IAM2557 – Internet marketer and Blogger Writes about Money Matters on His Blog

Marc Andre has been self-employed as an internet marketer and blogger since 2008. He built successful websites in different industries like web design, photography, and finance.

Currently, he is working on growing a personal finance blog, VitalDollar.com, where he writes about saving money, managing money, and making money.

He discusses the importance of focus in business—prioritizing what truly moves the needle, resisting distractions, and sticking to proven strategies rather than chasing every new trend.

Marc emphasizes that success doesn’t require perfection from day one, encouraging aspiring entrepreneurs to start small, learn by doing, and build momentum over time.

Running a business takes focus, consistency, and smart use of tools that make your work easier. That’s why we recommend checking out Constant Contact — a platform that helps entrepreneurs simplify marketing and stay connected with their audience.

Website: Vital Dollar

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Transcription:

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Marc Andre Teaser 00:00

That's kind of my target audience is people who are basically in that spot that I was in, who are looking to improve their financial situation. And a lot of those people are interested in side hustles.

Some people might just be looking for extra money. Some people might be looking for something that has potential to turn into a full-time business.

Intro 00:21

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:48

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Marc Andre of VitalDollar.com. Marc, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Marc Andres 00:57

Great. Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Gresham Harkless 01:00

No problem, super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Marc, so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

And Marc has been self-employed as an internet marketer and blogger since 2008. He's built successful websites in different industries like web design, photography, and finance.

Currently, he is working on growing a personal finance blog, VitalDollar.com, where he writes about saving money, managing money, and making money.

Marc, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Marc Andre 01:28

Yeah, I'm ready.

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Gresham Harkless 01:29

Awesome, let's do it. So, to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about your background and your CEO story, and how you started your business.

Marc Andre 01:36

So, originally, I was just really looking for some extra money. I kind of got started with web design.

So, I had a few, a few clients that were just friends and family, basically, that hired me to create like a simple website for them.

And that's kind of how I got started. Just looking for a little extra spending money. Shortly after I got started, I pretty quickly felt like there was some potential to take it bigger and potentially become a full-time income.

At the same time, I was also frustrated with my job, my full-time job. I just didn't feel like I really had much of an opportunity there to grow.

And I was trying, I was doing whatever I could to get ahead, and it just wasn't really working. So, I think it was a combination of seeing some potential or some possibility with my side hustle.

And then also, kind of being frustrated with my job. It was like, well, instead of just trying to keep moving forward at my job, maybe I should put a little more emphasis into my own business and seeing where it can go. So that's really how I got started.

Gresham Harkless 02:44

Nice, I think that's everybody, well, not everybody, but a lot of people's goal and dream is to be able to take what is a side hustle and actually build it into a business that's able to be full-time.

Because I think a lot of people might be in your exact same shoes that you were in, I should say, now listening to this and not aware that you can sometimes make that transition.

So, it's great to hear you've been able to do that. And I wanted to drill a little bit deeper in here, a little bit more about Vital Dollar and all the other projects you have working on. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Marc Andre 03:13

Sure. So, I started Vital Dollar in 2018. So, it's a little over a year old. And the content there is focused on topics related to money.

So, like you mentioned in the intro, saving money, managing money, making money. And kind of going back to what you just pointed out, that there are a lot of people who are in a situation that I was in, like 12 years ago, when I first started at SideHouse, it was like 2007.

So that's kind of my target audience is people who are basically in that spot that I was in, who are looking to improve their financial situation.

And a lot of those people are interested in side hustles. Some people might just be looking for extra money.

Some people might be looking for something that has potential to turn into a full-time business.

But regardless, there are a lot of people who are looking for ways to make money outside of a job.

And then once they make that money, how to manage it and actually turn it into something that improves their life. So, my target audience is basically me. Like 12 years ago.

Gresham Harkless 04:24

Nice. I definitely appreciate that. And I could definitely, you know, hear how, everything that you were building and growing and how you've been able to, to reach back and help out some, some other people that are going through those same experiences.

And I've always said that, money, a lot of times, if you can understand it, like you, everything you're creating on your blog and you've been creating, it gives and can provide a type of freedom.

And a lot of people sometimes are not able to do things because of money, or are able to do things because of money.

But it's great to hear that you have a resource that you're building and growing and helping people to kind of understand that.

Marc Andre 05:01

Yeah, definitely.

Gresham Harkless 05:02

Nice. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Marc Andre 05:12

Yeah, I mean, kind of going back to the same thing that we were just talking about, like there's a ton of personal finance blogs.

There's a lot of blogs covering similar topics, and I think what the way that I try to approach standing out or making my blog unique is focusing on what I do best and focusing on the experiences that I have, which is mostly related to making money.

And like I said, I think there's a lot of people out there who are looking for answers and I can kind of lean on the fact that I've been through that before.

And I've had experience with side hustles and with turning that into a full-time income and actually turning it into something that did improve my own financial situation and my life and the lives for everyone in my family.

So, it's basically just using my experience. I think there's with so many different finance bloggers, everybody has a different background, different experience.

Some people have more of a background with investing or with frugality. And I think it's, it's ideal if you can kind of lean on your strengths and what you do best to help set yourself apart. And that's kind of what I'm trying to do.

Gresham Harkless 06:35

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I appreciate you for doing that. Because a lot of times, like you mentioned, there's people that are listening to this and are trying to figure out how to generate more revenue.

So, it's great that you created something where you've been able to achieve that success.

And other people that are listening that are trying to go through maybe the exact same process, are not aware of how exactly to do that.

But it's great that you created content that allows people to kind of go through the steps that you were in at that time and understand exactly how they can also achieve what you've been able to achieve.

And I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

And this might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Marc Andre 07:19

I'd say, I'm not sure it's completely a habit, but I think the thing I try to do in my daily life is to have focus.

And there's a few different ways that comes into play in my work. To start with, I always have a list of priorities for my business.

I realized pretty early on, once I started working full-time in my business, that if I didn't have focus, I wound up spending my time on things that really don't matter.

It's easy to get distracted by things that maybe you think they're important in the moment, but when you really look at the overall picture of your business and focusing on the priorities and what's urgent. It's easy to spend time on things that really aren't, that really shouldn't be your priority.

So, I learned pretty early on that I need to have a list of priorities for my business. And then I use that list to create a to-do list for each day and each week.

And that helps me to stay on task and to make sure that I'm using my time in a way that's actually gonna benefit my business instead of just staying busy.

And then the other part of focus is, again, going back to what we've been talking about is trying to stick to what I do best.

For anybody who works online, especially in fields like making money online, know that there's a ton of stuff that you come across every day, different articles, different sales pages that promise different techniques of making money, different things you can do.

It's really easy to get distracted and to think, oh, wow, that sounds really awesome. I should try that.

And then what happens is you wind up bouncing from one thing to the next and not really giving anything the attention it deserves and not really doing well with any of it.

So, I try to stay focused on what I've done in the past and the approach I've taken to building blogs and making money online.

And I try to just stick to what's worked for me and what I do well. And as much as I can, try to avoid the outside temptations to take completely different approaches.

Gresham Harkless 09:39

That makes perfect sense. Like the acronym focuses, follow one course of action until success.

And a lot of times, that can be hard to do. And let me know, I guess, if you've had the same experience.

But I find that sometimes when you start thinking in an entrepreneurial way, you start seeing opportunities literally everywhere. They literally pop up everywhere.

So, it can be even more difficult to focus because you start to see in an entrepreneurial way.

And when you start to look at it that way, and from a self-employed perspective, you start to see that literally you can do a lot of things, so you have to go back, like you mentioned, to those kind of, I guess, your strengths, so that you're not just doing everything, you're doing what's in alignment with who you are and what you're capable of doing.

Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you could hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Marc Andre 10:29

If I could hop into a time machine, what I'd tell my younger self would be to start my business earlier. I had mentioned earlier on that I was frustrated with my job.

The first several years out of college, I had a few different jobs and could never really find one that gave me the opportunities that I was looking for.

I always felt like I was working hard and doing the best I could, but I just couldn't, really find anything that had the opportunity that I wanted for growth.

And my typical response was to look for a better job, to look for a different job that would give me the opportunity. And it just didn't really work out for me.

And eventually after, a few years of frustration, I wound up starting my own business, so I would encourage other people that if you have a desire to own a business or, to do something and you're not getting opportunities at your job, starting a side hustle can be a great way to have a creative outlet and to give yourself a chance to start a business that might turn into something bigger.

Gresham Harkless 11:34

Absolutely. Yeah, I definitely appreciate that word of wisdom is I myself went through a bunch of, I call them garbage jobs, because they were just not great jobs.

And it was only because I got laid off that I was kind of in some way, I guess, force of the light bulb kind of really hit hard to actually do your own business.

But I went through kind of like a similar process. But the fact that I love about what you've been talking about is that has become part of your story for Vital Dollar.

So, I feel like there's people you can resonate probably even better with somebody that might be going, or somebody can resonate even better with what you said. They might be going through the exact same experience.

So rather than start tomorrow, start the day after that, you can actually start getting, get started now on just creating something on the side and then it can develop and grow if that's what your goal is.

Marc Andre 12:20

Yup.

Gresham Harkless 12:22

Nice. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, or how we have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Marc, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Marc Andre 12:32

To me, for me, like running my own business, what the main benefit, what it really means to me, is having flexibility.

So, being able to work from home, it's been more than 10 years now since I've worked in a traditional office, so I don't have to commute to a job, save time and money.

Having the flexibility to be closer to my family, I have two kids, so I get to see them more, having the freedom and flexibility to pursue the opportunities that interest me.

Most of, well, actually all the websites I've had that have been successful anyway, have been based on things that were hobbies of mine or interests. It started with web design, and then photography, and now finance.

And so, I really love that I can start a website on an area of interest, and it makes your work a lot more enjoyable, and you also get to learn a lot just by spending so much time on a particular subject. So I love having that type of flexibility as well.

Gresham Harkless 13:36

Yes, that definitely makes perfect sense. And a lot of times, because sometimes building and growing websites or any type of business can be something that you do spend a lot of time on.

That's why a lot of people say you should be interested in or passionate about it, largely because you will spend a lot of time there, and you want to make sure that you enjoy it and you have the ability, especially in this day and age, to make that decision.

Marc Andre 14:01

And some people, I know some people who have had really good success with websites and topics that don't really interest them. They're able to just focus on the business aspect of it.

But for me, I have started a few websites on topics because I thought there was maybe potential to make money or thought it was a good business decision. And those sites have all died off very quickly because something else has, kind of dominated my attention.

It's hard for me to dedicate time and effort into something that I really don't enjoy when there are other things out there that I could be spending my time on.

So, for me personally, I don't, I wouldn't tell someone else that you, you know, you have to follow your passion.

I know some people who have been able to do well otherwise, but for me personally, it's really hard for me to do well in something that at least that doesn't at least interest me.

Gresham Harkless 14:57

That makes sense. Yeah. I'm much of the same way. And I always said, if you, if you have that, I always say, if you have the opportunity to choose one or the other, there's something you're passionate about.

When I choose something you're passionate about, if you can and know how to generate revenue and make money, and build it successfully. So, I agree with that.

Well, Marc, I truly appreciate your time. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And then, of course, how best they can get a hold of you.

Marc Andre 15:23

The only thing additional I would say is, is just kind of going back to encouraging people that if you have a desire in starting a business, just to take action and start, it doesn't have to be anything big.

A lot of online entrepreneurs, anyway, started with something small just on the side, and your first attempt, maybe a failure, but you'll learn something.

You'll learn a lot more from trying than you will just from sitting on the sidelines and trying to read. So, the biggest hurdle, really, is just getting started.

And as far as getting in touch with me, if you go to vitaldollar.com, that's the best place to find me, and there is a contact link. It's down in the footer. If you scroll down, there's a contact link, and you can reach me through the contact form. It will come directly to me.

Gresham Harkless 16:09

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And we'll have that link in the show notes as well, so that anybody can follow up with you.

But Marc, truly appreciate your time, truly appreciate everything that you're doing, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Marc Andre 16:18

Great, thanks, you too.

Outro 16:20

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase; it's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at Blue16Media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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