Since I do most of the writing here it will be difficult to describe myself in a third person format so let me just tell it like it is, as myself. This way you may get a better idea about who I am and why you might want to hire me as your website developer.
To summarize at the start – I am a mature business owner who looks at the role of a web developer from a different perspective than many website designers you may have encountered. I am self taught, from a school of hard knocks, with a different background than almost anyone else in my profession. I think this is a good thing, I hope you do as well.
The bottom line is that I have the experience and background to fully understand your point of view as a business owner. How cool is that?
Name: Scott Richard Pooler
Born: Tampa, Florida 1964
Education: High School Graduate 1982 (H.B. Plant High, Tampa Florida) and the US Merchant Marine Schools.
Early Career Highlights
Electronics Sales and Custom Home Entertainment System Installer, Retail beverage manager, Boat Yard Worker, Dockmaster, Local Tampa Bay Tow Boat Operator, 
Yacht Delivery Captain, Merchant Marine Officer with All Oceans Licenses in Power and Sailing Vessels, Offshore Oil Boat Captain, Mate on Oil Tankers – Deep Sea – Member of Masters Mates and Pilots Union, Auto Sales and Finance Officer for Local GMC/Pontiac Dealer, Casino Ship Captain, Mega Yacht Captain, Line Haul Tug Mate and Captain in the AFL/CIO Seafarers International Union.
My early career, the one that had mostly to do with boats and ships and tugs and the merchant marine, started in 1978 (at the age of 14 I was running a towboat on Tampa Bay) and ended in 2001 when I was severely injured at sea during a barge transfer operation off the coast of Southern Louisiana. My physical recovery required several surgeries over the course of several years, during which I needed to find something to do with my time, my energy, my intellect and my skills.
If you can’t already tell from the bio so far, I have experienced the life of a disciplined and well trained professional.
My main interests had always been in the sea and seafaring, it is what I think I was meant to do in my young life. Since childhood, I had a love for the sea, for travel and for the discipline or being a working boatman. During my seafaring life, I saw amazing things and went to many wonderful places it also helped a lot to be earning a very good living most of the time.
I have met, worked for, managed, learned from and taught some of the most amazingly diverse individuals. This is why I think I can understand the needs of my present day clients and listen to what they express as the most important parts of their businesses which need to be featured on their websites.
I’ve also learned the value of respect, keeping to schedules, documenting your work, keeping ahead of maintenance, managing people, and dealing with all kinds of people from all walks of life, from lowly tugboat deckhands to lofty yacht owners and very interesting high dollar gamblers.
After my tragic injury in 2001 my daughter Sage was born in the same year. It was difficult to think of my career as a lifelong seafarer as being over when I had a new baby to be responsible for. I needed to get something going, even if I was restricted to my home and a walker after my paralysis was rectified. My solution was to turn to eBay which had been an interest of mine since about 1997/1998.
eBay – My Pandora’s Box
eBay had been something I dabbled in before my injury, I was, since childhood, always good at finding stuff to buy and sell at a profit and that naturally translated well to the online auction marketplace that eBay once was. When I was at home and going to doctors 4 times a week, in addition to therapy and all of the other stuff you do when you were nearly cut in half by a towing chain… I found that selling on eBay could be handled in small chunks of time. I could make money, take care of my daughter, make my doctors appointments and pretty much be independent while in recovery mode.
I focused on the niche of NASCAR and quality diecast muscle car collectibles to sell on eBay. It was a hot niche at that time and I found that I could keep my financial head well above water with this strategy.
In fact I eventually became a Titanium Power Seller on eBay by selling NASCAR related toys and diecast.
As my health returned I became interested in making more of this eBay thing so I began to look at what was at that time a very hot franchise opportunity. eBay drop stores was what they were generically named and I thought that with my previous experience and if I could combine that concept of the drop store with another type of income producing business such as packing and shipping, which was also exploding at the time… I might have a nice business plan
My research led me to a company out of Michigan by the name of “Auction It Today”. I was attracted to that particular franchise because they had no restrictions on what other businesses you could join with the eBay franchise to make a more solid business plan. By the way, it seemed obvious to me early on that eBay consignment by itself could not possibly support a full retail location for very long and this is why I had to have a franchise unit that was flexible about shared space.
I was asked to become part of the Master Franchise Team and was named the Master Franchise Rep in the State of Florida for Auction It Today in 2006.
This arrangement started out great and we had fabulous plans to place eBay drop stores all over Florida. I traveled a great deal throughout my home State of Florida, to and from Michigan and really throughout the Southeast.
One thing about the franchise game I learned fast is that the franchisees can be your best source of information and also they must be successful for the franchisor to have continued success. In my case this was not the reality and even though my efforts were focused upon making the business model work, the writing was on the wall for eBay drop stores in general and my time with Auction it Today was curtailed by this reality.
All Business Auctions became my home base, eventually offering eBay business setup, design, software and consignment services to local businesses in the Tampa Bay area with an office and warehouse in Largo, Florida.
Published Solely by: Scott Pooler
As a trading assistant with eBay and a trained by eBay education specialist and eBay stores designer, I became very involved with the business side of eBay consignment and Trading Assistants. I created a WordPress.com blog by the name of the “Trading Assistant Journal” which journaled my perspective on eBay, consignment and eventually all of the eCommerce universe.
The Trading Assistant Journal became much more popular than I had envisioned or expected and it launched my name into national prominence as a Journalist and eBay expert eventually gaining me the respect of many in that world. (See testimonials).
The TAJ also taught me the value of WordPress and its amazing ability to attract organic search engine friendly traffic. I learned the power of good content and the power of WordPress with the Trading Asssistant Journal.
While running the consignment business I commissioned the creation of a website for All Business Auctions. This was a new experience for me and lets just say that from the perspective of a busy business owner, it did not go as I had envisioned.
I was frustrated by the lack of professionalism I encountered from the “web developers” I had employed, and I employed a slew of them! When I realized that my quest to create a company website it had taken over a year and cost thousands of dollars down the drain, I knew there had to be a better way!
Hooked on Joomla!
My web developer frustration was actually the genesis of a great discovery in my life. I found that I could figure out this web development thing and do it myself! I know, lots of business owners think they can design websites, but really can’t make the connection between content and style or they do not have the patience or time to do so. But I had a strong affinity for the process and the technology and the creative process that goes into developing a website.
My first website was for All Business Auctions and at the time it was published many people would have and did guess that I had spent in excess of tens of thousands of dollars on its development. I was proud of it and I had learned a lot, alongside my partner at the time, Kathy. This first site was built with the Content Management System called Joomla! .
I found Joomla! to be a real miracle of organization and design with nearly unlimited possibilities. I was hooked!
The All Business Auctions site was finished and the business was operating but my interest soon shifted gears to web development and design. I had already been using many of the graphics programs (Photoshop etc) for the editing of the fabulous product photography I used in my eBay auctions and for the eBay stores designs I worked on for All Business Auctions clients. I found that my self taught skills with these programs translated well to web design and online graphics creation. I also knew that I was not the only business owner that had to be frustrated by the process of creating a business website.
This concurrence of events and skill set brought me to the creation of iBusinessLogic.com. which was also originally developed as a Joomla! CMS website – in house.
iBusinessLogic.com
Began as a design and development firm offering Joomla! website development services to eCommerce sellers and small businesses. iBusinessLogic.com offers much more at this stage of the game but initially we were serving the clients of All Business Auctions with quality web development at affordable prices.
Why WordPress?
As I mentioned previously, my experience with WordPress started early on with the Trading Assistant Journal. At that time WordPress was not really developed into what it has become now and therefore using it as a business website platform would not have worked very well.
Joomla! was superior in all respects as a Content Management System for business websites except in the areas of SEO and ease of use and therefore iBusinessLogic.com began developing websites with a Joomla! front end and a WordPress blog attached. I called these development projects “Hybrid” CMS sites because they were the best of both worlds and added a great deal of strength to any domain if each system was utilized for its strengths.
WordPress CMS
In the years since my start as a Content Management System developer, WordPress has grown and evolved into what many consider as a full fledged content management system.
I believe that most businesses in America today can and many do use WordPress as the primary platform for their main website. I know that I love the features and the nearly endless capabilities of WordPress while I also respect the strength and robust nature of Joomla!.
That said, I now truly believe that WordPress is a stand alone CMS and that it provides an ease of use and simplicity of design that is perfect for use as the small business owners website platform. No other CMS is more widely used, and no other web publishing platform is as easy to understand or expand upon. WordPress is the best choice for the majority of small to medium sized business and eCommerce websites today.
Present Day
Website or WordPress Blog? - Both!
iBusinessLogic.com is now my only focus. I have left the eBay world behind and closed up shop at All Business Auctions and the Trading Assistant Journal. Not only did the third party provider business model with eBay change and really evaporate almost overnight but my true interests were better served by my passion for building Content Management System websites.
I feel that any Content management System style website is a great product and I am proud to offer all of the advantages CMS can provide to my clients. I continue to write and offer my clients my copy writing services along with technical and resume’ writing when requested.
I am very closely tied into the world of WordPress and Joomla! and even Drupal but I do not try to offer myself as a one stop shop web developer. Yes, I can get almost anything done but my passion is for open source CMS and I think that within that framework almost any style website, built for almost any end purpose can be devised. I would prefer to offer honest and detailed experience to my clients as a specialist within the vast professional scope that is the Internet industry.
I am proud of my past work but I am always willing and ready to expand and improve upon my knowledge and I think that with each project I complete that the next one will be just that much better. I really enjoy the process of organizing the ideas, creating the plan, working with the client, learning the clients business, and laying out the website as I know it will work, both within my view and from the clients perspective. I am truly excited to work on each project, every day from start to finish.
I belong to the following professional associations and groups:
• Florida Technology Professionals
• PESA- Professional eBay Sellers Alliance
• Examiner.com
• Tampa Bay and Orlando Business Networking
• Technology Outsourcing– Professionals/ Software Developers/ Freelancers/ Programmers/ Entrepreneurs
• Tampa Social Business Marketing / Networking
• GiftWorks User Group
• Ecommerce and Online Marketing Experts
• Open Source
• Bonanzle Sell
• GiftWorks Consultant Partners
• Tampa Social Networking Group
• Open Source Interactive Network
• E-Commerce Network
• Shopp Plugin for WordPress
• Website Marketing
• Tampa Bay Business Network
• Joomla Open Source Web Design
• Joomla! Professional Users Group
• eCommerce Merchants
• Joomla! Tampa
• eMarketing Association Network
• TBTF – Tampa Bay Technology Forum
• Infopia Professional Network
• Joomla Pro
• Social Media Marketing Network
• Global Interactive Marketing Association
• Business Buddies Tampa
• JoomedIn