Digital Marketing Expert

When you choose to work with Sticky Brain for your online success, you get Don Bassler and THAT is a BIG deal.

Way back in 1995, Don decided he needed to get busy learning everything that he could about Website Design and Search Engine Marketing, a fluid and always morphing practice. He realized that he needed his online properties to out-rank Chinese product suppliers and he invested what he calls “the high five figures” in order to join clubs, webinars, teleseminars and SEO-centric membership sites. That collection of educations taught him how to stay out in front of the Algorithm freight train and how to reverse-engineer top competitor’s sites.

Don loved coding new websites and since he was so skilled at being able to get those sites ranking quickly, his new businesses were born. Sticky Brain Website Design was created to offer his services to those who needed an online presence for their businesses and the WordPress Dojo was created to teach people how to build their own high-ranking websites on the WordPress platform, although Don is quick to note that he prefers building the sites for his cherished clients.

Don is currently working on his next project that will demystify Internet Marketing and eCommerce and teach people how to make big money with their own websites which Don calls “Personal ATM’s”.

He is a frequent Distinguished Speaker at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business and is available for public speaking engagements. Don is in charge of all design and SEO efforts here at Sticky Brain and personally codes all sites and content.

Note: Don has clients all over the Country, but specializes in working with local clients in Orange County, CA. Website Design, SEO are eCommerce are his fields of expertise and you can contact him directly here.

Don Bassler has been pushing pixels and coding for the internet since 1996. His flagship website is DavidSteele.com where he originally sold his wildly popular, iPod-enabled iBreath Alcohol Breathalyzer, a product that was created in conjunction with Apple, Inc.

His business acumen sharpened when he traveled the world on Semester at Sea during the Spring of 1983. Half way through the 100 day journey, the host vessel named S.S. Universe ran aground in Alexandria, Egypt and the students were bussed to Jerusalem, Israel to finish their Semester for the 6 remaining weeks. It was during this time that Don started a popup travel business with his roommate and began planning weekend adventures for the students. “It was amazing that we were actually able to rent busses, book hotels and restaurants and put together travel packages that sold out within hours.” remembers Don. “And we were able to pull it all off even though our sponsoring hotel offered their own versions of these trips…we just knew everything about our customers since they were our fellow students and we understood them better than the commercial entities did! The hotel knew little about their prospect and it was their downfall. It’s was a lesson learned that is still valid today, especially in online commerce. You simply must know everything about your customer!”.

Don returned to the Semester at Sea program a year later and this time visited every U.S. Department of Commerce in the local cities he visited. This was in order to give them his business card, on the back of which the words were printed “Contact me if you want your product to sell like hotcakes in the U.S.A.”. This led to a string of successful imports from popular Rambo survival knives to Razor aluminum scooters.

Don has always been intrigued with the mail order business and he found great success in offering his products direct to the consumer through printed ads in the backs of magazines. “It’s great to be paid up-front” claimed Don as with mail order, the check arrives before you even ship the product.

It wasn’t long before Don was able to find success as a product broker for many of the top mail order catalog companies. His list of clients included The Sharper Image, Damark, Heartland of America and Hammacher Schlemmer to name a few. Don found himself brokering 20′ and 40′ container loads of products to these companies and never had to take physical possession of the goods. “I was blown away when I realized I could write a back-to-back Letter of Credit and not have any skin in the game. I literally used my customer’s money to finance the deals”. Don continues to act as an importer, but everything changed once Al Gore (tongue-in-cheek) “invented the internet”.

In 1996 Don’s eyes were wide open. He saw the future and it was online commerce. He read everything he could get his hands on in regards to learning the language of the internet, HTML and began hand coding his first website, DavidSteele.com (which is still online today). He was especially interested in how to get AOL and Netscape to place his banner ads on their websites, a popular form of traffic that still has merits today.

But then along came Google. Google changed everything.

Virtually overnight, one could search for a product online and immediate locate the contact details for any Chinese manufacturer. That information was previously only found by subscribing to little-known and expensive trade publications or by having an “in” with foreign trade organizations. So when someone “Googled” a particular product name, Google saw it fit to show the manufacturer’s website for said product rather than the home page of the guy who imported and sold thousands of those products to buyers. Needless to say, Google made Don’s complete business model obsolete! Corporate buyers all began buying direct from China and Chinese manufacturers were less willing to give importers exclusive rights deals since they had so many more potential customers.

So Don decided he needed to get busy learning everything that he could about Search Engine Marketing, a fluid and always morphing practice. He realized that he needed his online properties to out-rank the foreign suppliers and he invested what he calls “the high six figures” in order to join clubs, webinars, teleseminars and “SEO” membership sites. That education taught him how to stay out in front of the constantly-changing algorithm freight train and how to reverse-engineer competitor’s websites.

Don loved coding new websites and since he was so skilled at being able to get those sites ranking quickly, his new businesses were born. Sticky Brain Website Design was created to offer his services to those who needed an online presence for their businesses and the WordPress Dojo was created to teach people how to build their own simple websites on the WordPress platform.

Don is currently working on his next project that will demystify Internet Marketing and teach people how to make big money with information products on the internet.

He is a frequent Distinguished Speaker at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business and is available for public speaking engagements.

Anyone who knows Don can tell you that he’s the “go-to” guy when it comes to internet marketing, building websites, optimizing content for search engines and driving insane, ravenous traffic.
In addition to being an online marketing master, Don spends his time traveling and lecturing and is a Distinguished Speaker at USC’s Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies where he teaches Social Media Marketing, Website and Blog design, SEO and Traffic.