“I started the business a little more than two years ago, but my mother will tell you I was a real competition addict from the time I was a kid, calling radio stations and entering every contest I could find,” Miller said.
Miller’s competitive nature helped him excel in his chosen career field of sales upon graduating from Ohio State in the early 1980s. Though he had a degree in micro biology, he took a job with McMillan Publishing and started winning “every contest they offered. I guess you might say I was always motivated by contests so that helped me do very well,” Miller said.
In 1994, Miller entered his first official sweepstakes, hoping to win tickets to a World Cup soccer match but instead won a ball signed by the US team. After that, he was hooked. “I would fill out every sweepstakes form I saw and in every store I was in,” he said.
Miller continued working full time and spending about two hours per night on his “hobby” of sweepstaking, winning prizes and cash, which often totaled $20,000 annually. He enjoyed his hobby but wasn’t necessarily enjoying his full time job in 2007, feeling depressed, oppressed by management and ready to make a change.
“I felt I was at the point where I could leave and take clients with me and go out on my own,” Miller said.
But the owner of his company had other ideas and soon Miller found himself being forced to either sign an 18 month noncompete agreement, which meant he couldn’t start his own company for at least that long, or leave without his final two weeks of pay.
“I didn’t feel I had any other option at that time but to sign the agreement,” Miller said.
Suddenly unemployed with a family to support, Miller decided to start focusing on his “hobby” full time and began entering contests eight or more hours per day, then selling his winnings to provide income for his family.
“In 2007 I made $179 every day, seven days a week winning contests,” Miller said. “I won a car and trips. My friends and family had been telling me for years I should write a book about my hobby,” Miller said. “The sweepstaking community is a sharing community so I knew a website that would post lessons and odds of winning would really be a great idea.”
Miller admits it was rough going at first and that he doesn’t always win what he wants. “After the first week of asking myself what I was going to do, I guess I just decided to give it a try,” he said. “My wife (Theresa) wasn’t very happy about basing our income on a whim, so I decided to develop a plan to open the website portal and offer information to subscribers.”
After Miller’s website www.powersweepstaking.com was up and running for six months, he found a partner who had another major sweepstakes company and wanted to take over Miller’s marketing. “He wanted to make my site totally free and base it on advertising revenue,” Miller said. “Now I’m working on it about 16 hours a day.”
What’s Miller’s best advice to folks who want to be successful at winning contests? “Keep the odds in your favor,” he said. “A sweepstakes that runs daily for a year with people entering every day will have really bad odds so you are better to enter contests that run for a day or two. I have enough of those listed on my website to keep fill many hours of time every day.”
Today Miller works closely with Carolyn Wilman, owner of Canadian based www.contestqueen.com and co-founder of Canadian Contestors Association. Miller and Wilman work together to help people find, organize, enter and win sweepstakes, contests and giveaways. Both will be appearing together at the Expressions Coffee House in Fairborn for a sweepstakes workshop on July 29, from 7 to 9 pm.
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