There are a plethora of reasons why my first business this year in the e-commerce world didn’t work out, and that’s for a different post.

Well, one night about 2 weeks ago I was laying in bed unable to sleep, which was when I decided to push my brother and me over the cliff into my second business of the year – car detailing. I set up a domain name, email accounts, business phone numbers, online marketing, and SEO materials, all within a few hours, spending only $20 on the domain name.

Then, a short 2 weeks had passed and we were ranking on Google after some late nights of SEO work. At the end of the two weeks, we had 3 leads come in via phone, one of which we closed immediately with another one on deck for next week.

We turned $20 into $140 with some sweat equity and hard work, both him and I. He did a great first car detail with the client saying he would be recommending his friends to us and that he loved the way his car looked.

I’m currently looking into more avenues for advertising while Cael looks into more efficient tools that he can use to make detailing more efficient.

I’ll tell you what – this business is already more fun than the nearly $5k I lost on my last business

The post I Start Business Number 2 This Year appeared first on CameronTarbell.com.

This is why I make all of my WordPress client sites with a custom design. It sounds like a lot of work, and it does involve a bit more attention to detail, but the client ends up with a website that has fewer updates, fewer places to be exploited by malware, and fewer areas for bugs. Oftentimes, I have a designer create the design in Adobe XD before having it developed in Divi or Elementor.

Once we get the site complete, we usually have less than 5 plugins for the entire website, making it thin and efficient with less room for error.

The post Bloated WordPress Site? Here’s How To Avoid it. appeared first on CameronTarbell.com.

There are a few reasons why I think I will fail at this:

First, I legit have no idea what I’m doing aside from building the website. I’ve built e-commerce websites before for clients, but I have no idea how to do product research, e-commerce checkout optimization, ads, etc.

Second, I’m absolutely terrible at branding. I’m not great at building a brand in any way, which means I probably am unable to charge the premium price tag that I wish I could charge. Branding is something that takes years, but unfortunately I don’t even know the building blocks to start with today.

Lastly, I have no idea how to make an online ad for the things that I’m selling. I can sell website design services all day, but when it comes to B2C products, I’m at a loss. I don’t know what the average consumer wants, primarily because I struggle to put myself in the shoes of the average consumer. I’m not an average consumer besides buying Apple products and plane tickets. I rarely buy clothes for myself, let alone impulse buy from a social media ad.

There are two things though that I think I have going for me:

I have designed e-commerce stores in the past. Because of this, I’m avoiding Shopify and using the more expert WooCommerce to build the site. The hosting fees are minimal while I still retain full control of the site. Lower overhead = more lean business, right? I know how to setup a checkout, I know how to do user testing, I know how to setup an email list.

The most significant thing that I’ve done that will help is the fact that I’ve hired an outside agency to run the ads, an agency that has ran digital marketing for other e-commerce stores. Although this doesn’t guarantee success, it does allow a better expert to take over what I don’t know.

When I started outsourcing my direct outreach on LinkedIn when I was a freelancer, it quadrupled my business within 3 months. I believe that if I stick with hiring an agency or two that it will increase my chances of success.

With that being said, I have a feeling that I’m the underdog here as I venture into unknown waters, once again. However, I’m eager for the learning curve that awaits me.

My first ever e-commerce store opens in June. I’ll post the results later this summer to see what I learned!

The post Why I Will Most Likely Fail at E-Commerce appeared first on CameronTarbell.com.

When I got my first credit card, I knew that I wanted to eventually have an airline reward card. I always loved to travel and I knew that 1% cash back was not a great deal. However, after evaluating my non-existent credit history, I knew that I would be unable to get an airline card for at least a few years.

So, I built credit using a Capital One student card, which had a credit limit of $200, which I never came close to maxing. After using that card for nearly 2 years, paying it off without fail, an offer came through on my CreditKarma app – “Pre-Approved” for the Chase Southwest Airlines Card.

I went ahead and looked through the other card options, including United, American, and Delta, but were out of my reach. CreditKarma gave me low approval odds. I wasn’t a huge flyer on Southwest, but I figured I could try out the card, so I did.

Points started to accumulate quickly, especially when using the card for rent and utilities each month. I began to cash in my points for flights, and it turns out, I liked flying Southwest! I hadn’t been on the airline since I was a kid, but the free checked bags are always a nice perk. The barbaric group seating is a bit weird, but when traveling solo, I didn’t find this to be a big deal.

A few months later, I got another CreditKarma notification saying that I was pre-qualified for the Delta AMEX Blue card. I received the card at began using it exclusively so I could get the bonus points for spending $3000 in the first 3 months. I used the card for a while but ended up putting in a drawer and going back to the Southwest Airlines card, which I will explain in a moment.

I realized something though with receiving the Delta card – the only reason I got approved for it was because I had an existing business credit account with AMEX. My thought was if I could get approved for an “entry level” Citi credit card that it might fast track me for the American Airlines card.

On CreditKarma’s website, a (now non-existent) feature allowed a user to view credit card information and the average credit score, credit history, and age needed in order to obtain a specific card. The American Airlines card had an average age of 40 years old and an extensive credit history.

I applied for a Citi Double-Cash Back card and was accepted. Within 6 months, CreditKarma told me that I had great approval odds for the Citi AAdvantage Credit Card. I applied and was accepted! I started earning points as quickly as I could, as American had more routes than Southwest.

However, once I got the card and started flying with American Airlines, I realized that these 3 airline cards were vastly different from one another. The point systems and perks were vastly different which made me analyze the cards even more.

Here’s what I’ve found for each card

Delta SkyMiles Blue Card from AMEX

This card is the biggest loser of the group and includes virtually no benefits EXCEPT for the fact that there’s no annual fee. $1 = 1 Point on all transactions. There are no baggage perks or priority boarding.

In addition, I was never able to use points to buy a full flight. The point system was always seemed sky high! However, I was able to use points to get $50 off a flight that I took from Des Moines to RDU.

Finally, this card is has the lowest credit limit of any airline card that I own, $1500. I can’t even put my bills on this card without at least maxing it out.

Perhaps the solution was to get a higher tier card as I know some of the other Delta Airlines cards do offer free baggage and 2x the points at gas stations and restaurants.

If I were you, I would stay away from the Delta AMEX Blue card. I don’t use it unless I’m purchasing a flight from Delta, which is pretty rare.

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Card

The Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Card has been the best card I own for domestic travel! The points seem to add up quickly and the point system makes it easy to redeem points. In addition, Southwest Airlines has a track record of being a great company to fly with – both with their stellar customer service and on-time performance!

Southwest Airlines will also run a monthly deal, making it easy to find low point value flights to make a quick getaway, sometimes as low as 5500 points! On an average round trip flight, I spend 17k points, which usually is flying from the east coast to Des Moines, IA (not a cheap route with any airline). However, I still feel like the 17k points is a fair trade compared to the AAdvantage point system, which I’ll dive into here shortly.

Southwest Airlines has a free bag policy, meaning each ticket holder gets 2 free checked bags plus the normal personal item and carry-on, which isn’t exclusive to the card. In addition, the card does NOT offer any priority boarding, simply the points.

The point system has a bit more benefit than the Delta card. On all transactions, $1 = 1 point. The additional perk is $1 = 2 points on Southwest Airlines purchases, in addition to the point value of rapid reward miles you get from booking the flight, and hotel purchases.

Lastly, I always check my RapidRewards account each month as sometimes it will allow you to register for extra deals. For example, during the pandemic, you could get up to 4x the points at grocery stores BUT only if you registered for the deal. I ended up with 5000 points at the end of this promotion only because I took the time to look at my account.

For Domestic flights, this is THE card to have. It’s $69 a year AND you get a bonus 3000 miles for renewing each year, which basically offsets the annual fee. Chase gave me a generous $8,000 credit limit when opening the card. I’ve never come close to the limit, which is nice for my credit report.

American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum Card from Citi

Right off the bat, this isn’t a great card for domestic flights. The point system is inflated compared to the Southwest Airlines card and it’s not much easier to earn points compared to the Southwest Card – HOWEVER, I have found it to be a useful card as it does seem to have good point values for international travel.

First, there is a yearly fee with the card of $99 which is waived for the first 12 months. You can earn up to 65k points for spending $2,500 in the first 3 months, which is a great bonus. You do get a free checked bag on domestic flights which includes up to 4 travel companions, which is a great perk. You also get a more priority boarding process, boarding with group 5 main cabin rather than group 6 or 7.

The point system is fairly similar to the other 2 cards with the base being $1 = 1 miles. However, with the AAdvantage card, you also get 2x points at gas stations and restaurants. With gas prices rising, this is a nice perk over the SWA card.

Traveling domestically, I’ve concluded that Southwest might be the best option, especially with some of the deals that they run (seriously, 5k points round trip if you play your cards right). With AA, I’ve not been able to find too many domestic “deals” under 15k points. However, this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise as it’s a slightly inflated point value.

For me to fly from Lynchburg, VA to Des Moines, IA it will cost a minimum of 30k points roundtrip. If I fly out of Raleigh-Durham international, I can get this down to 15k-20k, roughly the same price as Southwest Airlines. Another difference between the SWA and AA point system is that Southwest Airlines points directly correlate with the dollar amount of the ticket. American Airlines tends to follow a more blanket approach, without a real correlation of the price.

However, 30k points can get you to some pretty far places with American Airlines. 30k round trip can get you to many Latin American destinations. Additionally, for 50k points, you can fly in the international business class, which includes lie-flat seats, perfect for overnight long-haul flights.

The American Airlines credit card right off the bat gave me a $5,000 credit limit, making it easy to pay bills without hitting the ceiling unlike the Delta card, meaning you can pile on the points!

Conclusion

Stay away from the Delta Blue AMEX card. It’s worthless. Perhaps one of the other delta cards are better. Southwest Airlines, in my research, has better point systems, making it easier to save and buy flights, especially for fun trips. AA makes international trips a bit easier if you are willing to save the points but SWA seems to beat AA in domestic flight point value.

The post My Airline Credit Cards – AA, Delta, SWA – A Review and Comparison appeared first on CameronTarbell.com.

Within a month, I had accumulated 70 random followers, only a handful I actually knew from real life. My Mod, Noah, built a Discord for all of the followers, where users are able to trade game secrets, gun builds, and use voice chat for gaming.

Now, my history with the video game stems back to the first day it came out, when Noah and I played it for the first time. The game allows you to play “public” matches that don’t count towards much except points to level up your gun. You can also play “Ranked” games that count towards your gamer score in a much more competitive format.

In summer of 2020, Noah and I were both in the top 2% globally on ranked. It sounds like an accomplishment until you realize it’s easier to go from top 99% to 2% than it is to go from 2% to 1%. Noah was also in the top .01% globally for battle royal games, a pretty massive feat.

Needless to say, we know the game, albeit not as well as some people.

When I started streaming, I didn’t expect I would have anyone watching, until people did. We had players in the top .05% globally wanting to play with us on stream, playing some of the most intense ranked games, in which I normally just end up dying over and over.

I think what has shocked me most about twitch is the loyal base that we have created. Nearly every time I go live on Twitch, the same 5-10 people show up to either watch or play, being on a first name basis with most of the viewers.

Honestly, I have no idea how much longer I’ll keep streaming on twitch. I never meant to build the small audience I have, but they make it hard to leave. I love playing COD Mobile and hope the game continues to grow. It’s been a lot of fun to play it over the last year and a half. As long as the game continues to be fun and interactive, I’ll keep playing and streaming.

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Listening to a song in the living room from a 2019 playlist of mine.

Me: Wow, this song brings back memories of when my dreams felt so big!

Robye: … You know, you can still dream big, right?

Me: Oh, I’m living the dreams that I thought of listening to this song.

— Cameron Tarbell (@TarbellCameron) February 17, 2021

Back in 2017, I started my website design business. I freelanced through freshman year, with only small amounts of success in the process. After freshman year, I stayed home to focus even more on my business, making connections in my hometown, even becoming a website vendor for a radio station in town and for their clients, which was a big win at the time.

When I was in high school, I had made friends in Lima, Peru. One of these guys, Andres, was a self starter, someone that seemed very similar to me, except he fixed iPhones rather than websites. He was good at it too. He could have a phone fixed in 20 minutes, from cracked screen to like new.

One day, I wanted to experiment with Google Ads, but didn’t have the financial resources to make it happen, until I realized that you could get a very low CPC in other countries, like Peru. The problem was, I didn’t have a service to sell in Peru. But Andres did.

I contacted him and asked if he might want some free leads. I’d make a simple website, drive traffic, and try to drive leads.

The crazy part was that it worked. Within the first few days, we had more than a dozen leads, all for less than $20. Honestly, I can’t remember if the leads converted. However, it gave me the idea to go to Peru and try to grow this business with him.

So, I got on a plane right before new years, flew down, and got to work.

There were a few songs I would listen to on the walk to work. I remember taking a deep breath everyday, optimistic about the future and the dreams I had, both with the business in Lima and my website business.

I was scraping by at the time, but I knew I wouldn’t forever. But my dreams felt so big at the time. My goals seemed so far away, but obtainable. I didn’t realize I had obtained them until well after I already had done it.

It wasn’t until my roommates girlfriend reminded me while listening to one of my songs from 2019 that I was living the dreams that I had once desired. Sometimes, I think it’s easy to forget about what our dreams once were, as we continue looking forward to the next thing, rather than looking back at how far we’ve come.

It was a nice full circle moment. I think I’ll have another moment like that in 2 years, hopefully under even better circumstances.

The post Living My Dreams from 2 Years Ago appeared first on CameronTarbell.com.

One of the places I was stuck was in my own head – the employee mindset.

When I started my business from my freshman dorm room, I had just come out of a $15 an hour job at an internet and networking company. The job wasn’t my favorite, but it helped put some money into my pocket and savings for college.

Then, I got to college, realized I was broke, couldn’t find a job, and decided to get into freelancing to try and make things work.

I had a few conversations with some businesses via cold email, and when it came to pricing and quotes, I had no idea what to do, so I did what I was used to doing. $15 x (amount of work hours) = final price. However, I quickly learned that there were two major problems with this approach.

First, I was underquoting. $15 per hour was vastly below market value, which looking back is probably why I lost so many deals in the beginning. Even if a project took me 80 hours, it was only $1200, taking over two weeks to develop without counting revisions.

Second, I was unable to scale. $15 an hour barely get’s you a developer from the most un-developed corners of the world, let alone get my bills paid at the end of the day. I obviously wanted to make money, but in my head, because of the “employee hourly mindset,” I was mentally incapable of setting higher prices.

Somehow, I scrapped for nearly 3 years like this, raising my prices slowly. As my prices went up, I realized that I could use sub-contractors more and focus on the sales and business side. It wasn’t until I decided to attack my sales with a more “value based” approach.

In 3 years of cold sales, it became apparent to me who would make a good client vs a bad client. The “value” buyers were always less picky, easier to work with, and let me have my freedom on projects, resulting in a better product at the end. Everyone wins. Pricy picky clients would micro-manage, challenge every thought that I had, and then be reluctant to pay at the end of the project.

Where Things Changed

I got a lead from LinkedIn at the end of 2019 with a company in Des Moines, my hometown, which was pretty shocking to me considering my LinkedIn marketing covered the entire country. I had a phone call with the clients and it became apparent that they were value buyers. I knew this was my chance to make more money than I normally did at the time. We discussed the website on the phone.

I got back to Des Moines and had my proposal ready for them. I went to their office, pitched all the details, website vision, etc. Then at the end they asked “Alright, so what are we looking at for pricing?”

To be honest, I sat there scared to say the number that I had in my head. This was going to be the simplest website I had done in years, but I was going to charge 10x more than I did with other projects of similar size. I said “How does about $5k sound?” I instantly regretted saying that number. It was too high. I’m going to lose this client opportunity, I thought.

Without even flinching, they said “Great! Let’s get started!”.

I was shocked in the moment. We built the website, they were happy with it, I got paid. In addition, they were the easiest clients I had ever worked with.

I had broken through the “employee mindset” after 3 years, something that should have happened in year one.

Breaking the Mindset

If I could go back and tell my younger-self anything about business and breaking the employee mindset, it would be these things.

1. Focus on sales, but don’t sweat it – I had a scarcity mindset as well in the beginning. I only had a few leads every quarter and didn’t want to waste the opportunities. However, if I would have focused more on out reach, rather than the small lead batch I had, I would have had more opportunities to sell.
2. Keep raising prices, even if it makes you uncomfortable – this is the only way to mentally break through the “glass ceiling” that you yourself have put into your head. In addition, if you lose out on one sale, number 1 should keep getting you more at bats.
3. Raise your overhead – Once I started sub-contracting and creating more overhead for myself, it became much easier to justify the higher prices, which did lead to more profit, eventually. Make yourself uncomfortable here, again.

Breaking the employee mindset was very difficult to do and took years. It’s not something that you’ll fix overnight, but I truly believe that if I could do it, anyone can.

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