Shea R. Oliver's Blog, page 10

The Next Big Step Into The…

“It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” – Napolean Hill

It was an amazing feeling to watch our first white-label partner, MyProEmail.com, go live last month. After so much effort, it was a relief to see both the public site and the email marketing platform functioning as one and available for customers.

Then last week, we took AerodynamicEmail.com live. Next week, we will begin to accept partners into our new Partner Program. This is where things start to get really exciting.

A Recap & A Little History

If you are feeling a little lost, please let me back up…

My company, Aerodynamic Email, Inc., has been in stealth mode while we finished developing our new email marketing platform. Our new platform enables content marketers, franchises, along with media and marketing companies to generate revenue by offering a white-labeled email marketing platform and managed email marketing content to their customers.

In 2014, after running Acclaim Marketing Systems, LLC for a dozen years, I wound down the company and launched Aerodynamic Email, Inc.

It was a convergence of experience, business needs, personal philosophy, and technology that drove me to launch this latest venture.

I spent the first part of my career working with “channel-dependent” companies, as the Internet exploded and began to invade more and more of our lives. The concept of selling direct to consumers was not a new idea, but the Internet made it infinitely easier. Hordes of companies have arisen to take advantage of both the ease of reaching customers and the new reality that technology is now part of everyday life.

Over the last few years, various marketing technologies (aka “MarTech”) have become a mature concept, and at the same time the market is beginning to evolve and desire more and more robust solutions. Email grew from a nascent communication technology to a global revenue powerhouse. Companies and technologies exploded to provide the infrastructure needed to promote every type of product, service, and idea one could dream up.

The Biggest Marketing Lie

My respect for the folks at Constant Contact, Email Chimp, GetResponse, and a host of other companies is huge. I don’t want to take anything away from them, or the amazing technologies that they have developed. But… through the years, there has been an implicit and at times explicit message – “Sign Up & You Too Can Be A Marketer.”

I’ve watched so many people, and small companies, sign up for an email marketing service, and FAIL. I’m sorry, but my butcher is not a marketer, neither is my fitness instructor, neither is the lady that owns the awesome local coffee shop. Of course, some of these business owners actually do have the capability to design and send GREAT emails. However, each minute that they devote to creating content is one less minute that they have for their businesses.

On the flip side of this, there are so many people who are great at content. So great, that they make a living doing it. Those local businesses that fail at making good email content, or simply don’t have the time to create the content, often hire these awesome content writers to run their email marketing. And more often than not, the small business owner chokes when they hear what they are going to pay for having consistent, quality content over time.

A Straightforward Solution

“You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want in life.” – Zig Zigler

My experience and these two challenges combined to help me develop the concept for Aerodynamic Email. I decided to create an email marketing platform that would:

Enable a content producer to leverage and “reuse” the email content that they were already producing
Allow a content producer to “brand” the entire email marketing solution as their own
Provide small businesses with email marketing and access to quality email marketing content at an affordable price

At its core, I have built a channel-dependent company, but with flexibility and capabilities that we could barely dream of only 20 years ago.

For MyProEmail, we were able to launch four monthly newsletters and four weekly newsletters. The platform allows us to create that high-quality content on a recurring basis, and for loan officers and real estate agents to be able to purchase (and add/edit/delete) that content without having to pay for expensive custom content.

My Next Big Step

As we step out of this long development process and into the next phase of the company, I realize it is more exciting AND more frightening than I ever expected. I am faced with many challenges, knowing that I have only scratched the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my professional life, but this is my first SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) company. Some of the immediate challenges that I face include:

Should I continue to bootstrap, or spend more time fundraising?
Can I continue to build on, and hold together, the amazing team that I have?
Will be be able to hit the milestones that I have projected?
What is the appropriate split of effort to commit to Aerodynamic Email versus My Pro Email?
How do I keep my personal life in balance, and not become consumed by my company’s needs?

While I continuing to try to figure out whether I have jumped into an abyss with no bottom, I’ll keep blogging. While much of this blog has been about my pursuits as a photographer, hiker, and sci-fi author, I have decided to expand it to include more parts of my life.

I look forward to sharing this journey with you. If you have any insights, questions, or simply want to say something, please do feel free to contact me. You can use the comments below, any of my social media, or my Contact Page.

And of course, if you are interested in making money by offering an email marketing platform and email marketing content, please come visit AerodynamicEmail.com!

New Email Marketing Platform Launched!

While many people know me as an author and photographer, my “real” job is a little different. I am the founder and CEO of a software company and a marketing company. We’ve just released an amazing email marketing platform, and our marketing company, My Pro Email, LLC, has gone LIVE at MyProEmail.com.

My Pro Email, LLC provides an email marketing platform with newsletters for real estate and mortgage. We’ll be offering both monthly and weekly newsletters. Since 2003, I have been the primary author of The Weekly Mortgage Newsletter. It’s been used by thousands of mortgage professionals around the US. I’ll still be writing this newsletter, but with the new platform, we can offer so much more.

Here’s a little teaser video about MyProEmail.com’s capabilities.

We built some amazing features into this software, including:

Separate Headers, Footers, and Bodies

Email marketing has always relied on the concept of building a template. However, every other system has always considered templates as a one-size-fits-all proposition. Pulling each of these pieces apart enables greater variety and better management of email marketing assets. Having these elements separate also enables one of my favorite capabilities – sharing.
Content Sharing

In most industries, but especially personal selling industries, like mortgage and real estate, a good header for your emails is critical. It often includes your photo, contact details, company logo, etc. etc. For many companies, maintaining that consistency in brand is paramount. Our platform enables a company to create an “approved” header or footer, and then to share that with its users, who can add their own photo and contact details.
Multi-User Management 

For companies that have multiple real estate agents or loan officers, we have built this solution to support their organization. Our sharing capability is automatically enabled within companies, but we offer so much more. We have the capability to add administrators to manage the email marketing efforts of multiple agents. You can even add a finance user to manage the billing details without letting them mess around with the email marketing details.

Please drop by MyProEmail.com to learn more and sign up for a free email marketing trial.

 

Kicking Around Some Landscapes

Between launching a new software company, running my marketing company, working on writing my next novel, getting some hiking in, and raising my sons, I’ve been playing with little photography.

A friend asked me recently if it was too cold to go hiking. The answer, of course, is NO. Photography and hiking are similar, in that, sometimes it is all about the gear. I’ve got plenty of cold weather gear and plenty of photography gear. Wait! What? Okay, I’ll be honest. I love the gear! And, I am often shopping for deals on gear.

Software counts as gear, and I recently purchased Macphun Aurora HDR. I’ve been having a bit of fun with it. Here are a few of my recently edited photos.

In a stark winter landscape, Hallett Peak rises into the blue sky. On a snowshoeing trip to Emerald Lake, I stopped at Dream Lake to snap a few shots. It was a rare moment, in one of the most popular snowshoeing locations in Rocky Mountain National Park, to get a picture like this, without any people.

The clouds, sky, grass, and rock formations just seemed to all come together in this photo. Red Rocks, in Colorado Springs, CO, is a truly specular place to visit.

One of the more popular areas during the summer in Rocky Mountain National Park is the Alluvial Fan, which sits in Horseshoe Park, near the start of Fall River Road. During the winter, solitude can occasionally be found in this peaceful valley.

Photo Featured on DayHikesNearDenver.com

A couple of years ago, my friend, Mikes Summers (@msphotomid), and I headed up to the Chicago Lakes for an awesome day of hiking and photography. A few days ago, I was contacted by the website, DayHikesNearDenver.com. It’s a great site featuring all kinds of one-day hikes that you can do from Denver, Colorado.

The site has a page featuring the Chicago Lakes hike, and they wanted to add one of my photos to the page! I was very honored, and was happy to allow them to use “Storm Coming Up the Valley.”

Storm Coming Up the Valley

Be sure to check out DayHikesNearDenver.com and their page featuring my photo at http://dayhikesneardenver.com/chicago-lakes-hike-mt-evans/

The day that we hiked was a during a year that the mountain wildflowers were crazy intense. You can read more about that, and see a few more pictures on my blog post, Wildflowers of the Mt Evans Wilderness.

Self-Publishing Talk @ Launch Longmont

This Friday, January 15, I am giving a talk on “The Indie Publishing Revolution.” The talk is part of an ongoing educational series at Longmont, Colorado’s only co-working space – Launch Longmont.

If you are interested in attending, please sign up via Meetup.com – http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Longmont/events/227578312/

The Indie Publishing Revolution- Shea Oliver

FREE- OPEN TO THE PUBLIC- Feel free to bring your lunch. Free Parking on SW corner of 4th and Terry.

Whether you’ve written the great American novel, are interested in launching a writing career, or are just curious about how today’s writers approach the marketplace, this session on self-publishing dives into the rapidly changing world of modern authors and publishers.

This interactive discussion will cover a broad overview of today’s publishing landscape, addressing questions such as:

What should I do before I publish my book?
How do I go about actually getting my book for sale?
What’s the quickest and easiest way to self-publish?
Do I have spend any money?
Yeah! I published! Now what???

Shea Oliver has recently published his first novel, The Betrayal of Ka. Come join this first-time Indie author as he shares insights and lessons gleaned from going from initial concept to the thrill of holding his own book in his hands.

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About Shea

Shea Oliver a serial entrepreneur, indie author, wayward photographer, father of two, fanatical solo hiker, and overly energetic coach potato. Currently, in the midst of launching a new email marketing platform designed specifically for white-label partners, Shea occasionally disappears into the mountains to contemplate life, conceptualize business strategies, and create fantastical fictional characters. His experience ranges from enterprise software, geographic information systems, social media marketing, and personal selling.

More Content Coming Soon

Thanks For Your Interest!!!

I appreciate that your want more, and I am working on it. Please use the form below and I’ll let you know when I publish more content.

The post More Content Coming Soon appeared first on Shea Oliver.

The Betrayal of Ka By Shea Oliver

Originally posted on Don Sloan:

Kadamba is a typical teen. He’s about to graduate high school and claim the love of the girl he adores when suddenly his world implodes. One moment he’s selling the interplanetary drug rath to a ten-year-old, the next he’s awaiting sentencing for the boy’s death.

This is the dramatic start to The Betrayal of Ka, and this science fiction thriller doesn’t let up from there to its surprise ending. In between, there is darkness and light, corruption and redemption — and, in all fairness, the reader should know this is NOT a typical, breezy YA novel.

The two planets of Koranth and Zoranth have survived the Exorthium Colonial Wars and have emerged as the primary worlds in this epic tale, connected by interplanetary portals and ruled by ruthless and dominant Corporations.

Tomar Donovackia is head of one of these powerful galactic firms — and he is also a TransProphetic, born…

View original 432 more words

Betrayal of Ka (Tim Learn’s Review)

WHOA!!! It’s a crazy feeling when someone writes something like Tim Learn did about my book. I’m very thankful and honored by his review.

By Shea Oliver  

Rating

Synopsis

Mindlessly following the highs a teen life can give him, Ka trumps a teacher after scoring a date from his dream girl. It is like heaven. But then, his business on the side steps in, and after a kid OD’s on his drugs, Ka’s life changes. He finds himself being shifted off to a penal colony on another planet as his old world shifts under tyrannical and ambitious powers. In the end, Ka is barely recognizeable. On top of that, he’s millions of light years away.

Prose

The author here keeps a very straightforward tone, giving us the nuts and bolts of each character and scene as fast as possible. In this way, it is fast paced, keeping us reading at every turn. Never is there a chapter beginning or end that dwells to heavily on description, drawing the story out for mere word count. Take a look.

Fifty-eight stories above Schmarlo’s Landing, Tomar Donovackia kicked his feet onto his desk. No one would question anything he did.

Every line packs a punch and keeps the scene and the story going. Throughout the whole book, maybe one or twice did a moment lag or feel unneeded, but not often.

READ THE COMPLETE REVIEW AT https://keats0810.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/betrayal-of-ka/

The post Betrayal of Ka (Tim Learn’s Review) appeared first on Shea Oliver.

Betrayal of Ka

Shea Oliver:

WHOA!!! It’s a crazy feeling when someone writes something like Tim Learn did about my book. I’m very thankful and honored by his review.

Originally posted on Tim Learn:

Betrayal of Ka

(Adult Sci-fi)

By Shea Oliver  

Rating

Synopsis

Mindlessly following the highs a teen life can give him, Ka trumps a teacher after scoring a date from his dream girl. It is like heaven. But then, his business on the side steps in, and after a kid OD’s on his drugs, Ka’s life changes. He finds himself being shifted off to a penal colony on another planet as his old world shifts under tyrannical and ambitious powers. In the end, Ka is barely recognizeable. On top of that, he’s millions of light years away.

Prose

The author here keeps a very straightforward tone, giving us the nuts and bolts of each character and scene as fast as possible. In this way, it is fast paced, keeping us reading at every turn. Never is there a chapter beginning or end that dwells to heavily on description, drawing the…

View original 570 more words

The Betrayal of Ka – Book Review

Check out this review of The Betrayal of Ka by Ms Nose In A Book. My thanks to her for taking the time to read and write up her impression of my first novel…

Hello everyone! Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Today I am excited to share with you my review of an awesome book, The Betrayal of Ka by Shea Oliver. I’d like to send a huge thank you to Shea for giving me the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

It’s hard for me to thoroughly explain this book as it has a few different arcs that tie into each other towards the end of the book. It is a science fiction novel about a young boy named Ka who gets caught up making some bad choices that ultimately result in his going to prison for murder. From there his life takes many twists and turns which take him far away from his home. While all this is happening to him his home planet is involved in space exploration and the conquering of other planets for profit and they have set their sights on earth.

That is a very very broad description of what this story is about. There is literally so much more at work in this plot that it was like candy to me. I was hooked on the story from beginning to end and when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it.

Read the complete review at https://msnoseinabook.com/2015/10/13/the-betrayal-of-ka-the-transprophetics-1-by-shea-r-oliver/

 

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