Disclaimer

I do not proclaim to be a good writer because frankly, I don’t like writing.  The only reason I’m blogging is because I’m interested in building some equity behind my name and want to become a recognizable and credible source in the online marketing industry.

Education

I’ve earned a Bachelors Degree in Finance from Northeastern State University.  I’m interested in obtaining my Master’s in Finance and Accounting from the same university.  I’ll be looking into taking my GMAT and getting accepted into graduate school in the coming months.

Background

A friend of mine introduced me to the industry and showed me the ropes in November 2006.  From there I started making money a blackhat method until sometime in January 2007 when the method no longer worked.  I never really learned anything about the industry at this time and never attempted to become a legitimate affiliate.  Then came November 2007.  At this time, I didn’t have a job and I didn’t want to get one, so I figured I would actually do some research about the industry and try to make some money online..  I tried until January 2008 and failed miserably.  I didn’t have any real money to backup any PPC campaigns, so I was left trying to do SEO.  I hated it and eventually gave up.  After literally only making a few bucks, I gave up, again.  From there, I found a day job doing title work on foreclosed homes all across the United States and was focusing on that.  Then came December 2008, I had finished school and it was cold outside so I couldn’t really do anything but sit inside and be on a computer all night.  Finally, I decided to try to make some money online again.  This time, I had saved up some money and was able to provide myself with funding to get everything off the ground.  Luckily for me I found a profitable PPC campaign pretty quickly and I never looked back

Exhaustion

After only a year at the day job, I was promoted to Title Team Leader at Fidelity Residential Solutions.  I had been putting in a good 40 hours of work per week at my day job and working at night and on the weekends and probably putting in another 30-40 hours per week doing affiliate marketing.  Putting in all these hours was really taking a toll on me and it was hard for me to do affiliate work because I was getting so tired of never having any fun.  Plus the morale at the day job was pretty low because we had gone through numerous layoffs over the past 10 months.  I found out we, again, were going to have more layoffs and I decided to volunteer for them.  I wanted to see if I could make it as a full time affiliate, even though my affiliate income already was more than my income from my day job.

Affiliate Life

For a number of reasons, I founded an online marketing company.  I decided to name this company, Riis Media.  It was officially created September 28, 2009.  It’s pronounced just like the word rise and since a lot of girls like to call me Ri, it’s somewhat like a possessive form of that moniker.  And it sounded brandable so I went with it.

As of June 23rd, 2010 I became a full time affiliate.  So far, it’s been real tough trying to keep a normal scedule and forcing myself to work, when I know I can do it at any time of the day or night.  I’m getting better at managing my time more effectively.

If you have any other questions, just check out the various ways to contact me below.  You can also learn a great deal about me by reading my interview on Jonathan Volk‘s blog.

Contact Me

The best way to get in touch with me is to shoot me an IM on AIM. My screen name is rileypool.

I always encourage any affiliates to add me on Facebook. I’m horrible with names, but I remember faces really well. Plus I like putting a face and name to all these screen names I see on AIM or WickedFire. So click the Facebook badge below and send me a friend request.

And, of course, you can follow @RileyPool on Twitter.