Marketing
I’ve always been fascinated by marketing. Since high-school, when I learned about why some companies succeeded and some failed, it always seemed like marketing was a major factor in that equation. Crafting the right messaging, being consistent, and coming up with new creative ideas to get a companies name out there was something I definitely thought I could see myself doing.
I got my degree in marketing from The University of Olivet, and was ready to enter the workforce. Unfortunately, I was quick to learn that the majority of “marketing” roles available are actually sales jobs dressed up. Having a hard time finding a true marketing role, coupled with the fact that I had just moved to a new city, I decided to branch out on my own.
I started learning how to build blogs and grow them using digital marketing. Being fresh out of college, I didn’t have much money so naturally I gravitated toward the least-expensive form: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The plan was to create blogs in niche’s that I was interested in (which started with gaming and brewing beer), get traffic to the blogs using SEO, and monetize the blog through ads and affiliate links.
While not necessarily financially, I believe the venture was quite successful for a first attempt. I was able to get 3 keywords into the number one spot in Google, and earned a few dollars between affiliate links and ads. The experience I gained creating these blogs helped me get an actual marketing job with a media buying company, which ended up being both a good and bad thing. It was great because I was finally in a marketing role earning a salary, but unfortunately I stopped working on the blogs and let them lapse. I ended up losing both, but ITalkGames is poised to make a comeback!
The role I received was performing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) with the company Mindshare. I was on the Dyson account and performed many duties related to paid online marketing. Those duties included:
- Writing copy for our search ads, maintaining the clients’ tone.
- Updating the ads periodically to reflect current discounts and to point to the correct, discounted, landing page.
- Monitoring budgets: ensuring that our spend was pacing evenly each month and quarter, ensuring each product category received the correct percentage of funds, and shifting dollars between accounts and campaigns when spending strayed outside of the designated parameters.
- Created and maintained the shopping feed, ensuring the product, pictures, and descriptions matched; adding new products; adjusting to reflect sales and promotions; and fixing any discrepancies.
- Created weekly reports to compare performance to the previous week, and determined the primary factor for any major differences.
Together, our team of 3 broke Dyson’s US online sales records for Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend two years in a row.
Trading/Investing
Financial success is a primary goal of mine, and I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about how to achieve that. One of the things that came up over and over again was the fact that the average millionaire has 3+ sources of income. So I searched for ways to make money that could be done in a relatively short amount of time each day/week, and that wouldn’t interfere with any “primary” roles I may receive.
In that pursuit, I came across trading and investing. A lot of conventional wisdom says that the markets are the way to riches, so I started figuring out how I could take advantage of them for myself. The main thing that I’ve learned is that the pursuit of knowledge in the markets is never-ending.
I found that technical analysis made the most sense to me. I’m good at recognizing patterns and better at following rules, so that was the best option for me. I also found that I prefer the Forex market, as the size and liquidity seemed more conducive to technical trading.
Eventually, I was able to get in with a proprietary trading firm; which allowed me to work with other traders on a daily basis. The firm taught me the framework that makes up the basis of my trading plan now, and I was pacing to reach the highest level a trader could reach within a year when Covid hit. Unfortunately, the chop that was brought in to the markets due to Covid derailed my progress, and changes within the firm caused me to feel as though they no longer had my best interest in mind. I left the prop firm, but didn’t abandon trading.
Wanting to diversify further and earn from the overall growth of the market (rather than intraday movements), I started looking in to developing a long-term portfolio. Based on what I learned, my appetite for risk, and the sectors I wanted to be invested in now and in the future; I put together 18 ETFs that make up the fund. I gave each one a percentage of the total portfolio that I want to maintain, and as of right now, I update it quarterly.
I continue to learn and grow my trading prowess (and account size), and am constantly looking for ways to be better. Check out my investing and trading blog to stay up-to-date on my market moves, and maybe gain inspiration to get into the markets yourself.
Content Creation
Trading Blog & YouTube Channel
We live in an age of monetizing your hobbies, and given my financial goals I can’t shy away from that. I’ve already mentioned this a bit, but I’m at a point where I’m looking for multiple ways to make money from the things that I do.
And truthfully, I’ve always really liked creating videos — ever since I started making basketball highlight reels back in high school. Conceptualizing a theme, editing clips together, finding transitions, and nailing the timing on music brings me a lot of joy; and adding this to my repertoire is a no-brainer.
I’ve already mentioned the trading blog, but the next step is to launch a trading YouTube channel. In the beginning, I plan to simply post videos similar to my articles: here’s what I saw, and here’s what I did. I’ve got some ideas of how it may look in the future — providing more advice potentially, or a live show/streaming component — but for now It’ll largely be a video version of the blog.
ITalkGames.com
Additionally I’m a gamer, always have been, which is why I started ITalkGames back in 2014. There was a lapse with that site, but It’s coming back with more of a film forward focus.
I don’t think I want to do reviews, necessarily. Maybe just first thoughts, and talk about the mechanics, camera angles, controls responsiveness and intuitiveness etc. But I might want to differentiate and simply post my gameplay without any sort of rating or grading.
It’ll evolve over time so check out the blog, IG and YouTube channels to stay up to date. I play a lot of different games, and again, I’m still figuring out exactly how this is going to look, but I’m excited about it so stay tuned.
Check out those channels, and let me know what you think! They’re new, so if you’ve got any feedback, let me know under the videos.
Hobbies & Interests
Outside of financial pursuits, I’ve got many different hobbies. I enjoy reading — largely nonfiction; learning about how the world works and broadening my perspective — and I wish I would write more.
Cooking is intimidating, but I take baby steps toward getting better at that. I’d love to be able to make something delicious based on a random assortment of ingredients, rather than straight-up following a recipe.
I try to remain athletic, playing basketball and golf as well. I like to think of myself as an eclectic person with various interests, but maybe I’m just scatter-brained and can’t focus on one thing for too long. Either way, I’ve collected a lot of experiences and gained a lot of skills; and I love my ability to bounce between topics and disciplines.