About Me
Thanks for taking the time to learn more about me, Zeb Olsen, I’ll try to keep this short and relevant.
Let’s start from the beginning…
I come to you from humble beginnings in Perry, Michigan where my entrepreneurial aspirations started at the tender age of 7 years old when I got my first job. It was just down the road from my house so I could ride my bike to work where I would pick strawberries for Mrs. Sheffields’ small strawberry farm. I got paid $2.50 per hour. Back in 1985 that wasn’t too bad for a 7 year old especially considering that I’d work 6-8 hours per day. I was paid daily, so at the end of the day I’d take home anywhere from $15.00 to $20.00.
Now, I know that doesn’t sound like much. However, $15-20 would go a long way for 7 year old back in the mid 1980′s done right. For a kid, I believe I did pretty well. There were also important lessons and values instilled with hard work and reward. I would take the pay I earned up to the local Ben Franklin store that sold all sorts of stuff, but what I was interested in started as a hobby then became a true small business.
Baseball & Basketball cards were only 25 cents/pack back in those days, and I’d spend roughly 90% on packs on cards, and card collecting supplies like card protectors, card protector sheets, storage boxes etc. to keep my collection in pristine condition for the selling and trading of those cards and supplies to friends as my own “little card shop” business. The other 10% would be spent on some lemon heads, a candy bar, some soda, and the occasional G.I. Joe action figure.
Since strawberry farming in Michigan is very seasonal, I had to be wise with my investments, as the “card biz” had to carry me through the rest of the year. I loved trading & selling cards as it was not only a lot of fun, but a GREAT first business which laid the groundwork for my business sense and entrepreneurial spirit. I remember one day when I bought ten packs of Fleer basketball cards, I pulled a Michael Jordan out of six of the packs! Each one was worth around $60 at the time, so I sold three to local card shop for $150! BAM! Talk about awesome! Especially for a 8 year old kid, plus I still had three left so it’s not like I “sold the farm” and my initial investment was 35 cents/pack. Not too shabby…
So, let’s skip ahead I just wanted to give you a good picture of the “roots” that laid the foundation for what would become of Zeb Olsen. I was a big kid to say the least, and was fairly gifted athletically so I became very involved in sports growing up (which would lay and create the foundation for my competitive spirit). I played baseball, basketball, and football and the only intentions I had were to play one of them professionally. Now, that didn’t sound like too crazy of an idea to most at the time as I was 6’1″ tall in 8th grade, and about 225 pounds, I was like Shaquille O’Neil in middle school (LOL). However, it just turned out that I just matured early, and wouldn’t grow too much more. So, I didn’t quite fit the ‘mold’ of a professional athlete for much longer. However, I thoroughly enjoyed, and still do enjoy very much playing sports, especially basketball. I also thoroughly enjoy playing Ping-Pong, Foosball, Frisbee Golf and most competitive games.
I graduated High School in 1996 then I went to college at Michigan State University (which was an absolute blast) to become a teacher. I started with History as a major, and geography as a minor. After 3 years of History, it got old (all pun intended, lol) and decided that I wanted to shift gears a little closer to my roots, and what I really always enjoyed, playing sports. So, I decided to change my major to Kinesiology which is the ‘study of the movement of the body’ to become a Physical Education teacher. It was a much more appropriate field for me, a good choice, and to this day don’t understand why I didn’t start out in that direction in the first place or something business or marketing related. And, because I had 3 years of college in me already, shifting gears that late in the game did set me back a bit, however the education was great, and I was in no big hurry to escape the college life I was absolutely in love with.
While in college, I was working at Best Buy as I also had a love for electronics and computers, and they offered a heck of a discount to employees so it was a good fit (although I think I ended up spending more money there than I made) and, would provide the scenery for an event that would change the course of my life forever…
A man came into the store who was wearing a big yellow button on his coat that said “Want to make $1,200 in a week? Ask me how” (LOL, I know too funny right?) and… still always having an entrepreneurial spirit, and being a bit of a smart alec’ I spoke up to him and said “How do I make $1,200 in a week?” in kind of a cocky, skeptical tone. He said that if I really wanted to know, he’d love to buy me lunch and show me. Now, if you offer to buy a college student lunch, it’s pretty much a done deal, and it was (LOL).
We met at a Burger King two days later, it was on a Thursday I believe. We made small talk, built some rapport, and then he pulled out a little presentation book he’d put together and started to show me something I’d never seen before. He showed my the concept of leverage, exponential growth, and residual income all of which were new concepts to me, and I’d never seen anything with so much promise or possibilities. I mean think about it, find three who find three and so on and EVERYBODY’S filthy stinkin’ rich! (LOL)
I got him the $450 to “get started” just like that and started building my first MLM business. He was a great sponsor, very wise, was a local wrestling coach, and he was with me every step of the way (like a real sponsor). Now, I had a significant advantage, I was living on campus at Michigan State University where 45,000 students live who were all there for one reason. To get a degree to become “successful” and I was selling “success!” I was like a kid in a candy store who didn’t know disappointment. I was on fire, full of enthusiasm, and had more contacts that trusted and respected me than I had time to talk to.
There was a local meeting, and I personally packed the room with my prospects, signed up most of them, and became an overnight sensation with this company. I didn’t make $1,200 in my first week. It was over double that! Talk about pouring gasoline on a bonfire! So, I went on a campus wide crusade to recruit as many as I could and “Get Rich” before I even graduated.
A few weeks went by, and even though ‘I’ was still bringing people into the business like mad, and making good “up-front” money, others were struggling to duplicate what I was able to do. They just didn’t have the fire, the respect, the nerve, the belief, nor the skills that I had to make it happen. This was very frustrating, as I couldn’t understand how they could “say” they wanted it, and then do nothing about it. To me it was mind boggling. And, in network marketing your business has to grow exponentially if you’re going to see any reward as the exponential growth that leads to big numbers is the ONLY way your hard work will pay off.
So, after a making great money on “up-front” commissions for a few months, all the people who quit, and never did anything wore on me, and I got tired of it all together, and just lost my faith in ‘other people’ doing what it takes to accomplish their goals and dreams. So, I phased out of MLM.
I graduated from MSU with BS in Kinesiology, and a teaching certification to teach k-12 Physical Education, and 7-12 Health Education. However, when I graduated in 2002, the State of Michigan issued some pretty significant ‘budget cuts’ to school districts across the board which resulted in a lot of ‘employed’ teachers to be laid off. Any job openings there were had to be filled by any available staff that had been laid off. So, unless I wanted to move out of State for a whopping 32-38K per year teaching salary, I was going to have to find something else for the time being.
I found the Mortgage business right in the middle of one of the biggest Refinance booms this country has ever seen! Or should I say the mortgage business found me! I took a blue-collar work ethic into a white-collar working environment and crushed it! I was the ‘Lebron James’ of the mortgage industry. My first commissionable month I closed 8 loans, totaling over 1.2 million dollars, set the branch record, made the company close to 100K and they paid me a whopping 15% of that as they were paying me a 2K per month salary, providing office space, and leads. So, my first month in the mortgage business I made over $15,000 and was ‘hood rich’ (LOL) as that was nearly half the annual salary I was looking at making as a teacher, and I was coming into the office when I wanted, took lunch when I wanted-for as long as I wanted, went home when I wanted, and pretty much was ‘working’ only 3-4 hours tops each day! I was doing something that came so natural to me, establishing rapport, finding need, selling benefit and closing deals.
I moved on from that company after a few months of setting records, went to work for a broker for a few weeks to learn the ‘broker’ side of the business. Then a few weeks later just started my own mortgage company, Olsen Mortgage Consultants Inc. I continued to crush the mortgage business as a one man show with less and less work, for me it was almost too easy. I got to the point where I’d work hard for a month, and then take the next 2-3 months off, as I knew that I possessed the skills, to where if I needed to make 10-20k in a hurry, I could just get on the phone, get some deals, close them, get paid and get back to my vacation! I did this through the beginning of 2008, and decided to hang up the mortgage business once and for all, as I’d fell back in love with an old sweetheart I once knew.
It started in July of 2007, I decided to give MLM another shot as I was a little older, a little wiser, had become very well respected in the community and amongst my peers as a result of my “success.” I joined a company called Gano Excel (this is not a sales pitch, just part of the story) which markets “The World’s First Enriched Coffee” as I saw tremendous opportunity as it intersected across multiple mega-trends: Coffee is the 2nd largest traded commodity in the world 2nd only to oil, it’s also the 2nd most consumed beverage in the world 2nd only to water, the #1 habit worldwide, and had very unique niche in the ‘Health & Wellness Industry’ being that it was the only product line in the world simply ‘Utilizing people’s habits, rather than change their habits to improve health’ on top of being the best weight loss product I’ve ever seen and used, and I came to the conclusion that was one of the most brilliant concepts I’d seen, and there was no way I was going to allow an opportunity like this to pass me by. I also took into consideration the facts about the company and it was rock solid, debt free, in over 40+ countries and growing, and had just entered the North American marketplace. The compensation plan was great, and so I decided to throw myself head first into it.
It only took a few months to build an organization of over 1,200 affiliates as I wasn’t the only person who saw the genius in this. However, this time around I wasn’t recruiting “dorm-rats” whose main priority was a ‘case of beer, and where the next party was over building something worthwhile. I had vividly remembered my success in the past, and the reason for the failure of the organization I was building. I wasn’t building with the right people, and if you “build a house upon the sand” you know what happens from there. I could always recruit, this time I turned my attention to a different audience and a different methodology and the results speak for themselves.
I primarily built that organization utilizing “old-school” methods, and in the summer of 2008 I became fascinated with the possibilities of creating new relationships with people I’d otherwise never know via social networks, video, and blogging on the internet. As Network Marketing or MLM has always, and always will be based on the concept of leverage: Leverage of other people’s efforts, energy, time, and resources. I saw the potential in utilizing the internet to leverage my number one asset, ME. Then, by no coincidence I stumbled across THE BOOK that changed the changed the industry, and would change the course of my life forever.
In the past, I’d have a conversation with someone, or set up a meeting, and provide great information, they’d take notes, and that was the end of it. NOW, with social media, video, blogs, and SEO I can ‘create’ my content that goes to work for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in front of an unlimited audience on “their time” on “their dime” to build relationships, rapport and absorb the information I so willingly share with others to help them accomplish everything they’ve always wanted to accomplish. By doing this, I strategically leverage my time to create and build new relationships, and gain influence and credibility to a greater audience of people I would never have ever met before. And, once the message is created, it never dies. This is great for positioning and branding which are the two most important things in regards to others doing business with you, especially online as they “don’t know you from adam.”
Never forget, the oldest business principle that’s stood the test of time, since the beginning of time is: “People do business with other people they ‘Know, Like & Trust’” and via social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and my blog here, I can utilize these avenues to leverage myself to enable others to get to know like and trust me 24/7/365. I have a passion for teaching (remember, that’s what I went to school for) others how to do the same (leverage themselves online) so they ultimately can become as successful as they make up their minds to be. That’s why I always end my live presentations and many of my video’s with the tagline “I’m Zeb Olsen, and I’m committed to your success, Are You?”
I’m currently marketing other stuff online too, and have also started another MLM business with something that is pretty revolutionary and will help anyone in any business get the most out of their marketing efforts. I only recommend and promote what I can put what’s becoming the most trusted authentication of superior quality on the internet “The 100% Zeb Olsen Stamp of Approval” any time you see this, you’ll know it’s something worth looking into, as I have VERY high expectations, standards, and thoroughly review everything I am considering putting my name behind as Zeb Olsen Inc. is the most important asset I have, and if I do anything to damage that credibility, everything I’ve done will be for naught.
The ending of this story is yet to be written as I just turned 33 on March 12th, 2011 and the best is yet to come! I truly feel like I am just getting started, and I have soooo much more to share with you. Thanks again for reading this short auto-biography, I would love to have you subscribe to my blog so you never miss any of my great posts (they will be great, otherwise they won’t get posted! lol)
Also, if you think someone else should ‘get to know Zeb Olsen go ahead and click the hyperlinked text below to send out a tweet for me, that’d be beyond appreciated, and if I can return the favor, you let me know and I’ll be happy to.
TWEET THIS (simply click the hyper-linked text below):
Thanks again for sending out that tweet above (just click on it, and it will go right into your twitter and all you have to do is hit update) & benefiting others by being the one to introduce them to the wonderful information I selflessly provide. I appreciate your time & attention as its’ something I certainly do not take for granted.
To Your Success & wHealth!
Zeb Olsen
“Helping the Best, Get Better”
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