Ray Cassidy in Brief

What do I say then?  Basically I’m a pretty happy go lucky character, who loves the great outdoors and especially climbing in it’s various forms.  I’ve a couple of youngsters and I share the care with their mum though we live apart now.  I think I could say I’m proud of the way that when myself and Sheila parted company, the kids (as they were then) were never caught in the middle.  In many ways losing the security of married life and also cutting loose from a job that had simply got too much with all the other stuff going on was the making of me.  I’d always taken the easy road and avoided hassling or upsetting people by doing something radical.

That last sentence doesn’t seem to tie in with the idea of someone whose idea of relaxation is swinging from a piece of crumbly ice or lurching from hold to hold on a rockface.  But it is just confirmation: in climbing I have almost never really pushed the boat out.  I liked coming home to my wife back in the day; or getting back to the pub and talking nonsense about the days adventures.  I liked getting back to see my kids.

Before marrying and getting stuck into responsibility at work, I did wind my neck out a couple of times.  A little gang of us took a trip out to Peru to climb a route on Alpamayo.  The following year, with a friend it was Mt Kenya for the Diamond Couloir, an amazing piece of ice, about a dozen miles south of the Equator!

Now it’s all a different kind of adventure.  My adventures in Internet Marketing were strange.  I hated the idea of just selling random stuff to people when it was obvious that a lot of the stuff the gurus promoted was just short lived tosh!  I had a real hang up about asking people for money.  Weird! It took ages to find a niche where the stuff I learned could be put to use to build a real business or two.

It became obvious that small local businesses were missing out big time online if they had a competitor who got on quickly with a website.  I threw myself into learning all I could about local SEO techniques nd the relatively simple ways you could boost a business’ presence a couple of years ago.  Oh how things have changed.  And still most people in Carlisle are still oblivious to the need to up their game online.  “Oh I just rely on word of mouth!” and “…my leaflets seem to get a few customers!” are the kinds of responses I still get.  Hey ho, I’ll still keep on trying to educate people!

So in summary, I’m a fifty something who bailed out of teaching a few years ago to pursue a very hazy notion to earn my living through online marketing.  I chose the most parochial place in the land to try and educate people about getting found and getting more customers.  Ooops! 26 years of teaching though, gives you the patience to keep on keeping on, no matter how many times it feels like you’re banging your head on a brick wall!