Hello; I want to invite you to help me celebrate the fifth anniversary of the midway marketplace. It was five years ago today when I returned home from what should have been the most profitable festival on my calendar with barely enough money to replace the stock I had used and decided instead to pay for the domain name and start my journey towards becoming a full time amusement equipment reseller. Its a good day to reflect on where I am and the future for me and the business.
First, as you can tell there has been a major change in the website. The eye screaming yellow background is no more. While it was perfect for displaying merchandise on a midway game, I understand it was not the best choice to have made for my site. I have also finally given in and stopped coding the site by hand. I have switched to a wordpress based site. The layout is plain by some accounts, but I have also been told that it is much easier to navigate and shows a much more professional look to visitors. It will take some time to move all the equipment listings over from the previous site, so I hope people will be patient. As I always say if you don’t see it ask for it. I may have it just not have it on the site yet. And if I don’t have it, with my ever expanding network of contacts I can probably find it. It will also take some time to copy all the links pages over to the new format, so for a time; you will continue to see some of those dreaded yellow ones. Trust me I’m working as fast as I can to make them go away.
I have personally been going through some changes of my own. I finally decided to end my frustration with fighting my weight problem and get help in the form of gastric surgery. I had worked hard with diet and exercise for over a year. I followed that up with a prescription doctors only give to borderline diabetics. So, on February 13th I had my first consultation. I learned a lot from the classes you take prior to having any of these surgeries and had lost 56 lbs september 18th when i started the liquid diet in preparation for the procedure. I have lost an additional 25 lbs since then for a total of 81 lbs. That sounds like a lot until you realize that I weighed in at 512 lbs at the beginning. And you have to compare that to the 250 lbs that I’m told is the desired weight for someone with my height and bone structure. So, as the site gets better I too will be getting healthier. I want to be around for a long time so I can help as many people as possible. And there is so much more I can do.
The midway has continued to improve its reputation with search engines and web directories. As of right now the site has a google ranking of 3 and is solidly in the top 1.8 million sites on alexa. The site also has a strong presence in social media with me or the site having over 3,100 friends on Facebook, 1,000 connections on linked in, 7,200 on merchants circle. I have also finally joined twitter this year. I have just cracked 250 followers. I hope you will join me there. My handle is @mistermidway I have also continued to grow the email mailing lists. I now have over 1,500 in U S party rental companies alone. And I want to thank all of you for this. I know how busy you all are, and i want you to know how much I appreciate your deciding to continue receiving my weekly updates. I do my best to make them as painless as possible. And if there is anything I could change in their format that would help you, please let me know. I have been encouraged to start using a professional mail program instead of just sending bulk messages from my regular mail client, and I will consider it in the future; but for now this is just much simpler for me. I prefer to worry about the content rather than the medium if at all possible.
Now, I should mention results. I started off 2012 with the sale of the Bertazzon carousel. it was the largest sale I had ever made, and i had high expectations for this year. In fact I still do. But to this point I have only sold a few inflatables. I have had many conversations with nice people about possible sales, but as of right this minute I don’t have any others to report. I do have sales pending on a chance thunderbolt, wisdom super jet coaster, and a huss rainbow and huss topspin; but pending sales are alike close in horseshoes. Considering the weakness of the worldwide economy, I believe I’m doing as well as could be expected. Of course, I hope for more and expect more out of myself and the site. With the bulk of equipment sales coming during the months from November to February, I’m confident that there are many sales successes coming just around the corner. And I want to thank everyone who has ever listed equipment with me. I hope you know I am doing everything within my power to show your equipment to its best advantage and give us both the best possibility for a sale. I This isn’t just a job to me but my passion, and i feel like i have an obligation to give you my best work. Please let me know if you have any suggestions to that end. If you haven’t updated your item in a while, then maybe its time to take some new pictures or to finally record that video.
so, what are my plans for the future of the site? First, now that the site is hosted on wordpress, I will be able to include banner ads throughout the site instead of just on the equipment listings pages like before. So, I am hoping more of you will consider purchasing ads on the site. I have decided on a rate of $75 per quarter or $250 per year. I will continue to persue quality products like the hercules hauler and A C Sound’s automated sound repeaters. I am looking into affiliate marketing opportunities. By generating regular income this will allow me to get out and meet more of you through trade shows and festival or fair conventions. It will also allow me to invest more in promoting the site and bringing in even more visitors. but most importantly as soon as i recover from my surgery I’m committed to starting a regular video podcast. My goal is to create a monthly if not weekly show case of available equipment along with interviews with its owners and their staff and visits to places of local interest. And in the mean time I’d love to do some online or phone interviews to include on the blog. I now have a Skype account and love to meet people from this industry and learn things from them. I especially love hearing about how carnivals, circuses, and amusement parks are operated outside the U S, and I know my followers would love to as well. As you can see I have big dreams but they all come back to promoting the site and helping find new homes for your equipment.
Well, there is lots going on both with the site and with me personally as I celebrate five years on the net. And before I go I want to thank all my friends and family for their love, encouragement, and support. I couldn’t do this without them. So for now if you are a friend of the site, please share this with your friends or at least share the link to the site and tell them its new and improved. If you are just a casual visitor and haven’t been on the site in a while, the please check it out and let me know what you think of the changes. And if you have never visited the site, I encourage you to come on over. Even if you will never be in the market for amusement equipment, there are lots of beautiful photos, enjoyable videos, and links to some amazing companies and organizations from the worldwide amusement industry. Well thanks so much and take care out there, Max
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Congrats Max! Once you get used to wordpress you will love it!! If you need any help with it do not hesitate to ask me!!
Judy
Hi Judy; thanks for being the first person to comment on my first post with the new and improved site. I am starting to learn to love wordpress. while many things still don’t come naturally, i find it much easier to fix my mistakes in than when i was coding the pages myself. I also don’t have the same fear about crashing the site that comes with any new aditions to a static site. and I believe you were the one who told me about the classifieds plug in. I would like to know how to bak up my work so i can restore it if that were to ever happen. And if you think of anything that would help my site, I hope you will feel free to let me know. thanks again and take care, max
Congrats on 5 years! Here is to many many more. And I agree with Judy, wordpress is great to work with. Good luck on the new site.
Bucky
Hi Bucky; thanks for the good wishes. I think with wordpress its just taking me some time to get used to it like when you get a new coat, pair of shoes, or when your computer updates its operating system. smile I would appreciate a suggestion on a better comments widget if you have one. I wish you all the best as well. take care, max
Hey Max,
Loving the new look and congratulations on making 5 years! Anyone can tell you are passionate about what you’re doing. I also wanted to wish you the very best with your upcoming surgery. You are rocking your life like you really mean it, for sure!
All the best,
Robin
Hi Robin; Thanks for the kind words and for all your help with the site. If it weren’t for friends like you, I couldn’t have met my goal of getting the home page restarted by today. And I’m glad my passion comes through. The internet allows us to reach out to a huge audience, but its hard to know how you are being heard. This is especially true for me. IN the past the only people who took the time to comment about my site were those telling me how bad it was. I never believed it was as bad as they said it was, but I always knew it could be much better. This is why we all have to remember to do our work even if the methods aren’t perfect or even as good as we would like them to be. Most people appreciate honesty, integrity, and hard work above flashy sites and the most modern tools. I’m confident in my surgeon and am looking forward to it, your good wishes are greatly appreciated. I hope to have new much skinnier pictures of me soon for the website. smile Just wanted you to know how much i appreciated you cheering for me from the front row. going to keep rocking it with you friend, max
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hello; while the subject of weight loss isn’t the primary focus of this site, it is a major part of who i am. I had gastric surgery. before the procedure I went to several classes on diet and nutrician and laerned a lot about how to live better after surgery. best of luck, max