Wow… I can write posts all day long about how to make money online… how to make more money from your business… and on and on… Now so many people have asked me some personal questions about myself, and I really find myself at a loss for words here.

I mean… I teach Internet marketing… Why would anyone want to know about me?

Well, was recently listening to Tom Beal speak. I was reviewing The 7 Figure Code ( www.ThisKicksButt.com/7FigureCode ) and knew Tom was heavily involved in at (I was at the live event BTW), I have been in a mastermind group with him, and consider him a friend. However, I had never heard him speak…

I was really blown away. That’s a total other blog post… :)

But Tom said something during his presentation that really resinated with me.

He said that success leaves footprints.

Really think about that for a minute…

In every episode of Scooby Doo what do they look for to solve the mystery?

Foot prints of course…

So when you’re trying to solve the mystery of success you should find someone that is achieving the success you want, and follow in their footsteps.

Watch what they do and do it…

Hang out with the people they do…

Do the things that they do…

Go the places they go…

Each step you take, make sure that you’re putting your foot exactly where they did.

So for those of you who are looking for my footprints to follow me to success, I’m going to put them right here before you…

Now I know you guys want personal information, but most of you just want the meat of what has made me successful.

So, for those of you who want to know the real non-business Liz, here’s a very short and sweet story for you….

I was born to two teenagers in 1979 in Indianapolis, IN. They were divorced when I was a little over a year old, and my mother and I lived with her mother my Grandmother. I was very very close with her and she died when I was 5. At the same time I was very close to my father’s parents (my mamaw and papaw) who thank God are are still with me to this day.

After the passing of my Grandmother my mother met a man and married him and we moved to Chattanooga, TN. I had an awesome childhood full of love from my mom, step-dad, and grandparents.

I spent each and every summer growing up in Indiana with my grandparents. They had 6 kids and treated me as there 7th. They actually do to this day.

Between my mom, step-dad, and grandparents I was always told I was the best at everything, and there was nothing in this world I couldn’t do. Again, to this day they all with the exception of my step-dad (who hasn’t been around for about 15 years now) still tell me this. :)

When I was 15 my mother and step-dad divorced, and my world was turned upside down.

If you’ve ever had and raised a teenager girl, you know they are the devil to begin with. Throw in a divorce and they go absolutely insane.

That’s just what I did…

My mother lost total control of me, and I became mad at the entire world. I turned to drugs (LOTS OF THEM), and took off traveling the country.

Looking back on it all, a lot of bad things happened, but some key things stuck with me and some key people stood beside me.

My family never gave up on me, so I had an amazing support system.

I had to grow up fast on my own, so I developed a take charge get it done attitude.

Now you should get some footprints from that.

They are…

1. Get yourself a support system – It could be friends, family, a mastermind group online. Whatever it is, get yourself a support system. That was on of my first foot steps. Yes it came automatic, but if you don’t have a support system get one.

2. Next it’s survival of the fittest in everything in life – Until I was on my own, I had never stood on my own two feet. I had never had to do anything myself. I threw myself into the real world, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

So my first two steps here are a support system, and I grab things by the throat, shake the heck out of them, and make it work for me.

Now let’s talk about exactly what I did to become successful…

After a few years wandering the country I finally came home… My mom asked what my plans where and I told here… “Well I don’t like to be told what to do, and I don’t want to be a “working chump”, so I’m going to start my own business.

And with a smile mom said… “Good for you! I know you’ll do well.”

So the years went on, I left the drugs behind, and met a man who I married and had my son Logan with. Thank goodness before Logan came along I had already established a business. My first business was a direct mail advertising business.

I put together promotional direct mail campaigns together for people, and sold them advertising. I had several services I offered, so I started selling “dealerships” to others. They could buy a “dealership” promote my offers and keep half the money for every order they got. Then they’d send the other half the money along with the order and I’d fill the order.

That business did very well… I grew it to about a $60K a year business and in this part of the country that’s pretty decent money.

After divorcing my first husband I married the love of my life whom I’m still married to (any by the way came with four extra kids :) ) we found ourself in a bit of a pickle.

He (Jamie) had been laid off from his job. This was 2004. We lived in a small town of about 800 people so you can imagine that there wasn’t much work to be found.

I for the second time in my life said… I’ll start a business…

I had Jamie take over the direct mail advertising business, and I began my search online for my next business…

Okay, heads up time…

Now this is where real success starts…

The first thing I did when I got online was to look at what other people were doing successfully. No reason to reinvent the wheel, right?

I found a ton of people selling ebooks and doing really well with it.

So I decided that’s what I would do…

There’s footprint #2…. Find what others are doing and follow them.

I was in a lot of Internet marketing forums at the time and saw a lot of people talking about joint ventures. It seemed cool to me…

The two main ways I saw joint ventures being done was people finding other people to promote their products, and people coming together creating products together.

So I decided that I would create a product not only about the topic, but also use joint ventures to create the product, and get others to create it for me.

So I had about 15 people I went to from the forums, asked questions about joint ventures, and then contacted them to ask them if I could use their answers in my product, and they all said yes. :)

After the product was done, I asked if they would promote the product. All but one said yes…

In two weeks that product brought in $37,000

Oh did I mention that it took me 6 months to get everything figured out, and during that time we were falling behind on ALL our bills. The repo man was literally calling the house asking when to come and get our only vehicle, and we were one month away from forclosure on our house?

Yeah it wasn’t a bed of roses, but I did it, and so can you…

So my other footprints to success here were…

… Find what others are successfully doing online
… Do it my way and get it out there

If you’ve made it this far in this post congratulations because what I just revealed to you is ALL related to my success.

I had an amazing support system, I believe in and live by “do or die”, I studied what worked, I put it into place for myself, and I have had more success than I have ever dreamed of.

I hope you’ll do the same!

So there you go… The real Liz Tomey right here in black and white. Like the song says… “You should have seen it in color”…

To your success!

Liz Tomey

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