About Me – David Frey

Hi Guys,

If you’re reading this bio page, you’re either curious as to who really is the “Marketing Blogger” or you’re just bored to tears and have nothing better to do.

For those of you who are curious as to who I am, my name is David Frey. I live in Houston, Texas. I’m a marketing freak, and this here blog contains a lot of my marketing ideas, tactics, strategies, and ramblings.

I’d like for you to get to know the “real” me. So here’s what I’m going to do – - I’m going to answer seven questions that you might ask me if you were sitting down with me and wanted to get to know me.

Are you ready? Here goes…

1. How would you describe yourself?

Let’s see. In a nutshell, I’m a…

1. Committed husband
2. Dorky Dad
3. Religious nut
4. Patriotic flag-waver
5. Geeky nerd
6. Entrepreneurial fanatic
7. Fitness slave
8. Adventure seeker
9. Traveling fool
10. Philanthropic supporter…

…that likes to ride anything with skis.

Yes, I’m all that and more.

So to break that down, I’ve been married for 21 years to a super awesome woman named Ingrid. We met briefly in the country of Bolivia back in 1987 and again at college a few years later. We fell in love and got married. Best thing that ever happened to me.

We tried to have children. No luck. In our first month of marriage, I got chicken pox, which stopped my little guys from swimming so we couldn’t have biological children of our own.

Turned out, that was a great thing. If it hadn’t been for my crippled little swimmers, we would have never had the chance to adopt our two children Sterling (14) and Alina (9).

Our two kiddos are AWESOME and we couldn’t imagine life without them. (Even when my son thinks he’s 35 years old). My son thinks I’m a dork sometimes and well…he’s right. I am…and proud of it (May I always have a little dorkiness in me till the day I die).

I’m also a Christian conservative dude. I’m a true blue member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some people call us by our nickname, the “Mormons.”

And yes, I was one of those guys who rode their bikes and knocked on doors (although, they didn’t really have any doors in Bolivia. We just clapped our hands.) I went to BYU and I don’t drink, smoke, toke, or any of that stuff.

The day after I graduated high school, I joined the United States Navy and served honorably for six years as an electronics technician. I guess that’s where my “geekiness” started.

I fixed really big radars and satellite communications stuff. By the way, I actually served in a very small war that some of you might remember. It was called the “Sandinista Contra Rebel War.”

2. How do you know so much about marketing?

The best way to answer that question is, through trial and error. I’ve been marketing stuff for the last 16 years. I’ve had some real “hits out of the ball park” and I’ve had some real stinkers. They’ve all taught me what works and what doesn’t.

The funny thing is, every time I say, “That’s not gonna work” someone proves me wrong. So I’ve determined that I know everything about marketing and I know nothing about marketing.

In my marketing career I’ve…

• Done just about every form of advertising (print, radio, internet and even a little TV.)
• Put on my own seminars and workshops to sell various stuff.
• Created all kinds of local and national lead generation campaigns.
• Owned a door-to-door sales business.
• Written countless high converting salesletters and sales collateral.
• Authored many winning direct mail campaigns.
• Launched several online viral marketing systems.
• Established a popular marketing coaching company in the pool and spa industry.
• Grown a huge network marketing organization.
• Sold complex, big ticket consulting projects.
• Garnered massive free publicity for various marketing projects.
• Formed one of the largest “virtual” marketing seminar businesses on the net.
• Wrote 5 books and 20 plus special reports on the topic of marketing.
• Created multiple “How to market” video training programs.
• Produced a myriad of successful referral marketing systems.
• Started and ran an advertising company based on SEO (search engine optimization)
• Run marketing mastermind groups for marketing gurus.

Whew! And I’m sure I left a lot of stuff out of that list. I’ve done a heck of a lot of marketing. I even created an infomercial that we used to successfully sell apartments in senior living communities.

And I’ve loved every minute of it!

And that’s why I started this blog. I wanted to share some of my experience with you (and I needed a place to rant, rave and carry on like a silly baboon.)

3. What did you do in your former life?

After getting a masters degree in Accounting, I realized that I could never be an accountant. And although I was a registered C.P.A., I’ve never once done any accounting work.

I got my first taste of marketing back in 1996 when I went to work for a company that owned a string of senior living communities. If you think it’s tough to market a consumer product, try convincing your Grandparents to move out of their home and into a commune (that’s kind of what these communities were like).

Not easy.

I went on to work for Arthur Anderson Business Consulting for several years. That was a great job. I learned a ton and consulted with a lot of very successful companies and worked with some super smart people.

Eventually, I took a big wig job as a Senior V.P. of a $500 million dollar wooden pallet company in 1999. Yes, wooden pallets.

A year later, one of the best things ever in my life happened to me. I was fired! The company merged with a German company and I got the boot. I thank God every day that I got fired from that job because it gave me the opportunity to start my own marketing business.

While planning out my new marketing business, I got seduced by the internet. I fell in love with it and decided to start an internet marketing business.

I went on to lose over $120,000 dollars trying to make my first venture successful. Undaunted, I pressed forward and I’m so grateful I did because I eventually cracked the code and have been making a very good living marketing stuff online ever since.

4. How do you make a living today?

Good question. I make money in a number of ways. I run several web properties, in addition to, www.MarketingBlogger.com that keep me busy. If I listed all my websites we would be here for a while. But my major properties are…

1.   www.MarketingBestPractices.com – This site is a community for small business owners who want to learn how to be better marketers.

I’ve run this site since 2001.

You’ll find articles from many marketing experts on that site.

2.  www.MarriageAdvice.com – This is the #1 marriage counseling website on the internet (according to Google).

I started this site about five years ago because I’m fascinated with discovering new ways to improve my marriage. I don’t write for this site (I’m not nearly qualified). Only certified marriage counselors write for the site.

I’m also a greeting card salesman!

Yup, I have a substantial business in the network marketing profession. I’m a distributor for a company that creates and sells greeting cards. It’s called SendOutCards.

If you were to ask me six years ago if I would be a big network marketer I would have told you that you’re nuts.

Today I tell people they’re nut for not being in network marketing!

I make a LOT of MONEY sharing a greeting card and gifting system and helping people start their own, very lucrative, home based greeting card system business.

In fact, this business has generated such windfall residual income for me that it has set me free to do what I want, where I want, how I want and with whom I want. It’s also allowed me to do the kind of philanthropy work I’ve always wanted to.

If you want to see this system, just go to www.ILovetoSendOutCards.com and if you want to know how I got involved in it, you can go and watch the video at www.MySOCStory.com

5. What do you like to do when you’re not marketing?

Great question.

When I’m not working, I’m usually hanging out with my little family. They are my life. So here’s the top 10 favorite things my kids like to do with me.

1.    Go to Chucky Cheeses restaurant to play video games and eat pizza.

2.    Go to the park to play on the swings and monkey bars.

3.    Play Uno. (We get into some vicious Uno games!)

4.    Go to bookstores (my son reads books like most kids drink water!)

5.    Eat at Micky Dees (McDonalds). My kids love that place.

6.    Wrestle with my son (he still can’t pin me…but he’s close)

7.    Play dolls with my daughter (She can’t get enough of Barbie)

8.    Play with our dog, “Oreo.” (I didn’t want a dog, but he’s grown on me.)

9.    Go skateboarding with my son and bike riding with my daughter.

10.    Play Angry Birds with my son (He kicks my butt every time.)

At around 6:00am every morning you’ll find me down at the 24 hour fitness center dragging myself on the treadmill or sweating away on the elliptical machine. When I get home I do some resistance training on my Total Trainer (love that thing).

I’m also a youth leader in my church and am active in the Boy Scout program, in spite of being a Webelo dropout when I was a teen. So I do a lot of activities with the youth like campouts and fundraisers.

I’ve urged my son to become an Eagle Scout. Actually, I’ve told him he can’t get this drivers license until he becomes an Eagle Scout (had to find something to motivate him).

My weekdays are pretty routine, when I’m not off traveling somewhere. I spend my day writing content, shooting videos, doing training calls, and helping people out.

In the afternoon there’s a lot of shuffling my kids around, helping them get their homework done, study for a test, piano lessons, sports etc… (Oh yeah, my wife does all that. Sorry honey if you’re reading this.)

Saturdays are my fun day with the kids. That’s the day we go out and do a lot of fun stuff together as a family.

Sunday is our Sabbath. So we just go to church and chill out at our home as a family on that day. We also like getting together with the in-laws on that day. My kids have cousins that live a few blocks away and we often get together on Sundays. I love it when my home is full of kids. Especially the ones I love dearly!

Oh yeah, I LOVE to travel.

I usually spend about three months a year traveling somewhere (Yes, 3 months a year!)

Last year I went to…

1.    Grand Turk
2.    Dominican Republic
3.    Curacao
4.    Aruba
5.    Kenya, Africa
6.    Las Vegas
7.    Lake Powell, Utah
8.    Lake Degray, Arkansas

This year I’ve already traveled to…

1. Panama Canal
2. Cozumel, Mexico
3. Costa Rica
4. Hawaii

…and will be traveling to Puerto Rico and Kenya later this year.

Yup, I love to travel, go to different countries and create new experiences in unique locations.

Something else I LOVE to do is different ADVENTURE SPORTS!

You’ll often find me riding my electric longboard around my neighborhood. I was wandering around YouTube a couple of years ago and saw a guy riding one and immediately ordered it.

I also enjoy doing all kinds of adventure sports. Here’s a few photos of stuff I love to do.

6. What are some of your traits, the good, bad and the ugly?

The good stuff…

• I’m pretty good at living a balanced life. I always try to put my family and faith before my work.

• I’m really good at coming up with new and unique ideas. I guess you could say I’m an “idea man.”

• I’m exceptionally good at taking a lot of different information and organizing it into a coherent, easy-to-understand article or training program. (Thanks to my consulting experience with Arthur Anderson Business Consulting).

• I rock at Powerpoint. I can whip out a great Powerpoint presentation in less than an hour.

• I’m a pretty good public speaker (people say I’m authentic, which helps me connect with my audience).

• I can get technical if I want to (but I try to hire people to do the technical stuff for me.)

• I’m a great coach. I can look at a business from a marketing perspective and easily find ways to dramatically improve their revenues (Most businesses suffer from the same marketing problems so it’s not that difficult to pinpoint areas for improvement.)

The bad stuff (I’m being “real” here)…

• I’m a Facebook addict. I troll Facebook all the time. I have to lock myself out of it during the day just to get stuff done.

• I don’t focus or concentrate too well. It’s a great day when I can get only one good thing done in a day (I have to use a stopwatch that is attached to my laptop to allow me to work in short intervals.)

• I can’t sit or stand still. I’ve always gotta be moving. My twitching leg burns more calories in one day than most people burn in a week.

• I’m terrible at cutting people off while they’re talking. My mind works at 100 mph and it’s hard to stop my ideas from spewing out of my mouth when I should be sitting back and listening.

• I’m kind of a hypocrite. I’m like the cobbler who always wears the worst shoes. I can tell people what’s wrong and what to do with their marketing, but I often don’t practice what I preach.

• I’ve got ADD or so it seems. I’ve always got way too many projects going at a time and rarely finishing any of them on time.

• I could go on, but I’m feeling so distraught with myself after fessing up to all my bad habits that I better stop here.

7. What are some things that hardly anyone knows about you.

Let’s do something fun. Let’s do a “21 things you probably didn’t know about me” to get to know me a little better.

Here goes…

1. My Mom died when I was 7 years old.
2. I’m the youngest of 8 kids.
3. Lived in my car when I was 16 years old.
4. Graduated 497th out of 512 graduating high school seniors. (D- average)
5. Served 6 years active duty as an electronics technician in the U.S. Navy.
6. Won the Royal Air Force downhill ski championships in Megeve, France when I was 22.
7. Served a Christian mission in Bolivia for 2 years (I speak fluent Spanish).
8. Got a masters degree from the #2 rated accounting program in the nation.
9. Passed my CPA exam in one sitting, but never worked as an accountant.
10. Was a corporate consultant with the largest consulting firm in the world.
11. Was a Senior Vice President of a $500 million dollar company.
12. Got fired when the company went through a merger.
13.  Lost over $120,000 before I made my first penny as an entrepreneur.
14. Wrote a book on how to make straight A’s in school. (MaketheGrade.com)
15. Had to fire 16 employees when Google changed it’s algorithm.
16. Hated MLM and never wanted to be a network marketer. Now it’s a major portion of my income.
17. I own the #1 marriage counseling site on the net (but I would never write for it.)
18. Sold 10,000 copies of a book called, “Pitbull Secrets.” (I couldn’t recognize a pitbull if I saw one.)
19. I’m actually a very shy person. Am a wallflower around groups of people.
20. Adopted two of the finest kids on earth at birth (they are now 9 and 14).
21. Achieved my dream of building a school for 500 kids in Kenya, Africa. Now I’m building my 2nd school.

Whew! Now you know me probably more than you wanted to.

Not long ago I was asked to speak at a conference in which no one there would know me. So I decided to record a fun little video that showed a few of the different sides of my life. It’s only a couple minutes long. Here’s the video…

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About David Frey

David Frey is the Founder, MarketingBlogger.com. He is also the author of the best selling book, "The Small Business Marketing Bible" and many other marketing courses. To find out more about this author, visit www.WhoIsDavidFrey.com.