My name is Ray Morgan and I do marketing!
The three branches of marketing I specialize in are:
- eBay Auctions
- Photography and
- Real Estate
I realize this seems a strange mix, unless you know my experiences, so let me explain. I started out in high school, in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1962 (my junior year) as an apprentice photographer for our local town's studio photographer. It seemed easy, at the time and really all I did was act as the hey boy of Mr. Eckert, a wonderfully funny man, that also happened to be a semi-big name (regionally) photographer that had started out in his career with Olan Mills and was good friends with him.
Now was Mr. Eckert's career dessert days and he had happily settled in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he had family living.
He showed me all around the dark room and even allowed me to understudy him in taking the studio portraits. I soaked up everything he told me. He was a smart, artful photographer, that knew all the tricks of his trade and was happy to share them with fresh kid like me.
That was my introduction to photography and through these many years, as much as I've strayed from the older teachings of my mentor, it would seem the more I cling to his teachings as an adult approaching my dessert days.
I moved from that eclectic beginning on to a much more hectic and
spurious career, in photography. First, the U.S. Air Force called me and
took me through their training in photography, in Denver, Colorado,
then on
to their reconnaissance photography squadron, at Barksdale Air Force Base,
in Bossier City, Louisiana. I stayed there long enough to learn the
techniques of the new darkroom, with all the bells and whistles.
After that photography schooling I went on to Tan Son Nhut, AFB,
Republic of Vietnam (now known as Ho Chi Mihn City), spending about five years
there, during 1967-68, including Tet of 1968, as a member of the 460th RECON
TECH SQUADRON,
again learning the intricacies of the darkroom and Combat
News Photography, I gained a new insight into why I wanted a more sedate
life and when I left the Air Force, on my return to the states, I went about
the quickest way to obtain it, a life of the road as a portrait and
commercial photographer, working for a company out of Chicago, Illinois
.
It was an exciting life for about twenty three years, however, it did have
it's drawbacks. After that many years on the road I yearned for the still
life.
That experience finally led me to take a retreat with some old friends in south Florida, I hurried there as fast as my tired old legs would allow me to travel. I worked as a shoe salesman, an old stand by occupation, I'd gained through selling shoes with my father through his chosen 50 year career. That served me well and kept me from starving long enough to get to my next career path, real estate.
Real estate came to me, just by seeing some of my shoe customers that appeared very prosperous and seemed to always have a lot of time and money on their hands. I saw this as something that fit right into my two long suits; wanting a lot of time of my own and plenty of money to help me afford the time. BOY WAS I WRONG!
The classes were easy and were made easier by having my lifelong friend to participate with me. We took classes together, studied together and took the state exam together and even through the broker's course, both made almost perfect scores on all the tests; we were made for this career.
My problem came in the practice of the career, my first job was with an independent broker that was just at the end of his career and more interested in where he was going to retire and spend his money than in teaching me how to make a living in real estate. I spent my days collecting rents from foreign indigents that frequented his apartments and houses to collecting rents from the swells that rented the snow bird apartments and condos that he owned. He made lots of money, but I found out the collector of the rents, doesn't necessarily make as much as the owner.
I moved on to a brokerage that sold nothing but FHA and VA foreclosed homes and properties. This was during the heyday of foreclosures with all the savings and loans that went bust. The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was our friend and I finally found a way to make a living with real estate, there were only two problems with this method , first, with the volume you had to sell, to make a living, you didn't have much time for a life and two, there were only so many properties to sell and when the economy started improving there went all the inventory.
With a yearning to return to my home state , I picked up roots and moved back to Arkansas. All was right with the world except that after I found a good realtor to work with, the economy took a slide, then there was the tornado that blew away half the town, not only were there fewer homes to sell, than buyers to buy, those homes, the sellers started to take their homes off the market due to interest rate hikes that prevented the buyers from wanting to buy. That is exactly when the tornado came along and blew away about half those sellers, that were waiting for an improved market conditions, so I gave up real estate by selling shoes again and taking photographs.
The real estate business finally started to flourish again and I was
welcomed back by my friendly broker. LIFE IS GOOD
!
But, I found another key to having more steady successes, in this game of making money using the marketing of real estate and photography, you need something else to help stabilize your income and that thing I found was eBay.
It started as a lark, with my inherent interest in computers and the internet, about 1998 or 1999, I discovered eBay, first I started selling a few things here and there, just to catch on to what made it tick. Then I thought man this is simple, put up old stuff, somebody buys it, it's like an old flea market booth a friend and I had in Florida, A REAL MONEY MACHINE!
Reality finally settled in whenever the next attempts at marketing left me almost as broke as my first attempt at real estate. Maybe this wasn't the cash cow I first imagined it might be. I studied, I swore, I tried to find other marketers that would share good advice. All I found was there wasn't any good way to accomplish this goal, until it occurred to me.
Look at all these successful people on the internet, they're not necessarily on eBay, but they're sending me all these emails, maybe they have an answer. For the next four or five years, I bought every e-book and course, known to man. I did them all, then it dawned on me, they didn't know any more than me, they just had more money (most of it mine, by now) to spend.
Since then I've been very careful who I listen to. I'm sure there are several people out there that really do make a Gazillion dollars a week, with very little effort. That has not been my experience and like everything else in life you have to work your butt off to achieve averageness, however the big difference with the internet, once you do get it right, it will normally stay right for a little while before you have to "fiddle" with it and bring it back to making money.
Where I finally came across this wonderful lesson was from a guy in Canada, that I had read and seen on the internet over the years. He was pretty straight forward in his message and his programs or ideas, while not making me a million dollars, consistently made me money and more importantly, I got to where I could depend on whatever it was I was hearing from this guy. This was fantastic, in fact, after all the expense and frustration I'd gone through with ALL those other expensive and inexpensive "internet gurus", through those years, it was amazing.
Don't get me wrong, he was no "second coming" or "internet idol". He was just dependable and his information was well researched and reliable. Being brought up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a racetrack community, we had a LOT of racing Totes (pronounced toughts), their job was to handicap the horses and give you their best guess as to which ones would win, place and show. Totes, in that city, would become famous for giving you maybe 4 or 5 good winners on any race day that normally had 9 or 10 races running. Should the tote give you 5 or 6 winners, they would reach immortality. Based on this scale, this Canadian, will reach immortality SOON, just based on my experience.
I thought it was strange how meticulous and organized all his information seemed to be until I learned a little more about him and found out, he's actually finishing a Master's Engineering degree in his country (I think he's in his 15th year of graduate work, this year). That seemed to fit the classic engineer mold. Now I know the answer to why his information is the way that it is.
In any event, should you need any of my marketing skills, I am easily reached at my email address, even for questions, at windywinmore@yahoo.com .Otherwise, check out my Revered Resources List. I only listed four (2 software's and one 2 websites) and they all but Chris Moore's are from this amazing Canadian. He has ALWAYS DONE ME RIGHT!
Thanks for listening to my ramblings and don't forget to email me if I can be of service to you.......
Ray Morgan
P.S. If you recognize any of the guys in the Denver picture, please let me know where they are and what they're up to (this photo was taken about October 1965 at Lowery AFB, Denver, Colorado at the U.S.A.F. Photo Tech School outside our class room), also any info about Mike Toohey, from Albany, New York and Ham Duncan (Hamilton Reginald Duncan III, from Kentucky) as well as Collie, John Collins, from Teaneck, New Jersey, his dad was killed as a fireman leaving his mother and he alone in Teaneck (last I heard, he'd married an English girl and was attending Ducheyne (msp?) University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and was planning to move to England, after graduation, also Albritton, from I think Melbourne, Florida and Albert or James (?) Crumbly from Middle Tennessee, James Colon (Crumbly's running buddy) from Honolulu, Hawaii, Rauch was from, I believe Pennsylvania, but not sure, the big guy, in the glasses was from Texas, but like the other ones I remember them and things about them, just not their names (I have always been horrible with names)? I'd give my eye teeth to hear from any one of these wonderful personalities, just to know they made it through safe!
Revered Resources List
Software
I use this software at least 2 or 3 times a week to win at eBay, check it out!
Website
Chris Moore's Magic Information
