Minneapolis Internet Marketing Consultant Enters Semi-Retirement with a New Lifestyle Strategy

Minneapolis based internet marketing consultant Earl Netwal has announced his semi-retirement and future interests.

“Before making too big a deal of this,” Earl says, “let me be clear that I will still be servicing my existing clients and may well bring on one or two additional within my more restricted target audience.”

By targeted audience, he is referring to the types of businesses that he is best able to assist, that being locally based companies serving a limited and defined market area. “I work primarily with service-based businesses that do work or provide services at their customer's location.”

Typically, most of his clients are small, with 1-7 employees that respond “on-call” to customer needs. This includes contractors, locksmiths, home staging specialists, computer repair services and more.

The “on-call” aspect is critical. What he focuses on is getting his clients to appear on the Google 3 pack also known as Google Maps. His clients offer services to people when they need it - when something has happened, and they want a fast response.

Under those circumstances, people tend to rely on Google to identify possible vendors near them, to call for help.

Being ranked in the top three on the Google 3 pack on desktops is the key for his clients. Over the years, people have learned skip past the pay per click ads on the top of a search page and look to the three firms featured on the 3 pack in their area. This gives them a ready list of three likely resources to solve their problem with easy to access contact information.

The issue for many small businesses is that they don’t realize that they may not be seen on the 3 pack as well as they think. “They will do a search for themselves and are pleased to see that they appear on the three-pack,” Earl explains. What they may not realize is that they appear there because Google knows they have previously searched for themselves, and Google will tend to feature the past businesses a person is known to have already visited. Someone on a different phone or computer may do the same search and get totally different results.

This is a frustration, as it gives some businesses a false sense of security.

He points out that the problem is further complicated by the fact that the results for a search can vary dramatically a mile away, as Google will show results based on proximity among other factors that may shift the results as well.

“I have developed a fairly simple methodology that serves to assist businesses in establishing and even growing their market area by continuing a series of actions designed to boost their firm’s activity, authority and geography served.”

This systematic approach has had significant benefits for his clients and himself. “I am no longer trying to be all things to all people,” he explains. And this has allowed him to slow down a bit and start developing a new set of interests and activities.

His first effort was aimed at getting himself back in shape after years of sitting in front of his computer. “I allowed myself to get fat,” he admits. “Too much sitting and not enough activity.”

To remedy that he has developed a new lifestyle interest and made a significant effort to lose the accumulated tonnage.

The lifestyle activity he has chosen is an interest in rocks and geology. “That started a few years back. I started to go on field trips with a local rock club. I soon discovered that I did not have the energy to spend a full day in the field. This, in turn, stimulated my interest in getting into shape.”

That led him back to the gym and to walking and swimming as a way to build his endurance. “That helped, but it didn’t really make that much of a difference on the scale.” It seems exercise stimulated my appetite as well as increased my endurance. While that was a plus, the excess weight I carried was a clear negative.”

He needed to find a way to achieve successful weight loss and found it ultimately with a program called Noom.

“Noom worked for me. I have lost well over 50 pounds in a remarkably short period of time. But the key has been my determination to get healthier and to pursue my new hobby.”

And he is intent on not only pursuing his new rockhounding hobby but to profit from it as well. Together with his wife, Joan, they have formed a new company called Joanies Rocks. They have been doing local rock shows in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota where they sell specimens they have found and dug up themselves as well as retailing rocks from miners and distributors.

“We are still putting more dollars into the business than we get out, but we enjoy the rock hunts, the activity, and the shows,” he says. “I am more active, and I have so much more to learn. It is not unusual for our customers to know more about one aspect or another of our inventory, but that is okay. We are happy to jump in with both feet, as this is the best way to learn as we go.”

“Now that I am retirement age, I have the opportunity to continue with my professional career while starting a new lifestyle business that is helping me get healthier and hopefully, wealthier down the road,” Netwal adds.