About
In 2001, I got laid off from my account managment job at an “up and coming” high tech company during the beginning of the dot com bust. After realizing that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to work for yet another “promising” high tech company, doing a job I hated and rolling the dice on another unstable company, I decided to go into business myself.
“Brilliant!” I thought, get away from the corporate madness and venture out on my own!
Although I had no experience doing personal training, I always had an interest in it. So, I got certified and started my own company! At first I thought I would just be the “manager”, have trainers working for me and just do the marketing. This lasted a few months before I realized I wasn’t “profitable”. Not gonna work for me. So I started taking on clients myself. A year into the business I realized I did not like personal training! Struggling to get by between personal training clients, and coaching masters swimming (making $12/hour), I knew there had to be a better way.
I was more stressed than ever and getting poorer by the day! This was business life?
Come to find out, this was NOT business life. After reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, I realized I was not running a business, but rather my business was running me! He defined my line of work as “self employed”- which is much different than being a business owner.
Self-employed means you are the business. When you’re not there, the business either suffers greatly or fails to make any money at all.
Business owner means that you have all your systems in place so that you can do nothing and the business still runs and makes money. The best type of businesses in fact are ones that can even continue to grow in the owner’s absence! I liked this idea. A LOT!
This is when I discovered internet marketing. My first step into this arena was a learning experience, but didn’t generate more than about $50 (I think $25 of that was from a friend of mine who felt bad for me!) after months of work. It was an online training component of my personal training site. But the fact is I learned how to do a few things online through this experience.
I’ve always been a swimmer, started competing when I was 8. At the time of my failing training business, I was coaching a masters (18+) swim team and learning how to teach stroke technique. Then, I started giving lessons (getting $20/hour!). I really liked teaching lessons but realized this was not my ultimate calling, as I’ve always wanted to do business (and learning the “Rich Dad” style really inspired me). Because most of my swim lesson clients were triathletes or people who wanted to swim well enough to complete a triathlon, I did a few searches online and realized there were limited resources to help this crowd.
I found a niche! I didn’t know anything about SEO, or keywords, but I could clearly see that this niche needed filling.
So, I created a training plan for a beginner looking to traing for a triathlon swim. I registered my website, hired someone in London to create the site for $125, put up my 12-week training plan (in the form of a pdf file), and began selling it for $15. It was great timing getting the site done and online, as I was headed to Europe for a vacation- the day I after I finished.
Thinking that I would not likely make any sales right away, I hopped on the plane to Amsterdam, and 3 days into my vacation I went to an internet cafe to check email. To my surprise, 3 orders had come in for my training plan! I thought this was great, until I read two emails from an extremely irate customer. The functionality to download was not working, and he had purchased immediately after I left the U.S.- so he thought the whole thing was a scam, was cursing at me and threatening me!!
Not a spectacular start to the world of internet marketing for me, but nonetheless, I was able to work through it and move forward on my project.
I ended up making my training plans into an ebook, sold the package for $23 on my site, and had 19 sales the first month of my offer! I was super excited. The book was poorly designed (by me), but the content was valuable. I created some bonus products to go along with the offer, and raised the price to $27. Sales went higher.
At this point I got more serious and took an internet marketing course through the Internet Marketing Center. I turned my side project into an actual business. When I bought the course (which cost $1200), I was making about $300/month on my ebook sales. After the course I bolstered income from the site to about $1200/month! Things were getting serious. I began outsourcing a few things to make my life easier. I used many different techniques to increase my subscriber number and my sales. Things were definitely working! I made my website my full time thing.
Later, I created a DVD, and sales took off once again! I saw my first 5-figure month ever!
Since then, I have created a new website, selling an ebook and audiobook on weight loss from a psychology/rational nutrition perspective. With my triathlon swimming site, I am now offering membership for $47/month where I offer a whole assortment of goodies to help people with their training!
My passion has become freedom- in every sense of the word. I want to help others achieve the financial freedom I have. My favorite course is the one at http://getnicheprofits.com, where they give you all the tools and resources you need to create your very own profitable niche business online. I want to be able to mentor people along the way and provide help and consulting in the online business building process.
Drop me a note anytime! Let me know what your passion is and what you’re thinking about doing. You can send it to my email.
Cheers,
Kevin
