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Neil Patel: Cleaning Up His Act
Neil is originally from England. In 1988, as a child, he moved with his family to California. While he still loves England, he could never bring himself to give up the warm, sunny California climate. He could, however, bring himself to give up a few of his first jobs. His first experience with employment came at age 15, when he was hired to clean trash and restrooms at Knotts Berry Farm, a local amusement park. That job quickly exposed Neil to the unpleasant reality of earning a living. He remembers having to clean up vomit along with the trash—not a fun way for a teenager to spend an afternoon. After that, Neil worked as a salesman, selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Kirby vacuum cleaners were particularly difficult to sell because of their price—$1800. Nevertheless, Neil remembers his experience with the company fondly—it beat cleaning bathrooms at the amusement park, after all—and it taught him a lot about sales. Other early jobs included working at Blockbuster and as a shelf-stocker at Party City. These experiences taught him that he never wanted to work for someone else again. Because of that, Neil started running his own business early—in high school. In his first year, he started selling burned CD’s and DVD’s to his friends for $2 to $5 each. Pretty soon he was selling illegal cable equipment, including hacked satellite TV cards and black boxes. This didn’t last, but it was a great way to save money. Neil used $5,000 he earned from his sales activities to start a new business—a job site to compete with Monster.com. However, when he got ready to set up a marketing plan, he realized he’d spent all his money developing the site—so he’d have to do the advertising himself, for free. That’s how he got into search marketing. Today, Neil has a lot going on. He’s 21 (as of December 2006), and is currently an undergraduate at Cal State Fullerton. He’s pursuing a degree in marketing. He also runs his own business—Advantage Consulting Services. With the company, he acts as an SEO and search-marketing consultant to businesses throughout the country. He has a team of employees. He says he loves being both a student and a business-owner, because he can get his employees to do his school papers for him. He’s also a presence at trade shows and conferences all over the country. Useful website
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