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February 04

What’s My Story?

There isn't really spectacular story or anything worth making a movie. It's pretty simple. I've always been intrigued by technology ever since I got my first Commodore 64 and Atari. Things were never quite the same after that and the world, right? Using the latest gadgets or working on computers came easy for me. So easy that I decided I would pursue a Computer Science education.

After 5 years at University of California, San Diego, I didn't quite fit the mold of an engineer. Although I grasped the concepts, I couldn't handle the disciplined commitment to work all day, all night and all week in the labs. Freaked me out actually! After I exhausted my financial aid, I left for San Francisco. It was here in the beautiful Bay Area, I met my wife. But that's a whole story for another time. =)

At the dawn of the internet, I was able to land jobs at several Fortune 500 companies, while attending school. I worked for the following companies, some hi-tech and others, dot.com 1.0, others non-tech related. But for keep things related to hi-tech, here is a list of companies, I worked for:

Ziff-Davis, Information Access (Foster City), Quality Assurance Software Technician
Electronic Arts (EA), Video Game Tester (FUN JOB!)
ABS-CBN, The Filipino Channel, Technical Support & Quality Services
Egreetings.com, Customer Service, E-commerce Support, and Intranet Developer
Escalate.com, E-commerce Customer Support

Somewhere in between Electronic Arts and the Filipino Channel, I started my own company, called In-touch Communications. I was a reseller of Paging and Cellular technology. This company was a result of me reading, Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I had never thought of starting my own business, I was always taught to get my own job and retire at 65 yrs of age. Well, my eyes were opened. I was able to see the bigger opportunity and freedoms of having my own business. I was hooked. My serial entrepreneurialism was released. Eventually, as the technology world changed, I was unable to compete with the big boys. Pagers were slowly decreasing and cellular giants started giving away free cell phones. I sold the business back to the carriers and came out even in the process.

This is getting longer that I expected. I'll have to shorten this story. I moved my family to Washington state. I was hoping to start a business, but needed something secure first to provide for my family. I landed a job with Verizon and it was here that I learned a lot of what true customer service is and should be for every business. I received some of the best training ever which would later help me in my future businesses.

After a two year stint with Unisource Worldwide (one of my favorite companies - made a lot of dear friends), I decided to launch my real estate business. I was going to be the next Donald Trump. I had taken every Real Estate investing course there was and spent thousands educating myself. I was financially qualifed to obtain loans and purchase real estate, but the world wouldn't cooperate. My first few deals resulted in a bidding war, which I was horrified to participate in. Most of my offers were getting out bid by $10k or more. Crazy! Now we are seeing the result of those deals, were they simply paid too much for a property!

Anyway, before I exhausted all my family fortunes, I decided to become an insurance agent and stay away from real estate for awhile. The bidding wars weren't me and I used all my real estate investing education to purchase my 2nd home. I rented out the first home and now I was officially an investor. That's all I needed. I figured I'd wait out the frenzy.

Well, I earned my insurance license after 3 exams. I passed the Farmer's Insurance sales qualifying test, by selling 90 policies in 90 days. I was quite proud. Then the promise of a Draw salary of $60k a year fell apart. Stupid me didn't read the fine print, where it stated they would match a percentage my earnings up to $60k max a year. Well, for every policy I sold, I made approximately $100 bucks. If I average 30 policies a month, that's only $3k a month and then tack on the $1,500k - it simply wasn't enough for the work I was doing. I left disappointed that I didn't catch that and they didn't emphasize it more.

I became a Life Insurance Agent. I was getting good pay, made great commissions and everything was moving right along. I had just earned Agent of the Month for my sales (millions) and got a bonus. Well, something happened and if you ask me I'll share a quick story but I'd rather not post it here. Needless to say, after becoming a top agent, I resigned immediately. Basically, I had to choose between my family and work.

I then became a real estate agent and quickly went to work. I joined ZipRealty and loved their internet focused model. They had all the latest technologies and man, I was in heaven. But there model proved to be a bit to constraining and I left for John L. Scott. I wanted to build a niche business in New Construction. I partnered with one of the top agents in the South Pierce County. Despite the economy, I had a really good 3 years. My last year in 2008, I peaked and contracted 10 deals in a month. My final deal in 2009, was my highest commission ever for one deal, which allowed me to not worry about anymore deals for the rest of the year. During my real estate career, I managed a few marketing systems, helped others and set up technologies for other agents. In doing so, it re-sparked my passion for the high tech world and I had been away from the internet for awhile and was intrigued by this new Social Media thing...

To Be Continued...

R. Anthony Solis

About RAS - R. Anthony Solis is a Small Biz Technologist, consulting in Hawaii and over the internet. He specializes in internet solutions to help a small business grow, operate more efficiently and work smarter. The ultimate goal is to achieve a balanced life.

6:21 PM GMT | Read comments(1)

A Fresh Start (Again)...

After several attempts at building niche websites for my business, I'm shrinking the whole idea to one website. It proved to be too much work. My lack of creativity or ability to write witty posts, made it very challenging. After much thought, deep meditation and a week-end retreat (just kidding folks!), I'm re-habbing my original and oldest site, www.ranthonysolis.com.

What's awesome is the OfficeLive Team at Microsoft, have implemented some really cool features. It makes the WYSIWYG editor more versatile and I also have the ability to get into the website code. Very nice! I haven't used OfficeLive for about a year or so, as I started to learn about the WordPress world. As fascinating the WordPress culture is, I'm comforted by the familiarity of Microsoft.

So what's my plan? Not too sure as of yet, but I want to make ranthonysolis.com, the center of my online presence. I will be featuring the various technologies I have earned a certification and I feel is of some value. So far it will definitely be the following:

Top Producer 8i (TP) - Real Estate Business System (Certified Consultant)
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) (Authorized Microsoft Partner)
Sophos - Data Security & Management (Certified Trusted Sales Advisor)
Symantec - Security & Data Backup (Certified Sales Expert)

Anyway, have to go back on finish up the website - I'm enjoying the OfficeLive editor - its really come around in just one year!

RAS

11:25 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

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