Since posting the message "Would You Hire Me?" I have received several posts from the group wanting to know how I got started so I thought I should respond to the questions since Inquiring Minds Want To Know....

I graduated from high school in 1970, Bishop Byrne High School in Port Arthur, Texas.  I was an average student and had a blah personality.  I taught myself guitar at home because I was a loner and had a lot of free time.  I was an avid book reader from a young child and lived in the people of who were in my books.  I was tall and lanky and had absolutely no self-esteem or self confidence.  I was raised by a strict German Catholic man who was born on Hitler's birthday (and was a dictator), and who later died at the age of 50 years old...thank God!  My father did all my thinking for me.  I never had a single thought of my own.

After my father died, and his influence wasn't present on a day to day basis (but fear of his memory), I began to see where I had to make some changes in my life and go forward without fear of failure.  So, at first, in total ignorance, I began to take on jobs that might lead me into more of a professional career.  From 1970 to 1985, I was a legal secretary.  That was a very hard profession, and I learned a lot about how dirty law and the people involved in law really are.  I also learned how to get ahead in this world with the written word.  Lawyers really know how to write letters.  I also learned how to deal with difficult people and get people to do what I wanted them to do.  It is a very, very powerful skill and lead me into outside sales.  I became very successful in outside sales for a employment agency and decided to open up my own agency.

I quit working for other companies and jumped into recruiting.  I got into a nitch market in Texas for placing ranch personnel on the larger Texas Ranch Owners.  I first started with their housekeeping staff and met a lot of rich ranching families.  Over a period of 4 years I was considered "the recruiter" for Perry Bass, the King Ranch heirs, and many, many other well known wealth in the State of Texas.  Involved in this and doing very well, I was introduced to an executive search team who placed nuclear engineers and I decided to try my hand in that field as well.  I began placing navy n-engineers in Louisiana Power & Light and the big money started rolling in.

I also began using a Tandy computer to maintain a database of all my candidates.  As the computer industry introduced new products and tools, I added those pieces and learned them on my own.  In 1989 the employment market seemed to be slowing down and my income began to fall.  The economy was suffering in Texas and a lot of businesses were going bankrupt.  So I turned my attention to another computer related business called document conversion.  The State of Texas was converting its tax legal departments from paper to computerization and needed all their legal documents scanned into tiff images.  I met a woman who was running one of those companies in San Antonio and started working with her.  It was a start up company and money was very tight.

I lost 2 husbands to divorce during all this time.  Holly's dad after 15 years because I was pushing so hard to become my own person and didn't have time for him.  The second husband was an alcoholic and it took me 5 years of emotional ups and downs to finally divorce him.  I ended up in a mental hospital for therapy because of it and 2 attempts at suicide before I finally started getting well psychologically.  I was raising a rebellious teenage daughter through all that time and although I tried real hard to be a good mother to her, I was still a child myself.  So, Holly was raised by a child-mother and despite it all has become a wonderful woman of her own right!

Sometimes, in my posts, if you really look, you will see the lessons I learned in the mental hospital thrown out for women in business to see.   I hope, through my own experiences, in sharing them, that others might not have to go the hard road like I did.

In 1992 I married Ken and moved to Illinois.  I decided to continue in this business and marketed it to the McLean County recorder, a woman, newly elected and wanting to make a name for her in the county...she decided to let me scan the county records for computer retrieval.  I made an average of $36,000 a year working about 3 days a week doing that.  I was on top of the world!  It enabled Ken and I to get on our feet financially and life was wonderful.  Ken and I have the best marriage in the world.  Everyone who meets him, loves him.  My life is now on the right track.

Shortly thereafter I found a lump in my breast.  It turned out that I had to have a bilateral mastectomy and I couldn't scan any longer.  I had been a sole proprietor and didn't have anyone trained to do the job.  So, the Recorder decided to purchase a scanner and began to do all the work in her own office using her personnel...I lost both breast and my business in one swift kick in the ass! 

The internet came to Gridley.  I, again, curious of computer stuff, quickly got on a beta test for the local ISP and got all the free internet for one year as part of the beta test group.  I joined the FoDreams maillist and started mentoring through my life experiences business skills...together with my writing skills and having more of a hard-knocks education in life, I began sharing everything I had learned with the women in business. It got necessary to take all this valuable information and put it somewhere.  My email file folders were crammed full of great lessons so I decided to put it into a website.  That was 5 years ago.  With help from graphic designers, and my stealing html code off other webpages and putting the information between the code, formed a webpage.  I had no html experience and I didn't know any other way to get this information to the women in business. 

The website looked crappy for a long time but now, with the help of the Netscape Composer, I am able to maintain the website.  I still don't call myself a designer to speak of and today I still do the best I can on my limited education...but, here we all are today....one of the top women in business websites on the internet.  I still don't have any money coming in from the websites to live on as the revenue just barely pays for the expenses involved in maintaining it. 

I hope someday that someone will contact me and say, Deb, will you sell the websites to me for $$$$$ and that $$$$$ be good enough for me to see a profit for all my work.  I would like to continue with the website if I ever sell it on a salary because I truly believe it takes someone with the passion that I have to keep the website having a real living heartbeat.

So, there, in 10 paragraphs is the Deb behind Field of Dreams..... a high school graduate, mother, wife and friend...who just plugs away at this little screen every single day of her life....hoping to make a difference in just one of your lives.  If I do that, I think I am a very successful woman!

To your success,

Deb (behind the scenes)
 

Deb:  What an excellent point!  It was one I had never even considered until a few months ago when I started offering seminars and personalized coaching for self-publishers and entrepreneurs.  Since I was attracting a brand new audience than the one I'd been targeting in the past, I needed a way to make them know me very quickly.  So, instead of posting just a list of credentials on my web site, I posted my entire resume!

After all, when people look for a job, they supply their prospective
employer with a resume.  Why should it be any different for those of us who are in business for ourselves?

The interesting part about all this is that according to the stats I receive
from my Web Site, my resume page is one of the ones that draws the most traffic.

Warmest Regards,

Barbara A. Besteni
Information Publishing Workshops & Consulting
http://www.videofile.com/seminar
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/infopublishing
 

Order Your Internet Business Starter Kit Today
http://www.startupsite.com/index.cgi/20012

What a grand idea. I think we often fail to see our own talents, let 
along share them.  Long ago, in the era I was raised, to praise yourself 
was considered vain and unacceptable.   Often we are the only ones who truly know what we are capable of or have done that makes us a valuable "commodity".

Sometime back a friend of mine was applying for a job and wanted me to look over her application. At the time I was in the process of a divorce 
and heading back into the work force after 10 years at home.  To say my self-esteem was low would be underestimating the situation.  My friend brought me her application and I read it and we discussed all her abilities.  She and I had worked together for many years in similar positions, so I knew "her" job inside and out.

I was commenting on how many skills she had and the scope of her 
experience, awards, etc.  When I got through she smiled and said "I'm 
not looking for a job, I wrote that resume with all the experience you
have....it is YOUR resume and you are the one with all these talents and 
experience.  I noticed you were very unsure of yourself after being out 
of the workforce for so long, so I thought I would give you an outsiders 
perspective of you".  Wow, what an eye-opener, and what a friend.

With this in mind, I will submit an introduction to the list soon. 
Thanks, Deb, for the nudge.  We are lucky to have you as a "mentor".

Cheri Marsh, The SoapMeister
Old World Handmade Soap With A Gourmet Touch 
Tested only on family & friends!