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Solo Build It! Review:
My Personal Story and
Why I Started An
Online Business With SBI!

In this Solo Build It! review I'll share some of my personal story in order to provide some context about where I was starting from and what led me to create an online business.

Then we'll take a look at some of the problems faced by those researching Solo Build It! including the plague of fake reviews, in many cases being perpetrated by companies like "Wealthy Affiliate" and their members, to confuse and divert people away from SBI! (I've also included links to reproducible studies with verifiable data so you can form your own opinion based on facts for your comparing pleasure.)

Finally, I'll share my experiences with SiteSell and their product Solo Build It! as someone who actually uses them.

If you have no idea what Solo Build It! is all about, here are a few links that will explain what it is, how it works, what it has done for many other people—and some data to back it up! :)

The Solo Build It! Video Tour
This will give you an excellent overview of SBI! It is recommended viewing for anyone who wants see the big picture to help you decide if creating an online business is for you.

Case Studies
Real stories from real people who have built their businesses online with SBI!

Results
Take a look at the actual results that Solo Build It! has achieved for it's customers.

Proof
SiteSell isn't afraid to back up its claims about SBI! with data and facts.

Solo Build It Review: PART 1: My Backstory

When I was a kid my dad always worked in sales. First in insurance and later in real estate. There was the illusion of freedom because he could work his own hours. In reality though he was at the beck and call of clients at all hours of the day and night. It was great that he didn't work by the hour and there wasn't a set limit on how much income he could earn.

On the other hand, if there were no sales—there were no commissions. There were certainly some tough financial times when I was growing up. I thought I was upset when we got our cable cut off—then came the day when my dad had to sell the TV! There had to be a better way...

When I started my career at The Calgary Herald (back when newspapers were still a thing) I joined the advertising design and production department. It was a unionized environment and came with decent pay, clearly outlined raises, benefits, retirement plan, and paid vacation time!

Paid vacations?! You mean I don't work at all—and I still get paid? This was a far cry from the instability I knew while growing up and it seemed ideal.

The Dream Job

I thought the position at the newspaper had it all. Best of all there was structure. Stable working hours, stable income, and a stable future. I would soon learn how wrong I was as the dream turned into a soul-crushing nightmare.

I loved that job and I was exceptionally good at it—and that was the problem. As I mentioned, it was a union environment. I didn't really know what that meant when I first got the job. It was just a condition of employment. I thought, "Okay, I have to join the union, whatever."

Things started off well enough. I progressed and earned promotions and raises. I met the love of my life, we got married, bought a house together, and got two cats and yes—an Australian Shepherd! We named him "Levi" after the blue jeans; 'cause he was a blue merle. :) Life was great!

My beautiful bride Tanya and I were "living the dream" before things were derailed.

Since I was getting paid extremely well by my employer I thought I should be doing a really great job and earning my keep. I did everything I could to help the newspaper. I joined in special projects and even helped start the commercial print division. Then I developed software that I sold to the company that helped improve efficiency—dramatically. It was fantastic, if I do say so myself, and it was rolled out for production use in three departments. I was on top of the world!

Attack Of The Union Goons

Well, union goons weren't going to allow that to continue. They thought their job was to do as little as humanly possible; to stifle production, not boost it. (Several would slow down their pace deliberately in order to create the need for more overtime so they could pad their paychecks.)

While managers were thrilled with my contributions the union goons were less impressed. In a workplace like this anyone who believes that holding up their end of the bargain by actually doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay is made a pariah and targeted for elimination.

You can probably see where this is going... It wasn't long before a campaign of harassment, threats, and intimidation began. My work related files began to go missing, other files were sabotaged, and I was slandered to management at every opportunity. One of them even took the time to get my address, drive to my home, and leave a threatening message on my car.

This went on for weeks, then months, then years. Maybe I should have quit. But I thought, why should I be the one to lose my job? Besides, I now had a mortgage, car payments, and a family to think of. My skill set was also highly vertical. I couldn't just get another job in the same industry—not at nearly the same pay (half of what I was making if I was lucky).

Studio Grand Ouest / stock.adobe.com

My morning greeting at work.

It wasn't just the relentless harassment, threats, and sabotage that took it's toll, it was the daily gut wrenching terror of what these goons would do or say next. Is today the day they actually get me fired? Or have me hauled into the boss's office for the umpteenth time to answer to God-knows-what spurious nonsense? I knew my job prospects. I knew I would lose everything if they succeeded...

I was finally terminated after 22 years with the company. I received $0.00 in severance. I went from earning a great income to nothing overnight.

Later, a Human Rights Commission investigator broke down in tears as she told me about what she had uncovered about the conduct of management and the union. She learned that the Human Resources department and the union had been encouraging ongoing and escalating abuse in an attempt to drive me to commit suicide.

Instead, the stress they caused had so damaged my health that it forced me to take time off work. This was the excuse they then used to fire me (instead of continuing with Plan A) and I was actually on short-term disability attempting to recover from the injuries they inflicted when I was terminated.

By that time I had been so stressed for so long that it had destroyed my health. I was suffering from PTSD and wasn't functional even if I could have found another job. I was in sheer panic knowing what was yet to come.

To cover the mortgage and bills our savings were drained, my retirement plan was up in smoke, and eventually we lost everything. Short of me committing suicide, the worst of the worst-case-scenario nightmares had come to pass.

(If you are dealing with workplace bullying or mobbing visit my other website OvercomeBullying.org for more information or read the ebook guide What Every Target of Workplace Bullying Needs to Know.)

Never Again!

Even if you are not dealing with a workplace mob of malevolent morons, if you are an employee you are still vulnerable to the vagaries of the market, business cycles, and the global economy that are well beyond your control. The economic climate for the poor and middle-class has decimated families for the last 20 years; certainly in the last ten.

I decided that I never again wanted be under the thumb of people who couldn't care less about me or my family (let alone those who are actively hateful and homicidal); that I never again wanted to be in the position of needing to stay at a job; that I never again wanted to be vulnerable to financial ruin—at least as much as is possible in the real world—but how?!

If you're still reading this; good for you! You've got one of the qualities necessary to succeed in business—persistence. ;) I didn't actually intend for the foregoing part of this Solo Build It! review to be so long. But I wanted to share with you the place I was starting from to give you a bit of context.

Perhaps you've been through a similar ordeal, or worse, and you already know, all too well, how bad things can get. Hopefully, nothing like that has ever happened to you and you just want to make sure that it never does. It may sound like a story of bitterness and disillusionment—and it would have been—if the story had ended there. Fortunately, it did not.

Solo Build It Review: PART 2: Finding A Better Way

After what had happened I wanted to help warn others about the phenomenon of workplace bullying or workplace "mobbing" as it is often called when groups of people attack a co-worker. I didn't know anything about creating a website then. I just forged ahead and created a site.

That first site is no longer maintained and it barely got any traffic, but it helped me get my feet wet and opened my mind to the idea of earning income online. When looking at other websites I noticed that many had Google ads on them. I put some ad blocks on my fledgling site and earned pretty much nothing. Five cents here, ten cents there, and by the end of the week maybe enough to buy a cup of coffee. It wasn't much, but I was intrigued.

Like so many people just starting out with the dream of not having to suffer working at a job they hate or being vulnerable to being fired or "downsized" and being able to create an online business that allows them to work from home—I began to research...

Of course, I was avalanched with a mountain of information. There are millions of websites and blogs touting this internet marketing guru or that turn-key money-making system. Some of the information seemed valid. Much of it seemed like an outright scam. But which was which?

alphaspirit / stock.adobe.com

There are a lot of moving parts to an online business and it can all be a bit bewildering. If only there was someone who could help you make sense of it all and provide a simplified step-by-step action plan to help you get started, keep you on track, and see you through to success.

I spent a great deal of time and money signing up for courses that focused on fairly narrow topics like link building, generating traffic, pay-per-click advertising, auto-responders, etc. In the end all I had was disparate information that only really served to enrich the internet marketing gurus and scammers who sold these products. And there was always a hot, new, must-have, "what-they-don't-want-you-to-know" program or webinar coming out every week!

You could spend a hundred years and a million dollars and still not know how to tie it all together and understand the step-by-step process you need to start and develop a real, functional online business that provides real value to your site's visitors and customers.

I wanted to create an online business of lasting value with integrity—not just find a way to become another online rip-off artist.

Trying To Find An Honest Solo Build It! Review

At the time I even came across SBI! and I wanted to learn more about it and what other people thought of Solo Build It! (back then it was still known as Site Build It!).

I searched Google for terms like "SBI! review" or "Site Build It! scam" because I wanted to get real reviews (good or bad) on what was touted as an online business builder that sounded like it was exactly what I had been looking for all that time. But I had been burnt before.

The overwhelming number of reviews were positive. Some were less positive, but that is always going to happen no matter how good a product is. The ones that were negative mostly seemed to want to steer me to some other product that it was obvious they were selling and they had an ulterior motive to bad-mouth SBI!.

They had only created a so-called "Solo Build It! review" to trick Google into sending visitors to their site so they could pull the ol' "bait and switch." This disreputable practice wasn't as common then but has become a plague on the internet these days. (More on that later.)

I hemmed and hawed for about nine months. Should I get Solo Build It!? It has great reviews. But what if it's just another scam? It seems on the up-and-up and they focus on helping you create an online business—and have the case studies, results, and proof to back up their claims. But are they cherry-picking their data? ...and on and on, and 'round and 'round I went.

Everything other than Solo Build It! seemed like pie-in-the-sky, get-rich-quick, internet marketing nonsense at it's worst. At best they had good ideas but the concepts weren't connected in a rational step-by-step approach that could get me from here to there... From nothing—to a thriving website that gets traffic, helps me build an online community, and allows me to earn an income doing what I love.

Solo Build It! seemed to have everything I was looking for. A step-by-step "action guide" to lead me through the minefield of starting an online business and a multitude of tools for site-building, researching in-demand niches and topics for articles, user-submitted pages (to interact with my visitors and help the site grow into a real community), and monetization ideas. They also handle a host of back-end technical stuff so I can focus my time on building my business instead of getting bogged down in technical details.

I watched the video tour which gave me an overview of how Solo Build It! works and I could see how all the pieces of the puzzle come together.

There is far more included with SBI! than I've mentioned above. You can find more information about all the tools that come included (not for an extra price they sting you with later) here. These tools go well beyond just building a website (anyone can do that). They are there to help you build a real online business with integrity.

That's what differentiates Solo Build It! from their so-called "competition." They actually care about the success of their customers instead of selling them a false dream and using their customers to only create their own success. (More on that later.)

Sergey Nivens / stock.adobe.com

Solo Build It! takes the confusing jumble of information about creating an online business and organizes it into simple, prioritized, actionable steps and provides the tools so you can make it happen.

With SBI! you have a step-by-step process to guide you (there's no need to re-invent the wheel), you have an easy-to-use site builder to create your web pages, you have all the tools to make it a success, but no Solo Build It! review would be complete without mentioning their forum...

At every stage of the development of your website online business if you have any questions you can always ask in the forum. This is not the usual internet forum full of trolls and flame-wars. It's a very positive and supportive environment because everyone there is just like you—a solo entrepreneur who is trying to build a business online. (That's why they recently changed their name from "Site Build It!" to "Solo Build It!" to better reflect that they are much more than a website building/hosting company and that they are really dedicated to helping solo entrepreneurs build online businesses.)

Solo Build It Review: PART 3: The Seed Is Planted

As I mentioned, it took me about nine months of deciding whether or not I should trust Solo Build It! and take the plunge. Finally, it was time to take action. I figured I'd give it a solid shot for at least a year. Worst-case-scenario I would make more mistakes I could learn from... but maybe these guys at Solo Build It! are for real.

I signed up and haven't looked back since... and that was over a decade ago. The only problems I've had with my site's success came when I ignored the advice provided by Solo Build It! My best recommendation is to take your time, absorb the information and guidance provided, and build your success story one step at a time—don't try to get ahead of yourself. Becoming impatient and cutting corners will hinder your progress.

Solo Build It! is not a get-rich-quick (GRQ) scheme. In fact, SBI! warns against GRQ and advises people to avoid the highly competitive niche of "internet marketing" (IM) which is rife with over-blown claims and outright scams. Too many people have been burned by parasites who lure people into buying questionable products or join marketing schemes that in the end only benefit those running the scam, shattering the dreams of people who were only regarded as sheep by the internet marketing wolves.

I can now be proud of what I've accomplished with Australian-Shepherd-Lovers.com. I get to spend my day building our community and serving my site's visitors—fellow lovers of the incredible Australian Shepherd breed!

It has taken a lot of hard work. This is where those who want easy money on the internet get separated from the solo entrepreneurs who want to create an online business that provides real value to it's visitors.

With all the guidance, support, and tools provided by Solo Build It! the path to success is simplified—but it still takes work. It helps you get a clear picture of the steps you need to take in order to move your dream forward. It keeps you on track and and provides you with the tools you need.

Solo Build It Review: PART 4: Don't Be Misled

Let's start here with why I wrote this Solo Build It! review. This site is about Australian Shepherds—not building websites, or online businesses, or internet marketing, but it has come to my attention that online scammers are attempting to intercept people honestly searching for a way to also make their dreams a reality and are diverting them to what I consider disreputable companies peddling inferior products.

sumnersgraphicsinc / stock.adobe.com

Don't be deceived by fake reviews that play on Solo Build It!'s good name and attempt to confuse and divert you to a much inferior product.

One such company, called "Wealthy Affiliate," entices people into joining them and encourages them to make money online by, you guessed it—enticing yet more people into joining. They get paid for each person they divert from SBI! into joining WA. (They are not the only ones doing this, but they are among the most egregious.)

Those who join Wealthy Affiliate are then encouraged to create reviews of companies and products that offer real value, like SiteSell and their product Solo Build It!, but their reviews, which may attempt to appear balanced, always end the same way. They advise people to get WA instead of the far superior Solo Build It! (They claim WA is better, but they don't have the hard data to prove it. More on that later.)

The problem is that most people who are misled into joining WA are encouraged to create more and more fake reviews. There are then thousands upon thousands of these reviews flooding the internet. WA members are then encouraged to comment on each other's pages saying how wonderful WA is. This creates even more misinformation while also adding to social media buzz boosting their ranking in search results ever higher.

This is why when a person searches for "SBI! Review" they find fake reviews instead. YOU think it's a review, but it's real purpose is to lead you to Wealthy Affiliate.

That's why I decided to write this Solo Build It! review. Those, like myself, who use and love SBI! are too busy building our online businesses, creating valuable content, and serving our website's visitors to write reviews. Our sites, for the most part, are about things that have nothing to do with internet marketing. They are about building decks, selling comic books, traveling to Anguilla, or... Australian Shepherds.

So What? Why Should I Care About Fake Solo Build It! Reviews?

The reason I am taking the time to write this review is because of the very real damage that misinformation can do. I would guess that people who are searching for terms like "Solo Build It! review" are getting close to making what could be a life-changing decision. They may be people just looking for a better way. A way to improve their lives, take control of their financial destiny, and maybe escape an abusive workplace like the one I was in.

Instead of getting the information they need to make an informed decision and get started with Solo Build It! they get diverted to something like WA, where they are used, chewed up, and spat out. After that they may be too disheartened with the experience to bother trying again. Instead of starting to build their dream and creating success with the tools available in SBI! they are lied to and cheated. That makes me angry!

That is why I have created this review—in the hopes that someone will read it and get an honest opinion from someone who actually uses Solo Build It! instead of falling for the misinformation spewed by the plague of internet locusts from WA and others like them.

Let's Look At Some Cold, Hard, Verifiable Numbers

A common thread among the fake reviews by Wealthy Affiliate members, and the like, is a pronounced lack of verifiable data to support their claims. When you are lying—facts are your enemy!

As with any such scheme, a few WA members will be successful at getting unwitting people to join them and those few are then lauded as "success stories" among the WA acolytes. There may even be a handful of WA sites that are not dedicated to the internet marketing niche that see some degree of success. But which sites? What are the domain names? How many of them succeed; and compared to what?!

With outfits like WA this information, and the data to prove it, is weak (to say the least). On the other hand, SiteSell has always gone to great lengths to share detailed information about the success of those who use Solo Build It!.

I don't want to go into all the details of the in-depth study conducted by SiteSell which compares their actual results to the questionable claims being made by WA—but the data is telling. Let's just say the truth is not WA's friend.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. Solo Build It! sites are 33 times (33X) more likely to achieve "Outstanding to Excellent" levels of traffic than Wealthy Affiliate.
2. Solo Build It! sites are 10 times (10X) more likely to achieve "Medium" levels of traffic than Wealthy Affiliate.
3. 87% of Wealthy Affiliate sites are "Invisible." This is the only category where Wealthy Affiliate "beats" SBI! (i.e., in the worst level of failure - "Invisible" - they get no detectable traffic).

What would you rather have? A Solo Build It! site that gives you 10x to 33x the level of traffic compared to a WA site OR a WA site that is effectively "invisible" as far as the internet is concerned.

I encourage you to take a closer look at the study data for the Wealthy Affiliate vs. Solo Build It! Review. The methodology to gather and interpret the data is clearly laid out and is transparent so anyone can go ahead and reproduce the information for verification themselves.

Wealthy Affiliate Review: Head-On vs Solo Build It!

SBI! vs. Wealthy Affiliate Review: WA Proof of Success... or Failure?

UPDATE: I've learned that many Wealthy Affiliate members who have created fake reviews about SBI! have been contacted and informed about the results of the study above. I've heard of only one fake review that has been taken down (hopefully more by the time you read this). Since all the other misleading reviews haven't been taken down it tells me something about those who leave them up—THEY DON'T CARE!! They don't care if they mislead people so long as they can still make a few bucks deceiving people. I hope that any of them with a shred of dignity and integrity considers what they are doing. If you are one of those involved with Wealthy Affiliate and you've seen The Study Results I hope you'll seriously consider...

My Challenge To Wealthy Affiliate Members

1. Take down your so-called "review." If you didn't know before, you have to know now that it's just not based on facts. The study undertaken by SBI! is transparent and reproducible. You can check the data yourself!
2. I've been where you are at; I've been misled. You are obviously interested in the possibility of earning an income online, but WA ain't it; at least if your integrity matters to you, and I'm hoping it does. Take a serious look at the data about the success rates of SBI! sites. Then... sign up with SBI! Give it an honest effort for at least a year and then take stock of what you've accomplished. It'll take work—but you're starting a business. Unlike silly online schemes, real businesses take real work. Take the advice you'll get with SBI! seriously and let them help you build an online business as they have for me and so many others! Hope to see you in the forum. :)

Okay, enough about Wealthy Affiliate... I just wanted to make sure that if anyone has come across their fake reviews they had a chance to see the truth to counter-balance their claims.

Solo Build It Review: PART 5: What's So Great About SBI!?

This is supposed to be a Solo Build It! Review and I've spent half my time debunking Wealthy Affiliate fake reviews. Let's take a closer look at why SBI! does so much better than any of it's so-called "competitors" (including WA).

There are plenty of companies out there that can provide you with domain name registration and web hosting services. They are happy to start you off with a domain name that may, or may not, be appropriate for the success of your website—which most likely won't ever see any real traffic. Many have started to offer other services to help improve the dismal results most websites get, but you are pretty much left to sink or swim on your own.

With SBI! You Are Never Alone

Solo Build It!, on the other hand, is first and foremost a road map for solo entrepreneurs who want to develop an online business. That is a very different thing than slapping a website up on the internet. SBI!—right from day one—is there to help you step, by step, by step, from a concept, to a blueprint, to a thriving online business that provides the revenue you need to be able to supplement your income or make a living doing what you love.

Studio M / stock.adobe.com

With Solo Build It! the SiteSell team and other solopreneurs are always there to lend a hand to help you take the next step.

When starting a business most of us could use a bit of guidance along the way to avoid the pitfalls. Why reinvent the wheel and learn everything the hard way? That's where SiteSell is different from its so-called competitors. SiteSell is dedicated to helping you build a business and with Solo Build It! they provide you with the guidance and tools you need to get there. They don't want you to just build a website; they want you to build a successful business.

That's why I chose Solo Build It! and I'm very glad I did. I started this website as a labor of love hoping (and not really believing) that it could someday help me escape the full-time job-from-hell that I was trapped in.

I followed the advice laid out in the Action Guide. It was hard work, but I was motivated and I kept at it. Australian-Shepherd-Lovers.com began to take shape. I kept writing more content, added a forum, started a newsletter, created a directory for breeders, wrote an ebook, and created one of the best sites on the web for Australian Shepherd fans from around the world.

My Solo Build It! Results

First came the day I was able to go from full-time to part-time at my J-O-B. That was wonderful. It also meant I would be able to dedicate even more time to my online business—working from home! Things were starting to snowball...

I knew it was only a matter of time before I could give up the job completely—and that's exactly what happened. I finally gave my two weeks notice. I now work on my online business full-time. No more commuting. No more bosses. I now have the freedom to work the hours I want. I have created my own financial "safety net" and I wouldn't trade this freedom and self-reliance for anything.

I've managed to achieve all this with Solo Build It!, but a word of advice if you decide to start an online business of your own. My progress was much slower than it needed to be. I made a lot of mistakes because I didn't really believe earning a real living online was possible (it is) and I didn't know if everything that SBI! was telling me was true (it was). Knowing what I know now, I recommend anyone who is just getting started to take the guidance provided by the pros at SiteSell to heart.

One thing you'll learn about SiteSell is that the people at the company, from it's founder, Ken Evoy, to the programmers, to the support team, and coaches are all rooting for your success because their focus is on helping people like us build online businesses. Helping solopreneurs succeed is what they are all about, and that is what separates them from the pack.

I hope this Solo Build It! Review has helped you see through some of the misinformation on the web about SiteSell and SBI! and has encouraged you to give it a go. Check out the links below if you'd like to explore SBI! further. I hope it transforms your life for the better as it has mine.

All the Best,

Anton Hout | Owner, Australian-Shepherd-Lovers.com

To Learn More About Solo Build It! Review The Information Below...

The SiteSell Home Page

Solo Build It! Home Page

The Solo Build It! Video Tour
This will give you an excellent overview of SBI! It is recommended viewing for anyone who wants see the big picture to help you decide if creating an online business is for you.

SBI! for WP
Want to build your website in WordPress? You can now get all the benefits of SBI! for WP.

Case Studies
Real stories from real people who have built their businesses online with SBI!

Results
Take a look at the actual results that Solo Build It! has achieved for it's customers.

Proof
One thing you should say to anyone making claims on the internet—"Prove it!" SiteSell isn't afraid to back up its claims about SBI! with data and facts.

Action Guide
An introduction to the Action Guide that shows you step-by-step what you have to do, in what order, and why. Think of it as a course and practicum for online business-building.

The SBI! Core Process
Find out more about the C > T > P > M core process of why SBI! works.

All The Tools Included In Solo Build It!
Where the Action Guide shows you what to do, when, and why, these are the tools that you will use to make it happen. There are too many to list here, but rest assured that SiteSell doesn't nickel-and-dime you—they are all included with Solo Build It!

Questions About Solo Build It!?
If you have any questions about Solo Build It! you can send the SiteSell Team a message or call their toll-free line to get answers. They can help you decide if SBI! is a match for your online business goals.