Last week we kicked off celebrating #TeamTomey Month by taking a few trips down memory lane.

I told you about my first business I started when I was 19 and how I turned that into the online business I still have to this day 20 years later. 🤯

There were so many lessons in all of that and I hope you learned a lot and got to know a little more about me.

Side Note: If you missed those posts you can see them at:

Dinosaur Alert – What Did Liz Do Before The Internet? – https://liztomey.com/blog/dinosaur-alert-what-did-liz-do-before-the-internet

The $37,000 Story – https://liztomey.com/blog/the-37000-story

Now, some of that information I have never shared anywhere publicly, but I wanted to take you guys back to the very beginning. You’ll see why as we go through this month. Everything I will be sharing builds upon each other. I had to give you all the back story so you can walk into all of this with the full picture.

It still blows my mind that running my own business is something that I’ve done for more than half my life.

26 of 45 years! 😮

But my favorite thing that has come out of all of this is… #TeamTomey!

#TeamTomey started as a brand hashtag I was using on social media, but it grew into this huge tribe of people (you and me) that have one common goal…

To have an online business that funds the life we WANT!

It doesn’t matter what kind of life you want. It doesn’t matter what kind of online business you have or want to have.

We’re all in this together with this ONE goal and it’s all about creating something that allows us to have an amazing life.

My main online business is creating and selling digital products.

My amazing life is being able to work from where I want, when I want, and without having ANYONE tell me what to do.

It’s allowed me to raise a bunch of kids (some mine and some not, but I had a hand in raising them), travel and see so many cool places in what I’ve found is a massive world full of amazing people and culture, it’s allowed me to help my family time after time, and the list goes on and on.

Now you’re online business and your lifestyle might be something totally different, but #TeamTomey is all about helping you create that online business and use it to live that amazing life you want.

#TeamTomey is the online family you’ve always wanted!

We all congregate over at http://www.MyIMMastermind.com

If you’re not a member over there you can join at no-cost!

It’s our big mastermind area that works a lot like Facebook without being Facebook. We have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. 😂

If you want to join everybody over there, be able to interact with others just like you, and get help with any of my workshops, then you need to be over there.

It’s free-with zero strings attached!

http://www.MyIMMastermind.com 

See you there!

Liz

Today I want to show you something pretty cool. 😎 An absolute blast from the past. There’s a lesson in here on success too, so pay very close attention, and I’ll give you the insights you need at the end of this.

It was 1998 and I was 19 years old. I had quit high school, I had quit college, and was living in Nemah, Washington on a salmon hatchery. How and why I got there is a story for another day, but man it’s a wild one. My life pre-kids was quite the adventure. Heck my entire life has been quite the adventure, but… 😂

Anyway I was living in the middle of nowhere looking at ways to make-money. Everything was so far from where I lived and I didn’t know what to do.

I had responded to an ad in the local paper to stuff envelopes for $1. I could stuff as many envelopes as I wanted and get $1 for each one! All I had to do was send the person $1 and a LSASE (long self addressed stamped envelope) and then they’d send me “everything I needed to get started”.

I was like… SIGN ME UP! Give me a break… I was 19! 😂

What they didn’t tell me is I would have to place ads just like they did, get people to send me $1 and their LSASE, and then I would have to print off the directions and mail those directions back to the person who would then go on and do the same. That’s how I would get paid $1 to “stuff” envelopes.

This was a pretty popular thing for years…

And here’s the thing though… I actually placed those ads and got a ton of people to send me their $1 and their LSASE. I didn’t get rich by any means, but I made a few thousand dollars doing it.

Most importantly I learned!

I would tweak my ads, redesign them, (my first days of writing copy) experiment with ad sizes, figure out which publications worked the best to advertise in (I was testing and tracking WITHOUT technology), AND because my name and address was in many of these publications I started getting a ton of offers in the mail for all kinds of things.

Money-making-schemes…

Reselling products via the mail…

Dealerships which were like affiliate programs via the mail…

Advertising opportunities…

And the list goes on and on and on! There were so many money-making opportunities via the good ol’ USPS back then.

My main focuses were on…

1. Creating and selling mailing lists. Everyone who replied to me or advertised in front of me got added to a Word document and that was my mailing list. I also bought other mailing lists and added them to mine. I would use these myself and sell them to others. These sold great!

2. Ad design (typesetting as it was called).

3. Adsheet publishing which was just an 8.5 x 11 sheet of ads that I would mail to my mailing list and the mailing lists of others. Like 5,000, 10,000, and up to 50,000 at one point in time.

4. And I also offered dealerships (basically an affiliate program) for all of my offers. Others could sell my offers, collect the payment, and forward the order and my part of the fee to me and I would fulfill the order for their customer. Who was now my customer.

Sounds crazy, right?

This was what we called the “mailorder industry”.

And that’s exactly how I got started in marketing and what I was doing before all of this online business stuff…

Without technology, without YouTube videos telling me how to do this or that, without courses telling me how to do this or that.

I simply watched what others were doing and I did my own versions of that or got whole new ideas. I was making about $35,000 a year at 20 years old in 1999, and made more money every year after that.

Fast forward a few years though and postage was going sky high. I knew I needed to do something different. Postage was really eating into my profits. 😟

I had a computer and had been “online” since I was about 14 when my grandparents bought a computer for their company. I had already taught myself how to build websites (thanks Geocities) and could use message boards and email. I was way ahead of the curve.

The funny thing about my generation (What’s up Gen X?) is that half of us totally get technology and the other half are absolutely clueless. Thank God I was one of the ones that just got technology.

So I started building websites and putting all of my “mailorder stuff” online to help out with the postage costs. You don’t need to mail things if you’re putting it online. 😉 Or you could create small ads with your website in them instead of full page ads or entire mailings.

I had probably 20 different domain names and would scan people’s offers into my computer, and upload them as images to websites. Then I would advertise these websites all over the place. Online and offline.

Want to see a video of all of that old stuff? Check this video out and I’ll show you some stuff from my mailorder days!

So, I was advertising those websites, getting those people traffic to their offers, and turned it into one of the first mailorder/online businesses around.

I was way ahead of the game and made great money doing it all.

As a high school/college drop out living in the middle of nowhere on a salmon hatchery! 😂

I moved around a few times (Indiana, Texas, Tennessee) running this business but as long as I had a computer and a mailbox, I made money.

In 2004 after meeting my now ex-husband with a HUGE family (I had a child and he had four children) I needed even more money. A big family and my growing goals and dreams demanded more.

So I handed the mailorder/online business to him, (which I had built to about $65,000 a year) and I went to work creating a totally online information publishing business.

Which leads me to the next story of how I became Liz Tomey… I call it… “The $37,000 Story”. If you want to continue on with that then you can read it at https://www.LizTomey.com/blog/the-37000-story

And that’s what this dinosaur did before the Internet…

But for now there are a few lessons I want you to take away from the story I just told you…

Lesson 1: Watch And Learn – Always be watching what is going on in your industry/niche. You can always do what someone else is doing with your own twist on it. I’m NOT saying to copy anyone, but using what others are doing for your own inspiration is something that you CAN do and there’s nothing wrong with it. You will always get a ton of ideas too for things you can do to make money or make MORE money by watching and learning too!

Lesson 2: Be Ahead Of The Curve – Look for what’s coming next before it even comes out. You’ve got to know your niche inside out to do this, but keep your eye open for things that might be coming next. I knew the Internet was going to be the next big thing in the mail order industry. It was it’s replacement. And I jumped on board VERY quickly and got a load of people (whom at the time were very anti-Internet) to trust in me and start using it.

Lesson 3: Be Ready To Pivot – Pivot became a hot word during Covid because so many people HAD to pivot with what they were doing to survive. Doing business for most became VERY different with all the new rules. But there are many other things that will make you pivot. Demand, a change in life circumstances, etc. Don’t stay stuck, or watching your business lose money. DO SOMETHING! You’ve always gotta be ready to pivot!

Lesson 4: NEVER Quit – This should go without saying, but you have to have the attitude that quitting and total failure is NOT an option. No matter what, you have to just keep getting up and coming back and fighting for what you want.

Even though I was amazing at school, I hated it. It wasn’t for me. And the thought of working for someone else on a schedule sounded like the worst thing in the world to me. I’d rather live in a box down by the river than work for someone or have to have a schedule. 😂 It was my first “WHY”. My second “WHY” was my son. I couldn’t imagine having someone else take care of him while I slaved away at a job. I give a lot of credit to how all my kids turned out because of me ALWAYS being at home with them.

Find your WHY and you’ll find the “can’t quit won’t quit” in yourself that will fuel you to do anything you want!

Okay, I hope this was a fun story for you to read, and most importantly I hope you got something from it!

What lessons did you learn from this story of an online dinosaur? Leave your lessons and thoughts in the comments below…

I’ve been making a lot of changes lately and one of those changes was getting ALL of my products loaded into a new delivery system.

I am now using Product Dyno for product delivery.

If you create and sell digital products you might want to check this tool out. http://www.LizTomey.com/ProductDyno

You DO NOT need it to access your purchases from me though. This is just something I’m using in MY business.

All of the download links for your past purchases will no longer work for you.

Unfortunately there’s no way for me to load all of you into the system and have your purchases restored. 😭

I have to do it manually!

So… If you are trying to access a purchases and can’t, simply send me an email and tell me you need a customer account. I will need the email address you have used to purchase my products to look up all of your purchases.

I will create an account for you if you don’t already have one and add all of your purchases to your account.

Once you have an account you will ALWAYS login at https://liztomey.productdyno.com/login to access any and all purchases.

NO OTHER LINKS WILL WORK!

You have to login to that ONE link to see what you have purchased.

Once you login you can see what products you have or have not purchased and access any that you have purchased.

No changes in how you purchase, no extra charges, etc. The only thing that has changed is how you ACCESS your products.

Again…

Once you have an account you will ALWAYS login at https://liztomey.productdyno.com/login to access any and all purchases.

You can’t do anything until you have an account though, so if you don’t have an account and you HAVE product purchases from me then shoot me an email with your purchase email and I’ll get you all taken care of.

Don’t know if you have an account? Search your email for the URL https://liztomey.productdyno.com/login

Lost your password? There’s a lost password function on the login page.

This will be a little bumpy at first. Everything new at first is. But I will get you anything and everything you’ve purchased (up to the last 3 years), so don’t worry. You’re not losing anything.

Okay, that’s it for now… I know I’m going to be hearing from a lot of you so response times may be a little slow, but if you don’t hear from me within 2-3 BUSINESS days then send me another message because we all know the email gremlins are real and they are eating EVERYTHING right now. 😡

I appreciate you all SO much! Working with customers and seeing how many of my products you guys buy really makes me know I’m doing the right thing by continuing to teach and help you reach your dreams and goals. Your support means the world to me and as long as I have that I’ll keep being here for you!

Whew! It’s been an insane few days here in TeamTomey world.

First, thank you to all of you who replied to the email I sent yesterday. Thank you to all of you who I ended up in your SPAM folder and you pulled me out of there and marked me as NOT SPAM.

I recently changed my email because of the new rules for having an authenticated email address and that has caused a lot of issues for emails that I send out to my audience.

I’m working on a report detailing everything that has happened, what can be done to fix it, what to do moving forward, and a ton of strategies in it to help all of you who use email marketing in your online business.

I will be giving this report away at no-cost AND I will be giving you the Reseller PLR to it too.

No! You won’t have to pay a thing for PLR to it either. 🎉

Just my way of thanking you all for being so supportive and doing what you can to help me through these changes. ❤️

I’ve wanted to hide under the bed and cry a few times over the last few days, but there is no crying in online business, right?

We do what we have to do to fight every fire that comes along and we don’t stop until we have the solution we need!

So, keep checking your SPAM folder and pulling me out if you see me in there.

Tomorrow is when the changes officially go into effect and we’re going to see a lot of people who do email marketing completely freaking out.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. You’ve just got to comply with the changes and use EFFECTIVE strategies and techniques to overcome this.

In the next few days I will also have some new PLR ready for you…

The marketing world might be on fire, but it’s business as normal around here. I’m working hard to make sure you have the content you need and the knowledge you need to use it no matter what.

I’ve got a ton of Reseller PLR coming for you!

Keep an eye on your inbox and in the meantime if there’s anything I can do to help you just reply to this email and let me know.

You’ll see I’ve removed the “do not reply to this email” line in my email signature now. I have everything setup now so when you reply it SHOULD come directly to me at an email I can reply to you.

If that doesn’t work, I guess we’re going to have to go back to faxing each other. 😂

Okay, that’s it for today! I’m going back to content creation mode and hope you’re hard at work in your online business today too!

Talk soon!

Liz

I’ve got some super important news to share with you today…

I’ve just made a big move in the email world… I’ve changed my email address!

Why?

To keep up with the “latest and greatest changes” from Gmail and Yahoo for emailing you.

That should read… Yahoo and Gmail made some changes and I have to comply or lose contact with you 😭

My New Email Address: liz@liztomey.com

That’s where emails and updates will now come from moving forward…

Now, I know change can be a bit of a hassle, but I promise this will be smooth and easy. And here’s how you can help make sure you keep getting all my insider tips, tricks, resources, PLR offers, and of course my crazy life updates. At this point it’s like a telenovela (soap opera) around here.😂

Anyway here’s what to do so we don’t lose contact with each other…

Save My New Email: Pop my new email address (liz@liztomey.com) into your contacts. This way, we can avoid those pesky spam filters and keep our line of communication wide open.

Check Your Settings: Got any special filters or rules for my emails? Just update them with my new email address so you won’t miss a beat.

Keep an Eye Out: My emails are going to start coming from this new address. If by some crazy chance they land in your spam or junk folder, please help me 🆘 and rescue them by marking them as “Not Spam” I don’t want you to miss anything. Especially the important stuff like download links and stuff like that. 😲

Your Privacy is My Priority: Just a little reminder that I totally respect your privacy. Your email is safe with me – no sharing, no funny business, just straight-up awesome content from yours truly. There’s also an unsubscribe link at the bottom of EVERY email I send you.

I can’t wait to keep sharing all the latest Internet-marketing and online business development “stuff” with you. You’re a huge part of why I do what I do, and I’m super grateful for that!

Got questions? Just hit reply to this email. I’m always here to help out or just chat.

Thanks so much for sticking with me. ❤️

Talk soon!

Liz

P.S. Many of you guys know Randall (Randy) Hall. He’s been a customer and dear friend for MANY years. He has helped so many of us with our techy issues over the years. He is my go to “techy guy” and he is the one that helped me get all of these changes done and comply with the new changes that are hitting EVERYONE who has an email list that they email. If you need help with this situation in your business or just about any other techy situation in your online business make sure you go straight to Randy for help. His rates are ALWAYS super reasonable, he’s INCREDIBLE at what he does, you can TRUST him, and he’s SUPER easy to work with. You can find him at https://www.tekmaven.net

One of the BIG things I want to do this year is help people. I’m talking about helping people in great need. I’m not sure how or what just yet. It might be as simple as helping out individual families in need or donating to a cause or even starting my own non-profit.

That can be figured out later… Right now, I want to create the thing that will generate the money that will help people in need.

You can’t count your chickens before your eggs hatch, right? 🐥

Another saying of my mom’s that basically means don’t count on what you don’t already have in your hands.

So, step 1 is to create something that will allow me to-fund whatever it is that I want to do to help people in need.

I plan on doing this with a faith based blog…

I’m doing this for a few reasons…

1. I have a calling to share my faith. I’ve talked with you guys about that. I won’t being sharing a lot of that with you guys. I will be building a separate audience for that because I know not all of you want that kind of content. I mean you originally followed me for business advice and your daily dose of Jesus, and I respect that. For those of you who do want to follow that I will make an announcement when that’s ready.

2. There are many ways to monetize a blog. Selling digital products, physical products, printables, and even A LOT of options for affiliate marketing. It will be a great way to fund whatever I want to do to help those in need.

3. It’s something I will enjoy doing. That’s important with any type of new business you start. No matter what the “experts” say, you do really need to enjoy something to make-money with it for the long term. I’ve learned that the hard way a few times.

The “Christian lifestyle” niche is a HUGE niche and it’s VERY-profitable.

Now I’ve mentioned this a few times, but I will be releasing a workshop called The Faith Based Blog Profits Workshop. I will show you how to create your own faith based blog and show you several ways that you can monetize-it and ideas for ways to share your faith.

So, if you’re being called to help people in need and/or want to share your faith and make-money while doing it then this is going to be for you!

During this workshop I will of course be showing you how to setup a faith based blog from A-Z.

Then we will talk about your options for monetizing it. I plan on selling many different types of printables for Christians, I will be doing POD (print on demand) apparel for Christians, creating my own faith based journals, planners, etc. and selling them, and also some affiliate marketing.

I’ll be showing you how to get that all planned out, so you know how you’re going to make-money with your blog from the get go.

Next, we will move on to content and deciding what kind of content you want to share with your audience. Creating a faith based blog is VERY general. I recommend finding a faith based niche to create your blog around.

Niches and big topics like…

👉Christian entrepreneurship
👉Growing your faith
👉Parenting for Christians
👉Christian lifestyle
👉Mental health and well being for Christians

… and thousands of others. I’ll be giving you tons and tons of examples and even a huge list of options.

And the last part… How to build a following so that you can get traffic to your blog and in front of the things that you want to make-money with.

This is the hardest part, but I’ll be giving you a step-by-step plan! Actually, THREE of them so there is something that EVERYONE can follow.

This will be at least a 6 day workshop. There’s a lot to cover, so it might end up being longer.

I will have the registration page open in the next couple of days, so keep an eye out for that.

There will be unlimited attendee seats, BUT there will only be 100 PLR licenses available and with this being such a profitable niche, these WILL go fast. So, for now keep an eye on your email and as soon as the registration page for The Faith Based Blog Profits Workshop I’ll send you an email!

Hope you’ve had a great first week in 2024! It’s going to be a big year, gang!

Talk soon!

Liz

Everyone and their dog are talking about 2024 right now. 😂 What they’re GOING to do, the grand plans they have, and all of that stuff. I mean it IS a great time to be excited. It’s a new year… If you wake up on January 1st 2024 you should definitely be grateful. I mean I’m grateful every day I get to wake up. It’s better than the alternative, right? 😉

I’m not going to make any resolutions this year.  I generally don’t… I’m going to do what my mom always taught me to do.

She used to say to me, “Sister, (my whole family calls me “sis” or “sissy” it’s a MidWest USA thing I think) wake up each day and BE better than you were the day before”.

I live by that daily and if God allows it, I’ll be doing it every day in 2024.

However, I do have some plans for you (#TeamTomey) this year and just want to mention what we’re going to be doing so YOU can decide if you want to stick with #TeamTomey in 2024.

The first big project this year will be my new CreatorsInFaith.com brand.

Right now, I have a simple squeeze page setup for it and I’m working on some freebies that will help you if this is a path that you’re interested in.

If you missed the post about this new adventure, you can see that post at https://www.LizTomey.com/blog/when-god-says-do-this

There’s big plans for that one, but as I said, I’ll still be doing other stuff too like…

The other BIG new thing will be a paid #TeamTomey coaching program (very low cost) that will be more hands on with me.

I promise the price will be super low and WAY more than worth the price.

More importantly it will allow me to help MORE of you in an ongoing way at a more affordable price than my BIG coaching program (MyOnlineBizTribe.com). But if you can swing my big coaching program it’s worth it for the one-on-one time you get AND all of my products.

So far in the new coaching program there will be…

1. Liz’s Brain – A weekly lesson call where I will be teaching you something related to making money online and/or Internet marketing. This will be done LIVE so you can attend and ask any questions.

2. Weekly AMA (Ask Me Anything) Live – Come ask me anything when it comes to online marketing and creating online businesses during this Live. This is a great way for you to get personal help within your business and learn from me and others who are running online businesses.

3. Inside Liz’s Biz – Monthly Live where I show you what I’m working on in my business to make money. This is me holding NOTHING back and showing you everything I’m doing to make REAL money-in my various online businesses.

4. Access to the “Money Making Ideas” Library – This is where I post about the different money making ideas I want to do, but probably never will because they would take about 5000 lifetimes to get them all done. 😂 You can steal these for your own use though!

And a few other things I’m still kicking around too…

This will allow me to get back into interacting with you guys more and bringing the old #TeamTomey back which I have been wanting to do for a long time.

My goal is for this to be the place you can come and get help directly from me on your business and the motivation you need too. I can’t wait to share it with you in a few weeks…

What else would you guys like to see in the new #TeamTomey coaching program?

Reply back to this email and let me know… 

This will be the “community coaching program” so I would love to know what you would like to see in it.

Other than those two BIG projects I will of course still be pumping out PLR content for the Internet marketing/make money-online niche.

As I said in a previous email the first part of 2024 will be a lot of content related to AI because you guys are begging for more of that right now. Understandably because it’s such a HOT topic 🤑 right now and there are so many ways to make-money with that kind of content.

I’ve got some cool PLR content coming so be on the lookout for that all of 2024!

So, if all of this interests you and you want to stay part of #TeamTomey I welcome you and look forward to rocking 2024 with you.

If I had to make ONE resolution this year it would be to be MORE hands on and involved with you guys who ARE #TeamTomey, and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing more of in 2024.

Okay that’s a wrap for the business side of 2023…

I wish you much success in 2024… No matter if you’ve been working on your “dream business” for years or days… I encourage you to KEEP GOING! Really buckle down in this new year and make that dream business a reality. If you’re trying to grow your existing business make a plan, and stick to that plan.

Bottom line… Don’t let ANYTHING keep you from reaching your dreams and goals in 2024!

Happy New Year #TeamTomey! 🎉I truly appreciate YOU and I’m looking forward to our 2024 together!

Talk soon!

Liz