Podcast Pickle changed my world.

PodcastPickle.com was one of the first podcast directories. It was a directory with a very active forum board, wrapped in a social atmosphere. At one time Podcast Pickle had an Alexa ranking under 5000.

Podcast Pickle went live in the early part of 2005. At the time there were not many podcasts in the world. Podcasting was so new it was hard to even find them. I still remember how excited I was when our 100'th podcast listed itself on the directory.

This certainly was not my first website. I probably had around ten websites by the time I started Podcast Pickle. The people I met, and the connections I made from Podcast Pickle changed the way I thought about the Internet forever. Many of these people are still good friends of mine almost 13 years later, and of course I am still podcasting. Now I am even in the Academy Of Podcasters Hall Of Fame.

Whenever I am at a podcasting event someone will refer to me as a podcast pioneer. I don't know about the pioneer part, but it was great to know people remembered me and my website

Podcast Pickle. Countless people have told me that Podcast Pickle helped shape their podcasting careers. It gives me a wonderful feeling when someone tells me that. I could not think of a better compliment.

In 2006 Time Magazine honored Podcast Pickle by naming it one of the their Fifty Coolest Websites in the world. Here is the link to the Time Magazine Article.

You can also find Podcast Pickle listed on Wikipedia. Podcast Pickle was written about in the books Podcasting For Dummies, and The Business Podcasting Bible. I was also quoted in the books Tricks of The Podcast Masters, and Promoting Your Podcast. One of the coolest things that happened was being asked to judge the Parsec Awards. The Parsec Awards are the awards for Science Fiction Podcasts. I am still a judge to this date, and look forward to it every year.

Another fun fact about Podcast Pickle was our mascot. The Pickleman as I called him, was a hit anywhere he went. He went to Dragon Con, SXSW, Podcamp NY and Podcast Expo in California. People loved getting their photos taken with him. The Pickleman was a great way to advertise the website.

PodcastPickle.com changed my world. Today a lot of what I do on the net was formed from what I learned in the early days of podcasting.

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Many people know that I built my first website back in 1996, and that building that website was the start of my online world.

I actually tried to build that same website in 1994 but it was a little hard for me to figure it out. At the time, I had no computer skills, so I quickly gave up, and gave the idea a rest for a couple of years.

In 1996 I repurchased the domain name LelandsWallpaper.com again, and gave the site a second try.

At the time I talked to a few people that design websites to get prices, and other information. I knew that the new website would be a long term project, and that I would need to learn how to maintain the new site. I knew that I could not afford to pay someone to handle every update that I would need for the rest of my life. My goal was to hire someone that worked in house and could teach me how to maintain the site while building it.

One day while I was sitting at the office I received a phone call from a new developer. The developer knew I was looking for someone to build a new site, and offered to build mine at half the price everyone else was charging back in 1996.

His voice sounded really strange. It was as if it was cracking, or breaking up. I finally realize it was a young person whose voice was changing, I asked him ” how old are you”. He replied I am 14.

I was shocked that I was on the phone with a 14 year old kid who was trying to charge me $40 an hour to build my site! I told him I would think about it, and call him back.

After I talked to him I immediately called the local high school, and asked to talk to the computer teacher. They connected me with the teacher, and I asked her if any of her kids could build a website.

“Everyone of my 3rd year students can” she said. I asked her to tell them I was looking to hire someone to help me build a company website.

The next day a student showed up and I hired him at $7.00 an hour. He worked for me until he finished college, and for a few years more.

I remember calling my vendors and asking if they had any images of wallpaper they could send me to use. Back in 1996 there were no digital cameras to use for taking photos.

All of my vendors laughed when I told them what I was trying to build. They all said ‘people will never buy wallpaper on the internet”. I always replied that I would, so I thought there were other that would too.

We ended up using scanners as they had been invented in 1996. We scanned wallpaper patterns out of the wallpaper books, and added them to the website.

It was a learning process for sure, but as we built the website I learned the basics of coding.

Don't get me wrong I am still not a great coder, but I can get most stuff accomplished with time. Also things are so much easier thanks to tools like WordPress and WooCommerce.

I am so glad I did not listen to all the people who told me how stupid I was to attempt to sell wallpaper on the internet.

Just as an FYI the site that I originally built in 1996 is still up and running, and business is as good as ever.

You can take a look at LelandsWallpaper.com

Need A Domain Name?

If you know me, or if you have looked at all my websites you know that I own a lot of domain names.

At this time I guess I own around 600 different domain names. That may sound like quite a few, and you are correct it is.

Since I operate over 50 websites at the moment, and have many books, apps, and podcasts it may not be as many as it sounds like.

If you understand that I own the singular, and plural version of every domain name that is affiliated with any of my websites.

Then some are either investments, and others are for future use.

Many years ago I found out that I could open a GoDaddy sales account, and I did so right away.

That is how DillDomains.com was born.

I pay a yearly fee to be a reseller of GoDaddy products. Now this is not an affiliate program, it is more of a wholesale selling program.

Now I can sell domain names to anyone that is interested including myself.

In other words it allows me to buy my own domain names at wholesale. This saves me so much on domain names that I pay the yearly fee to GoDaddy, and still make money every year.

Other people also buy domain names from my site. I also make money from them every year when they renew.

If you are in need of a domain name consider using DillDomains.com. You will continue to get the same service you always get from GoDaddy. The only difference is that I will make a couple dollars.

My wife and I own a wallpaper store. I built a website for my wallpaper store back in 1996 at LelandsWallpaper.com.

One of the items we sell in the wallpaper store are murals made from wallpaper. These are very popular and are really pretty cool. Since we sell the murals I figured I might as well make a website to sell them, so MuralWallpaper.com was born.

This is another one of my one product line websites. The only thing on this site are murals, and nothing else but murals.

It is amazing how realistic some of these murals look.

Take a look for yourself at MuralWallpaper.com.

This site was built to be a great resource for people looking for fastptich softball bats.

We list all of our fastpitch softball bats on this site. This makes it really easy to shop for your next softball bat since that is the only item listed on this website.

We list bats from Louisville Slugger, Demarini Sports, Miken Bats, and Rawlings Bats.

I guess you could say this is a one stop shop for fastptich softball bats.

If you are in the market for a new bat take a look at FastpitchBats.co

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts I interview quite a few people in the world of fastpitch softball.

Many of the people I interview are college coaches. One day I noticed that there were only fourteen coaches that have won the Division 1 Women's College World Series, and that I had already interviewed most of them.

If you know me at all then you know that I took that as a challenge.

I decided to interview all fourteen of them.

At the time of this blog post I only have two left to interview to complete my goal.

Since I was so close to completing my goal I created the website SoftballCoaches.com so I could keep all the interviews on one site, and make it a resource for people researching about the Women's College World Series.

So if you would like to see the interiews I have conducted with the coaches just go to SoftballCoachers.com

I have been heavily involved in girls fastpitch softball for many years. I actually coached a team in Texas to Two State Championships. My team was named Da'Bomb, and we won the fourteen year old, and the fifteen year old Texas State Championships.

I had a lot of great players on those teams, and those young ladies gave me everything they had when they were on the field.

While coaching this team I came out with several training aids, and one of them was Ball Stickers which I even sell at BallStickers.com.

Ball Stickers can be used on softballs or baseballs. They come in three shapes, squares, circles, and triangles. Then these three shapes come in three colors.

To use Ball Stickers you simply apply them to a ball. Then you start the player off with a simple task. As you toss the ball to the player they must identify the color of the sticker and announce the color before they hit the ball.

after they get use to this process they move to step two. Now in step two they say the color, and shape before they can swing at the ball.

This really makes a player learn to concentrate on the ball before they hit the ball, and in turn they become a better player.

Ball Stickers are simple, but effective.

You can buy Ball Stickers at BallStickers.com.

This is the website that started it all back in 1996.

Back in 1996 when the Internet was still young, I thought I would start a website. I wasn't a techie kind of person by any means, but I did find the Internet amazing. Even though I was not anywhere close to being a techie, I knew immediately that the Internet was the future. I also knew that I needed to start moving my businesses into that world asap.

I called the local high school, and asked for the computer teacher. I asked her if any of her students could build a website. She told me all of them could. Then I asked if any of her students were looking for part time work? It turned out that the answer was yes too. By the end of the week I had a part time high school kid helping me build my first website.

I hired someone to help in house because I wanted to learn from them. I thought that long term I could learn the basics of building a site, and use that knowledge to maintain the site myself. Another reason was that I could get a high school kid for under seven Dollars an hour. Not knowing anything about anything, I thought this was a cheap way to build and learn.

The next step was to get images of wallpaper patterns to put on the new website. I proceeded to call my wallpaper sales reps. I asked them if they had any images available for me to use on my new website? I still remember all my vendors telling me how stupid of an idea it was to try and sell stuff on the Internet. I was told over and over that people would not buy stuff on the Internet.

They all said that people needed to touch the wallpaper in order to buy it. I remember saying that I would buy stuff on the internet, and that I thought of myself as being kind of average. In other words if I would do it, so would others. All I can say that I am glad I did not listen to them.

It is kind of amazing how many times I have been told that something would not work. All I can say is don”t listen. You do not want to fail because you did not try. I wonder how many people did not try something at some point in their life because they were told it would not succeed, only to see someone else do it later, and succeed?

I guess I don't need to say that I went on to build the website, and it was one of the first decorating websites on the internet. LelandsWallpaper.com is a great source for wallpaper, plus many other decorating items. Everything from murals, to borders, blinds to accessories.

Most of the items I have on the website are stocked in my Arlington, Texas store, and ship out within 24 hours.

If you want to see the Lelands Wallaper Website CLICK HERE

I created the Strike Zone Mat as a training aid for softball, and baseball pitchers alike. It can used by pitchers while warming up before a game, or throwing to a catcher during practice.

The different colored areas on the mat represent different pitching areas.

1. The red area is a “No Throw Zone”. Pitchers do not want to pitch in this area, or it will probably result in a big hit.

2. The yellow area is a “Caution Zone” Pitchers can pitch in this area, but do it with care. The yellow area is still an area a batter would like to hit. This could easily result in a hit. These pitches are better then the red area, but not near as good as the pitches in the green area.

3. The green area is the “Pitch Zone” or the pitching area of choice. This zone extends two inches on the home plate and two inches off the home plate. This is a perfect target, and if a pitcher can pitch to this area they can control the game.

4. The white is an “Extra Zone”. If a pitcher is pitching in the green areas, the entire game they van try to push it a little further, this will make the ball even harder to be hit. Sometimes the umpire will give you a few in this area, but be careful they are not going to give away many in this area.

The Strike Zone Mat is the most portable home plate on the market. When your finished using the mat just roll it up, and stick it in your bat bag. No other practice home plate does that!

Yikes, no website for mini helmets?

Many years ago Dallas Cowboy Troy Aikman was going to sign autographs at a car dealership close to my house. My kids decided we would go meet Troy, and get his autograph.

I thought that one of those little football helmets (mini helmets) would be great to get signed. I had seen mini helmets on the sets of some sports programs. I had even seen the helmets in sporting goods stores before.

I decide just to go buy one on the Internet. Sitting down at my computer I typed in MiniHelmet.com, and MiniHelmets.com. There was not a website at ether web address. Then I jumped on GoDaddy, and checked the availability of both domains. They were both available, so I bought them both on the spot.

I bought them even though I did not have any mini helmets to sell. To be more to the point I didn't even know where to get them. So, immediately after buying the two domain names I jumped on a search engine, and searched the term Mini Helmets. After about five minutes of looking I found a wholesale distributor that would sell me mini helmets. Not only would they sell them to me, they would even ship the helmets from their warehouse straight to my customers.

Now that I had a supplier, the next step was to create a website for MiniHelmets.com. I built a website, and added images from the distributors website to my new website. The next thing you know I am in the mini helmet business.

My website MiniHelmets.com is still up, and running to this day. The website even comes up on the first page of Google search results for mini helmets. Yes, it is on the first results page on Google even though I have never spent a second on SEO, or a penny on advertising.

I guess the take away is, that you need to be open to opportunity. When the domain name MiniHelmets.com failed to pull up a website, I could of just kept searching. I could of stayed on my original path to find one Mini Helmet. Instead of finding one mini helmet I now mini helmets all over the country.

Tunnel vision is the enemy of the entrepreneur.

To see the Mini Helmet Website CLICK HERE.

The Bunt Sock is an invention of mine.

Having coached my daughter's softball teams for many years, I saw that many of the players have a hard time laying down a bunt on command. This skill is more important in fastpitch softball than it is in baseball. Players really need to know how to bunt in fastpitch softball.

I thought about it for a while, and tried to help my players improve their skill at bunting. I discovered one of the main reasons players have a hard time laying down a bunt is because they do not watch the pitched ball until it hits the bat. Many times they start looking at where they want the ball to go instead of watching the ball until it hits the bat.

I invented the Bunt Sock to help players learn to watch the ball until it hits the bat. The bunt sock is basically just a sock with three colored dots on it. The sock slides over the bat, just like a sock goes over foot.

The idea behind the Bunt Sock is simple. While a player is at batting practice the coach calls out a color, and the player has to bunt the ball while making the ball contact the appropriate colored dot on the Bunt Sock.As the player does this over, and over it forms a habit of watching the ball until it hits the bat. Once that habit is formed, the player is good to go.

Here is an old video with my daughter about the Bunt Sock.To see the Bunt Sock Website CLICK HERE

SoftballJunk.com started my journey into the online world of sports.

The website SoftballJunk.com was created while I was coaching my daughters fastpitch softball team for a few years. The name of the team was Da'Bomb Softball. Da' Bomb was formed when the girls were twelve, and competed until the young ladies were sixteen. We were one of the strongest youth teams in the state. We won two state championships back to back. Winning the fourteen year olds, and the fifteen year olds Texas State USSSA Fastpitch Softball Championships. We also placed fourth, and fifth in National World Series Championships.

I enjoyed coaching these young ladies so much that I actually started a league in Arlington. The Arlington Fastpitch Association was its name. The first year we had four teams, and competed at a very high level.

With four teams the costs of uniforms and other equipment were very expensive. I had the idea that I would create a website to sell softball equipment, then I could call manufacturers and convince them to sell to me at a wholesale price. Well, that did not work. This was in 1999, and back then many wholesalers would only sell to companies with a retail location. Most wholesalers didn't want anything to do with small Internet businesses.

Some wholesalers did give me the name of distributors. At that time there were quite a few sporting goods distributors. Most of sporting goods distributors disappeared as the internet grew. These distributors would sell their products to me at around thirty percent off retail. Not only did the discounts help on purchasing equipment for my teams, but I also put their products on the website at retail, and Softballjunk.com was an overnight success.

SoftballJunk.com was actually the first website on the internet to specialize in girl's fastpitch softball equipment. Until then fastpitch softball players ether bought online from slowpitch softball websites, or baseball websites. I guess that is the reason SoftballJunk.com became a success so quickly.

After the first year business was so strong that I opened a fastpitch softball store in Arlington, Texas. Today the store sells fastpitch, and slowpitch softball equipment as well as baseball equipment.

Then I moved into more sporting goods websites, and started moving my fastpitch softball into the world of social media with the Fastpitch TV Show.

Yes, this was the website that started my journey into sports. SoftballJunk.com is now starting its fourteenth year of business, and is doing better than ever.

To see the website CLICK HERE.

If you love Fastpitch Softball you are going to love Fastpitch Flowers.

FastpitchFlowers.com is one of my newest websites. Fastpitch Flowers are made by cutting up fastpicth softball, and using them to create the petals. These fresh, funky flowers are constructed with yellow and red softball seams and life-like stem. Show off your softball spirit, or give as an award, or appreciation to that someone who always supported you! Great for parties or banquets, team functions, and ceremonies. They are the perfect gift for any softball fan on your list!

Fastpitch Flowers are available in single, half dozen, full dozen, and two dozen quantities. Flowers are in-stock in my warehouse in Texas, and usually ship the next business day.

To see the Fastpitch Flowers Website CLICK HERE

As you may know I have a large wallpaper, and decorating store in Arlington Texas.

On this blog I post decorating tips, and general decorating info. I include images of new wallpaper styles as they hit the market.

To see this blog CLICK HERE

I started the Fastpitch TV Show back in 2009.

At the time I started it as an infomercial about products I sold on my website SoftballJunk.com. I thought it would be a good way to help sell softball equipment.

Five years later the Fastpitch TV Website has evolved into a full network for the sport of fastpitch softball. This site consists of six video shows. These shows have been seen over three million times in over 100 countries.

The site also has an audio podcast, a monthly magazine, books, blogs, tools, and other fastpitch softball information.

The Fastpitch TV Website is used by players, coaches, and fans of fastpitch softball.

I truly believe I am offering more free softball content than anyone on the planet. I think you will agree.

To go to the fastpitch TV Website CLICK HERE

After a few base coaches passed away due to head injuries many leagues now require base coaches to wear helmets.

There are also colleges, and high schools that require coaches to wear helmets while coaching the bases.

Helmets have become a much needed piece of safety equipment in both the sport of baseball, and softball.

To go to the Base Coach Helmet Website CLICK HERE

It does not matter if it is baseball or softball, fastpitch or slowpitch sometimes your bat has to have the grip replaced.

The Bat Tape Website has a large selection of bate tape to choose from. Bat tape also comes in a large selection of colors. So get your fancy on with a bat tape in team colors.

One of the best things for users of this site is that we stock all the bat tape on the site in our Arlington, Texas warehouse. Most orders ship with in 24 hours.

To see the Bat Tape Website CLICK HERE

Catcher have specific needs, and equipment that is specific to their position.

Catchers Zone specializes in catchers for both fastpitch softball, and baseball. The site carries many of the major lines, and stocks everything in its Arlington, Texas Website.

Most of the products on this website ship with in 24 hours from the time the order is placed.

To see the Catchers Zone Website CLICK HERE

People are use to the eyeblack of old. The type of eyeblack that was a grease paint type substance. You smeared the old style eyeblack under your eye, and it could make a mess.

Today people have switched over to stickers made to serve the same purpose as the grease paint type.

The eyeblack stickers are great because you just put them on before the game, and peel them off when the game is over.

You also can now have design and team logos on your eyeblack stickers, as well as colors to match your team.

To see the Eyeblack Stickers Website CLICK HERE

Weighted balls are great training aid for both baseball, and softball player alike. Players from any position on the team can benefit from using weighted balls.

Weighted balls are exactly that, weighted balls. Baseballs, and softball that come in different weights. The weight form less that a baseball, or softball to a lot more.

To see the Weighted Balls Website CLICK HERE