Interview with Suite J – internet marketer and website flipper

Today I will give you a special treat! I managed to chat with Jay Piecha, alias Suite J, who has been a successful internet marketeer and website flipper for years. (For those who don’t know: website flipping is creating a complete website, including content, and selling it for a profit.) Here is what he had to say:

I really appreciate you taking some time in your business schedule to answer some questions!  Could you give our readers a short introduction about yourself?

No problem, it’s my pleasure.
My name is Jason Piecha. I’m a designer, a marketer, a blogger, and a coffee addict all rolled into one. I try to use all those attributes to my advantage online. My friends call me Jay, but many people online started to call me “Suite J” once I had started blogging on SuiteJ.com, so I just went along with it. It’s actually the name of my business, but I’m cool with whatever people call me as long as it’s not ***hole.

Some people also affectionately refer to me as “Big Head”, which I assume originated from the caricature of me that I use in all my online profiles, but I can’t remember exactly how that started. I guess if you’re a guy, it’s better than being called “Little Head”. I’ve been working full time online since 1999, but not always in Internet Marketing. I had an eBay business, worked as a freelancer designer, and also had a decent network of adult affiliate sites for 3 or 4 years. The past year or so has been a lot of website flipping, niche site building, as well as spending a lot of time networking and learning aspects of Internet Marketing that were unfamiliar to me.

I got to know you through your site suitej.com and I noticed that it is still not back up and running. When will it be back?

Ah! I’m glad you asked! I thought I may have lost every visitor! Good to know there’s at least one left! It’ll be back live and running on a regular basis sometime in June. I was forced to put it on the backburner for a while for two reasons.

Number one, I was deep into planning out more money making strategies to expand my business and that required my full attention.

Number two, my blog ended up going in a direction that I didn’t intend it to. I never meant to have a “make money online” blog, and I got to a point where I was overthinking what to post about.  I’ll still be blogging about business and will provide a lot of helpful posts, but I also want to let loose, be myself, and open up more about entrepreneurship, and online business in general. Basically, it’ll be broader, which I know goes against “blogging rules, niches, and seo”, but I don’t really care about that stuff for SuiteJ.com. I just want to express myself and network there without thinking about whether or not my latest post title will rank for organic search traffic. Know what I mean? It’s my home online. I want to be able to kick off my shoes.

I really look forward to see what you have come up with!  Back to Internet Marketing. Why did you decide to have a career online?

I’ve always hated working for someone. I’m not kidding. I felt that way since my first job as a dishwasher at 13 years old and the animosity only grew worse with every crappy job I had after that. I honestly feel that some people have the entrepreneurial spirit built into their DNA and I am one of them. I had played in bands a lot as a kid, and took it very seriously. In 1997, I was a wannabe rock star living in Toronto, and moved out of the city to get away from the scene I was in to do something different because I was tired of thet life I was living. At the time, eBay intrigued me as I was always into antiques and collectibles, having grown up in a big house packed full of it. It also seemed like it would be a lot better than working as a bicycle courier on the streets of downtown Toronto in the snow. I bought a computer, spent many sleepless nights scouring the net, and just jumped right in. Within about a month of having an Internet connection, I was buying and selling collectibles and selling them on eBay and newsgroups for profit. I guess when I saw that profit was indeed possible, that’s when I decided that I would pursue more online endeavors.

So how exactly did you get started in Internet Marketing?

It’s actually a long story, but I’ll try and give you the short version. I had eventually built the eBay business up to a point where I was getting regular sales daily. I wanted to expand by selling products on my own website,
but I didn’t really want to pay someone to build it. So, I bought a few html books instead and took a stab web design myself.
I seemed to catch on quick, and built a cheesy site with ugly animations to sell my collectibles.
Around the same time, I happened to meet a graphic designer who bought a ton of Star Wars collectibles from me, but he didn’t have enough to pay for everything he wanted. So, I traded him what I had in exchange for some software, design books, and a little help getting started with Photoshop.
After that, I began to do web and graphic design for people in addition to the eBay business. Design eventually turned into a full time gig for a while, and I quit eBay for a while and worked exclusively as a designer.
A good friend of mine since high school happened to be in the adult industry, and the basic networking naturally led me to doing some designs for adult companies. The pay was much better from the adult guys too, so I couldn’t say no. (*laughs*)
Eventually I started to meet people who made a living by promoting adult sites as an affiliate and made a lot more money than I did. It seemed like a no-brainer for me to go that direction as opposed to designing the sites for a one time fee. So, I built a network of my own. In the beginning, I had small successes quickly by trading design work for traffic from established companies. I highly recommend the barter system!
Just before you saw me begin to appear everywhere as “Suite J” in 2008, I had sold my adult network and “cashed out” of the adult industry to go exclusively mainstream Internet Marketing.  It was kinda like starting over with a slight advantage of having a few skills that crossed over.

How long did it take you to get some kind of success and what were the most important things you did to get success?

Well, that depends on what you mean by success. Everyone has a different perspective on what success is. Personally, if I can feed my family and live comfortably running my own business from home, I consider myself successful. In the past, I’ve washed dishes, worked on a farm, and been broke enough to not eat for a few days straight, so I don’t take anything for granted.  Does that mean I’m satisfied now? NEVER! (*laughs*)
It’s hard to answer this one, because I have been doing “something” online for so long. I can tell you that since I’ve sold the adult business though, I’ve taken a big pay cut! (*laughs*). It didn’t take me long to make the transition of making sales with a few niche sites in mainstream. I’ve also had decent success with website flipping, but as you may have seen me chat about in my blog, I’m still trying to get to another level in mainstream Internet Marketing. I do feel like I have the tools and the skills now though, so we’ll see what happens. Cross your fingers for me.

Definitely, keep us updated in your blog. I’m looking for some more advice. What would you say are the top 5 most important things to do if you want to get started with Internet Marketing?

Five?? (*laughs*).
Let’s see.

First, network your butt off. Find people who have had some success already and ask them for help. The best way to go about that is to offer them help in return. You don’t need to have special skills. Just say you’re willing to help them do whatever you can in exchange for their help.

Take action. I know you’ve seen that everywhere but that’s because it’s true, and nobody does it for some reason. I’ve been guilty of that on some levels myself, so I’m not preaching, but refrain from self-sabatoge. Don’t make excuses. Just do something. You’ll be surprised what happens.

Realize that it’s a waste of money buying every Internet Marketing product known to man, especially if you haven’t made any money yet. There is enough free info online to get you started. If you combine that free knowledge with networking and taking action, you’ll make money. Period.

Be helpful.

Be humble.

What kind of learning should you do first when you want to get into IM?

Learn to treat everything you do with a business mindset first. It’s not a lottery ticket or an easy button. It takes hard work at first. It will get easier, but there’s no way around the initial leg work. Anyone who tells you different either has a sales page they’re about to send you to or a free opt-in with an upsell.

What areas of IM are you specializing in and what % does each contribute to your overall yearly income from IM?

Website flipping and niche sites are about 50-40% right now, with 10% being a few odd things mixed in here and there. That will change though, so ask me again in October. (*laughs*)

What would an average day look like? For example, how much time is spent each day on seo, website creation, product creation, article writing etc.

That’s changed a great deal very recently for me. I’ve just hired an employee to do a lot of my tasks like articles,  seo, and link building for me on a weekly basis. I’m planning to build a small team of Suite Clones so that I can work on the areas of my business that I’m best at.  I’ve been hiring freelancers on a contract basis for a while now as well, so some of my time is spent managing my business in general. Website creation is still a big part of my day right now, because I flip a lot of new sites weekly and I’m working on longer term flips as well. I also regularly build niche sites to keep. I outsource almost all of my writing now unless it’s for my own blog, but sometimes I just quickly write up something if I need it right away.  Product creation is something on the horizon which I will write myself if it’s sold under my name.

What are you working on right now?

Aside from this interview? Well, like I said, there’s always flips and niche keepers in the works. But, I’m also working on SuiteJ.com right now, and a website flipping blog that will be different than most the others that have come and gone.
I have my sights set on creating membership sites and laser-focused affiliate promotions for this summer as well.

I remember reading in your blog that you set yourself a goal of $150 k this year. How are going with that?

(*Laughs*) You know what’s great about that post? I had so many people contact me personally via email and Skype that wanted to connect with me after it was posted and I think it’s because I was open, honest, and gave people a better idea of where I’m at in this business. A lot of my readers were unaware of my past and didn’t realize that I’ve already had some success online. The response I got definitely made me want to be more transparent and connect with my readers on a more personal level, which I will try and do when the blog’s back up.

Oh, yeah, back to the question. See how I tipped toed around that one? (*laughs*)

I’m not gonna bullshit you, I’m definitely behind, but you’ll have to read my blog in order to hear about my excuses. (*laughs*).  I won’t count myself out just yet though, because having goals is what keeps me motivated to sit in front of the computer screen for 12 hours straight.

Thank you for being so open today. Is there any question you think I should have asked or is there something else you want to share with our readers?

I think you should have asked me about my tattoos, my M&Ms fascination, and my addiction to coffee. But, we could do that next time.

Thank you so much JAY! It has been great talking to you. Find Jay at Suitej.com

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