conclusions and will definitely thirstily sit up for your approaching updates. Merely saying thanks undoubtedly won’t simply be satisfactory, for the fantastic lucidity in your writing. I definitely will immediately seize your rss feed to remain informed of any sort of updates. Stable work and likewise much success in your corporation enterprize!